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Somewhere between 10,000 years and 100,000 years seems like the right amount to live as a human being and die with absolutely no regrets. Dying as a 257 years o

Somewhere between 10,000 years and 100,000 years seems like the right amount to live as a human being and die with absolutely no regrets. Dying as a 257 years old you can still imagine feeling some resentment for the future beyond you: what will they discover, how will the music sound. But dying as a 84,751 years old, after an incomprehensible amount of sensory data, inner and outer experiences, concepts, technologies, maybe even a bit of interstellar exploration, feels just natural. Therefore, no, we should not search for immortality, Terra will be unliveable for carbon-based organisms in 1 billion years [1], but we should look for mechanisms to preserve a somewhat trivial metabolism of ~50-90 kg of mass for 10,000 to 100,000 years. [1] "1.2 billion years [from now], high estimate until all plant life dies out [...] rising temperatures will make any animal life unsustainable from this point on" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future#Earth,_the_Solar_System,_and_the_Universe:~:text=82%5D%5B83%5D-,1.2%20billion,-High%20estimate%20until https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future#Ear...

ramraj07 4y ago
I’m just being reasonable here. It’s _possible_ I might find life that’s thousands of years long interesting, but it’s beyond my current imagination. I’ll be perfectly happy with doubling my lifetime (tripling my productive life?). as a biologist, that sounds more reasonable anyway.
- ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
  Jeanne Louise Calment lived 122 years and 164 days [1]. Doubling the lifespan, 240+ years, is most certainly not possible, not reasonable, using diets, exercises, and so forth: if it were such a low hanging fruit, we would have already been there. Even if we could push the body using current technology, no one will want to live 100+ years (from age 70 to 160+) as an old person, being in pain constantly, fighting all kinds of cancers. Therefore, the only way I can see a lifespan push, not only x2, but x10, or even x100 (10,000 years—once you get x3/x4, it probably scales trivially) is through 100% organ regeneration and 100% programmatic control over the morphospace. Broke an arm? Amputate the limb and grow another one back, your cells already did it before. Liver cancer? Regrow another liver. Heart issues? Make another heart. Spend all the years above 35 as a perpetual 35 year old, eventually in the bodyshape of Chris Hemsworth/Margot Robbie (to keep the examples in Australia). This scientific fancy is somehow grounded in the mind-expanding perspectives coming from Dr. Michael Levin's lab [2]. Personally, I'm compelled enough by their thesis, programmatic control over cells, that I started learning about their work, BETSE, Bio Electric Tissue Simulation Engine [3], and try to build on top a BioElectric Simulation Orchestrator, BESO [4]. Most probably, however, we won't see 100% human organ regeneration in our regular lifetimes, but never say never. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment [2] Speaking with Cells: the Electrical Future of Regenerative Medicine with Dr. Michael Levin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzGaakopAKU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzGaakopAKU [3] https://github.com/betsee/betse https://github.com/betsee/betse [4] https://github.com/daysful/beso https://github.com/daysful/beso
  - ramraj07 4y ago
    You’re right we can push beyond that limit or even there (assuming that person actually lived that long, look up the controversy) with just diet or the biology we know today. But as you point that’s nothing fundamentally problematic with the idea of our body being viable for hundreds of years with the right support. So I’m hopeful.

ramraj07 4y ago

I’m just being reasonable here. It’s _possible_ I might find life that’s thousands of years long interesting, but it’s beyond my current imagination. I’ll be perfectly happy with doubling my lifetime (tripling my productive life?). as a biologist, that sounds more reasonable anyway.

ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
Jeanne Louise Calment lived 122 years and 164 days [1]. Doubling the lifespan, 240+ years, is most certainly not possible, not reasonable, using diets, exercises, and so forth: if it were such a low hanging fruit, we would have already been there. Even if we could push the body using current technology, no one will want to live 100+ years (from age 70 to 160+) as an old person, being in pain constantly, fighting all kinds of cancers. Therefore, the only way I can see a lifespan push, not only x2, but x10, or even x100 (10,000 years—once you get x3/x4, it probably scales trivially) is through 100% organ regeneration and 100% programmatic control over the morphospace. Broke an arm? Amputate the limb and grow another one back, your cells already did it before. Liver cancer? Regrow another liver. Heart issues? Make another heart. Spend all the years above 35 as a perpetual 35 year old, eventually in the bodyshape of Chris Hemsworth/Margot Robbie (to keep the examples in Australia). This scientific fancy is somehow grounded in the mind-expanding perspectives coming from Dr. Michael Levin's lab [2]. Personally, I'm compelled enough by their thesis, programmatic control over cells, that I started learning about their work, BETSE, Bio Electric Tissue Simulation Engine [3], and try to build on top a BioElectric Simulation Orchestrator, BESO [4]. Most probably, however, we won't see 100% human organ regeneration in our regular lifetimes, but never say never. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment [2] Speaking with Cells: the Electrical Future of Regenerative Medicine with Dr. Michael Levin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzGaakopAKU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzGaakopAKU [3] https://github.com/betsee/betse https://github.com/betsee/betse [4] https://github.com/daysful/beso https://github.com/daysful/beso
- ramraj07 4y ago
  You’re right we can push beyond that limit or even there (assuming that person actually lived that long, look up the controversy) with just diet or the biology we know today. But as you point that’s nothing fundamentally problematic with the idea of our body being viable for hundreds of years with the right support. So I’m hopeful.