[matrixscarface]

In popular science (january 2005) There is a man named aubrey de grey. he says we can live say 5000 years? i said yea OK. but when he went into detail i became a believer of his theory. he says to replace the cell loss by engineering stem cells and reintroduce them. another is to insert "suicide" genes to go up against cell senescence and maybe cancer?? after that is to borrow genes from soil microbes and put enzymes with a taste for lysosomal junk into our systems, another is to rewire the immune system to rid the junk outside the cell and transport it inside, where lysosomes can digest it. after that is to produce chemicals that break the glucose-protein bond. then transfer mitochondrail DNA into cell nucleus for sakekeeping from mutations
I think this is VERY unlikely at this point in science. just imagine all the research and political interference, plus the cost of such a thing. i say it can, by theory. what do you all think about this

[Queso]

I've heard about this too, imagine what we'd look like.

[Thomas]

I forgot the name, but there was that crazy occult a few years ago that claimed they cloned a baby;

Their theory was that you can turn informatinon in your brain, (memories, thoughts, ect.) into information, and inject it into a clone of yourself, and keep doing this and you conciousness will live on this earth forever.

The other part of the theory involved aliens or something,

Anyway , hearing that article reminded me of that.

[TeleMad]

Thomas said:

I forgot the name, but there was that crazy occult a few years ago that claimed they cloned a baby; ...The other part of the theory involved aliens or something,

I don't know the exact spelling, but the cult was called something like the Raelians.

[matrixscarface]

that memory transfer i could see. because they have this brain implant named "braingate" where a armless man controled a computer mouse pointer around with his mind, it actually read his thoughts, what about kinda writing memory into a mind. that would make school a useless place

[OpenMind5]

Immortality....*sigh* Highly overrated....
I have lived for a 1,000 years and its still the same old same...

LOL!!!
Op5

[Queso]

Uh oh, this sounds like the Matrix.

[C1ay]

I just saw an article recently where Ray Kurzweil predicts that if we can just live another 20 years until technology gets to a point, we'll be able to live forever. The article says,

"Kurzweil writes of millions of blood cell-sized robots, which he calls "nanobots," that will keep us forever young by swarming through the body, repairing bones, muscles, arteries and brain cells. Improvements to our genetic coding will be downloaded via the Internet. We won't even need a heart.

The claims are fantastic, but Kurzweil is no crank. He's a recipient of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT prize, which is billed as a sort of Academy Award for inventors, and he won the 1999 National Medal of Technology Award. He has written on the emergence of intelligent machines in publications ranging from Wired to Time magazine. The Christian Science Monitor has called him a "modern Edison." He was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002. Perhaps the MIT graduate's most famous inventions is the first reading machine for the blind that could read any typeface."

Could the planet survive it?

[pgrmdave]

Why would people want to live forever? Or even for so long? I can understand not wanting to die young, but I wouldn't want to live for five hundred years. I also wonder what the effect on memory would be. Is the brain capable of storing one thousand years of information?

[C1ay]

pgrmdave said:

Why would people want to live forever? Or even for so long? I can understand not wanting to die young, but I wouldn't want to live for five hundred years. I also wonder what the effect on memory would be. Is the brain capable of storing one thousand years of information?

Why not? Is there any proof that there is anything waiting for us after death? If there is no heaven, no afterlife, no reincarnation or anything else I'd just as soon stay here among the living. I think the mind would just purge older memories we don't need any longer to make room for new ones.

[pgrmdave]

And if the mind purged memories, is it worth it to forget all the people you once knew? I think that I would rather live for a hundred years than for a thousand. Even if there is nothing beyond this. If I couldn't remember my mother, or father. Or if I couldn't remember what life was like when I was younger, I don't think that it would be worth being alive that long. I'm not saying that it is worthless - I think it would be interesting to see what politics would be like if we lived that long - but I don't understand the benefit.

[C1ay]

pgrmdave said:

I think it would be interesting to see what politics would be like if we lived that long

I think it would be interesting to watch technology and science.

[pgrmdave]

I think that technology and science would progress at the same, increasing rate. Technology builds off of itself, not off of the people who create it. Politics, on the other hand, is a short term game, because no politician needs to think about his or her constituents' children or grandchildren. If people lived much longer, we could take a more longterm view of things.

[lindagarrette]

C1ay said:

Why not? Is there any proof that there is anything waiting for us after death? If there is no heaven, no afterlife, no reincarnation or anything else I'd just as soon stay here among the living. I think the mind would just purge older memories we don't need any longer to make room for new ones.

It doesn't matter if you live for a second or a thousand years or more. Your self is your physical being and your memories. Both of those are subject to constant change. Meanwhile, all you experience is the present moment.

[Thomas]

orbsycli said:

Uh oh, this sounds like the Matrix.

Indeed, once we find out how to get information in a liquid form, we could just inject it into the brain, or hook up a cable in the back of our heads and instantly recieve millions of bits of information , there would be not need for school, classic education.

Why do some people keep saying they would not want to live thousands of years? I think life is great - even though I do believe in an afterlife , I would still want to live for a few thousand years . I think It would be fun. Who cares if I don't remember all of it?