38 replies to this topic

[Absent]

I think believing technology to be the only way for a human to be immortal is quite a foolish thing. There are many possible ways, both accidental, and/or intentional through experimentation, that humans of the past could have become immortal. I am of this opinion for reasons I will not say. Some I'm sure are alive today. Though, I don't want to get into my reasons for believing this.

Obviously know a days, more and more people are striving for it, with the existence of the internet, religious skepticism, exchange of information, etc. I bet without a doubt several current millionaires & billionaires have privately funded research labs performing likely inhumane, unethical, and illegal experiments, to try to discover, some form of immortality. If some billionaire funded a private lab and discovered it, do you think they would share it? I don't think so. At least, I wouldn't.

I personally don't believe physical immortality to be all that big of a milestone. It is merely one more step in the constant battle for self-preservation. The real question is, whats next.

I want to hear what you guys think. Yes, No? Your thoughts on the matter, or any additional thoughts?

[Absent]

104 views.... no replies. :(

[Marios Kyriazis]

You talk about 'immortality' This means never to die, ever. You need to first conquer aging and eliminate it completely from the equation. Then you need to cure every single infection, ever (AIDS, malaria, cholera, viral infections, etc etc). Ever.

Then you need to eliminate cancer, at least lethal ones, forever. Then you need to eliminate all and every accidental cause of death (car crash, fall from the Empire State Building, sitting on a nuclear device, drowning in a swimming pool, being shot in the head, etc).

Then we can see. Unless I am missing something?

[Absent]

When I speak of immortality I mean nothing mystical. Such a person is able, some how, to stay in peak health for an indefinite time period. They can still fall to sicknesses, but their body systems or some other mechanism is so efficient that they are able to rapidly recover. Their bodily processes can maintain homeostasis effortlessly and extremely rapidly, never decaying. They can still get hit by a bus and die, still get shot, still get blown up by a bomb, etc. They are not invincible.

All of those things you have described our bodies are able to fight. There ARE people who beat them on a regular basis. If are bodies were not able to fight them to some extent, then these things would kill us almost instantly. Well, besides the fatal physical accidents.

I know without a doubt that there are people who have privately found out and researched successfully methods that could yield the above description. I know if it were me, nobody in the modern would would be finding out about it anytime soon. I would use it to my advantage as long as possible.

Edited by Siro, 28 November 2013 - 09:01 PM.

[PWAIN]

So I think we could probably cut out natural events, no sign of this in other plants or animals where the species does not normally live a long life - no 300 year old dogs etc. Of the species that are very long lived, they all seem to either regenerate entirely or just grow very slowly and become very big. No humans that would fit that bill either.

[Absent]

We need to be careful when drawing such conclusions as that. It is somewhat fallacious to judge the entirety of animalea on this planet by only the ones we see on a daily basis. Most people aren't really looking for immortal people/animals in the day to day world either way. Most people who are exposed to the same animal for a long time are only exposed to that animal. If there were people walking around us that were able to stay young in this perfect peak condition, I don't think we would see them at any doctors office or see them putting themselves at risk to being discovered.

I just say, just because they have yet to be brought to light yet doesn't mean they don't exist, though, this lack of not being brought to light is also not proof that they do exist. The only rational thing is to stay opened to the possibility when it comes to encountering things that have yet to be encountered.

I'm curious to hear the reasons of other people like myself who do think these people exist. My belief extends beyond belief, and more into the realm of definitive knowledge, but nothing I can, or care, to prove. I'm interested in hearing other peoples rational regarding these matters.

[TerryStonefield]

Immortality almost certainly exists based on simple laws of physics/energy. Einstein showed us that energy is never destroyed it only changes form. Quantum physics established that any particles created together are eternally 'entangled', and share all their information instantly. Finally Quantum physics has proven that no information is never lost. The combination of these 3 properties creates a system cable of retaining any body of energy indefinitely. In other words based on the function of those 3 'laws' 'immortality' is not only a possibility, but most probably is an inescapable fact.

Edited by TerryStonefield, 17 December 2013 - 01:12 AM.

[forever freedom]

I am sure there are no immortal people as of yet, nor there ever were. A human achieving biological immortality is not such a big milestone, you say? Where did you get that from?

Our medical technology today is still very primitive, considering the challenging that curing aging is. Saying that people today have found a way to beat aging in secret labs is the same as believing that some middle age's alchemists have succeasfully turned lead into gold or discovered the elixir of youth.

Edited by forever freedom, 17 December 2013 - 09:06 AM.

[Mind]

Jean Clement was probably something akin to what Michael Rose would call non-aging (or biologically immortal).

[kmoody]

I am particularly skeptical of the idea that an army of scientists under the employ of a nefarious billionaire have cured aging. Research on aging is not like infectious disease. The feedback cycle is too extended. Governments funding nasty chemical weapons experiments during times of war, sure. But the results of those effects can be observed in an acute setting. Minutes, hours, days, weeks… you can see the effects pretty quickly.

Any intervention on human aging in any sort of comprehensive way would almost certainly require decades. That is a major obstacle of research programs that want to directly target aging… suppose we had a pill that "cured" 25% of the population of aging (a substantial effect size). How long would it take before we could draw statistical significance (which is an arbitrary designation anyway) from the data? Probably quite a while… This is precisely why pharmaceutical companies use surrogate biomarkers as primary outcome metrics (no one cares about curing heart disease, they care about lowering LDL) rather than mortality. Waiting for the "real" results simply takes too long.

Strictly speaking, I also don't think a billionaire could finance a research program to go after aging… certainly not a non-scientist billionaire (s/he would need the technical wherewithal to know what to spend the money on). Something on the order of $500B has been spent since Nixon declared a War on Cancer (general public article http://bigthink.com/...g-war-on-cancer) with quite little to show for it. If I had $1B to spend, there are less than 5 independent scientists I can think of who I would want to support. Very few people have the interest and depth of expertise necessary to seriously think about how to approach aging.

Could a random mutation have led to some human immortals? Doubtful but not impossible. But I certainly don't think any nefarious billionaires succeeded, though surely at least one must have tried...

[Florin]

Strictly speaking, I also don't think a billionaire could finance a research program to go after aging… certainly not a non-scientist billionaire (s/he would need the technical wherewithal to know what to spend the money on). Something on the order of $500B has been spent since Nixon declared a War on Cancer (general public article http://bigthink.com/...g-war-on-cancer) with quite little to show for it. If I had $1B to spend, there are less than 5 independent scientists I can think of who I would want to support. Very few people have the interest and depth of expertise necessary to seriously think about how to approach aging.

Actually, non-scientist billionaires have created orgs (e.g., Kronos, Ellison Medical Foundation, and Calico) to go after aging. The first two seem to have been failures, but I still have a tiny bit of hope left for Calico.

[Marios Kyriazis]

Any intervention on human aging in any sort of comprehensive way would almost certainly require decades. That is a major obstacle of research programs that want to directly target aging… suppose we had a pill that "cured" 25% of the population of aging (a substantial effect size).

Strictly speaking, I also don't think a billionaire could finance a research program to go after aging… certainly not a non-scientist billionaire (s/he would need the technical wherewithal to know what to spend the money on). Something on the order of $500B has been spent since Nixon declared a War on Cancer (general public article http://bigthink.com/...g-war-on-cancer) with quite little to show for it. If I had $1B to spend, there are less than 5 independent scientists I can think of who I would want to support. Very few people have the interest and depth of expertise necessary to seriously think about how to approach aging.

You assume that aging can be cured by a pill (injection etc), and that this cure will be based upon existing lines of research. You also assume that the main problem here is funding.

I don't believe that any of these assumptions are correct, having in mind that I talk about the elimination of aging, and not just simple, healthy longevity to the age of 100-110.

Even if we spend trillions on existing and well-accepted methods of research, we will get nothing to show for it. Aging will not be 'cured' by a simple reductionist approach (i.e. find a few types of damage and see how to repair these).

And, let me make an assumption: those 5 independent scientists you can think of are using simple reductionist approaches ( trying to repair damaged mitochondria, cells, DNA, telomeres, etc, after the damage has already happened). Please tell me I am wrong?

[kmoody]

Actually, non-scientist billionaires have created orgs (e.g., Kronos, Ellison Medical Foundation, and Calico) to go after aging. The first two seem to have been failures, but I still have a tiny bit of hope left for Calico.

The question wasn't whether billionaires have spent money on age-related initiatives, it was whether anyone may have succeeded, specifically in the context of, "privately funded research labs performing likely inhumane, unethical, and illegal experiments, to try to discover, some form of immortality." As you point out, no public successes so far. My personal opinion is no private successes either.

You assume that aging can be cured by a pill (injection etc), and that this cure will be based upon existing lines of research. You also assume that the main problem here is funding.

Quite the opposite. This topic is not about how one might go about curing aging, it is about whether or not a nefarious billionaire funding illegal human testing may have. My central thesis is that the feedback cycle (the time post-treatment required to determine the outcome of the treatment) is limiting, in that even if a highly effective intervention were discovered tomorrow, it will still take a LONG time before that effect could be observed in an experimental group as compared to a control group… and I am of course skeptical that anyone "accidentally" discovered the elixir of life in convenient one-pill form, which means that if any effects did exist, they would likely be smaller and by extension, even harder to resolve from the control group.

Even if we spend trillions on existing and well-accepted methods of research, we will get nothing to show for it. Aging will not be 'cured' by a simple reductionist approach (i.e. find a few types of damage and see how to repair these).

I'm not sure we can reasonably speculate how aging will be cured. Again, the thesis here is that no one discovered immortality in a secret underground lab of illegal experimentation.

I would posit that, as a general trend, the research we have spent trillions on isn't bad. On the whole, we tend to get pretty reliable answers to questions that are asked. The problem is that the questions being answered often aren't particularly useful. Most science is curiosity driven, not goal-oriented in a clinical or product-oriented sort of way. So we do good research, we just answer lower-impact questions.

And, let me make an assumption: those 5 independent scientists you can think of are using simple reductionist approaches ( trying to repair damaged mitochondria, cells, DNA, telomeres, etc, after the damage has already happened). Please tell me I am wrong?

You are incorrect. These sorts of approaches, in my opinion anyway, are too incremental. They may work eventually, but I do not consider it likely in the foreseeable future. However, I reiterate that the purpose of this topic was to discuss the idea of a billionaire having cured aging in a secret lab, not which approaches may hold the most promise for curing aging.

[Marios Kyriazis]

Thank you for your answer. However, your slant (that a treatment could possibly be discovered in 'a secret lab') is incorrect in my view. This implies a physical pharmacological treatment.

I don't believe that aging will be eliminated through any sort of drug (chemical, compound, elixir, anything physical). It will be eliminated through a change in the direction of human evolution, when billions of humans continue to engage with technology (or via other, abstract global technologically-dependent means, which I have discussed in some detail elsewhere). Therefore, there could be no secrets about the process, due to the very fact that a significant section of humanity must necessarily participate.

[Florin]

Actually, non-scientist billionaires have created orgs (e.g., Kronos, Ellison Medical Foundation, and Calico) to go after aging. The first two seem to have been failures, but I still have a tiny bit of hope left for Calico.

The question wasn't whether billionaires have spent money on age-related initiatives, it was whether anyone may have succeeded, specifically in the context of, "privately funded research labs performing likely inhumane, unethical, and illegal experiments, to try to discover, some form of immortality." As you point out, no public successes so far. My personal opinion is no private successes either.

I'm not interested in the original question, because conspiracy theorists can always speculate that the so-called failures were actually a smoke screen designed to keep the elixir of immortality a secret. I was trying to salvage some value out of this discussion by replying to your claim that no billionaires have set up research programs to go after aging and that they're somehow incapable of doing so because they're not scientists.

Edited by Florin Clapa, 18 December 2013 - 08:06 PM.

[Absent]

Good conversation we got going here guys.

The point I am trying to make is to imagine outside of the box. Imagine outside of the limited information that has been presented to the public. You would be nothing short of a fool if you even started to think what is publicly available is all there is. For every 'secret' unveiled to the public, how many do you think there are behind the dark curtains? How many dark curtains do you think there are?

I don't mean to be cryptic here, see, I'm just trying to make you realize which line of thought is more realistic. That everything which is public knowledge is all there is? Or there there are secrets that have yet to be fathomed?

These ideas that I'm throwing out about billionaires financing immortality, and what not, are only the tip of the potential ice berg. Out of all of the billionaires that have publicly started these anti-aging foundations, how many of them have more clandestine operations in the shadows? Have you ever asked yourself what sort of mind it takes to become a billionaire? Surely the sort of mind we all strive to have here on this forum. Do you think all these billionaires out there are totally transparent about their personalities? That we totally understand the inner workings of their mind? That they're all just average Joe's who happened to strike it big? Who knows. Maybe we have a real life Tony Stark out there somewhere. I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility.

What about secret societies? Yeah sure, there's a lot of hype about them, the Illuminati, and what have you, but secret societies without a doubt do exist. What they do is debatable. Probably nothing that is openly rumored(such as the Illuminati), or else they wouldn't be 'secret', now would they?

Until we begin to imagine beyond what we currently think is impossible, then our lives will not veer far from the path we currently have in our vision. It really is true what they say. That we must think, and believe, before we can achieve. If you don't think any of this is possible, then in your reality, it will never be possible.

Paving a new path in the world is a lot like throwing darts at a dart board. If you don't even look at the bulls eye then what chance have you of hitting it? Even then, there is a lot of hit and miss, but with every attempt, there is an increasing chance of success.

[bruffellz]

Jesus Christ, Plato and countless others have lived longer then any human through literature and culture. Our collective conscience and genes are passed down through generations, and will outlive any human. We may only graze immortality through developing concepts.

Edited by bruffellz, 12 January 2014 - 08:41 AM.

[Skypp]

Yes, I believe "immortal" people exist, but they "exist"in different ways. Babaji, an Indian saint, has been encountered by a few people. It is said (believed) that he occasionally exchanges bodies through conscious reincarnation, although he has had more or less the same appearance for thousands of years. Immortality is already widely known in esoteric circles. It is acheived through spiritual enlightenment and not Western "science". That being said, I am pretty certain that a body could be kept alive and healthy for much longer periods than we now understand or know. However, I would also venture to say that we, in the West, are generally blind to the aspect of consciousness. Your soul is already immortal, remembering who you are in each incarnation takes a enormous amount of higher consciousness and spiritual purification. Maybe those words turn people off here, but just think of it as a dimensional universe you already inhabit but are mostly unaware of. "Spiritual" work is simply expanding your awareness to include higher (and lower) dimensions most cannot see.

[Danail Bulgaria]

Very nice conversation. I liked it alot and decided to join.

 

When I think about "existing today immortals" there are several thinga, that go in my mind.

 

1) The cryopreserved today people. Some of them stay frozen until the time when the immortality becomes possible. Then, if the science and the society allow it, they will be refrozen back and will become immortal. Theoretically at least they can be considered immortal. Unfortunatelly, this is all only a theory. In scientific terms, in order something to be definately so, you have to prove it, e.g. you have to successfully unfreeze a frozen corpse, revive it and make itimmortal. Then, you will be able to say with a certain: "Yes, in the year of 2014 there existed immortal people). Otherwise, you may only suppose (theorize) it.

 

2) There are people, who believe, that if they clone themselves, they will achieve immortality. They believe, that since the cloning is genetically identical to them, it is actually them, not their copy to proceed living after their own death. I personally do not believe so, and I think, that a copy of you, no matter how good is made, remains only a copy of you, and I strongly believe, that when you die, you die, no matter if the copy survives or not. However, very rich people, who believe, that directly cloning themselves will make them immortal, theoretically may have created a laboratory, where they have successfully performed human cloning. The human cloning is illegal in most of the countries, but there exist very rich people, who break the low in a regular basis, and will not even blink with an eye for that they will have to break it again if necessary.

 

3) The ecape velocity gives hope for many people, who want to be immortal. Again it is not proven and is only a theory.

[Skypp]

Again, I think the confusion lies in believing you ARE your body. You are not your body. Your body is an extension of your consciousness. Even genetically identical twins are in the final analysis, two separate people, even if they share many aspects of themselves. What we are talking about on this site is prolonging the life of the physical vehicle, which I am all for, but do not confuse that with who you really are. You are not contained in your body or your head! Even top scientists are admitting that memory, personality, et al, cannot be said to originate in our brains. There exists something akin (for lack of a better analogy) to a "cloud drive" outside of all of us. Some have called it supra-consciouness, or whatever, but it is the collective knowledge. This is demostarted when someone, say, working on something in Russia finds that someone in the US comes up with the same idea at the same time, without any contact between them. This is how similar cultural aspects can often be found around the globe at similar periods in history. WE ARE NOT AS SEPARATE AS WE'D LIKE TO BELIEVE. Read the Vedas (many great scientists have done so). There is information contained in them that we think we just discovered. It is in poetic language, but it is also science. Simply put, they had astronomical and global knowledge that puts a lot of what we know now to shame. They also believed in immortality. They witnessed it. In the past, there have been periods when people lived much much longer than they do now... this is in the very far past. Every age is great, but to misunderstand the greatness of cultures in the distant past is to miss an opportunity.

[Danail Bulgaria]

Skypp, forget this stupid religeous propaganda. I am talking about biological immortality. If you this much believe of your "cloud drive" then shoot yourself in the head and be immortal.

[Skypp]

Skypp, forget this stupid religeous propaganda. I am talking about biological immortality. If you this much believe of your "cloud drive" then shoot yourself in the head and be immortal.

 

LOL, sorry this angered you so much! I am merely paraphrasing ancient knowledge that I did not invent, but have in some small measure, experienced. The topic of immortality MUST be stretched further than just a biological understanding. It is a bigger topic than just how to force extra years upon an ageing organism. To be close-minded makes you old no matter how young you are. Also, being an angry old man will not make you live longer,
 

[Skypp]

Skypp, forget this stupid religeous propaganda. I am talking about biological immortality. If you this much believe of your "cloud drive" then shoot yourself in the head and be immortal.

 

LOL, sorry this angered you so much! I am merely paraphrasing ancient knowledge that I did not invent, but have in some small measure, experienced. The topic of immortality MUST be stretched further than just a biological understanding. It is a bigger topic than just how to force extra years upon an ageing organism. To be close-minded makes you old no matter how young you are. Also, being an angry old man will not make you live longer,
 

[Danail Bulgaria]

Angry is not the case. I am bored from religeous and anciently knowledged folks. According tome, they believe in nonsences.

[Skypp]

PS Religion is a rigid belief system usually not open to new ideas. Spirituality is a search for the truth that excludes nothing and welcomes all new information from whatever source. My post was not religious at all, it was trying to add to the broader scope of knowledge. We are multi-dimentional creatures so any discussion that focuses only on biology is missing some key components and will therefore be false.

[Skypp]

Angry is not the case. I am bored from religeous and anciently knowledged folks. According tome, they believe in nonsences.

 

So sorry, I was unaware that you found yourself more intelligent than Plato, Socrates, Euclid of Alexandria, Einstein, Ekart Tolle, Kant, Nietzche, Wittgenstein, Krishnamurti, Ramamaharshi, oh yes, and Max Planck and Neil Bohr... ALL of these people believed in what cannot be seen by ordinary vision alone. Such vanity to think that you are in better possession of the Truth than these people. But go ahead, dream on, biology is just a drop in the bucket of existance.

[Danail Bulgaria]

No, I do not think myself for more clever than the above, I only think, that you are a dumbass.

 

Back on the topic. The OP named the topic "Do you believe ... ". So, it is not if there are scientific proves, that there exist people today, who are immortal, but rather do we believe, that they exist today. So, if someone like you, who believes in the immortal soul seem tio be able to write his oppinion. In brief, you believe, that we all are immortal, maybe? 

[Skypp]

No, I do not think myself for more clever than the above, I only think, that you are a dumbass.

 

Back on the topic. The OP named the topic "Do you believe ... ". So, it is not if there are scientific proves, that there exist people today, who are immortal, but rather do we believe, that they exist today. So, if someone like you, who believes in the immortal soul seem tio be able to write his oppinion. In brief, you believe, that we all are immortal, maybe? 

 

Not exactly sure what your question to me is, Selvtcho, but I would not presume to anwer for OP.

[Danail Bulgaria]

I mean what actually do you believe? Is it that we all have an immortal soul, and thus we all today are immortal?

[Skypp]

I mean what actually do you believe? Is it that we all have an immortal soul, and thus we all today are immortal?

 

Again "belief" is either blind as in most religion, or is based upon personal experience. Obviously, belief based on one's experience is much more valuable and preferable. So, based entirely on what I have personally experienced I will say this.

 

1. Existence is not merely physical. Mind is not contained in the head or brain. The brain is highly sophisticated processer of information, the body is its active extension.

 

2. We are made of energy which merely appears solid (ask any physicist). Energy can never be lost, it is merely transformed. Therefore, we cannot die because our energy form (as scientifically proven) MUST transform into something else.

 

3. What we are speculating on here is whether the form that you consider YOU can go on indefinitely, without disintegration or rot. The question really being posed here is "can the physical body not die".

 

4. While I would conjecture that is possible to live a great deal longer than is now "normal", I would be lying if I said "immortality", meaning to never have a physical death, is in the near future or even possible at all. The one constant is change. If we play our cards right, that change can be in our favor.

 

5. All this being said, I have experienced things that lead me to believe that consciouness, particularly the consciouness of certain people (spiritual adepts) lives on, quite as themselves, even after the death of their physical forms. If I say more, I will raise the ire of the usual doubters. So, in a tiny nut-shell, that's what I "believe".