Atomictumor

I love cable.

Did I mention that?

I watched, last night, a show on the Science channel about the efforts of scientists working on longevity drugs, with the optimistic viewpoint being that medicines and treatments and whatnot would be available to retard the aging process, and eventually to prolong life indefinitely.  Without zombies.  Well, no more than there are now, at least.

Now, I’ve called myself a transhumanist once or twice, after a few drinks.  I think the logical next step in human evolution would be a self imposed step, wherein the mind oversteps the matter, and jumps over nature.  I’m not the most versed on the subject, and I understand the pessimistic viewpoint that

• only the rich would have it, creating an uber upper class that would forever keep my sorry ass down,
• or that life would become meaningless without death around to make you hurry up and take that trip to Greece (Mel, you promised to put me up, remember),
• or that the overwhelming population would rapidly make the planet uninhabitable
• or that OMG nobody wants to live forever

but I think the reality of things would be similar to the effect that antibiotics, or polio vaccines, or even birth control, have had on the human consciousness over the past decades.  Some problems, but for the most part smooth sailing.

And I used to totally be behind the idea of living for a few hundred years, and even more into the idea of choosing when and how you die.  I think (call me crazy) that death is as beautiful and necessary to the human condition as birth is, and that it should be celebrated, to an extent, more than it is in our society.  As a survivor of death, however, I see it as a brutish, impolite and impatient relative, somebody who busts into your house, stays for way too long, eats all your food, stops up the toilet, and leaves you feeling horrible about the world around you.

I used to want to believe in longevity treatments and possibilities to avoid death, and now I think its an interesting prospect because we, as a society, need to get to know death better.  It doesn’t need to be swept under the carpet, killing the dinner conversation and making the neighbors look at you oddly, and I don’t think it should ever be particularly light conversation, but it needs to be more respected, and it makes sense to me that by making it part of your life, making the choice “I’m going to keep taking the longevity pill until the next time Halley’s Comet comes”, or “until I’ve been to every country that has a y in it” or “Until I think I understand it” would liberate so much of the human condition.

And what of God?  Many folks I’ve talked to have the idea that something like this would be taking from God’s domain, but I find that a narrow viewpoint.  I don’t see why humanity would be given the gift of a mind that could stave off death, without that being a ‘gift of God’.  Now, I’m still not in God’s country club, and haven’t yet bought into a particular theological point of view (other than the sights I’ve seen), but my thinking seems to hold water.

I don’t know, however, if I’d be drinking the elixir myself, or at least not for very long.  However, I’d love having the choice.

Discuss.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 25th, 2007 at 9:00 am and is filed under Rambling, da science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.