10 replies to this topic

[lakerfan4life11]

Do you think that nanotechnology will have an impact on halting aging by 2030? and if not than what year is more likely? like maybe 2040? or 2050? also when do you think the procedures will be widely spread or only reserved to the richest? also if only reserved to the richest then when do you think the prices would go down to make it more affordable?

[forever freedom]

No one here has a crystal ball. Nanotech will likely start having a bigger impact on life extension after 2025. Being rich will certainly help you big time, especially once we start growing organs in the labs and develop advanced anti aging therapies.


There's not much more to tell. We can't really guess where medicine and technology will be a few decades from now.

[PWAIN]

forever freedom, on 17 August 2011 - 08:13 PM, said:

There's not much more to tell. We can't really guess where medicine and technology will be a few decades from now.

That kinda sounds a bit like the description of the singularity where nothing about the future can be predicted. Are we there yet???


I think that we will be able to do a lot of the manipulation of atoms in 20 or 30 years time based on the reduction in size of electronic circuits. This does not however automatically mean that we will be able to make good use of this new technology, just that we will be on a new and long road. I see it a bit like the computer age 40 to 60 years ago. Sure we had computers (the size of buildings) but we had a lot to learn, a lot to discover and consumer penetration did not happen for a long time.

We will still need to learn how to make this stuff useful. There will be some low hanging fruit in all this with some big and wonderful gains but complete mastery is a long way off. Will we be able to extend lifespans indefinitely with this new found technology? Maybe but probably not initially.

We cannot rely on nanotech to save us at some point in the future, we need to do things now that will extend our lives with existing technologies.

[niner]

PWAIN, on 18 August 2011 - 02:10 AM, said:

forever freedom, on 17 August 2011 - 08:13 PM, said:

There's not much more to tell. We can't really guess where medicine and technology will be a few decades from now.

That kinda sounds a bit like the description of the singularity where nothing about the future can be predicted. Are we there yet???

I think that we will be able to do a lot of the manipulation of atoms in 20 or 30 years time based on the reduction in size of electronic circuits. This does not however automatically mean that we will be able to make good use of this new technology, just that we will be on a new and long road. I see it a bit like the computer age 40 to 60 years ago. Sure we had computers (the size of buildings) but we had a lot to learn, a lot to discover and consumer penetration did not happen for a long time.

We will still need to learn how to make this stuff useful. There will be some low hanging fruit in all this with some big and wonderful gains but complete mastery is a long way off. Will we be able to extend lifespans indefinitely with this new found technology? Maybe but probably not initially.

We cannot rely on nanotech to save us at some point in the future, we need to do things now that will extend our lives with existing technologies.

That's a great analysis.  I agree.  I think that the near-term (next 20 years) advances in longevity science are going to be mostly chemicals, biochemicals, and various versions of stem cells.  There will probably be at least a couple overturnings of things that "everyone knows are true".  We probably will see some nanotech in the form of advanced indwelling sensors and biocompatible materials for implants and bionic devices.  The idea of nanobots swimming around inside us, fixing cellular damage might turn out to be the flying cars of the 21st century.  Considering the extreme rate of change of technology and the likelihood of disruptive change, predictions that go out farther than a few years can be pretty dodgy, so they should all be taken with a grain of salt.

[Elus]

If the miniaturization predicted by Kurzweil's graphs continues, we'll be able to build considerably complex NEMS or nanostructures. Coupled with an increased understanding of biomolecular drug targets and understanding of gene relationships through rapid whole genome sequencing... and you may just have some VERY potent anti-aging therapies.

Edited by Elus, 09 September 2011 - 05:13 PM.

[albedo]

Agree with Elus. IMO an unnoticed yet from the general public tsunami is just arriving where nanotechnology is converging with information, biology and cognitive sciences. Impact will be immense. Will we have the courage as collectivity to face it?

[Marios Kyriazis]

lakerfan4life11, on 16 August 2011 - 11:46 PM, said:

Do you think that nanotechnology will have an impact on halting aging by 2030? and if not than what year is more likely? like maybe 2040? or 2050? also when do you think the procedures will be widely spread or only reserved to the richest? also if only reserved to the richest then when do you think the prices would go down to make it more affordable?

You are talking about stopping aging, i.e. reducing the rate of mortality as a function of age (Human Biological Immortality).  I don't believe that nanotechnology alone will achieve this by 2030, but there will be some great advances in this respect. Synthetic Biology will signifigantly complement nanotechnology, but the emergence of the Global Brain will help accelerate the whole process. For details of this see my article here:

http://hplusmagazine...e-global-brain/

[corb]

lakerfan4life11, on 16 August 2011 - 11:46 PM, said:

Do you think that nanotechnology will have an impact on halting aging by 2030?

No. And there's a good chance it won't have an impact in 2060. Or 2090 for that matter.
Stem cell therapies, anti oxidants, immune therapies, gene therapies, engineered microorganisms etc, are what we're working on at the moment for life extension.

Most we've done with nanotech for now are better plastics and nano pincers that can be used for disease identification and drug targeting (still in research). And it took us exactly 30 years to get here (nowhere in other words). The way I see it we'll be at least a century more until the nanotech you see in games and sci fi movies becomes a (research) reality. As long as research is creeping along at the speed it is now and I certainly don't see prospects of it getting faster or more efficient soon.

[niner]

albedo, on 18 September 2011 - 11:44 AM, said:

Will we have the courage as collectivity to face it?

Good question.  At present, a lot of people don't even have the courage to face existing reality, choosing instead to believe in fairy tales, be they religious, political, or economic.   When we can hack life at will, a lot of people's cherished beliefs about humanity are going to go up in smoke, and many heads will explode.  There will be huge ethical conundrums to be faced.  For example, we will probably see therapies that can cure certain fatal diseases, but they will be so expensive that no government or insurance company will be able to afford  them for all who have a need, so only the rich will have access.   For people who labor under the illusion that we don't already ration healthcare, that will be quite a shock.  Knowing that your mom is going to die, but the Wall Street guy's mom with the same diagnosis gets to live will really drive home the point.  This might result in some major social, political, and cultural realignments.   Or maybe not.  Maybe the post-scarcity world will come first, but I wouldn't bet on it.  I think that will take longer.

[albedo]

niner, on 05 October 2011 - 03:53 AM, said:

albedo, on 18 September 2011 - 11:44 AM, said:

Will we have the courage as collectivity to face it?

.........There will be huge ethical conundrums to be faced.....

Absolutely. I am convinced next challenges facing us will be ethical and moral vs being technological. I think technology in say 50 years cannot be even dreamt today but we will have a problem if we will have people not prepared to the coming tsunami. One possible help to prepare is an in depth and integrative understanding of humanities and how we integrate technology.

[Proconsul]

PWAIN, on 18 August 2011 - 02:10 AM, said:

We cannot rely on nanotech to save us at some point in the future, we need to do things now that will extend our lives with existing technologies.

I couldn't agree more. I'm a biologist, and I'm aware of the staggering complexity of the problem and of the enormous amount of advances that we still need to realise. I'm however pretty convinced that there are steps that we could take right now and that could give us some reasonable chance to prolong our maximal  life span a bit. To give us time to reap the benefits of future technologies. For instance lipofuscine scavengers, AGE breakers and other enzymatic therapies that could repair at least some of the key damages from aging. There are already a few labs engaged in some aspects of this research, but by no means enough to give us serious hope of speedy solutions.

The main problem is economic and politic. We spend a lot of money and resources in research that will not result in important health benefits, at least in the short or medium term. And of course, aging is still not considered a disease or a problem per se, so according to the laws of many countries no drugs targeted to aging per se (as opposite to drugs for aging related diseases) can be put on the market.