How plausible is radical life extension

Junghalli · Post by **Junghalli** » 2005-04-19 10:26pm

How plausible do you think life extension via genetic engineering or other medical application is? Not just somewhat extending the lifespan by better medical care or whatever, but actually slowing or stoping the aging process? Do you consider it a likely development in the future or not?

Nick Lancaster · Post by **Nick Lancaster** » 2005-04-19 11:25pm

Not sure, since the basic unit of the living cell does not replicate perfectly. Organs fail or suffer damage from lifestyle specifics.

However, perhaps you can also look at what kinds of procedures might be needed.

What kind of technological capability is assumed? Nanotechnology? Effective cures for AIDS?

What kind of technological limits would we face? We're already running afoul of antibiotic-resistant strains of things like E. coli.

Would it be a future where such procedures are available to all, or just to the rich and privleged?

Possible technologies:

- Blood replacement. (Compensating for cholesterol, arteriosclerosis ... though perhaps some form of nanotechnology could achieve this without the need for transfusion/dialysis.)

- Replacement of specific chemicals, such as neurotransmitters. (Understanding Alzheimer's Disease and other dementia-type maladies could turn on this.)

- Augmentation of bones. (Osteoporosis is not exclusively an issue for women.)

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2005-04-19 11:29pm

I consider it highly likely. look up aubrey de grey - the bbc, wired, new scientist, etc have interviewed him, so he must have something going.

Post by **Lagmonster** » 2005-04-20 11:05am

Before going any further, all participants of this topic are required to look up the term, "apoptosis".

There's more to extending our maximum life spans than you probably think, and I'd be surprised if it's as easy as some quacks out there would have you believe.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-04-20 12:37pm

For those of you too lazy to look up apoptosis, it is the process by which cells commit suicide . . . programmed suicide. This is a perfectly normal process. In fact, every year, the number and mass of cells that kill themselves is equivalent to your total mass.

Now, the problem presented is that apoptosis occurs at a rate where cells coming in = cells going out. If you're not careful, then you have a scenario where cells coming in > cells going out, at which point, you have tumors, cancers, and all that. Worse still, cells have a fixed number of divisions, dictated by the lengths of structures called telomeres. Those structures get shorter with each replication, until you run out of telomeres. At which point, the cell ages and dies. This is what tends to kill current clones really quickly, because while you may have, say a day old lamb cloned from a five year old sheep, the lamb's cells are effectively five years old, so the clone ages prematurely.

Really, you are programmed to die, which makes sense for a complex organism with a lot of specialized, interdependent cell types. Since you want a cell to perform a specific sort of function, it the sort of creeping genetic damage that a single-celled organism takes is unacceptable in a complex organism. There is a point of diminishing returns, where if a cell reproduces too many times, it will carry enough small genetic errors that it may no longer be capable of doing its job.

Biological methods of radical life extension happen to be uncomfortably close to the sorts of tricks cancer cells use to become effectively immortal.

But, let's see what one might gain with everything that we can think of that doesn't involve some wankery like uploading your brain into a computer.

In nature, your life expectancy is about 35 - 40 years. If you make 50 - 60, you've beaten all the odds.

Wiping out most infectious diseases, improving hygiene and safety boosted life expectancy to about 60 - 80 years. You're doing exceptionally well if you see a century. Your life expectancy now is effectively double what it was up until a couple of centuries ago.

Eliminating the big killers of people (heart disease, diabetes, etc.) would give you a life expectancy of about 90 - 100 years, with a lifespan of about 120 - 130 years (the maximum observed lifespan of a human being tends to be in the low 120s.) While you're not living twice as long as you were at the last tier, you're still living up to one and two-thirds times longer than you were at the last tier.

Developing treatments based on the hormonal and biochemical changes that a body undergoes when put on severe caloric restrictions might allow you to easily hit 120-130 years before you slam into your natural biological lifespan limits and die. Here, you gain one and a half times your life expectancy from the previous tier. But, you're out of natural lifespan, but, you're living three times longer than humans in nature, and about twice as long as you're expected to live now.

So, for radical life extension, you have to look to wholesale replacement of parts as they wear out. An organ created from your stem cells (research is showing that you, as an adult, do have stem cells which may be just as capable of assuming any tissue type as embryonic stem cells do,) would be 'younger' than you are, and capable of functioning for up to another 120-150 years before requiring replacement. Combined with the therapies from the above, you might get between 120 - 200 years, depending on how much you can replace. While you're not gaining much, your quality of life at the time you die is much better than it was at the previous tier.

You might notice that the returns you get are diminishing. The problem is, you can't replace everything. You can't replace your brain, or your network of connective tissues. Your heart may only be 25 years old, biologically, but the blood vessels connected to it are feeling every one of their 150 years of age. You may have the lung capacity of an 18 year old, but the brain and muscles those lungs are feeding oxygen to are, again, feeling their age.

And while you think cybernetics may come to the rescue, integrating biological and mechanical components is always something of an engineering nightmare. If you manage to beat that, you might gain a bit more, but again, not all your soft bits can be easily replaced. And they're programmed to eventually wear out and die.

Beyond that, you have to hope for nanotechnology wanking and computer technology wanking to help you deal with the parts of you you can't easily replace. But, chances are, you're not going to live long enough to see the techwankery come to pass, or if it does, become something that is covered by Medicare or your HMO.

I am willing to bet that it will be impossible for anyone to live past 200 years. Really, I'm willing to bet that nobody here will live to see many birthdays past their 130th.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » 2005-04-20 01:15pm

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:For those of you too lazy to look up apoptosis, it is the process by which cells commit suicide . . . programmed suicide. This is a perfectly normal process. In fact, every year, the number and mass of cells that kill themselves is equivalent to your total mass.

Now, the problem presented is that apoptosis occurs at a rate where cells coming in = cells going out. If you're not careful, then you have a scenario where cells coming in > cells going out, at which point, you have tumors, cancers, and all that. Worse still, cells have a fixed number of divisions, dictated by the lengths of structures called telomeres. Those structures get shorter with each replication, until you run out of telomeres. At which point, the cell ages and dies. This is what tends to kill current clones really quickly, because while you may have, say a day old lamb cloned from a five year old sheep, the lamb's cells are effectively five years old, so the clone ages prematurely.

Really, you are programmed to die, which makes sense for a complex organism with a lot of specialized, interdependent cell types. Since you want a cell to perform a specific sort of function, it the sort of creeping genetic damage that a single-celled organism takes is unacceptable in a complex organism. There is a point of diminishing returns, where if a cell reproduces too many times, it will carry enough small genetic errors that it may no longer be capable of doing its job.

Biological methods of radical life extension happen to be uncomfortably close to the sorts of tricks cancer cells use to become effectively immortal.

Despite that 'uncomfortable closeness,' that area of research is being aggressively pursued, isn't it? Multiple avenues of 'tricking' cells into continuing to replicate as they did when you were 25 instead of 65 seems to be the magic bullet here.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-04-20 01:56pm

Chmee wrote:
<snip>

Despite that 'uncomfortable closeness,' that area of research is being aggressively pursued, isn't it? Multiple avenues of 'tricking' cells into continuing to replicate as they did when you were 25 instead of 65 seems to be the magic bullet here.

Well, yes, they are. But my points still stand. You may get the cells to cheerfully replicate, but you're still gradually accumulating damage on the genetic level. Eventually, something will give and you'll likely develop a terminal cancer and die. And there are cells which don't divide ever again after birth . . . most importantly the ones in your brain.

Even if you pulled out all the stops, the most you will see is 200 years. Maybe 300 or 400 if you could extensively repair and replace everything but the brain, and were willing to possibly accept becoming much more machine than man. You could concievably live for 1000 years if you could somehow transplant your brain into a body cloned from your own stem cells every two or three centuries, except transplants tend to be fiendishly traumatic things, and your mental capacity will diminish as your brain cells slowly age and die, or die from the trauma of each transplantation.

Sure, you might be able to inject newly cloned neurons into your brain to fill in some of the gaps (as they will be shanghaied into your preexisting neural networks,) but the loss of your experiences will eventually mean that you at age 1000 will be a fundamentally different person than you now. Chances are, he won't even remember who you were or anything of the first two or three, or four or five, or six or seven centuries of his life.

Post by **Lagmonster** » 2005-04-20 02:05pm

The short answer is no, you can't extend biological life beyond a certain point without re-inventing its basic structure and composition.

Racking my brain, the only thing I can come up with to extend your continuity of consciousness (which is, let's face it, the only important part of immortality) would be the gradual replacement of your body with non-organic parts which perform the same functions, and there are a whole host of philosophical questions surrounding continuity of consciousness which makes that a sideways solution at best.

Morilore · Post by **Morilore** » 2005-04-20 03:57pm

Well, yes, they are. But my points still stand. You may get the cells to cheerfully replicate, but you're still gradually accumulating damage on the genetic level. Eventually, something will give and you'll likely develop a terminal cancer and die. And there are cells which don't divide ever again after birth . . . most importantly the ones in your brain.

What about gene therapy? Is it even possible? Could you go to a doctor every few decades to fix up your genome?

Even if you pulled out all the stops, the most you will see is 200 years. Maybe 300 or 400 if you could extensively repair and replace everything but the brain, and were willing to possibly accept becoming much more machine than man.

I could accept that.

Those who can't would die of old age.

You could concievably live for 1000 years if you could somehow transplant your brain into a body cloned from your own stem cells every two or three centuries, except transplants tend to be fiendishly traumatic things, and your mental capacity will diminish as your brain cells slowly age and die, or die from the trauma of each transplantation.

Wouldn't the process get more and more routine after a while, or am I missing something fundamental about organ transplants?

Sure, you might be able to inject newly cloned neurons into your brain to fill in some of the gaps (as they will be shanghaied into your preexisting neural networks,) but the loss of your experiences will eventually mean that you at age 1000 will be a fundamentally different person than you now. Chances are, he won't even remember who you were or anything of the first two or three, or four or five, or six or seven centuries of his life.

That might actually be cool, to never remember more than 200-300 years in your own past if you've been alive for millenia. I don't think I would mind it.

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2005-04-20 04:02pm

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote: Sure, you might be able to inject newly cloned neurons into your brain to fill in some of the gaps (as they will be shanghaied into your preexisting neural networks,) but the loss of your experiences will eventually mean that you at age 1000 will be a fundamentally different person than you now.

I'm not really concerned about that. I'm essentially a different person than I was at age 5. Most of the my memories of that time are memories of memories, and I have a fundamentally different thinking process. Should five year old be afraid? I don't think so

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-04-20 04:37pm

Morilore wrote:
Well, yes, they are. But my points still stand. You may get the cells to cheerfully replicate, but you're still gradually accumulating damage on the genetic level. Eventually, something will give and you'll likely develop a terminal cancer and die. And there are cells which don't divide ever again after birth . . . most importantly the ones in your brain.
What about gene therapy? Is it even possible? Could you go to a doctor every few decades to fix up your genome?

Requires first getting an extensive and complete mapping of your genome. Not a problem, we'll probably be able to routinely do this in less than fifty years. And then it requires reliably getting the new genetic information into your cells. The main problem with this being that it isn't a clean way to deliver the information to all your cells, and there's no guarantee the corrected genes will be inserted into the proper places. To repair your genome like that involves contracting a massive engineered viral or grey goo infection which affects 100% of your body. This is somewhere in the realm of mastubatory wanking.

Even if you pulled out all the stops, the most you will see is 200 years. Maybe 300 or 400 if you could extensively repair and replace everything but the brain, and were willing to possibly accept becoming much more machine than man.
I could accept that.

Those who can't would die of old age.

Ignoring all the tricky engineering issues, you'd die of old age too. It'd just take a little longer, and you'd have to be absolutely filthy rich to do it.

You could concievably live for 1000 years if you could somehow transplant your brain into a body cloned from your own stem cells every two or three centuries, except transplants tend to be fiendishly traumatic things, and your mental capacity will diminish as your brain cells slowly age and die, or die from the trauma of each transplantation.
Wouldn't the process get more and more routine after a while, or am I missing something fundamental about organ transplants?

When you transplant an organ, you are subjecting it to massive shock. Firstly, you're cutting it out of its original body. Then you dump it on ice for a while so that it takes longer to completly feel the effects of being cut off from its oxygen supply. Then you stuff it into its new home, connect it up and hope for the best. Removal = trauma, transport to new body = trauma. Installing it = trauma. See the picture? And this is a brain we're talking about transplanting here.

Sure, you might be able to inject newly cloned neurons into your brain to fill in some of the gaps (as they will be shanghaied into your preexisting neural networks,) but the loss of your experiences will eventually mean that you at age 1000 will be a fundamentally different person than you now. Chances are, he won't even remember who you were or anything of the first two or three, or four or five, or six or seven centuries of his life.
That might actually be cool, to never remember more than 200-300 years in your own past if you've been alive for millenia. I don't think I would mind it.

Then what is the point of living 2000 years if you only remember the last 200? Wouldn't it be better to just live 200 years and be done with it?

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-04-20 04:39pm

Zoink wrote:
GrandMasterTerwynn wrote: Sure, you might be able to inject newly cloned neurons into your brain to fill in some of the gaps (as they will be shanghaied into your preexisting neural networks,) but the loss of your experiences will eventually mean that you at age 1000 will be a fundamentally different person than you now.
I'm not really concerned about that. I'm essentially a different person than I was at age 5. Most of the my memories of that time are memories of memories, and I have a fundamentally different thinking process. Should five year old be afraid? I don't think so

This isn't like forgetting the first few years of your childhood. It's more like being seventy, in excellent health, but not remembering anything from before your fiftieth birthday.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2005-04-20 05:05pm

What about altering the telomeres? Is that possible without severe setbacks?

And about the replacement of neurons, I too think that would be acceptable, particularly if it were gradual. You would just have to write down as vivid of descriptions as possible of your memories to remind yourself where you came from.

Morilore · Post by **Morilore** » 2005-04-20 05:07pm

Requires first getting an extensive and complete mapping of your genome. Not a problem, we'll probably be able to routinely do this in less than fifty years. And then it requires reliably getting the new genetic information into your cells. The main problem with this being that it isn't a clean way to deliver the information to all your cells, and there's no guarantee the corrected genes will be inserted into the proper places. To repair your genome like that involves contracting a massive engineered viral or grey goo infection which affects 100% of your body. This is somewhere in the realm of mastubatory wanking.

Ok, so you probably won't ever be able to get a full-body makeover in one sitting. But is it wanking to suppose that we might make a virus that would be able to repair some of our cells, over time? Just to add a few decades, or centuries as it improves?

Ignoring all the tricky engineering issues, you'd die of old age too. It'd just take a little longer, and you'd have to be absolutely filthy rich to do it.

In the forseeable future, certainly. I'm talking about a situation far enough in the future that these procedures would have been developed well already.

When you transplant an organ, you are subjecting it to massive shock. Firstly, you're cutting it out of its original body. Then you dump it on ice for a while so that it takes longer to completly feel the effects of being cut off from its oxygen supply. Then you stuff it into its new home, connect it up and hope for the best. Removal = trauma, transport to new body = trauma. Installing it = trauma. See the picture? And this is a brain we're talking about transplanting here.

Hmm.... I'm imagining something like sinking the body into some sort of nutritional fluid while it's being moved... but I don't know anything about this, so OK. One might be inclined to take the risk anyway, or just place the brain in a more-easily-reparable mechanical body and be done with it after one go.

Then what is the point of living 2000 years if you only remember the last 200? Wouldn't it be better to just live 200 years and be done with it?

Because I don't want to die, and I'm pretty sure I won't ever want to die. If I ever do, then I'll kill myself. Not wanting to have a single continuum of existence stretching back millenia leaving me feeling old and dead is one thing, actually wanting to die - to end it RIGHT NOW - is another. Because it will always be RIGHT NOW.

Just a clarification: I'm not talking about necessarily me myself here. I'm not deluded enough to think any of this stuff will be available before I'm already plenty old.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-04-20 05:39pm

Morilore wrote:
Requires first getting an extensive and complete mapping of your genome. Not a problem, we'll probably be able to routinely do this in less than fifty years. And then it requires reliably getting the new genetic information into your cells. The main problem with this being that it isn't a clean way to deliver the information to all your cells, and there's no guarantee the corrected genes will be inserted into the proper places. To repair your genome like that involves contracting a massive engineered viral or grey goo infection which affects 100% of your body. This is somewhere in the realm of mastubatory wanking.
Ok, so you probably won't ever be able to get a full-body makeover in one sitting. But is it wanking to suppose that we might make a virus that would be able to repair some of our cells, over time? Just to add a few decades, or centuries as it improves?

You have to very strictly engineer this virus to only attack certain tissues, and to only insert the genes you want, exactly where you want them to go. And then you somehow make sure that it is immune to mutations that will transform it from a gene delivery vehicle to a deadly infectious disease. It is probably doable, but the costs would likely be fairly high.

When you transplant an organ, you are subjecting it to massive shock. Firstly, you're cutting it out of its original body. Then you dump it on ice for a while so that it takes longer to completly feel the effects of being cut off from its oxygen supply. Then you stuff it into its new home, connect it up and hope for the best. Removal = trauma, transport to new body = trauma. Installing it = trauma. See the picture? And this is a brain we're talking about transplanting here.
Hmm.... I'm imagining something like sinking the body into some sort of nutritional fluid while it's being moved... but I don't know anything about this, so OK. One might be inclined to take the risk anyway, or just place the brain in a more-easily-reparable mechanical body and be done with it after one go.

A brain has a complex network of blood which feed it. All dunking it in a nutrient solution is going to do is make it a little soggier when it dies. And moving the brain into a mechanical body does nothing to address the trauma of transplanting it there. If anything, it makes it worse, because you would have to develop an extensive mind-machine interface that an entire brain would hook into, and somehow build this mechanical body around the supporting bits of biology needed to sustain the brain. The supporting bits of biology, and the brain, of course, will be aging, though the body might not wear out so quickly. Same problem, quadruple the cost.

Then what is the point of living 2000 years if you only remember the last 200? Wouldn't it be better to just live 200 years and be done with it?
Because I don't want to die, and I'm pretty sure I won't ever want to die. If I ever do, then I'll kill myself. Not wanting to have a single continuum of existence stretching back millenia leaving me feeling old and dead is one thing, actually wanting to die - to end it RIGHT NOW - is another. Because it will always be RIGHT NOW.

Except you can't predict when you'll suffer a stroke in the night, or develop a fatal cancer, or contract a deadly antibiotic-resistant disease, or choke on your ham sandwich, or fall and hit your head, or mistime the speed of that oncoming bus. The only difference ends up being that you've made some folk a lot richer than they would be otherwise. Especially if you're gradually being reinvented as a new person every couple of centuries. In this scenario, you'd be a few people who just happened to look uncannily alike, until some accident you didn't see coming kills you anyway.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2005-04-20 05:47pm

All those nasty 'freak accidents' would probably become very likely if you are living for 2000 years.

Morilore · Post by **Morilore** » 2005-04-20 06:05pm

A brain has a complex network of blood which feed it. All dunking it in a nutrient solution is going to do is make it a little soggier when it dies.

OK.

And moving the brain into a mechanical body does nothing to address the trauma of transplanting it there.

I was just referring to the notion that a mechanical body wouldn't wear out as fast and as irreperably, so you would only have to risk it once.

Except you can't predict when you'll suffer a stroke in the night, or develop a fatal cancer, or contract a deadly antibiotic-resistant disease, or choke on your ham sandwich, or fall and hit your head, or mistime the speed of that oncoming bus. The only difference ends up being that you've made some folk a lot richer than they would be otherwise. Especially if you're gradually being reinvented as a new person every couple of centuries. In this scenario, you'd be a few people who just happened to look uncannily alike, until some accident you didn't see coming kills you anyway.

Those are agents of death that no one can stop. However, there are agents of death that can be stopped, and that is good.

It is my perspective that when there is a constant stream of consciousness, life continues. Eventually you would be a completely different person, but face it, you are a different person now than you were a minute ago; it is only a difference of degree.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » 2005-04-20 06:37pm

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
Chmee wrote:
<snip>

Despite that 'uncomfortable closeness,' that area of research is being aggressively pursued, isn't it? Multiple avenues of 'tricking' cells into continuing to replicate as they did when you were 25 instead of 65 seems to be the magic bullet here.
Well, yes, they are. But my points still stand. You may get the cells to cheerfully replicate, but you're still gradually accumulating damage on the genetic level. Eventually, something will give and you'll likely develop a terminal cancer and die. And there are cells which don't divide ever again after birth . . . most importantly the ones in your brain.

Even if you pulled out all the stops, the most you will see is 200 years. Maybe 300 or 400 if you could extensively repair and replace everything but the brain, and were willing to possibly accept becoming much more machine than man. You could concievably live for 1000 years if you could somehow transplant your brain into a body cloned from your own stem cells every two or three centuries, except transplants tend to be fiendishly traumatic things, and your mental capacity will diminish as your brain cells slowly age and die, or die from the trauma of each transplantation.

Sure, you might be able to inject newly cloned neurons into your brain to fill in some of the gaps (as they will be shanghaied into your preexisting neural networks,) but the loss of your experiences will eventually mean that you at age 1000 will be a fundamentally different person than you now. Chances are, he won't even remember who you were or anything of the first two or three, or four or five, or six or seven centuries of his life.

Interesting stuff, thanks for posting it ....

On the brain-function/memory side ... how true is it that memory function in the brain is extremely redundant, that is, memories are re-stored in different locations as we remember them or think over them, so that minor damage to one physical area does not seriously impair memory?

I remember a great gee-whiz sci-fi concept in one of George Alec Effinger's cyberpunk novels (probably 'A Fire in The Sun') where a surgeon proposed to the protagonist a surgical procedure that would basically wrap the brain in a mesh of fine wires that would act as a new redundant memory storage system, more durable than the original, that would allow for good memory function over a much longer period of time.

Obviously doing it with a mesh of fine wires is only one hypothesized technique, but if memory function in the brain is redundant, instead of 'replacing' the brain with cybernetics, couldn't it be 'supplemented' with cybernetics of some type, gradually supplanting the organic memory with a more durable medium still storing the same information?

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2005-04-20 07:12pm

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:This isn't like forgetting the first few years of your childhood. It's more like being seventy, in excellent health, but not remembering anything from before your fiftieth birthday.

I know exactly what you're saying. I'm wouldn't be concerned; you are what you remember. What you know when you're at this advanced age will be different than what you know now and you'll be a different person, that was my point. I guess that scares some people.

I guess the more imporant part of your brain is the part that controls various organs. If those 'forget' how to control your heart...?

Since we're talking about what's possible. Then I guess there will be a point where we understand how neural pathways relate to specific memory. You could store data in a computer and then manually remap newly grown brain cells to regain certain memories, especially critical ones.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-04-20 07:17pm

The memory we think of is stored as neural engrams in the brain. To think a wire mesh will supplement that is folly. The whole brain is one big storage and processing unit, nothing like a PC where you have those separate and not in parallel or serial.

Junghalli · Post by **Junghalli** » 2005-04-20 09:10pm

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:Requires first getting an extensive and complete mapping of your genome. Not a problem, we'll probably be able to routinely do this in less than fifty years. And then it requires reliably getting the new genetic information into your cells. The main problem with this being that it isn't a clean way to deliver the information to all your cells, and there's no guarantee the corrected genes will be inserted into the proper places. To repair your genome like that involves contracting a massive engineered viral or grey goo infection which affects 100% of your body. This is somewhere in the realm of mastubatory wanking.

What about prenatal gene therapy while you're still a very small developing embryo? I'd think that would be a good deal easier than rewiring them genome of a fully formed person. Ideally you could do it while they were still a zygote, or maybe even fertilize the egg en vitrio while altering the gametes' DNA to give the resulting child a longer lifespan. Sure the present generation wouldn't benefit, but the one after it would.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-04-20 09:49pm

Junghalli wrote:
GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:Requires first getting an extensive and complete mapping of your genome. Not a problem, we'll probably be able to routinely do this in less than fifty years. And then it requires reliably getting the new genetic information into your cells. The main problem with this being that it isn't a clean way to deliver the information to all your cells, and there's no guarantee the corrected genes will be inserted into the proper places. To repair your genome like that involves contracting a massive engineered viral or grey goo infection which affects 100% of your body. This is somewhere in the realm of mastubatory wanking.
What about prenatal gene therapy while you're still a very small developing embryo? I'd think that would be a good deal easier than rewiring them genome of a fully formed person. Ideally you could do it while they were still a zygote, or maybe even fertilize the egg en vitrio while altering the gametes' DNA to give the resulting child a longer lifespan. Sure the present generation wouldn't benefit, but the one after it would.

You miss the point of what I said. I said that you would use the therapies to repair the damage accumulated in your DNA from aging.

With that being said, you can use genetic therapies to stack the deck towards long life and good health of an unborn child. This, of course, assumes you know what you're doing and you've taken into account the side effects modifying certain parts of the genome might have. Of course, this will only buy you up to the maximum natural human lifespan. Well, your children, anyway.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2005-04-21 03:42am

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:Sure, you might be able to inject newly cloned neurons into your brain to fill in some of the gaps (as they will be shanghaied into your preexisting neural networks,) but the loss of your experiences will eventually mean that you at age 1000 will be a fundamentally different person than you now. Chances are, he won't even remember who you were or anything of the first two or three, or four or five, or six or seven centuries of his life.

Stemcells, yay! But I think that if you had more frequent treatments instead then the gaps would be smaller and overall change to the neural structure smaller, thus keeping you more "intact" and even if you do remember all of the thousand years you've lived you will still be radically different person anyway.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2005-04-21 03:48am

Admiral Valdemar wrote:The memory we think of is stored as neural engrams in the brain. To think a wire mesh will supplement that is folly. The whole brain is one big storage and processing unit, nothing like a PC where you have those separate and not in parallel or serial.

Still, assuming you had the nanotech to do it, couldn't you have a system that went around in your brain, copied a neuron with a non-organic replacement, killed the organic neuron and put it's replica in it's place, then went and did the same with the other. Said artficial neuron would be perfectly capable of interfacing with organic and artificial neurons.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-04-21 11:56am

His Divine Shadow wrote:
Admiral Valdemar wrote:The memory we think of is stored as neural engrams in the brain. To think a wire mesh will supplement that is folly. The whole brain is one big storage and processing unit, nothing like a PC where you have those separate and not in parallel or serial.
Still, assuming you had the nanotech to do it, couldn't you have a system that went around in your brain, copied a neuron with a non-organic replacement, killed the organic neuron and put it's replica in it's place, then went and did the same with the other. Said artficial neuron would be perfectly capable of interfacing with organic and artificial neurons.

You would have to make sure this artificial neuron had all the same connections as its replacement, and responded to those connections in exactly the same way as the original. But, of course, if you had nanotechnology perfected to the point you could perfectly replicate something on the scale of a biological cell in the same size and form factor, and you had a sufficient grasp of how biological systems work to even consider doing such a thing, then you've just created Homo Superior Roboticus, which, while in the realm of possibility, tends to be so far out there that you've gone and wanked your own dick off.