The Quest For Immortality

CBS News-60 Minutes ^ | 1/1/2006

[Neville72]

(CBS) How’s this for an offer you can’t refuse: how would you like to live say, 400 or 500 years, or even more and all of them in perfect health? It’s both a Utopian and a nightmare scenario but there are those who say it is well within the realm of possibility.

Though we live longer and healthier lives than our grandparents, 100 is more or less the outer limit because, catastrophic disease aside, we just plain wear out. But 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer talked to one scientist who says that’s old-fashioned thinking, that sometime in the next 20 to 30 years or so we’ll be able to recondition ourselves for the first steps towards immortality.

[atomicpossum]

Though we live longer and healthier lives than our grandparents, 100 is more or less the outer limit because, catastrophic disease aside, we just plain wear out. But 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer

Boy, talk about unintended irony.

[SittinYonder]

If I'm immortal then I don't think any amount of investment or savings will cover me to retire at 50. And I've got to say, after the first 200 years or so of showing up at the office, I'd have to seriously consider eating the barrel of a gun.

Besides, I love my wife but at some point I'm going to be looking at that 238-year-old woman I'm married to and thinking, "Goodness I could go for a 20 year old right about now."

I'll just keep my mortality.

[billorites]

The annuity industry won't stand for this.

[metmom]

Hundreds of years old? Isn't that just a myth from a book of fairy tales?

[mlc9852]

And we think there are problems with Social Security now...

[eyespysomething]

Reconditioning ourselves for immortality?

Gotta get to heaven at some point.

BTW- What makes you think your wife will want to keep a 233 yr old man around anyway?

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

And de Grey acknowledges that immortality will not be cheap. "We are talking about serious expenditure here. We are talking about expenditure in excess of what's being spent on the war in Iraq, for example."

No matter what the article's topic, the MSM can find a way to slip in a criticism of the Iraq war. Now, the war is responsible for the premature deaths of billions of people who never came near the war zone.

[Walkingfeather]

I see my dad tired and stooped over at age 72 I do not think I want to be in that candition at 272.

[Neville72]

If you were still in danger of being tired and stooped over you wouldn't make it to 272.

Check this article out.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=memelist.html?m=5%23554

[AmericanChef]

-His day job is managing a fruit fly database. -

Case closed.

[Durus]

I don't think anyone is going to force you to take longevity treatments so don't get too anxious.

[Durus]

They use fruit flies in longevity studies because they have a very short life span.

[Noachian]

"From an evolutionary perspective, we're designed to make it,...

Designed to evolve? That's a weird way of making a statement about evolution.

Yet, it's strange how each species is "designed/evolved" to "wear out" after a predetermined life span.

If one specie had ever evolved into an ageless creature wouldn't all life as we know it would become extinct due to overcrowding? Isn't that what immortality will lead to?

[darkocean]

Last I heard, you can still buy a copy of the KJ bible for five or six dollars in stores. I still prefer that version of immortality...

[timsbella]

Thank you very much. I'd rather see people focused on their souls and minds. Want imortality? Consider good works. Now that's a legacy.

[Old Professer]

I have a new doctor who precribed Lisinopril 10mg for a BP of 148/104; after reading the list of possible side-effects, I'm having a hard time deciding which is the greater risk - taking the meds or living with the condition.

Maybe I can just worry about it forever.

[River_Wrangler]

Yet, it's strange how each species is "designed/evolved" to "wear out" after a predetermined life span. If one specie had ever evolved into an ageless creature wouldn't all life as we know it would become extinct due to overcrowding? Isn't that what immortality will lead to?

Don't forget about sharks. They have no ageing process or predetermined lifespan.

[Neville72]

"I don't think anyone is going to force you to take longevity treatments so don't get too anxious."

Very true. Can't imagine anyone being forced to submit to treatments they didn't desire. That said, I find it even more unlikely that many people would choose to die of cancer, heart attack, stroke or organ failure when the technology is there to prevent them.

200 years ago life expectancy was 35, 100 years ago it was 48. Most people didn't refuse antibiotic treatment once it became available which radically extended life expectancy and people fifteen or twenty years from now won't refuse treatment that repairs or replaces failing organs or genetically prevents the onset of cancer.

For a look at what the near future(15-20 years)may hold take a listen to this presentation Ray Kurzweil recently gave to the Council on Foreign Relations. (Nov. 2005)

Fascinating stuff.


http://www.cfr.org/publication/9431/exponentially_expanding_future_from_exponentially_shrinking_technology.html?breadcrumb=default

[Iris7]

To me this whole business is a sales pitch for a ton of grant money, a torrent of grant money. De Gray's dream is not "immortality" but power and riches.

"....de Grey acknowledges that immortality will not be cheap. "We are talking about serious expenditure here. We are talking about expenditure in excess of what's being spent on the war in Iraq, for example."

Many people will believe (at least tell themselves that they believe) any absurdity to gain prestige, fame, and tons of money. De Gray is one such, and the Global Warming pushers are another.