Do you think science will ever make us immortal?

Question

OneViewpoint · Accepted Answer

That depends on what you call immortality. Us whole, as we're born, same body? Not likely. Biological meat and water bags wear out, get damaged, and are hard to repair.

What if we can eventually migrate our consciousness to either a biological or non biological receptacle? Either an android body you could swap out at will. Or a shared virtual existence where our collective consciousnesses can be stored? No physical bodies at all. Is that immortality?

In either case you lose your connection to the physical world. Or do you? Sensors could be built to pick up more than visible light. UV, infrared, Xrays, and thermal radiation all become available. Hearing could be enhanced to better than a dog. A mass spectrometer could analyze biologics to detect "smells" no animal could detect. Capacitive touch sensors could give you nuanced "feel" beyond our current human capability.

Maybe we lose all connection with "self". We could be as tall and fit as we like. With different color hair every day of the week. Asian one day, Black the next, White on Fridays.

How does a human consciousness cope with immortal never ending existence. Are we built for forever? Do we just go insane and pull the plug at some point? Do we need to do periodic purges of information to stay sane? What does immortal mental illness look like?

LOL, I think about stuff like this.

Zack-Bann · Accepted Answer

For as long as humans roamed the earth there has been medicine.
We have always tried to prolong individual lives by solving all the health problems we have
And it’s an upward trend. Every day we cure more than before.

In theory: immortality can be achieved if we solve every single illness possible and prolong life indefinitely
But in reality the progress is too slow

Humans will reach extinction before medicine reaches saturation

Not to mention since medicine is dependent on natural resources and therefore isn’t free, it would take quite literally all the money in the world to achieve immortality for one person

Doing it for the whole planet is impossible

The only viable alternative would be a one size fits all solution.
A genetic manipulation that can turn the human body into an impenetrable fortress capable of fending off every illness even the most vicious and inoperable ones
But we might not have enough time to watch this be made before the next extinction event

Massageman · Answer

Our bodies will not be immortal. Our souls can be, however.

sage2021 · Answer

Why don't you ask our creator The Lord God?

HawkPerception · Answer

Yes and it's already happening now. If you live another 10 years, it's likely you'll be able to live an extremely long life and may even get to choose when you want to die. Humans are extremely intelligent and innovative and are learning to imitate other species. And it's not an impossinle concept. There are other species on our planet that are already essentially immortal, like the Turritopsis dohrnii (immortal jellyfish) and a hydra. Of course they can still die from physical damage. Immortal doesn't mean that you become bullet proof, but that if nothing damages you, you can pretty much live forever.

In the case of the immortal jellyfish, they go through a process of transdifferentiation which reverses their life cycle turning their old cells into young cells again. They do this when injured or threatened.

And in the case of the hydra, they are in a constant state of regenerating their stem cells, which keep them always remaining youthful.

It's only people who are uneducated on the matter, don't have the vision of what AI will be capable of, and what technology will exist in the future, who believe humans are bound to their current lifespan.

David Sinclair is a leading Harvard researcher on age reversal and he says they've already done it in other animals. And they're now moving on to experimentation on humans, which they'll have an endless amount of volunteers who are at the end of their life.

His process is more like the immortal jellyfish than the hydra. Soon, we'll be able to take a pill and become younger until we stop taking it. Then aging will continue naturally again. So basically we'll be able to reverse our age indefinitely.

This is already happening.

MisterWack · Answer

If there is life after death, we are already immortal to some extent.

Another thing is, we will never be truly immortal since The Sun exploding, the eventual heat death of the universe, our bodies apparently can only handle 300 years max until they perish, and a lot of other horrible things.

I don’t believe immortality via science is possible, but I think life and death is something we have to deal with and live with as humans.
Although I am thankful of the advancements we’ve made in medical science to help us combat vile diseases and disorders to make our lives more comfortable and live longer healthier lives without pain and discomfort.

WindAtMyBack · Answer

I think the aging process will be beat. Or cured if you want to think of it that way. I think that will happen during the lifetime of people alive today.

But aging and the associated ailments are not the only way to die. You could still die in an auto accident for example.

This opens a big moral and ethical dilemma. How do you die? A lot of people say they'd want to live forever, but would they still want to after 300 years? So how do they die? Things like assisted suicide are already controversial for terminally ill people. But what if they are not terminally ill? It would be even more controversial for a perfectly healthy person.

I think people alive today will need to deal with that. It's too late for me, unless they could actually reverse aging, which is more difficult than stopping it in the first place. Would I do it if possible? I don't know.

NathanDavis · Answer

immortality is already a thing for other creatures in nature.. well a "kind of immortality"

and for this one specific thing... science will not make a better job than nature

science would have to solve and figure out just so so so many things, and it would have to change a whole lot, and that makes it pointless if not impossible

science only works when nature approves... and if science manages to turn humans immortal... that human won't be a human anymore... and it will be more of a lobster or a jellyfish... lmao

Tarifa · Answer

Immortal no, although science will continue to make progress. I think there will be more and more people reaching a respectable age of 100 or more. Maybe it's not as much a question of science, but more a question of health care, nutrition and regular exercise.

Two questions arise: what will be the overall health condition once you reach 100, 110 or 120? I think no-one really looks forward to reaching an age where health is a major issue. Maybe you outlive your children. I don't know if this is something anyone might wish.

If it's purely a scientific and health issue, it might involve a considerable cost. I think about food supplements, regular check ups or even transplants of organs. That would put it out of reach of most mortals. As soon as big lumps of money come into play, is it moral to strive for immortality?

ChicoFromThe305 · Answer

I think true immortality will be impossible, I believe the farthest science will accomplish with immortality is prevent aging and maybe speed up healing but that's only immortality to natural death, it will be very hard to accomplish immortality when it comes to the millions of other ways someone can die, a quick decapitation for example will be an instant death, no science can stop that, or if someone runs up on you behind you and shoots you in the head, stopping aging will be a breakthrough in science but far from true immortality since immortality is not being able to die.

exitseven · Answer

In Rey Kurtzweil's book "The Singularity is near". he says that eventually we will invent a computer that will be able to reason like a human brain but will have the power of a digital computer. When that happens the sum total of human knowledge will double every 6 months instead of every 5 years. Most diseased will be eradicated including aging.

I read this book over ten years ago and a lot of what he said has taken place and it is AI that he is referring to when he say there will be a computer with the ability of a human brain.
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Bricealan · Answer

@thegreenyogi interesting thought and, in my opinion, a great question. I have thought about that also, with the innovations in artificial organs and intelligence just about anything is within the realm of possibility. Then again, you will hear things from the religious zealots that this is against gods will or some such thing.

I think science could do some amazing things to extend our lives considerably, but immortality, I don't' know. Interesting though, though

strawberryapple · Answer

There are companies working on this as an alternative to euthanasia. Your body will die, but your mind can keep going. It’s geared towards people with terminal cancer and other diseases.
This all sounds crazy but the football player Tom Brady had his dog “Lua” cloned and now he has “Junie.”

Anonymous · Answer

No. I remember thinking this when I was younger before I discovered my faith. My father had just died and I was angry at God and I said to God, "Not only will I never worship you, I will do all in my power to turn as many people from you"! And that I couldn't wait till human technology made God obsolete.

God understood I was angry. And now that I'm a couple decades removed from that I can see how silly the words were. Because we will NEVER be immortal. Oh sure, we might be able to figure out how to extend life indefinitely. But God will ALWAYS have the final say. You will only be here on this plane of existence if it is part of God's plan.

Screenwriter · Answer

It certainly can make us loads of replacement parts to extend life, but immortality is far fetched and would mean no new people could be born. And those who could be made immortal, would likely have to have loads of money to get such services. So the longest lived would likely be the richest. NOt necessarily the most valuable to society. Another yuck!

4ngelic · Answer

probably not us the plebs, the billionaires probably. though by immortal it would be their consciousness in their cloud or extending their lifespan by 200 years and rewinding the clock to 30 visually. that's less science fiction than it sounds, they can do that with organs and mice (for the aging thing). some scientists think we'll be able to potentially one day make a 60yo person 20 again biologically. if we keep our bodies young, we can considerably extend human lifespans

strateguy632 · Answer

Nah but something better is a pill that reverses the aging process. In a star trek episode! skin becomes like a young face. Hormones like youth. all the way back to puberty when hormone conflict caused death in sleep. This can add from age 70 another 55 healthy years. Like age 125 but young body !

CupcakeTheDestroyer · Answer

No, and that’s how it should be. We’re not meant to live forever, death is an inevitable and perfectly acceptable part of living. The closest we would come to immortality is maybe a digital upload of the brain, but in reality that would only be a copy and not the real deal consciousness.

FreyaRed · Answer

In terms of living far beyond time limits of biological bodies? Yes that's for sure, if we don't destroy ourselves in next 1000 years. When I see retardation of our elites I think our technology gets lost before we can achieve extended life spans.

Phoenix98 · Answer

Even if it did get to a point where that was possible I mean would you even want it? And lets be honest that would never be made available to the common man that would 100% be something only for the rich and powerful.

But also immorality sounds awesome until you look more deeply into it then it doesn't seem so great.

Friendlybro79 · Answer

I don't know. Maybe not in the sense of us physically immortal in our bodies. I don't know if we'll be able to stop aging completely, but slow it down significantly, increase life expectancy, and then an AI version of ourselves be uploaded somewhere. I don't think the AI thing counts lol.

7Phoenix7 · Answer

I think science will definitely push the limits of how long we can live… but immortality? Maybe not..

TonyMetal___86 · Answer

It's possible but being immortal has it's negativity and at the end of the road the immortal will wish for mortality...

Plus it's very hard for science to make humans biologically immortal, so a person might become immortal but in other ways...

AviatorTom · Answer

I certainly hope not. Talk about a population crisis. If no one dies yet some people are born, we'll rapidly run out of space, food and resources. It will be Soylent Green time, or maybe Logan's Run.

Nikki1989 · Answer

Stopping ageing entirely would require solving problems we’re nowhere close to mastering, so not in our lifetime.

DryGermanGuy · Answer

I read somewhere, that the biological limit of many body processes, e. g. cell replacement, would be up to 200 years. Maybe future science can push us closer to that?

abc3643 · Answer

You're only immortal for a limited time. And that's really what you want. When you get older, you will understand.

Wodens_Apprentice · Answer

Yes they could strap themselves to an adrenaline & blood stemcell machine or even convert their brains into AI (the true AI that hasn't been invented yet, not the stupid scam language models everyone calls AI).

lilBigPotato · Answer

No, at least not anything soon. Maybe in 1000 years if humanity hasn't destroyed itself by then.

menina · Answer

It would have been great if science could reach this point, but I'm not seeing this happening.

Little_Bumblebee · Answer

Maybe, but if it's succeeded it will only be the rich and corrupt.

AngryCarl3 · Answer

No, because even if you solve the problems of disease and ageing eventually the planet will become inhabitable and we will all die.

slatyb · Answer

I don't but who knows? If people were immortal there would be no room for children.

Shiprex · Answer

Perhaps but not as we are now. The physical body can't keep going indefinitely

Anonymous · Answer

If they ever did, then it would be a real bummer to get hit by a bus and die.

Filthy_Immigrant · Answer

No, it’s the other way around. we are immortal but science is keeping us mortal

LiamJHayden · Answer

No. There is no long term fighting the entropy of the universe.

Staximus · Answer

If we don't go extinct from our own stupidity before that happens

Surely · Answer

Only if I could keep my once twenty five year old body!

fish5505_87 · Answer

One day, as long as we don't spontaniously combust!

msg321 · Answer

I don't know and I don't care. "don't worry about dying, worry about not living"

Daytoday79 · Answer

If we don't destroy ourselves and if we're smart enough to last a long time, yes.

Tyler_with_Questions · Answer

2nd law of thermodynamics would suggest no:

AgentG111 · Answer

Possibly, History does a better job at it

msc545 · Answer

Very possibly, yes.

AMS700CX4u2 · Answer

Probably Not

Miristheiss · Answer

Not a chance.

Zionne · Answer

0% on that

Cidknee · Answer

No..

Jeff51 · Answer

Nope.

In_Trance · Answer

Nope

Sammy098 · Answer

Nah, that's bullshit

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