76 replies to this topic

[Bruce Klein]

Isn't aging is part of reality (real life) and a normal process of life?

Aging is not an inherent part of being alive for 'all' life forms. Hydra, Tetrameron, Cancer Cells, Stem Cells, and Bacteria are what scientist call 'immortal'. They don't live forever, of course, but some bacteria have been found alive after 250 million years living in underground salt crystals. Other examples of extreme life extension can be found here.

Clarke's First Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

It's true, no living creature has ever been proven to live forever. True immortality may ultimately be unprovable by it's very nature. Infinite is a tricky topic. Yet, this may not precludes its 'potentiality'. Prelude does not make precedence.

Clarke's Second Law: "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

No scientific law or overarching property in the universe requires all living thing to eventually die. If such a property does exist, it would likely be attributed to the expansionary nature of the universe, yet that's billions of years away.

[Bruce Klein]

After posting the above to the Caloric Restriction List I received this reply from:
numicucamonga email: no-spam-please@AUSTIN.RR.COM

---

Aging is part of reality (real life) and a normal process of life.

BJKlein:
I must respectfully disagree. Aging is not an inherent part of being alive
for 'any' life. Hydra, Tetrahymena, Cancer Cells, Stem Cells, and Bacteria
are what scientist call 'immortal'. They don't live forever, of course,...

All:
You are using "life form" examples (some artificially kept alive only in lab
environments & not in nature) that are certainly controversial and/or
confusing as to what constitutes life, death, aging, and reproduction to
non-biologist lay readers here on this list. I notice you still qualify
your use of 'immortal' & flatly state "They don't live forever, of
course..." That in itself certainly seems to be a contradiction in your use
of the word 'immortal' while admitting simultaneously "they don't live
forever, of course..." (mortal). Let's consider that 99.9%+ of all other
life forms have no controversy about qualifying as life forms living in
nature (not artificially maintained in a lab), nor is there any confusion
understanding their aging, death, and reproduction processes. And this
certainly applies to "higher life forms" such as (us) mammals!


Anonymous used "aging" in context with its ending in death, which you
concurred (using your immortal examples) saying "they don't live forever",
so I believe you are in agreement with anonymous in that sense. Death is
the end point of an aging process or finite lifetime period (aging). Maybe
some living organisms don't appear "to age" (seem ageless or hibernate) but
they all die eventually, and that is the end point of the aging
process -death.

Let's also pass-on your 'immortal' examples to trained professional
biologists that are established experts in their fields & know well the life
forms you describe, so we can get informed expert commentary on the supposed
"immortality" of such life. Pop-press science articles relaying complicated
biological science to a lay-public does not constitute serious proof of
anything! Oversimplification & mass-appeal to the public interests (such as
the quest to be forever young) is the rule, and the heck with accuracy or
"the truth". Let's have fun & entertainment! :-)

BJKlein:
>but some bacteria have been found alive after 250 million years living in
underground salt crystals.

http://search.csmoni...fp2s2-csm.shtml

Let's be more accurate about what this article really states: "Scientists
revive spores dormant for millions of years... This week, West Chester
University biologist Russell Vreeland and two colleagues report reviving and
growing bacteria from 250-million-year-old salt crystals."

Is a 250 million year old spore alive or immortal? Were the bacteria found
alive & living continuously for 250 million years? (What was their energy
source? :-) Furthermore, let's wait for the peer review or duplication of
their work in another independent lab before being certain what was revived.

BJKlein:
Other examples of extreme life extension can be
found here: http://www.imminst.o...?s=&act=SF&f=48

This is quite interesting. You realize you list 11 items on that webpage as
an "Example of Immortality". Before I critique your eleven items please
define precisely your meaning of the word immortality? On that webpage you
list an "Example of Immortality" to be a type of fossil and another to be a
"living fossil". (IMO, those 11 examples of immortality seem inaccurate and
misleading regarding the normal definition of the word immortal & the theme
of your website "human immortality". Nothing listed was immortal that could
truly be defined as not mortal.)

BJKlein:
Its' true, no living creature has ever been proven to live forever. True
immortality is thus unproven and will likely never be totally provable by
it's very nature. Infinite is a sticky subject.

You can start by listing life forms that have continuously lived for more
than 200 years. (Please exclude any bush or tree as just a very few can die
& rot on its older-self but continue on with new growth for thousands of
years -sort of a death-birth trail & cycle but not immortal.)

BJKlein:
Yet, I don't think one can precludes its 'potentiality' simply by looking at
precedence.

Agreed. But the odds in Vegas will make them immortally rich! )

BJKlein:
Lastly, I'm unaware of any scientific law or overarching property in the
universe which requires all living thing to eventually die. If such a
property does exist, it would likely be attributed to the expansionary
nature of the universe, yet that's billions of years away.

The Earth is part of the universe. All living things on Earth are mortal
and die. The proof is life is death too. You cannot have one without the
other. The Earth is your universe home, and Vegas says you're gonna die in
less than 100 years. And Vegas says every living thing on Earth eventually
dies. Heck, science & the universe say "that" its in front of your nose
every day past to present for 4.5 billion years or so here. Of course, life
probably wasn't here at Earth's beginning. Well, proof enough for me
despite the artificial lab games, which are still mortal by most
definitions.

Lastly, this website & email list is for topics about Calorie Restriction.
I suggest we stop posting about Immortality here & do it elsewhere. OFF
TOPICS should be discussed as little as possible here. Immortality has
gone-on long enough here "on list" & "off topic" and should be ended soon.
Then if the topic comes-up again someday we can just point those people
interested to the archives! Seems a fitting "immortal placement" on Calorie
Restriction! LOL.

[Cyto]

*shrug*

I don't think they got it. You may want to use Exponential Life tones instead of saying immortal at all. Anyways, I got what you were saying.

[Bruce Klein]

Yes, I certainly need to work on my wording.

[cyric]

Aging, isn't a natural part of life, it merely seems that way because everone ages.

The fact of the matter is that aging takes place because of the chemical reaction occuring when our blood is oxygenated, (I'm not exactly sure what it is or what it's called). It's like the occurance that takes place in engines, the fuel runs the engine, but very slowly degrades the valves, the pistons and the pipes, until you need eventually replace them. But the reaction oxygen has, it causes subtle and minute changes in the DNA coding in our cells, changing our appearance, reducing the elasticity in our skin, and sometimes even leading to cancer and, in extreme cases, organ failure.

Edited by cyric, 05 August 2005 - 10:56 AM.

[rshack]

Just a thought.................

I doubt that immortality is possible. Systems as complex as humans will eventually break down. However, looking at the lifespans of most animals, aging and senescence are likely regulated by evolutionary pressures that optomize the reproductive potential of the animal and the species, not the lifespan of individuals.

Probably the human lifespan could be vastly increased. An example that is interesting are the larger whales. They are as complex as we are and their size is far greater, allowing for an increased chance of one cell becomming malignant and killing the animal. Thier lifespans appear to be several hundred years. As one would expect their rate of oxidative metabolism is very slow, even when compared to human rates. It's likely (I don't know if this has been measured or not), that they have extremely effective DNA repair. The same is theoretically possible for a human.

When I look at aging, it appears it's highly regulated and our bodies are programed to age and die. For example, as telomeres shorten, oxidative stress increases and DNA repair capacity lessens - in response to shortening telomeres. The oxidized DNA bases on telomeric ends are not bound by the telomere binding proteins which stablize telomeres (such as TRF2), and the results is a rapid increase in cell aging. The short telomeres eventually activate cellular checkpoints and make cell division impossible, and replacement of the cells. It becomes a viscous cycle. As each system fails, it feeds into the others and inhibits their activities, resulting in cell aging and death. This process could probably be slowed or stoped and the human lifespan could be several hundred or more years. With the rate at which we die by accidents and violence, this would be enough to be as "immortal" as we could ever become.

[Mark Hamalainen]

I doubt that immortality is possible. Systems as complex as humans will eventually break down.

Yes, without intervention that would happen. But there is no theoretical reason why we cannot use rejuvenation treatments [1], or change our design to one which does not break down.

This process could probably be slowed or stoped and the human lifespan could be several hundred or more years. With the rate at which we die by accidents and violence, this would be enough to be as "immortal" as we could ever become.

I take it you're not familiar with Aubrey de Grey's work [2]?

[1] Hamalainen M. Thermodynamics and information in aging: why aging is not a mystery and how we will be able to make rational interventions. Rejuvenation Res. 2005 Spring;8(1):29-36

[2] de Grey ADNJ. Escape velocity: why the prospect of extreme human life extension matters now. PLoS Biol 2004; 2(6):723-726. http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/CwM.pdf

[rshack]

I wrote a long reply and my computer ate it...sigh......

[rshack]

Systems as complex as humans would likely develop their own endogenous parasites. I don't know if a rejuvination system could exist to overcome this possibility. Six trillion cells with two meters each of DNA, roughly 2.3 billion base paris of DNA that much be kept in proper oder. 8,000 (minimally) random mutations/genome/day over a very long period? Maybe it could be possible, but breakdown seems likely to win out with time:

Charlton BG. Endogenous parasitism: a biological process with implications for senescence, Evolutionary Theory, 1996; 11: 119-124.

ABSTRACT: This paper presents arguments in support of a basic biological process of within-organism selection which is given the name of endogenous parasitism. It is suggested that endogenous parasitism may have a role in senescence. Lineages such as epithelial cells, mitochondria, or gene sequences may experience large numbers of replications within the lifespan of the organism. Such reproducing entities will give rise to random variants (e.g. genetic mutations). Each generation of variants will be subjected to selection by the somatic environment such that subsequent generations are progressively enriched by the most adaptive variants. Adaptive variants would tend to be those that demonstrated the most 'selfish' behaviour, and favoured the reproductive interests of their own lineage over their 'somatic duties' and the interests of organismal integrity. Replicating lineages will evolve towards a quasi-parasitic exploitation of the organismal environment, with the consequence of a progressive and inevitable decline in organismal integrity leading to senescence. Due to endogenous parasitism, the organism can be conceptualised as an entity which will progressively self-destruct from the moment of its formation.

It might be that the entropy within the universe is just too high and there would be no way to rejuvinate a human competely. It might be like "unscrambling eggs with two spoons" as EO Wilson put it. In a more tirvial way, one thing student first learn in physical chemistry is that the "beaming up" process that appears in the Star Trek series violates the laws of physics and cannot occur. It's like exceedign the speed of light. Maybe technologies will one day exist that will allow us to break the laws of physics, but there is no reason to be sure this could happen.

There are mutations is bacterial DNA polymerases that have 10X greater fildelity than the wild-type DNA polymerases. Peobably humans could have improved DNA repair capacities also with different alleles on DNA repair enzymes. No one knows presently.

I like this page, but a lot of it is speculation. Also unless the human tendency towards violence is changed, it seems like that the human race will cause its own extinction via war. Technologies for self-destruction improve also.

Have you looked at the page "Paradise Engineering"?

[Mark Hamalainen]

Systems as complex as humans would likely develop their own endogenous parasites. I don't know if a rejuvination system could exist to overcome this possibility. Six trillion cells with two meters each of DNA, roughly 2.3 billion base paris of DNA that much be kept in proper oder. 8,000 (minimally) random mutations/genome/day over a very long period? Maybe it could be possible, but breakdown seems likely to win out with time

I'm not talkinga bout preventing or repairing all those mutations in situ, rather the information in DNA can be replaced, by (for example) cell and tissue therapy.

It might be that the entropy within the universe is just too high and there would be no way to rejuvinate a human competely... Maybe technologies will one day exist that will allow us to break the laws of physics, but there is no reason to be sure this could happen.

If it were a matter of the universe's entropy, then how could life continue at all, germ line or soma? There is plenty of energy to go around for maintaining order. We feed of a stream of 'negative entropy' emitted by the sun. Our bodies consume low entropy substances and export high entropy substances. In principle this process can continue until there is no free energy available in the universe, and asking when that will be is certainly speculative. Breaking the laws of physics is not required to make us ageless.

Please read my paper on the subject here, I think you'll find it insightful:
http://www.imminst.o...f=175&t=5821&s=

[signifier]

Once the routine transformation of matter (molecular nanotechnology) enters the picture, things like "endogenous parasites," or whatever else small-minded biologists want to use to prove that "extreme life extension is impossible," become moot points.

It's difficult to accept that you're about to be living through something big, that you're alive face-to-face with revolution after revolution. But change happens... and some times are filled with lot more change than others.

[bgwowk]

rshack wrote:

Six trillion cells with two meters each of DNA, roughly 2.3 billion base paris of DNA that much be kept in proper oder. 8,000 (minimally) random mutations/genome/day over a very long period? Maybe it could be possible, but breakdown seems likely to win out with time:

Quite the opposite. If you implemented a repair system that regularly polled each base pair across six trillion cells, deciding and implementing the correct base pair by majority vote, your genome would remain stable for all realistic mutation rates across the lifetime of the universe. Having lots of cells with redundantly-stored genetic information is an intrinsic *advantage*, not a problem.

Don't forget that negative feedback stabilization and error correction is what makes life... life. Parts of our genetic code are hundreds of millions of years old, stably carried through our germ line through that whole time span. Our germ line is already immortal. Somatic immortality will come when repair and rejuvination systems similar to what already exist in our germ line are implemented through our entire body.

As to accidents, with a really advanced medical technology, you only need worry about accidents that destroy your brain. With current accident statistics, that yields a life expectancy on the order of tens of thousands of years.

http://www.alcor.org...useOfDeath.html

Of course, if you allow the possibility of brain backups, then you are theoretically only limited by cosmology.

In all likelihood, the most common mode of death in the future will be death by self-transcedence. Just as in natural middle and old age, childhood memories fade, you may in the future become something so far beyond what you are now, that your life now will be forgotten. The person you are now will for all intents and purposes be dead. Try hard to remember who you are and where you came from; your survival depends on it.

---BrianW

[Clifford Greenblatt]

In all likelihood, the most common mode of death in the future will be death by self-transcedence.  Just as in natural middle and old age, childhood memories fade, you may in the future become something so far beyond what you are now, that your life now will be forgotten.  The person you are now will for all intents and purposes be dead.  Try hard to remember who you are and where you came from; your survival depends on it.

How much would you have to remember to "survive."

[quadclops]

Is aging a "natural" part of life? Well, yeah I guess you could say so. But then, you could also say that getting struck by lightning, crushed during an earthquake, or eaten by bears was a "natural" part of life as well. [wis]

Funny thing is, people usually take precautions to avoid these "natural" parts of life like they would the plague, you'd think they'd apply the same logic to aging. [8)]

[bgwowk]

Clifford asked:

How much would you have to remember to "survive."

Our past selves survive in degrees as time goes by, and memories are lost. Consider the extreme examples of degenerative brain disease, or injuries that literally turn a brain to mush over days or weeks while on life support. When do people in such situations actually "die"? It's not a simple question.

People don't like to think about non-binary survival because it conflicts with cultural and religious archetypes. But reality is what it is.

---BrianW

[Bruce Klein]

If/When this FAQ thread is reorganized, perhaps his article can be cited.

Thanks, Cosmos... good idea.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

People don't like to think about non-binary survival because it conflicts with cultural and religious archetypes.  But reality is what it is.

Could it be said that as long as there is a large world population that everyone survives after personal death to a large degree because the knowledge and experiences of every person has much redundancy within the world population?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

It could be that in this universe, there is a high probability a person of the version existing on July 21, 2005 is being constituted unbeknownst to the same person on Earth.

Would the version in a different part of the universe be relevant to the version on Earth twenty years from now?

MWI may result in immortality for all, or something close to that, but we don't assume it's valid and forgo measures to save our lives.

Assuming MWI is not valid, would random dupliction over 10^(10^(10^(10^(10^(10^10))))) years make a person just as immortal as MWI. In either case, is a person to be regarded as immortal if any versions of the person die?

In both cases, uncertainty warrants taking actions to prevent the apparent death of people who would rather persist.

Life extension is a fundamental responsibility of medical research and development. If a population of people rejects the idea of a transcendent afterlife but beleives that each member will be duplicated in the future, would they be satisfied that the population will persist through replacement of lost members or will they desire continuous personal immortality due to fear of the death experience or complications caused to the survivors with whom they have emotional ties?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Caplan's EMBO article:


Don, is this a naturalistic fallacy?

If the laws of nature provide scientists with the ability to radically extend life spans, then would not radical life extension be natural?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Relevant in what way? There has likely been some drift between the two individuals in 20 years, but for this to be relevant, the person on Earth would probably need to know whether his copy exists at all. Even then, this person may not concern himself with the existance of his far away likely short-lived out-dated (divergent) copy.


Sporadic duplication isn't ideal. It could just as well be the case that you're randomly duplicated only to be destroyed after a short burst of consciousness. It seems much more unlikely that the copy would be sustained with nourishment so as to persist once it's created. Mostly discontinuous sporadic duplication likely wouldn't lead to immortality, if the universe in your hypothetical example is finite in duration with finite constituent parts able to randomly form a duplicate. Though I suppose it's possible that a randomly constituted copy could persist, manage to escape this universe, and live forever in another universe(s).

The only duplicate the original may be concerned with, is the duplicate that is intended to persist in place of the original (should that be necessary), with the resources of the original in the same environment and with the same oppurtunities.

The kind of random duplication I had in mind would be various degrees of approximations to the person on Earth. These duplicates would not exist in a vacuum but in universes that are close approximations to our universe. The person on Earth would have no idea about the existence of any of the duplicates, except through statistical inference, and would have absolutely no interaction with them.

Here is an interesting point about the duplicates not knowing about each other. Your present self knows about your past self through memories. However, your present self does not know about your future self except through statistical inference. A person who dies in a tragic accident on day N likely would likely have had a total misconception on day N–1 about what his future self would be like on day N+1.

Now suppose a random duplicate in another universe happens to be a very close approximation to the person on Earth. Suppose the person on Earth dies in a tragic accident but the person in the other universe is lucky and survives to become immortal. According to Brian W’s present state argument, would not the person’s close approximation do a perfect job of continuing the life that was lost on Earth?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Yes. As long as the duplicate in the other universe was the most recent version of the person on Earth before death, divergence between the two wouldn't be a problem. So effectively, the same person is immortal.

Is "most recent" relevant when talking about duplicates in other universes? In the case of
Escaping from the Universe space-time connection between the parent and child universe is broken once the wormhole is closed. Unlike my example of random duplications, this is an example of intentional duplication through seeding of child universes with preservation of information about the inhabitants of the parent universe. Many seeds are widely broadcast with the hope that some will survive to reconstitute the inhabitants of the original universe. If a trillion seeds are sown and a million survive then each inhabitant of the parent universe is duplicated a million times in the child universe, which has lost space-time connection with the parent universe. In both this case and in the case of random duplication, immortality would be a matter of infinite duplication rather than infinite continuity.

To get back to the issue of aging, infinite duplication would succeed in giving every person an infinite existence but would fail on the issue concerning the impact of a person’s death on friends and relatives who survive. Conquering both the problem of aging and the problem of accidents would be essential to preventing the pain of such an impact. However, the problem would go away if human emotions were re-engineered to be highly flexible in changing emotional attachments. Those who lose a friend or loved one would be comforted to know that the person is alive in other universes and would quickly replace emotional ties with the departed person with emotional ties to others. This would be much simpler to accomplish than conquering of aging and would be infinitely simpler than reducing the probability of fatal accidents to absolute zero.

I can say this for the eradication of the aging problem. No matter how difficult it may be to eradicate aging, once the problem is solved in any given universe, the solution could then be made highly economical and could be administered to all of its people. However, there will always be new universes randomly appearing in which the aging problem yet needs to be solved. A person in a universe who has just received the cure to aging will have infinite duplicates in other universes which will die without ever receiving the cure. However, an aggressive pursuit of a cure for aging will increase the proportion of duplicates that benefit from the cure. Actually, at the end of the day, the statistics of nature have intrinsically determined what proportion of a person’s duplicates will benefit from a cure to aging and all successful scientific effort is simply a playing out of those statistics.