Isaac Asimov wrote in The Caves of Steel, that human body could last 300 years. But on special diet, in sterile environment...
Jehoshaphat!
Your body wasn’t built to last: Math of human mortality (2009)
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Re: Your body wasn’t built to last: Math of human mortality (2009)
#22In my opinion death is simply explained by the human body not having reached it's final form yet. We are constantly evolving, but evolution has been concentrating on short term survival for a millenia. It's only recently, in evolutionary terms, that long term life has become viable. I would say our healing abilities point to the fact that we are evolving along this path, and that it is also an obtainable goal, just l…
No. Here are some views on aging that capture present thinking on the topic. https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.100640 "Why do humans live longer than other higher primates? Why do women live longer than men? What is the significance of the menopause? Answers to these questions may be sought by reference to the mechanisms by which human aging might have evolved. Here, an evolutionary hypothesis is presented that could an…
On the first point, I wonder what role the body size differential between males and females may play in the life expectancy gap?
If life expectancy for men and women was found to be similar when controlling for height, it would suggest that aging is more a result of increasing disorder than of a characteristic of either sex.
Re: Your body wasn’t built to last: Math of human mortality (2009)
#23Isaac Asimov wrote in The Caves of Steel, that human body could last 300 years. But on special diet, in sterile environment...
That was fiction, though. It wasn't actual science.
Re: Your body wasn’t built to last: Math of human mortality (2009)
#24Could someone send a link to that blog post to Ray Kurzweil? It's just because he loves exponential growth graphs so much. Just yesterday he was talking about the exponential growth in biotech that, within 10 years, will allow the entire population (of Silicon Valley? California? The US? The world?) to reach "longevity escape velocity" and live to see the coming century:
Re: Your body wasn’t built to last: Math of human mortality (2009)
#25Could someone send a link to that blog post to Ray Kurzweil? It's just because he loves exponential growth graphs so much. Just yesterday he was talking about the exponential growth in biotech that, within 10 years, will allow the entire population (of Silicon Valley? California? The US? The world?) to reach "longevity escape velocity" and live to see the coming century: https://youtu.be/9Z06rY3uvGY?t=27m20s
Kurz is a nice guy, but he seems to be scared shitless of dying and getting more and more desperate with his estimations.
Re: Your body wasn’t built to last: Math of human mortality (2009)
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would we evolve to love any longer than we currently do? We obviously need to live long enough to breed (i.e. to about 40) and probably having reasonably healthy grandparents may be an advantage but I can't see why we would be evolving to live any longer than that.
It might be that people enjoy living without children for as long as possible in the current western economic/cultural climate. This age might keep increasing because those who try too late won't reproduce. So it's passive selection for longevity.
Or passive selection for not being part of an infertile and decadent culture.
Re: Your body wasn’t built to last: Math of human mortality (2009)
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would we evolve to love any longer than we currently do? We obviously need to live long enough to breed (i.e. to about 40) and probably having reasonably healthy grandparents may be an advantage but I can't see why we would be evolving to live any longer than that.
Creating new humans is costly and risky. Maybe immortal humans give you a better bang for the buck.
New humans replace those eliminated in accidents (immortality doesn’t).
New humans allow for changes in DNA to fit a changing environment (immortality doesn’t - hey, you get my drift)
Thinking of the people’s throughout history who shrunk to be smaller due to poor nutrition or unstable food source let’s the human race adapt pretty well to a whole host of issues. Immortality (unless it’s accompanied by some pretty impressive technology from the future) doesn’t.
Re: Your body wasn’t built to last: Math of human mortality (2009)
#28Could someone send a link to that blog post to Ray Kurzweil? It's just because he loves exponential growth graphs so much. Just yesterday he was talking about the exponential growth in biotech that, within 10 years, will allow the entire population (of Silicon Valley? California? The US? The world?) to reach "longevity escape velocity" and live to see the coming century: https://youtu.be/9Z06rY3uvGY?t=27m20s
Kurz is a nice guy, but he seems to be scared shitless of dying and getting more and more desperate with his estimations.
To be honest, I'm scared shitless of dying also. I don't know why that is a reason to abandon reason and embrace bad statistics. I would even say that losing my ability to think clearly and arrive at probably approximately almost not completely ridiculously wrong conclusions is at least as terrifying as dying (or at least as terrifying as dying young in a horrible manner).
Death is really scary shit and I get that someone with the money and connectionts of Kurzweil can convince himself that it won't happen to him, but we must all realise that, at this point, that's just a pipe dream.
Re: Your body wasn’t built to last: Math of human mortality (2009)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kurz is a nice guy, but he seems to be scared shitless of dying and getting more and more desperate with his estimations.
To be honest, I'm scared shitless of dying also. I don't know why that is a reason to abandon reason and embrace bad statistics. I would even say that losing my ability to think clearly and arrive at probably approximately almost not completely ridiculously wrong conclusions is at least as terrifying as dying (or at least as terrifying as dying young in a horrible manner). Death is really scary shit and I get that so…
I don't mind him toying with an idea of immortality within his lifetime if it takes an edge from the pain. You can even argue that it can be considered as a some kind of a personal religion, albeit more scientific.
What I'm not happy is so many folks calling him a prophet and jumping this magic-nanothech-30year-singularity bandwagon.