Life Extension, Immortality, and Society. (Part 1)
And no, I will be personally writing this essay. Not GPT-3. ;)
This article is the first part of the series on life extension and immortality.
A few weeks ago I referred to the despair I had about aging. Yes, I’m young. But I see the decay the body undergoes and it leaves me furious. I’m not saddened or scared of something I’ve been indoctrinated to see as normal. I am far angrier at the fact that I am forced to see it that way.
I have no choice.
Since then, I’ve been thinking about the prospect of living longer. Even more so, I’d been thinking about the consequences of living longer.
I had never realized how much of our society is shaped by the idea that death is a fact of life… that is until recently.
I had OpenAI’s GPT-3( the language processing model) write an essay on the topic of immortality a few weeks ago. This time, I’ll be delving into it myself.
I had initially written close to 5000 words(something that may shrink or expand) on this topic. But let’s be honest, no one has time for a 5 thousand word essay on a newsletter— Or do you? Let me know.
Either way, I thought it wise to break up the structure of the essay. This post is an introduction to the series.
What does it mean to “live longer”?
When I think of living longer I immediately think of immortality. I think of the prospect of never having to die. More accurately, I assume the prospect of not dying due to physiological decay. Whether one is invulnerable— that is, being incapable of sustaining damage— is also something I fantasize about.
The concept of immortality makes me imagine rejuvenation, youth, exuberance, and vigor. It makes us imagine a time where we were at our best. Anyone who has gained in years may have realized a slight dip in cognitive ability—even at the early age of 20!
I remember watching a 60 minute documentary with the chess prodigy and supreme grandmaster Magnus Carlsen in which he was tasked with pattern matching pieces and assigning them a date of occurrence.
He got it wrong.
Now, Magnus is someone who’s already at the peak of what we’d consider human cognitive ability. But his next words took me off guard. He said— concerning his memory:
It’s not what it used to be.
So for someone like him to admit a decline in cognitive ability, left me somewhat worried.
He was 21 at the time. He’s still going strong though!
In immortality, we see the sort of eternity we innately crave but are constantly denied. We imagine a love that lasts forever. We speak about creating works that last longer than our lifespans. We speak of legends not merely as a result of their work, but because their work gives us semblance of the magnitude of their personalities even after death.
How often do we see some of the most fascinating minds in history speak at length on the nature of immortality?
Quite often as these quotes make obvious:
My music will go on forever. Maybe it's a fool say that, but when me know facts me can say facts. My music will go on forever.
― Bob MarleyAnything with the power to make you laugh over thirty years later isn’t a waste of time. I think something like that is very close to immortality.
― Stephen KingIf a man can bridge the gap between life and death,if he can live after he's died, then maybe he was a great man. Immortality is the only true success.
― James DeanThe life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.
― Marcus Tullius CiceroShare your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
― Dalai Lama XIVThe reappearance of the crescent moon after the new moon; the return of the Sun after a total eclipse, the rising of the Sun in the morning after its troublesome absence at night were noted by people around the world; these phenomena spoke to our ancestors of the possibility of surviving death. Up there in the skies was also a metaphor of immortality.
― Carl SaganOne must pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while still alive.
―Friedrich Nietzsche
Living longer as well as sustaining health as we age is something we all crave. But like all things we think we can’t have, we pretend to not want it in the first place. We philosophize and contemplate its nature. We criticize it. And if we are hypocritical workaholics, we speculate on the “lack of purpose” it will introduce in our lives. We do everything but think of it as a reality to be engineered into existence.
A recent survey of Brits revealed a general satisfaction with the average life span of 80 years. When asked about living longer, only 17% of Brits said they wanted to gain immortality.
In the US, a similar survey was carried out. 2000 people were asked about how much longer they’d like to live if they could stop aging at 25. This particular survey revealed what I said in the previous paragraph.
When looked at closely, the biggest difference in preferences was between those under 60 and those over 60. People who were generally older wanted some more years added to their lives. I guess there’s something about realizing the finitude of one’s life that makes one awaken.
Some of the arguments against longevity and immortality come from a perception that living longer will keep people attached to the frailty of their bodies. But even when given a choice to live at the height of their youth they decline.
Why is this?
Some people think about the lows of their lives and think of living longer as an endless depression; a Boredom worse than death. But I believe there’s something more sinister in the way we approach death overall.
Studies show that we think of death as something that could happen to everyone but ourselves. For the human mind, it may be counterintuitive to peer into the one thing it tries its best to prevent.
There’s also a significant group of people with Apeirophobia— the fear of eternity. Many speak of the anxiety the thought of infinity presents them.
That said, not one of these feels like a strong enough argument against extending the amount of time we may be healthy.
Paradigm shifts rarely present themselves in the way we think they will. They always present us new paths forward. They unleash upon us new ways of seeing the world. Does one think of “God” or some other omnipotent/immortal entity as being bored? Even if they were, we always have stories from different civilizations telling us how these omnipotent beings keep themselves preoccupied.
We’ve come to accept death as a given: a part of life rather than a cumulation of technical glitches.
This very statement reminds me of the words of geneticist David Sinclair on his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience:
Sinclair: Oh absolutely think aging should be classified as a disease. We should think of it as a disease. I mean why shouldn't we. Everything else that goes on in the body over time that's bad for us is considered a disease. Do you know why aging isn't considered a disease?
Rogan: Because it happens to everybody?
Sinclair: Exactly that's the only reason—well it happens to most people— 90 percent of people in developed countries. But why is that a reason to say oh it's natural—we should just deal with it. We used to say that about cancer…
What happens when that illusion of death as an inevitability disappears? What happens when death loses its significance? This is what I hope to explore in this series.
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Till next time!
Update: I’ve written the second part of the series. In it, I summarized the different breakthroughs in the field. Make sure you check it out!