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Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

theguardian.com

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Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#191

Post by deskglass »

fragsworth wrote: post #8

> "with scientists set to look at how the theory of age reversal can be used to treat diseases such as cancer, dementia and diabetes." Alzheimer's medications can generally improve cognition. Age-reversal medications might work even better if used at an early age. I always see articles, media, and papers focusing on how something new can be used to treat some existing disease. But what I'm always thinking is "can I u…

Anecdotally, yes. A a friend of mine works under a neuroscience researcher. They are studying the effectiveness of a substance at restoring ideal brain function to those who suffer from a disorder. When they asked the researcher why they don't study the substance as a way to improve cognition in already healthy people, they were told that doing so would violate medical ethics.

I have no idea if that's representative of the beliefs of other researchers.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#192

Post by Natsu »

thenerdfiles wrote: post #147
tesseractive wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More accurately, professional philosophers don't have any particular standing to discuss "serious philosophical issues." At any point in the discussion on whether people have a right to die, or whether it was ok to use tissue from aborted fetuses for stem cell research or whether we need universal health care, has anyone ever asked, "Well, what do the philosophers think?" (I have nothing against philosophers, btw. I…

"Philosophers" haven't had "serious philosophical issues" with this topic since Spinoza. Heck, even the Stoics. It's theology that has a problem, not philosophy , where theology crafts its ideas, very often, from the architectures of philosophical thought. Outside of a theological context, there isn't much of a debate anyway. Again: the Stoics. We do ask philosophers about "right to die" and "permissibility of stem c…

> No one asks a philosopher if that philosopher personally thinks some act is okay or not okay...

I've seen counter-examples of this in newspapers, where they have them weigh in with their opinion (on the news pages, not editorial), being quoted as an expert.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#193

Post by krisgee »

tesseractive wrote: post #112
jamesaguilar wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really saying that you'd prefer to DIE in order to incent yourself to do exciting things sooner? Erm. Well, I guess that's one set of preferences.

There's a classic A Softer World comic that's been turned into a t-shirt that says "I would rather die screaming than live forever." There are downsides to the kind of extreme prudence that planning to be around for centuries would imply. Also, there's a fantastic novel from Bruce Sterling called Holy Fire that is devoted to exploring the tension between living to continue living and living in the moment.

>I would rather die screaming than live forever

I'll take the time to work through my problems thanks.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#194

Post by chongli »

gaius wrote: post #85
vilhelm_s wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Personally, I’ve been hearing all my life about the Serious Philosophical Issues posed by life extension, and my attitude has always been that I’m willing to grapple with those issues for as many centuries as it takes.” -Patrick Hayden

It's funny, I have a friend who is a full-time professional philosopher (teaches at a university) and you would not believe the amount of earnest essay writing there was in the philosophy community about Miley Cyrus's performance at the VMAs (something I've not actually seen myself). All sorts of theories about Freud and Hegel and this and that. Look Philos, I said to him, she got up on stage and did a little dance a…

My only objection to life extension, philosophically speaking, is a political one. What if life extension becomes another tool of dominance for the rich and powerful? An eternal, dystopic corporatocracy sounds pretty damn horrible to me.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#195

Post by kamaal »

User1398 wrote: post #165
baudehlo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side to that argument is that right now life is short, and so I try and fit as many wonderful experiences into it as I can. If life were long I could put everything off until tomorrow. And that doesn't sound good to me.

I've thought about this once or twice before. I wonder how we would view life if we didn't die from aging or disease, but only accidents, like a fire, car crash, gun shot, etc. What would happen to religion? Do you choose to continue aging, die, and take your chances with the heaven you've been saying exists, or do you take the new pill, and live forever? If you take the pill, what does that say about your faith in t…

I am assuming in the very far future even if you die of an accident/gun shot etc they should be able to resurrect you as-is, like you are with all your memory. It will be like you fell asleep and just woke up!

If anything, I vote for the simulated reality thing. Its like once you are dead, they should be able to take your brain out and connect it to a simulated paradise which would run forever.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#196

Post by tesseractive »

krisgee wrote: post #193
tesseractive wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a classic A Softer World comic that's been turned into a t-shirt that says "I would rather die screaming than live forever." There are downsides to the kind of extreme prudence that planning to be around for centuries would imply. Also, there's a fantastic novel from Bruce Sterling called Holy Fire that is devoted to exploring the tension between living to continue living and living in the moment.

>I would rather die screaming than live forever I'll take the time to work through my problems thanks.

Among other things, a commitment to "live forever" is a statement about acceptable risk tolerance. Ever wanted to climb mountains? Take up skydiving? Drink too much sometimes? Eat foods that are bad for you? If your goal really is to live forever, the risk profile of doing anything that doesn't minimize the expected value of the long-term risk to your person is probably unacceptable.

You personally might rather live a vastly extended span than spend the time you do have skydiving, parasailing, climbing mountains, and doing whatever it is that allows you to enjoy your life to its fullest for however long you have. But that's a real, legitimate choice, and choosing to take risks and experience everything you can is a perfectly valid choice -- even if there's a very real risk that something will go wrong at some point and you will indeed "die screaming."

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#197

Post by tesseractive »

sethammons wrote: post #146
rtfeldman wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-aging has nothing more to do with immortality than does, say, curing a particular disease. Aging is only one of many causes of death; if we solve that one, there's still heart disease, stroke, getting hit by a bus...

I can't recall the source (probably a special on the Science channel or somesuch), but I heard that if we "cured" aging and no one died from getting old, that the average lifespan would be between 1.5k and 2.5k years where one would die of an accident or disease. I'd take my chances with that :)

Curing cellular aging would not, as far as I know, have any effect on cancer. Whether it would have any effect on other problems like decreasing bone density, I'm not sure. So even if you sweep one cause of death completely off the table, it stands to reason that whatever you would have died from next will still be around to do the job until it, too, is cured.

Much like when you add more of the limiting reagent to a chemical reaction, it just means that some other reagent will now be the limiting reagent.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#198

Post by kbenson »

Udo wrote: post #68
wpietri wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fair to call most medical treatments unnatural. That doesn't make them bad, but it should make us thoughtful and careful. Natural systems are often, thanks to evolution and adaptation, complicated and delicately balanced. I think reflexive appeals to tradition and novelty are both kind of dumb. But if people are going to err, I'd rather they erred on the side of tradition: at least that shit has been dem…

Sorry, I fat-fingered on the downvote button with my iDevice, I meant to vote you up (because of the first paragraph specifically, not so much the rest). Could someone counteract me, please?

That's a nice way to get at least a few upvotes for them, since I doubt you'll get just one taker.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#199

Post by trendoid »

chongli wrote: post #194
gaius wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, I have a friend who is a full-time professional philosopher (teaches at a university) and you would not believe the amount of earnest essay writing there was in the philosophy community about Miley Cyrus's performance at the VMAs (something I've not actually seen myself). All sorts of theories about Freud and Hegel and this and that. Look Philos, I said to him, she got up on stage and did a little dance a…

My only objection to life extension, philosophically speaking, is a political one. What if life extension becomes another tool of dominance for the rich and powerful? An eternal, dystopic corporatocracy sounds pretty damn horrible to me.

Yeah, and hence moral education(which imparts critical thinking and rational moral values) of next generation seems like the most important task to me. Why too much money and power are not the most important things in this world and showing them examples of how they can corrupt you. Learning, sharing and making the world a 'better' place is what should motivate next generation and we urgently need to find a way to bring about that motivation. Right now most of the behavior revolves around what was selected by natural selection and we need to find a way to overcome that(atleast see if it can be overcome).

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#200

Post by kbenson »

Filligree wrote: post #138
zmmmmm wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is confusing, since there is no wider context given in the article at all. The conventional story I hear about ageing is that telomeres in replicating cells become shorter until the DNA no longer replicates and the cell either dies or seriously malfunctions. As a significant proportion of the cells in your body move into this state you "age". So I'm struggling to relate this phenomena to the mitochondrial sto…

Independent. There are, oh, I think I once saw a lost of about fifteen major known causes of ageing. Some are worse than others; this is one of the really serious ones, but not #1. Others of note are... - Intracellular debris - Intercellular debris - Gradual macroscopic degeneration from incomplete healing/scarring - Progressive DNA damage, with any number of consequences (e.g. cancer) - Asymptotic loss of some brain…

uploading remains the most promising approach for completely eliminating ageing

If so, in the future the equivalent of CryptoLocker will be a terrorist weapon that takes hostages.

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