Last year Phil wrote a post entitled “Death Sucks.” No argument here. It does. But for some reason there’s no shortage of people who ask, “Why would you want to live indefinitely?”
Aubrey de Grey thinks it’s a fair question, but he has a good answer. You don’t have to decide today to live 1000 years. If life is rewarding now, you probably don’t want to die today. Chances are you’ll still be in no hurry to die if 100 years from now life is still rewarding. You may still feel the same in 1000 years. This is also an answer to those who might not want life extension. De Grey is not arguing for mandatory immortality. He’s arguing against mandatory age-related death.
In his book, “More Than Human,” Ramez Naam had another thought. He argued that we shouldn’t consider life extension technologies in isolation from other transformative technologies:
When we contemplate the three years that a mouse may live, we don’t mourn its short time on this earth. In three years, a mouse lives and learns as much as it’s able, and more years wouldn’t add meaning or quality to its life. Today a human life span may provide enough years for a man or woman to learn and grow as much as we’re able. But in the decades to come, we’ll increase our capacity to learn, grow, and change over time. Eventually one hundred years may seem like a brief adolescence…
More Than Human – page 126
I think we could continue to find life rewarding for many more years even with current mental limitations. It’s not life that gets old. It’s the getting old that gets old. As the body fades it takes more effort to reach diminishing goals. Little wonder that the elderly grow nostalgic for “the good old days.” They may not have had indoor plumbing, but their body’s plumbing worked great.
People also get bored with their jobs. It might not make financial sense to retrain late in a career – particularly if age will affect job prospects after retraining. But an ageless workforce wouldn’t be stuck like that. You could work for a time, take a sabbatical (in lieu of permanent retirement), retrain, and then work in a new position.
I suspect, though, that Naam is correct. If we understand the human body well enough to fix a problem as complex as aging, what’s to keep us from enhancing the body as well? Given the option, most of us would choose to be smarter, stronger, more agile, and resistant to toxins and disease. We would want sharper vision and better hearing. We would like to eat what we want without adding pounds.
We may be within 25 years of real treatment for aging. We will see advancements in all of these other areas in the interim. Beyond that…all bets are off.