Not for long, though. According to scientist Dr. Ian Pearson, immortality may be achieved by as early as 2050... For some of us.
The past few decades have brought phenomenal developments in medical science that significantly improve our chances of living longer, healthier lives. But could we take it even further? Experts are debating just how possible it might be in the near future to extend life indefinitely. Some argue that it's impossible to keep a body going forever; others contend that it's only a matter of time before science makes death a thing of the past.
Pearson expects we'll see the beginnings of immortality within the next few decades, but (initially, at least) it will be far too expensive for the masses:
"By 2050, it will only really be for the rich and famous. Most people on middle-class incomes and reasonable working-class incomes can probably afford this in the 2060s. So anyone 90 or under by 2060. If you were born sometime in 1970 onwards, that would make you 48 this year, so anybody under 50 has got a good chance of it, and anyone under 40 almost definitely will have access to this."This all sounds a bit too much like the recent Netflix show Altered Carbon, in which the world's wealthy elite are able to enjoy endless lifetimes of fun while the poorer among society only get a relatively short span of time on Earth.
Presumably these expensive medical marvels would eventually become available to the wider public, so the trick is simply surviving until immortality becomes affordable. (No big deal, right?)
Pearson's predictions do seem a little optimistic. There are a lot of obstacles to navigate before we reach the point where humans can live forever.
The biggest challenge, perhaps, is mental deterioration. While we're certainly getting better at keeping people alive longer, we're not necessarily able to slow the effects of aging on the human brain just yet.
We must consider whether immortality would ultimately be worth the price. Sure, we could keep the body functioning long after its expiration date... But if we're all slowly losing our sense of identity as the years drag on, this might not actually be the blessing that it sounds like.
There is, of course, another problem to contend with: a cure for death might not be such good thing for humanity if we all keep breeding. The planet would very quickly become overrun if old people stopped politely stepping down and letting successive generations have a turn at ruling the Earth.
If we are to achieve immortality without enduring an incredible population boom, we need to either build some off-world colonies - soon - or think long and hard about whether having offspring is all that good of an idea.
When it comes to the choice between allowing our children to have a future, and hoarding this world's precious resources for ourselves, it does feel a little selfish to try to defy death itself.
Perhaps that's the real reason that only the wealthy will initially make use of this technology: they're already used to keeping the good stuff for themselves.
Reader Comments
Watch altered carbon for a small glimps of the negative future. We will surely make it far worse..
"Behold I make all things new" runs beneath the 'taken-for-granted' mind and its world.
If you look into truly allowing yourself to be renewed, you will meet (of course) the fear of death.
It may be that until we meet and pass through fear, we do not know life at all - but only what fear-thinking programs as defence against (its own) conflicted state.
It is said that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread", and the nature of folly is to mistake the form of something for something else and be fooled into believing it. However, mistakes are also awakening or growth points, and so those who reflect where NOT to go, serve to bring gratitude to my awareness, and in their own choices, they will come to their own discoveries. As do we all.
'Of all the meditations, the meditation on death is the greatest.'
You cannot construct an eternal existence out of the finite spare parts (they didn't need them, but you do?) that you took from others, no matter how lavishly and wondrously you convert these 'spare' parts (that you took) into crypto-currency....
I have news for you.
God is also Satan.
And He loves the smell of sizzling bacon.
Have a nice eternity.
ned,
OUT
What kind of moron doesn't see this is manifestly a plane for a global holocaust? What kind of blithering imbecile would do this and not recognize that, even it were possible, the operating base of all machines are programs, and the reciprocal of a program in nature is instinct. Now if you can't figure out what that means, like say a turtle swimming 10,000 miles to lay eggs on specific beach, and if you can't recognize the ability to corrupt programs and still think is a brilliant idea, then you deserve what fate brings you.
Yes, a plane of genocide is this mortal realm.
The pattern of simulated reality can use its reality to replicate the ability within its virtual mind, to replicate reality.
A key idea for me is that the hate or denial or refusal of the moment (life) we are in, compels us to dislocate to a 'better', and this imaginary version runs in place of a true honouring intimacy of what is truly being now.
So yes there is a wave of dissociation from reality in the seductions of attempting a replacement, and particles of extreme example of undertaking such an idea.
From that perspective humans are upgraded, or eradicated to be replaced by dead systems. And the wave for this is the belief that humans are a virus on the Planet - rather than Children of Our Planet suffering under viral fear-thinking.
The basic eradication/extermination program works like this:
Judge other people as morons, imbeciles and therefore unworthy of life and deserving death - or indeed a fate worse than death trapped in quartz!.
The replacement of life with a substitute is what has been called 'death'.
And drawing life into death, becomes entangled in rigidity that denies movement.
Movement of Life is transformative to the experience of being, and the release of every moment is an unfolding anew.
The broken mind seeks by breaking, to remake in its own image.
That which breaks it is the inducement to deny being, so so experience denial.
Death becomes life and life becomes death - not in truth - but in experience desired.
I Want it Thus! " is denial of Is.
But Is is, even while wish wishes to be.
The confusion of wish-mind will the true will desire is the appeal of death as freedom from desire.
For desire vibrates from the Field of All That Is - and calls us from narcissistic dreaming as a sense of dissonance and disturbance that seems to violate our 'rules'. No matter how over ruled, it wont die.
So transfer the reflected illusion to an inescapable self-persisting program and abandon the body of broken and failed dreams.
You who are life are made tangible and visible by your own acceptance of life.
Accepting fear of death in place of love of living is the worth-ship of a false god.
But you are free to change your mind about your mind.
I enjoy your mind!
Only the living are truly moved - and know and share the movement!
A blessing indeed.
I realize your writings are meant to benefit more than just me,
Flow. Share. Flow some more
Thank you for your response!
Death releases from pain.
You opted into its realm even if you forgot why on arrival.
Decomposing is no more a hassle than any other bacteriological event.
But imagination can play in its own ideas - and perhaps in deadly earnest...