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Scientists claim that we could live up to 1,000 years. Is this possible? And more importantly, is it really such a great thing?
Your average doctor will advice you to exercise regularly and avoid smoking, drinking and fatty foods to ensure that you live a long healthy life, but Dr Aubrey de Grey is not your average doctor. He leads the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) project at Cambridge University, besides also running the Methuselah Mouse prize for extending age in mice. And, if he had it his way, people who are 60 years old today may continue to live on until they see their 1,000th birthday.
Modern medicine, backed by innovations in IT, has made it possible for us to extend our life spans, and so, people who would normally die at the age of 60 can today hope to live up to at least 80. But, a leap to living up to a 1,000 years seems too far-fetched. However, Dr Aubrey's claims are strong. He has a plan to repair cellular and molecular ageing, and doing this, he says, will mean that you live forever. Well, almost-you can still die if a truck goes through you instead of around you. But, barring such accidents, Dr Aubrey says, you could live up to a 1,000.
One of the nice things about science is that you can generally make a statement, conveniently die of old age, and let other scientists solve your theories. Thus, a lot of things that Einstein said have been shown to be right by scientists today, thanks to the fact that computing helps prove by calculation what was improbable yesterday.
Now, let us turn away from Dr Aubrey and consider things in the light of pure logic and reason. While modern medicine is helping all of us live longer, the increases are incremental, not exponential. Today, most people don't even live up to a 100, and expecting a huge quantum leap to 1,000 years is a trifle absurd, even if you look at the promise of newer technology paving the way.
Maybe, we could reach there one day, but it is more likely to be in incremental leaps of around 50 to 100 years every generation. One of the fastest fields is IT, and even in IT, growth is usually evolutionary.
We also need to ask ourselves an important question-if man can live up to a 1,000 years, will we all have any place to stand on Earth? And what of resources like water, food, and electricity? Will we even be getting enough oxygen to breathe? Even the best supercomputers of today, if they could think for themselves, would be stumped by the enormity of the problem!
What Dr Aubrey seems to have in mind may make Frankenstein seem like a romp in the park. Before we contemplate something that could affect all of humanity so drastically, we need to look at the deeper ramifications, and not just at the capabilities of technology.
A scientist also needs to realize that timeframes for research may stretch endlessly even in a hot area like science. For example, in 1960, Peter Higgs suggested an elementary particle called the bosun, now famous as the Higgs bosun, which has eluded scientists for so long that it is now dubbed the "God particle." In this context, it might seem a little dumb for Dr Aubrey to state that it will be possible for it to test his approach in mice in ten years, and then make sure that it works in men too in another ten years. Forget biotech, even IT doesn't move that fast!
Today, doctors say that moderate drinking-like around two whiskeys a day-may actually be beneficial to health. But we all know what happens when you call it a good thing and have too much of it. Similarly, a long, healthy life is to be cherished, but here too, we should know where to draw the line.
In a sane world, one prays that what Dr Aubrey says should never come true. And by chance if it does, and if Dr Aubrey himself were to live to a 1,000, he will realize that his gift to humanity was actually a curse to mankind. Once this realization sinks in, we cannot blame technology, we can only condemn our foolish usage of technology.
Do you really want to live for a thousand years?
Your average doctor will advice you to exercise regularly and avoid smoking, drinking and fatty foods to ensure that you live a long healthy life, but Dr Aubrey de Grey is not your average doctor. He leads the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) project at Cambridge University, besides also running the Methuselah Mouse prize for extending age in mice. And, if he had it his way, people who are 60 years old today may continue to live on until they see their 1,000th birthday.
Modern medicine, backed by innovations in IT, has made it possible for us to extend our life spans, and so, people who would normally die at the age of 60 can today hope to live up to at least 80. But, a leap to living up to a 1,000 years seems too far-fetched. However, Dr Aubrey's claims are strong. He has a plan to repair cellular and molecular ageing, and doing this, he says, will mean that you live forever. Well, almost-you can still die if a truck goes through you instead of around you. But, barring such accidents, Dr Aubrey says, you could live up to a 1,000.
One of the nice things about science is that you can generally make a statement, conveniently die of old age, and let other scientists solve your theories. Thus, a lot of things that Einstein said have been shown to be right by scientists today, thanks to the fact that computing helps prove by calculation what was improbable yesterday.
Now, let us turn away from Dr Aubrey and consider things in the light of pure logic and reason. While modern medicine is helping all of us live longer, the increases are incremental, not exponential. Today, most people don't even live up to a 100, and expecting a huge quantum leap to 1,000 years is a trifle absurd, even if you look at the promise of newer technology paving the way.
Maybe, we could reach there one day, but it is more likely to be in incremental leaps of around 50 to 100 years every generation. One of the fastest fields is IT, and even in IT, growth is usually evolutionary.
We also need to ask ourselves an important question-if man can live up to a 1,000 years, will we all have any place to stand on Earth? And what of resources like water, food, and electricity? Will we even be getting enough oxygen to breathe? Even the best supercomputers of today, if they could think for themselves, would be stumped by the enormity of the problem!
What Dr Aubrey seems to have in mind may make Frankenstein seem like a romp in the park. Before we contemplate something that could affect all of humanity so drastically, we need to look at the deeper ramifications, and not just at the capabilities of technology.
A scientist also needs to realize that timeframes for research may stretch endlessly even in a hot area like science. For example, in 1960, Peter Higgs suggested an elementary particle called the bosun, now famous as the Higgs bosun, which has eluded scientists for so long that it is now dubbed the "God particle." In this context, it might seem a little dumb for Dr Aubrey to state that it will be possible for it to test his approach in mice in ten years, and then make sure that it works in men too in another ten years. Forget biotech, even IT doesn't move that fast!
Today, doctors say that moderate drinking-like around two whiskeys a day-may actually be beneficial to health. But we all know what happens when you call it a good thing and have too much of it. Similarly, a long, healthy life is to be cherished, but here too, we should know where to draw the line.
In a sane world, one prays that what Dr Aubrey says should never come true. And by chance if it does, and if Dr Aubrey himself were to live to a 1,000, he will realize that his gift to humanity was actually a curse to mankind. Once this realization sinks in, we cannot blame technology, we can only condemn our foolish usage of technology.
Do you really want to live for a thousand years?
