Fw: we all are going to age and die ?

[Guest guest]

> GAndhi. Said:

>

> .....

> Anyway aging is

> a tricky thing, with *no* definitive explanation and

> no way to retard (not in an significative way!)

> and we all are going to age and die and this:

>

> IS AN MATHEMATICAL CERTAINTY.

> .......

What makes you say this?

I grant that CR will not prevent people dying, but CR is not the only game

in town.

Many researchers are currently working on not just retarding, but actually

reversing the aging process. They *are* now coming up with definitive

explanations for ageing (See Aubrey de Grey's papers on Strategies for

Engineered Negligible Senescence, for example. Available on the web, but i

don't have a link to hand. Google him.), and i would have thought that this

would be of interest to many people on this list, given their interest in

extending their lifespans.

Just because people have always died, does not mean they always will.

I think that many people see the horrible injustice and downright cruelty

of

having an intelligent, self-aware animal that only lives a few decades, and

knows that it will then cease to exist.

I also think that we will continue to strive to overcome this state of

affairs. This list is one manifestation of that.

Personally, i see CRON as a means of helping to keep people alive and

healthy until such time as other techniques come along to REALLY extend

human life (I'm talking about centuries more, not decades more), which will

hopefully become available in the next fifty years or so.

And of course, that keeps you going until yet other, much more interesting

technologies come online, but that's totally off-topic for this list.

Another factor worth mentioning is that there seems to be some evidence for

the position that CR cannot significantly extend human lifespan anyway.

CR does have a dramatic effect on simple organisms, where starvation is a

real threat to their existence, so extending lifespan in response makes good

evolutionary sense.

It has a significant, but lesser effect on higher organisms. The more

complex an organism is, the less effect CR seems to have. Perhaps this is

because they are more resistant to the effects of starvation. Time will tell

what effect CR has on the lifespans of primates, and eventually, humans.

Don't be surprised, though, if there is a negligible effect.

I'm NOT saying that CRON is not worth the candle. Not at all. I think it is

a good way of staying healthy for longer, and it _may_ even help you survive

a few more years than you would without it.

I'm less sure that CRON, on it's own, will help people live to beyond 120.

BEN

[Guest guest]

this topic has indeed come up before and is an interesting one. IMHO unless

we start populating the planets, where will we put everyone? Or will we

dictate that people can no longer reproduce? Personally, I don't fear death

and see it as a part of life. What I do fear and hope to avoid, is a

painful and/or sick and debilitating old age. There are worse things than

dying.

on 10/19/2003 6:21 AM, Ben Cunningham at benboc@... wrote:

> Personally, i see CRON as a means of helping to keep people alive and

> healthy until such time as other techniques come along to REALLY extend

> human life (I'm talking about centuries more, not decades more), which will

> hopefully become available in the next fifty years or so.

> And of course, that keeps you going until yet other, much more interesting

> technologies come online, but that's totally off-topic for this list.

[Guest guest]

--- In , " Ben Cunningham " <benboc@l...>

wrote:

> > GAndhi. Said:

> >

> > .....

> > Anyway aging is

> > a tricky thing, with *no* definitive explanation and

> > no way to retard (not in an significative way!)

> > and we all are going to age and die and this:

> >

> > IS AN MATHEMATICAL CERTAINTY.

> What makes you say this?

> I grant that CR will not prevent people dying, but CR is not the

> only game in town. Many researchers are currently working on not

> just retarding, but actually reversing the aging process.

***** What, in the known universe, does not - eventually - end? (Even

the universe itself may end!)

(By 'end' I mean not necessarily 'die,' but transform into something

else, something other than what it previously was).

The notion of life and death, as being separate, is just a creation

of thought.

Of a certainty, the physical body is not immortal. NOTHING in the

entire universe is!

CRON may be practiced

to postpone senesence,

to live as vitally as possible while alive,

to delay the ravages of aging and enjoy one's " senior years "

to be available as long as possible to serve the entire human family

....or it may be practiced out of fear: fear that the bodymind

mechanism will someday end. Wake up! The bodymind mechanism, like

everything else in the universe, will...someday...end. It has been

said that it is the ending of life that gives the living of it such

sweetness.

~ andy