Eternal Life? Why Not?
In an online discussion about the science of immortality, which I heard some time back, a theoretical scientist made some surprisingly convincing arguments. A book has been written about the theorist, Aubrey de Grey — a perfect name, right out of Poe — and here is the NYT review by a professor of internal medicine.
The theorist feels that since aging is essentially the entropy of a system (healthy body) Nature has evolved, it is simply required that we learn to clean out the refuse the entropy accrues.
The beauty of this view is that “curing” aging requires no special knowledge of design, or any understanding of just how the cellular junk got there in the first place. It only requires that we get rid of it.
The article doesn’t mention it, but Aubrey de Grey is speculating about a boundless future in good health, at a reasonable stasis age for continued productivity. In the online discussion he had worked out the steps — the disease cures necessary and probable, as one big issue — for this prospect to be considered. The many social issues: population growth, endless wealth accrual, well the arena is large and just goes on, but at the very least the idea of immortality as a possibility provides a pragmatic spur to gain some context for our delimited lives.
The arguments made by de Grey are so logical, and his optimism so infectious, it is difficult to reject out of hand, as natural skepticism might have it. Especially since one might already be predisposed — as biological beings are enamored of life (and forget the pain so easily — a state of punctuated amnesia).
Eternal life? Why not? There is a worm in the apple though. Like a Twilight Zone episode, that old bugger unexpected consequences would most likely rear its head. The Twilight Zone episode which comes to mind is the one about a man with terrible vision who just wanted to read but his Xanthippe wouldn’t let him; he survives a nuclear exchange, finally getting to read in peace, only to lean forward for his beloved books and breaks his glasses.
