Life extension

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Do you think it's possible? Extending the human life for long periods of time or even indefinitely? Why do you think that way? I for one think it's possible but it would be difficult no doubt.

*edit* Ah crap I meant to post this in the random discussion thread, NOOOOOOOO!! ! (can you move it please? =D)

I bet a form of immortality is just right around the corner, technologically. Take a snapshot of brain structure right at the moment of death, or slightly before, including all the DNA information - beam it back to wherever, and apply the brain code (with the magic of science!) to a premade clone of yourself and voila. Assuming there's nothing tricky like souls or pesky scientific impossibility to get in the way...........

Yes.

There's no special biological obstacle to things living forever (or at least, for a long time); different creatures have widely differing lifespans (some very long compared to us, some very short) as it is.

There are many practical biological issues involved - bits of the body wearing out, cancers, senility, fertility, all sorts of stuff - but they're all do-able with sufficient effort.

The main problem is that humans are fundamentally incapable of dealing with exponential growth, either of wealth or of population... oh, no, that's already our main problem without bringing life extension into it. But life extension would make things even more acute.



DNA isn't relevant and uploading to a clone isn't feasible, but scanning the (dead ^^) brain is close to do-able and storing the information (in a static way) is do-able, if you happen to have several petabytes worth of storage space free. Actually running such a stored brain isn't within the capability of any existing supercomputer, though I read somewhere recently that someone (probably DARPA) is doing preliminary work with the ultimate aim of building one that could.

I think its entirely possible to extend human life span. In fact, currently, even if we do not have any more advanced medical discovery, we can extend the human life span quite a bit by:

-Everyone choosing to live a healthy lifestyle.
-Bring the advanced medical technology to less developed countries.
-Provide everyone in the world with proper sanitation of water and food.
-vaccinate everyone with the dangerous bacteria and viruses

I have doubts about biological immortality though.

But yes, human life will extend quite a bit in the near future.

To be honest I don't like the idea of life extension. There are billions of us, and we're growing everyday. If we all live for hundreds of years, and continue to reproduce, we're going to kill ourselves.

We could easily increase the human lifespan tenfold with genetic engineering.

...but that just wouldn't be "right."

It never works out very well in fiction...



But it'll happen.

If it can be done, someone will do it.

Regardless of whether or not it should be done.

moved to Random Discussion at the OP's request