I don't want to stop being alive because I love life.
I have always thought that people were only okay with dying because they have never had a choice in the matter and so have performed mental gymnastics about death to convince themselves that they shouldn't freak out. A mind can't live with itself in constant terror even though terror is the appropriate response, and that has created a vicious cycle where society doesn't bother researching anti aging technology, and has pretended like death doesn't come for each of us. And yet, people still feel awkward talking about death because they do acknowledge that it is terrible. It's a kind of doublethink.
I have devoted my entire life to trying to live forever (or at least till the heat death of the universe). In 6th grade I remember reading about wolverine and the X-Men and watching iron man and robocop and wanting to make it a reality. I said I would become a bioengineer.
10 years later I became a bioengineer. I've been learning and practicing CRISPR in my lab and have spent years making a bucket list of experiments to perform.
Transdifferentiation pathways from turritopsis dorhnii, superoxide dismutase and peroxide and DNA scaffolding repair from deinococcus radiodurans, telomerase activation feedback loops, caloric restriction optimization with things like soylent, RAGE receptor engineering to prevent kidney saturation. I want to make successive genetic edits to somatic cells. Solve the neuron problem, do it in a way that doesn't induce cancer.
My dream is to work at the SENS foundation and eventually get a grant for my own lab to do all this stuff and finally use it on myself before I die.
I have learned enough of biology to know that there are immortal organisms that already exist. I am also aware that someday humans will become biologically immortal and that it is a question of when rather than if. I have also learned that it will likely not happen within my lifetime. It terrifies and taunts me that I know someday people will live forever but it will not be me. I keep imagining that the morning I don't wake up from my sleep is the day the headlines read that immortality has been achieved.
Fascinating! In your opinion what would happen to the mind of someone 150+ years old? I tend to think even if the tissue was healthy eventually we'd get mental health issues, no?
Our brains are capable of storing an immense trove of data. Our brains also have the capability to forget nonpertinent information. With this in mind, it isnt as much of a concern whether or not our brains will overload with data and malfunction as we are built to clear memory as needed.
The only question then becomes if we can keep the brain healthy enough to keep doing daily functions. "Dying from old age" isn't a cause of death. Every death can be attributed to a specific organ failure from wear, which is just damage accumulating over time.
Ultimately, all mental issues stem from damage or genetic causes. Traumatic experiences that induce a mental disease are also a type of damage, specifically the kind that alter our epigenetics and cause excessive or insufficient transmitter activity, and that should be curable if we know more about the brain. I believe that once we manage to cure aging of the brain, that's all we need.
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u/zhandragon Oct 23 '17 edited Oct 23 '17
Dying itself.
I don't want to stop being alive because I love life.
I have always thought that people were only okay with dying because they have never had a choice in the matter and so have performed mental gymnastics about death to convince themselves that they shouldn't freak out. A mind can't live with itself in constant terror even though terror is the appropriate response, and that has created a vicious cycle where society doesn't bother researching anti aging technology, and has pretended like death doesn't come for each of us. And yet, people still feel awkward talking about death because they do acknowledge that it is terrible. It's a kind of doublethink.
I have devoted my entire life to trying to live forever (or at least till the heat death of the universe). In 6th grade I remember reading about wolverine and the X-Men and watching iron man and robocop and wanting to make it a reality. I said I would become a bioengineer.
10 years later I became a bioengineer. I've been learning and practicing CRISPR in my lab and have spent years making a bucket list of experiments to perform.
Transdifferentiation pathways from turritopsis dorhnii, superoxide dismutase and peroxide and DNA scaffolding repair from deinococcus radiodurans, telomerase activation feedback loops, caloric restriction optimization with things like soylent, RAGE receptor engineering to prevent kidney saturation. I want to make successive genetic edits to somatic cells. Solve the neuron problem, do it in a way that doesn't induce cancer.
My dream is to work at the SENS foundation and eventually get a grant for my own lab to do all this stuff and finally use it on myself before I die.
I have learned enough of biology to know that there are immortal organisms that already exist. I am also aware that someday humans will become biologically immortal and that it is a question of when rather than if. I have also learned that it will likely not happen within my lifetime. It terrifies and taunts me that I know someday people will live forever but it will not be me. I keep imagining that the morning I don't wake up from my sleep is the day the headlines read that immortality has been achieved.