Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8139816.stm

As time goes by, its undeniably noticeable that we are getting much closer to a man-made fountain of youth.

Masking the research with the face of "life extension", would it actually be a good thing that one day man will never age at all, hence not dying at all?
In terms of research and sciences, it might be the most significant ever, but socially and environmentally, is it?

Unless of course till then, man had found a way to actually step into the world of 'after-death' and see what's in there, then we might have another thought of actually living forever.

Even if say there are nothing after death, then we seriously need the technology to either help us migrate to all sorts of places in the Universe, or just simply shrink us to ants size just to make more space here on Earth.

In my opinion, the essence of life is in the soul, once the shell is gone, it cannot be brought back to life. and that is why even with cloning, the cloned product no longer shares behaviorial traits of its clone, maybe just the physical aspects

This post has been edited by beatlesalbum: Jul 12 2009, 07:07 PM

firedauz,

Most human beings are INCAPABLE of living happily regardless of their physical environment. So, living longer just prolong the suffering. So, why does it matters??

We NEED to learn how to live first.

Dreamer

if we have immortality, we first need to create/discover more resources and/or stop breeding.

immortality at current scenario is unsustainable.

Nowadays there r many diseases dat hav no cure.So prolong ur life means u suffer longer.
Just my tot

Lol, life extension is nothing more than confining me safely into a prison for life sentence.

Think about that.

Living longer as a form of happiness only applies to a small minority of 6 Billion population we r talking here.

Now, sustaining one human living modern lifestyle - take US for example would need as much as few thousands of dollars to continue for that lifestyle in 1 month. This money in turn is calculated into amount of resources used: Petroleum, Tree, Water, Oxygen, Clothes, Space, Soil, food and yada yada.

So, making humans live longer will definitely bring trouble into the next level as a whole human population are taken into account.

Thus, summary: Living longer doesn't solve anything in the world.

I think immortality will be good in the long run.

In the short run, we will see the problem of overpopulation and dwindling of life-sustaining resources on Earth, but in the long run we will see a tremendous speed increase in the progress of humanity.

Imagine learning physics from an Issac Newton lecture at Multimedia University instead of getting it from a dude who cant teach to save his life, my god that would be fantastic.

Immortality will grant us a continuity of knowledge, we don't need to pick up the pieces from where some great mind left off, we can join them and work with them.

The knowledge of the devastations of war will prevent another from happening, finally giving us lasting and perhaps permanent peace.

It would be awesome for mankind if we didn't die and as I understand it, we're about 30 - 40 years away from it

If your talking about life extension or immortality, whats the difference between this and cyrogenic suspension, where they freeze you and 100 years later you can experience life again as your 200 years old or 100 and change at that time.

at the rate we are going with our mortality condition, the world is already being consumed up by the mere number of 6 billion of people.

and to live any longer would just mean armageddon in a shorter time.

Err, okay. How do you exactly solve the problem at the short run before even thinking about the long run?

And when there's no death, will people still appreciate life itself?

Look at how Michael Jackson being appreciated after HIS DEATH compared when he was still alive!!!

This post has been edited by Deadlocks: Jul 13 2009, 03:33 AM

not good, everything will end eventually. nothing is permanent..the world it self will end..it is proven..

earth is full.. so it is not good.. no death mean no giving bac to the earth.. no givin bac mean no nutrient cycle.. no nutrient cycle mean.. no life..
immortality to some maybe good.. but if to all.. it will be disastrous.. jus imagine the numbers of the population keeps on increasing.. wat bout the food supply, wat about the land .. wat about the environment..

Why bother striving so hard in life to achieve material wealth and fame if our lives only last an average of around 70 years.

Being immortal or living a long life like the elves in fantasy literatures actually will give more meaning to our struggle for achievements. Not necessarily a good thing though.

there is this theory that the longer we live, the more immoral/depraved we become. sooner or later we will get bored of whatever stimulus we get and experiment with more and more unhealthy stimulus.

one benefit of this that i can think of is that we can send these immortals to go for space explorations. normal humans will just die along the way since the universe is so big.

another one is like what mentioned by DeniseLau, we can gain continuity of knowledge. imagine if geniuses like einstein or nikola tesla is still alive and continued with their research.

to make it fair i think anybody who is given immortality should be disallowed/disabled to reproduce. that'll help balance things up a bit i think.

But it will still fall into the wrong hand/use,similiar to nobel's dynamite story.
This may prolong those criminal's life and wreak havoc of the world.
Just my tot

This post has been edited by HyourinMaru: Jul 13 2009, 08:12 PM

Its a good thing. Otherwise knowledge will go to a waste.

Err, this supposed to be the Science Lab group, concept of soul not scientifically proven yet.

Nowadays, living is akin to torment. We are just merely some souls tormented day in and day out.

Immortality certainly would not make the cut. I rather choose a quick exit.

Regards, Joey

immortality... if it does happen, chaos is assume all around the world as people battle for supremacy and some living in fear of the other...

immortal means u cant die no matter what.... so if u r captured and tormented for ur whole life, u will wish u will be dead but u cant die...

Immortal may be a good thing for few people but not the whole population.

Based on the content initially posted, this is not relevant as even if you manage to extend your lifespan indefinitely, you can still die of mortal wounds.

True. Which means probably the only way to truly be immortal is to somehow transfer your consciousness into a machine and hope to hell it don't get nuked! I just remembered the movie 6th day, where the characters were cloned and their consciousness and memories were somehow backed up into a hard disk by retinal scan. BS i know, but maybe that might lead sumwhere?

The short run problems can be overcome by advancing technology. Eventually those problems I mentioned will be a problem no more.

And honestly, I don't really have any concerns about "appreciating life'. There's nothing to appreciate in life except ones achievements. If you lived all your life in some jungle isolated from society, nobody is really going to give a crap whether you live or die.

Michael Jackson is being appreciated because of his work in the music industry, in pop and in bringing a new light to black musicians in the US. If he was a road sweeper, do you think he'll get the great "send off" he's getting now?

So with this in mind, the achievements of individuals will always be appreciated as long as it works out for the better.

And if you are concerned about death being irrelevant in the future, don't worry, it still will be. If advances made it such that humans become immortal, people become used to the concept of eternal life and death will be perceived in a far scarier way than us now because it's not normal and it'll be strange and unbelievable. To highlight this, I give you an example. Take as an example our situation now, our average mortality rate is 78 years old, but about a century or two ago, the mortality was 36 years old. At 30, you would have been considered as a wise old man in the past, but today you are considered still young. So now if I come and tell you that the average mortality of the people living in Nigeria is 35, you'll be shocked and you'll find that it's unbelievable. That's how it will be in the future when the future when someone dies. It might make it onto CNN when someone dies somewhere in the world...

Hey, just because someone is biologically immortal in their natural state, doesn't mean the death penalty would no longer hold sway. Electric chairs will still kill, decapitation will still kill, poisons, bullets, injuries and all that will still kill. It's just that diseases might be less lethal, HIV might have no effect, cardiac arrests will be unheard-of and cancer will be like flu now. Also it'll be such that brain neuron cell death and stagnation can be prevented and reversed, organs that fail can be easily replaced with stem-cell clones, animal-human hybrid organs or synthetic organs and so on.

Sure, prison sentences like 200 years prison and so on now means the person can actually make it out, but it'll be enough time to completely change a persons mindset (for better or worse).

This post has been edited by DeniseLau: Jul 14 2009, 11:55 PM

too bad rapamycin has side effects of immuno suppresant..just like resveratrol in high dose is toxic..btw, seems like these drugs is acting on slowing the senescence process.. it prolonged 30+% of mice lifespan..and no human test result...zz caloric restriction can prolong life of mice too, anti-oxidant drugs can slow aging too..still way to go for immortality..i think finding ways to control telomerase action to counter Hayflick limit would be more hopeful to reach immortal..

immortality doesnt necessary mean u will need to suffer..u can end ur life anytime when u're bored of living, which many ppl does time to time...

We should also take into account the psychological effects of having an indefinite lifespan. A human mind surviving through more than two centuries is unprecedented, let alone for infinity. There is a huge probability that it would drastically effect his mind, either for better or worse.

That will require 2 definitions of immortality:
1. Conditional - can end if choose
2. Unconditional - cannot die no matter what

im a firm believer of....

i love immortality cuz i'm curious about how the world will end

and life is too short,people say tat all the time...

Depends on what your defination of immortality is. If it is a human that cannot die whatsoever even if you stab them a million times, then i think the world will be in total chaos. Who will want to work anymore? We don't need food and water to survive, we can make as much enemies as we want but none can do anything to each other. Seems like an eternal torture.

This is not even the road to immortality, what we perceive Immortality is that he is no longer subject to many human basic needs. And by any means, he no longer have basic emotions too. So, Immortal is someone who will never die and will never succumb to mortal wounds. So the term mortal =/= immortal because of the word 'im' is attached to the word "mortal".

So, this discovery is pure bullcrap, making someone younger is only an anti-ageing process. So, meaning that making someone look younger or his insides are younger and healthier.
No matter what, he will still succumb to mortal wounds.

in my opinion, if one is immortal, they will just take their life for granted.

the reason life is so precious is because its temporary, and it's up to us to make use of it.

This post has been edited by hako: Jul 26 2009, 12:11 AM

If immortality means you can still die from stabs, starvation, illness (since its not invincible), then humans will die before 'immortality' will happen, because when no one dies, the ecosystem will go haywire... overpopulation and hunger

Every living things is struggling to die, what stops death is awareness.

Immortality is a kind of indulgence, something that people at the top of the social pyramid usually crave , so do the average men.

If immortality exists, I would say that everything will become ordinary and trivial because without the awareness of death, everything is ordinary.

Also, if immortality of our physical body does exist, men will never learn to appreciate what is around him. Imagine if you are playing a mario game, what will you do when you have 99 life and what when you have only 1? No matter who we are, all of us have only 1 life and when we die, it is game over. But most people live as though as they have 99 life

Immortality of the physical body does exist but only to people who are able to manipulate the position of their assemblage point.

Everyone of us, however, can maintain our awareness which normally cease upon death if we so desire, but only through a rigid and disciplined practice and with sheer determination. Noted that this does not mean immortality.

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Added on July 27, 2009, 7:09 pmYes, life in this world is short. In fact, it is so short that we can't witness all the marvels of it.
So, one should be aware that every moment could be his last moment on earth. Just like a warrior, he treats every battle as his last battle on earth.
Hence, one has to really reduce what is superfluous in his life.

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Added on July 27, 2009, 7:10 pmClap clap! so live like one!

This post has been edited by darksider: Jul 27 2009, 07:10 PM

if being immortal is only awarded to those who can afford it (meds or something) then the person is going to lead a sad life later on.

all the fun / thrill in this world is around because of our simple and short life I believe. To do things and succeed under all its "life" restriction made all achievements all the better. Extreme sports for example would lose its charm if we are immortal. To being able to do something while putting your whole life at state is a bliss.

plus I doubt that it is fun to see everyone else around you die while you are the only one still living. If we feel that 5 years could be a short time, then an immortal would feel that 50 years is a short time. Before they know it, their child is replaced by grandchild, great grandchild, great great grandchild. Their friends gone, replace with their children and grandchildren too. Time will fly so fast that life would be dull and its only a matter of time before death is desired.

If a tyrant was in power forever with his immortal army, I can already imagine how much suffering he'll bring to countless generations. Just imagine if Ivan the terrible or Hitler was immortal.

immortality to certain people is good
like those scientists....professors .... etc

to everyone its bad

You mean to everyone else?

There is a problem with immortality that is the problem of overpopulation on earth.

Michio Kaku predicted in his 3-part documentary '2057' that by then we'll have an almost perfect system of 'forever youth'.

You can argue that if you're young and fit, immortality isn't that bad a deal for whatever else counter-arguments out there, no?

All professionals are conspiracies against the laity - Shaw, George Bernard

If they were immortal, I can't imagine the consequences that the average men will bear as it has already been unbearable to most people today.