RE: Becoming Immortal? (was: The Promise of Cryonics (was Re: ethical problem?))

=?iso-8859-1?Q?Karsten_B=E4nder?= (Karsten.Baender@ivm.de)
Mon, 26 Apr 1999 14:57:57 +0200

> One word: Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology will help resolving a whole bunch of problems, but might I suggest that we do not think of it as a magical artifact capable of fulfilling all our dreams?
I do not think that nanotech alone would be able to solve the problems of cell death and brain malfunction. Nanotech could not produce new veins or blood cells nor would it be able to rejuvenate the old body cells. Cells divide, and in the aging process, this becomes more and more slowly until it eventually stops. How would Nanotech be able to alter this?

>>> Well, this is indeed a very desirable future, yet, I think that
>>> it is impossible to to become immortal in the classic way. The
>>> human body cells - at least some of them - aren't made for
>>> perpetual function. Life can be extended to an age of about 120
>>> years, with the average lifespan ranging somewhere around the
>>> nineties, but then, eventually, some important cells will
>>> simply stop replicating. All you can do then is to hope that
>>> they will still be working, though at a slowly decaying rate.