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Live Forever
Once strictly the realm of fable and science fiction, immortality (or at least vastly extended life spans) might be reality for some people alive right now.
Advances in understanding the chemistry of living cells are progressing at a rapid rate. Just this week, two genes that may play an important role in cellular aging were discovered. This is test tube and Petrie dish stuff now, but understanding how these processes work is the first step in potentially controlling them. The ability to do so might only be decades away.
Of course that assumes that we don't have war, famine, climate breakdown, large asteroid strikes, supervolcanoes or any other global tragedy that throws our civilization into decline or worse. Lacking such impediments to progress, full understanding of cellular chemistry is only a matter of time: whether it is decades or centuries, it will someday be possible to cheat death by aging.
That this will create a whole host of moral issues and social problems is obvious and undeniable. We have enough problems with overpopulation now and the role of religion in a society without natural death is problematical. Would a society immune to aging be more or less likely to engage in war? If the drugs and treatments are initially prohibitively expensive, do we "save" our best and brightest or do we let pure economics determine the cuts?
Do we even want to live for centuries? Would we become bored, or would we go on growing intellectually? On that note, how much knowledge can the human brain store - where is the saturation point?
Some people alive today may have to grapple with those questions and more I haven't thought about. There are people already arguing the morality of aging research itself: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/blackford20060524/ and http://www.bioethics.gov/background/callahan_paper.html are just two examples. Both of these question whether aging research is a worthwhile goal , yet admit that disease research inevitably leads to the same result. It seems the problems of extended (healthy) lives will have to be dealt with sooner or later.
We Oak Pointers may not see this strange world, but our grandchildren almost certainly will. Will this enrich us or impoverish us? Will it lead to more tolerance and compassion or less? Cheapen the value of live or enhance it? Will those Methuselah's use their extended lives to grow intellectually or will there be a society of dilettantes and pleasure seekers? Fascinating questions, and I'd love to know the answers.
Send comments and new posts to tony@aplawrence.com
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