Our scope is limited.

[billazilla]

Or very often it is. As people, human beings, we tend to take things in terms of the relative

Comments

[dreamserpent]

I sometimes ponder the extending life with technology questions. If i am succesful in my lifeswork, then you will see it happen within your own lifetime, bill. If not, then maybe what I do will at least lay a foundation for extending the lives of the next generations well past that century of concievable time.

[billazilla]

Work harder, dammit!

[dreamserpent]

I am still working on getting the skills required to even attempt the work!

[lachlan]

Personally, I think that it isn't the physical body that would be the problem, it would be one's mind. Think about it, after say, a million years worth of life,how much would a human brain hold....or would the physical form/mind adapt itself?

Heck I don'y know. There was a time when I seriously practiced an art that promised to extend my lifetime. New agey weirdness? Maybe, but I do know that sypmtoms of age (and maturity) didn't really appear until I stopped due to "spiritual reasons". I agree with you though, an immortal would at first devalue then appreciate finite folks.

But first would have to come a change in perspective. A change that would result in viewing oneself as no longer a finte person "gifted" with immortality but rather an immortal being with a finite origen.

[billazilla]

Genetic science is finding that our cellular structures are designed, programmed by DNA, to decompose, to fail, after a certain point in our life cycle. Gene-mapping is one of the paths researchers are treading in order to track down why, and more importantly, how this is programmed into our coding. If you think about it, discovering the genetic codes which can be adjusted to extend life, or even eliminate old age metabolism changes entirely, we would, in effect, be slamming the brakes on evolution. We would be saying, "Okay, that's good, you got us to this point with the multitude of life/death cycles that created change in our evolution. We'll take it from here

[megarandom]

And then there are advances in genetic design and gene therapy. Even if your mind wasn't genetically inclined to be able to accept the burden of the years, well it could be soon!

[megarandom]

There are so many ways that it's like you are quoting the stuff in my head.

[billazilla]

I used all my spare computers to create a telepathic teletype machine, ran a text-to-speech program on the results, and hooked up a speaker to it. I call it the teleteletelephone.

[wick98]

As a person of faith and a person who reveres science, I think about time scales and evolution a lot. I wish I could get my head around "4 billion years" in some way that made sense to me so I could really understand if it works.