Physical or Techology-based Immortality: Achieveable?

[dannieyankee]

Personally, I believe that the prospects of immortality, or at least a very extended life (possibly into the thousands) is no longer a matter of IF but a matter of WHEN.

And I believe it could happen within the 21st century. Questions, comments? Naysayers?

[Tormod]

I'd say it's a matter of HOW. What do you base your belief on?

[Galapagos]

A good place to start might be looking at other long-lived animals. A brief survey indicates that anything more than a couple hundred years is probably asking too much:

Tortoise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tortoises generally have lifespans comparable with those of human beings, and some individuals are known to have lived longer than 150 years. Because of this, they symbolize longevity in some cultures, such as China. The oldest tortoise ever recorded, almost the oldest individual animal ever recorded, was Tu'i Malila, which was presented to the Tongan royal family by the British explorer Captain Cook shortly after its birth in 1777. Tui Malila remained in the care of the Tongan royal family until its death by natural causes on May 19, 1965. This means that upon its death, Tui Malila was 188 years old.[4] The record for the longest-lived vertebrate is exceeded only by one other, a koi named Hanako whose death on July 17, 1977 ended a 215 year life span.[5]

I'm curious as to what actually does end up killing the 150+ year old tortoises or koi fish. I mean to ask, what part of them tends to wear out or stop functioning. Also, I wonder if it is the same general causes of death in old-aged koi and tortoises.

Biological 'Fountain Of Youth' Found In New World Bat Caves
Asish and colleagues made their discovery by extracting proteins from the livers of two long-lived bat species (Tadarida brasiliensis and Myotis velifer) and young adult mice and exposed them to chemicals known to cause protein misfolding. After examining the proteins, the scientists found that the bat proteins exhibited less damage than those of the mice, indicating that bats have a mechanism for maintaining proper structure under extreme stress.

They didn't state how long bats actually live, so I dug this up on google:

http://www.life.umd.edu/faculty/wilk...lk_South02.pdf
The evolutionary theory of aging predicts that life span should decrease in response to the amount of mortality caused by extrinsic sources. Using this prediction, we selected six life history and ecological factors to use in a comparative analysis of longevity among 64 bat species. On average, the maximum recorded life span of a bat is 3.5 times greater than a non-flying placental mammal of similar size. Records of individuals surviving more than 30 years in the wild now exist for five species. Univariate and multivariate analyses of species data, as well as of phylogenetically independent contrasts obtained using a supertree of Chiroptera, reveal that bat life span signifi- cantly increases with hibernation, body mass and occasional cave use, but decreases with reproductive rate and is not influenced by diet, colony size or the source of the record. These results are largely consistent with extrinsic mortality risk acting as a determinant of bat longevity. Nevertheless, the strong association between life span and both reproductive rate and hibernation also suggests that bat longevity is strongly influenced by seasonal allocation of non-renewable resources to reproduction. We speculate that hibernation may provide a natural example of caloric restriction, which is known to increase longevity in other mammals.

The above journal article was written before any of the protein analysis in the news article linked was done, so there is no mention of the potential role any of those findings could play in bat longevity.

[Boerseun]

The polymerase that runs up and down DNA doing error-checking during replication, seem to fall apart and make more errors in copying after the organism have passed a certain age.

It seems, based on this, that death itself is genetically built into animals. Which is a good thing, because if not for this, overcrowding would ensue, and much older gene sets would compete with newer and fitter genetic combinations, slowing down evolution by a few orders of magnitude. I'm sure there were organisms without this particular feature, but they were not as able to quickly adapt to environmental change as species where the animals die after having successfully brought their offspring into the world.

As a case in point, consider sexless animals like bacteria. They merely split in two, and only reach their end when resources run out or by some environmental disaster (like applying deoderant to armpit). Bacteria are, for all accounts and purposes, immortal. But they battle to adapt to new environments, because the elements of sex and death haven't been incorporated into their strategy.

Immortality is easily achievable with current technology. All that needs to be done is to identify and remove what triggers the DNA-replication error-checking polymerase to start slacking on the job, and then we'll all be perpetual teenagers. I don't think its a very good idea, however. A billion years ago we invented sex, and death is the price we have to pay for it.

[dannieyankee]

I'm not sure if this forum considers Wikipedia a viable source of information, but from what I read on the website and it's sources, these are basically the ideas that have the most chance:

1. Transhumanism - Transhumanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This one has the most controversy surrounding it.

2. Mind Uploading - Mind uploading - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This one would allow you to basically upload your memories onto a machine. This one scares me the most, as well, because we aren't 100% sure whether you are uploading memories or the person them self onto the machine.

3. Cyborgism - Cyborg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This one allows you to retain your for some part and simply replace certain parts with technological-based components. We are currently in the early stages of this phase (i.e. Pacemakers) and I believe this one is most possible in the near future.

[Tormod]

But none of those articles provides any help as to HOW this would be accomplished. What makes you think it's going to happen in this century (which is the topic of this thread)?

[Moontanman]

I'd like to see the memories and experiences of people down loaded into a computer or hard drive of some sort. I it always sad to see a human you love and respect die, one of the most profound aspect of the tragedy of death is the loss of the memories and experiences of that person. When I was young I spent lots of time with old people, I was fascinated by their stories of the world of their childhoods and all the things they did in their lives that we have little or no direct connection with. It's very sad to see the life experiences of those people evaporate into nothingness. If I could I would like to have myself downloaded to preserve if not myself then at least the life experiences I have that will no doubt be as strange to the generation of my grand and great grand children as my grand parents was to me.

[dannieyankee]

Tormod: I believe I gave links explaining various forms of achieving this idea and through what possible means we have.

For instance - Cyborgism. Nanotechnology. Think about it; a body made completely through technology, almost like a suit, run by a brain. It is already possible; think about the electric nerve impulses that are used to operate bionic hands such as the video in this very website. Using instead the brain's nerves and impulses, the ability to operate a body made of metal is very possible.