TED: Cynthia Kenyon: Experiments That Hint of Longer Lives
As RCS followers know, I’m rather intrigued by many of the popular transhumanist ideas, such as immortality. After all, if our bodies are just made of physical stuff - molecules and chemistry - then there’s no reason why we couldn’t control that process. Of course, that sounds pretty far-fetched. But perhaps it’s not as far as we’d imagine.
This TED talk introduces us to one of the avenues being explored in slowing down aging in humans. It has to do with a particular gene and was first discovered in a tiny worm, but has been shown applicable to birds, mice, and even humans. And while it doesn’t promise immortality, if it could even extend our lifespan by, say, 10 - 20%, that would be pretty amazing. For someone my age, that could mean an additional 5-10 years. And, these aren’t extra “old years”. One would actually age more slowly. One would stay younger for longer. If they’re able to add another 50% from the “youth-span”, that could mean another 25 years!
Lastly, as Aubrey De Grey has pointed out, we may all be able to achieve immortality in our lifetime (if one so desired). This is because, while it may be difficult to invent a drug or therapy which will simply make us immortal - at least anytime soon! - we may be able to continually create drugs which add to our longevity until scientists eventually achieve true immortality. Thus, for instance, if Ms. Kenyon’s therapy adds 15 years to my life, and more conventional medical breakthroughs add another 10 years to my life - that’s already another 25 years. During that time even more breakthroughs can occur, especially as the science improves. Thus, during that time, another discovery may add another 20 years, during which time another discovery may add another 20 years, until eventually we can simply control aging entirely. Dr. De Grey calls this the “longevity escape velocity”. Once one is able is able to live into those initial bursts of life-extending medicine, they’ll likely make be able to keep hanging on.
Imagine, we might be the last generation to know age-related death as an everyday occurrence. There will have to be museums about it so we can explain it to our kids… or great, great, great, grand-kids. What will we tell them?
(Source: ted.com)
