Nigel Warburton talks about the significance of death
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Think Humanist Thought for the Day - Nigel Warburton
Posted by
crabsallover
at
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
0
comments
Labels: Atheism, Immortality, Nigel Warburton, Thought for the Day - Humanist Society of Scotland
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Time: Immortality & Ageing - Michio Kaku
TIME | 2. LIFETIME Friday 20 October 2006 7pm-8pm TBC
Why is our time limited? And does it have to be? Could our age-old dream of immortality ever be possible? In episode two, Michio Kaku explores these questions and meets some of the key people involved in the cutting-edge research into ageing. He travels to the amazing Methuselah tree, which is almost 5000 years old and still producing new pine cones. He discovers that time does get faster as you get older and, under hypnosis, he goes in search of his lost time, stored as memories. But it only proves that lost time is really gone forever.
We are incredible machines for living - but if we're programmed to live, are we also programmed to die? As we grow, our cells divide into a complex colony of three trillion individual cells in our bodies. Sir Paul Nurse has spent a lifetime studying cells to search for the most basic process of life - the secret of cell division. We discover that cells seem to be potentially immortal. They continue to divide again and again perfectly. Even our own bodies are replaced through our lives - most of our cells are replaced in a roughly seven-year cycle. Yet we know that we age and that time wreaks changes on our bodies.
This episode reveals the biological changes in our cells that make our skin wrinkle and our bones become brittle. This new understanding is beginning to reveal the process of time in our bodies and, through this, scientists are now looking at ways of slowing or even stopping time. Scientists in California are studying sea urchins for clues as they not only live longer than ever thought before but they appear to show no sign of ageing. Genetic manipulation is extending the lives of mice. And a British scientist is now suggesting that the pace of advance is so fast that the first immortals are already living today; that before our children have reached the end of their natural lives, the technology to stop and even reverse ageing will exist. But what will that mean for our essential humanity?
WATCH VIDEO CLIPS
An experiment which proves time does get faster as you get older
How genetic research into ageing has produced extraordinary possibilities for extending life
Posted by
crabsallover
at
Saturday, November 25, 2006
0
comments
Labels: ageing, Gerontology, Immortality, Michio Kaku, Time
'Don't fall for the cult of immortality' Olshansky
'Don't fall for the cult of immortality'
Some 1,700 years ago the famous Chinese alchemist, Ko Hung, became the prophet of his day by resurrecting an even more ancient but always popular cult, Hsien, devoted to the idea that physical immortality is within our grasp.
Ko Hung believed that animals could be changed from one species to another (the origin of evolutionary thought), that lead could be transformed into gold (the origin of alchemy), and that mortal humans can achieve physical immortality by adopting dietary practices not far different from today's ever-popular life-extending practice of caloric restriction.
He found arrogant and dogmatic the prevailing attitude that death was inevitable and immortality impossible.
I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already
Ko Hung died at the age of 60 in 343 AD, which was a ripe old age for his time, but Hsien apparently didn't work well for him.
The famous 13th Century English philosopher and scientist, Roger Bacon, also believed there was no fixed limit to life and that physical immortality could be achieved by adopting the "Secret Arts of The Past". Let's refer to Bacon's theory as SATP.
According to Bacon, declines in the human lifespan occurred since the time of the ancient patriarchs because of the acquisition of increasingly more decadent and unhealthy lifestyles.
All that was needed to reacquire physical immortality, or at least much longer lives, was to adopt SATP - which at the time was a lifestyle based on moderation and the ingestion of substances such as gold, pearl, and coral - all thought to replenish the innate moisture or vital substance alleged to be associated with aging and death. What do the ancient purveyors of physical immortality all have in common? They are all dead.
Bacon died in 1292 in Oxford at the age of 78, which was a ripe old age for his time, but SATP apparently didn't work well for him either.
Physical immortality is seductive. The ancient Hindus sought it, the Greek physician Galen from the 2nd Century AD and the Arabic philosopher/physician Avicenna from the 11th Century AD believed in it.
Alexander the Great roamed the world searching for it, Ponce de Leon discovered Florida in his quest for the fountain of youth, and countless stories of immortality have permeated the literature, including the image of Shangra-La portrayed in James Hilton's book Lost Horizon, or in the quest for the holy grail in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
What do the ancient purveyors of physical immortality all have in common? They are all dead.
Prophets of immortality
I was doing a BBC radio interview in 2001 following a scientific session I had organised on the question of how long humans can live, and sitting next to me was a young scientist, with obviously no sense of history, who was asked the question: "how long will it be before we find the cure for ageing?"
Without hesitation he said that with enough effort and financial resources, the first major breakthrough will occur in the next 5-10 years.
My guess is that when all of the prophets of immortality have been asked this question throughout history, the answer is always the same.
The modern notion of physical immortality once again being dangled before us is based on a premise of "scientific" bridges to the future that I read in a recently published book entitled Fantastic Voyage by the techno-guru Ray Kurzweil and physician Terry Grossman.
They claim unabashedly that the science of radical life extension is already here, and that all we have to do is "live long enough to live forever".
What Kurzweil and others are now doing is weaving once again the seductive web of immortality, tantalising us with the tale that we all so desperately want to hear, and have heard for thousands of years - live life without frailty and debility and dependence and be forever youthful, both physically and mentally.
The seduction will no doubt last longer than its proponents.
'False promises'
To be fair, the science of ageing has progressed by leaps and bounds in recent decades, and I have little doubt that gerontologists will eventually find a way to avoid, or more likely delay, the unpleasantries of extended life that some say are about to disappear, but which as anyone with their eyes open realises is occurring with increasing frequency.
There is no need to exaggerate or overstate the case by promising that we are all about to live hundreds or even thousands of years.
The fact is that nothing in gerontology even comes close to fulfilling the promise of dramatically extended lifespan, in spite of bold claims to the contrary that by now should sound familiar.
What is needed now is not exaggeration or false promises, but rather, a scientific pathway to improved physical health and mental functioning.
If we happen to live longer as a result, then we should consider that a bonus.
S Jay Olshansky is a professor at the School of Public Health, UIC and author of The Quest for Immortality.
Friday, November 24, 2006
How to live long and prosper - "I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already." de Gray

Gerontology is the study of Ageing. Biogerontology is the subfield of gerontology dedicated to studying the specifically biological processes resulting in senescence. Biogerontologists are scientists who study these processes. Biomedical gerontologists are scientists who work to control, prevent, and reverse aging in both humans and animals. eg. Aubrey de Grey who extols The Seven Causes of Aging:-
- Nuclear Mutations/Epimutations:
- Mitochondrial Mutations:
- Intracellular Junk:
- Our cells are constantly breaking down proteins and other molecules that are no longer useful or which can be harmful. Those molecules which can’t be digested simply accumulate as junk inside our cells. Atherosclerosis, macular degeneration and all kinds of neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer's disease) are associated with this problem.
- Extracellular Junk:
- Harmful junk protein can also accumulate outside of our cells. The amyloid plaque seen in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients is one example.
- Cell Loss:
- Some of the cells in our bodies cannot be replaced, or can only be replaced very slowly - more slowly than they die. This decrease in cell number causes the heart to become weaker with age, and it also causes Parkinson's disease and impairs the immune system.
- Cell Senescence:
- This is a phenomenon where the cells are no longer able to divide, but also do not die and let others divide. They may also do other things that they’re not supposed to, like secreting proteins that could be harmful. Immune senescence and type 2 diabetes are caused by this.
- Extracellular Crosslinks:
- Cells are held together by special linking proteins. When too many cross-links form between cells in a tissue, the tissue can lose its elasticity and cause problems including arterioscerosis and presbyopia.
FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS, I have been refining and promoting an approach to life extension termed “Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence” (SENS).1,2 SENS differs from other approaches (such as antioxidants, hormesis, or calorie restriction mimetics) in two main ways: firstly it is an approach to reversal (repair) of eventually pathogenic age-related changes (“damage”), as opposed to the retardation of their further accumulation, and secondly it is a piecemeal approach, in which the various types of such damage are addressed individually, rather than being simultaneously combated by the downstream effects of a single “magic bullet.”
As reported by the BBC De Grey says "I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already."
Life expectancy is increasing in the developed world. But Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000. Here, he explains why.
Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address ageing just as effectively as we address many diseases today.
I claim that we are close to that point because of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) project to prevent and cure ageing.
It is not just an idea: it's a very detailed plan to repair all the types of molecular and cellular damage that happen to us over time.
This means that all parts of the project should be fully working in mice within just 10 years and we might take only another 10 years to get them all working in humans.
When we get these therapies, we will no longer all get frail and decrepit and dependent as we get older, and eventually succumb to the innumerable ghastly progressive diseases of old age.
We will still die, of course - from crossing the road carelessly, being bitten by snakes, catching a new flu variant etcetera - but not in the drawn-out way in which most of us die at present.
I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already
So, will this happen in time for some people alive today? Probably. Since these therapies repair accumulated damage, they are applicable to people in middle age or older who have a fair amount of that damage.
It is very complicated, because ageing is. There are seven major types of molecular and cellular damage that eventually become bad for us - including cells being lost without replacement and mutations in our chromosomes.
Each of these things is potentially fixable by technology that either already exists or is in active development.
'Youthful not frail'
The length of life will be much more variable than now, when most people die at a narrow range of ages (65 to 90 or so), because people won't be getting frailer as time passes.
There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives, because in both cases we are giving people the chance of more life.
The average age will be in the region of a few thousand years. These numbers are guesses, of course, but they're guided by the rate at which the young die these days.
If you are a reasonably risk-aware teenager today in an affluent, non-violent neighbourhood, you have a risk of dying in the next year of well under one in 1,000, which means that if you stayed that way forever you would have a 50/50 chance of living to over 1,000.
And remember, none of that time would be lived in frailty and debility and dependence - you would be youthful, both physically and mentally, right up to the day you mis-time the speed of that oncoming lorry.
Should we cure ageing?
Curing ageing will change society in innumerable ways. Some people are so scared of this that they think we should accept ageing as it is.
I think that is diabolical - it says we should deny people the right to life.
The right to choose to live or to die is the most fundamental right there is; conversely, the duty to give others that opportunity to the best of our ability is the most fundamental duty there is.
There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives, because in both cases we are giving people the chance of more life. To say that we shouldn't cure ageing is ageism, saying that old people are unworthy of medical care.
Playing God?
People also say we will get terribly bored but I say we will have the resources to improve everyone's ability to get the most out of life.
People with a good education and the time to use it never get bored today and can't imagine ever running out of new things they'd like to do.
And finally some people are worried that it would mean playing God and going against nature. But it's unnatural for us to accept the world as we find it.
Ever since we invented fire and the wheel, we've been demonstrating both our ability and our inherent desire to fix things that we don't like about ourselves and our environment.
We would be going against that most fundamental aspect of what it is to be human if we decided that something so horrible as everyone getting frail and decrepit and dependent was something we should live with forever.
If changing our world is playing God, it is just one more way in which God made us in His image.
Aubrey de Grey leads the SENS project at Cambridge University and also runs the Methuselah Mouse prize for extending age in mice.
says S Jay Olshansky in a reply to above de Grey article. What do the ancient purveyors of physical immortality all have in common? They are all dead. False promises'
