The pursuit of eternity, such as women's desire for diamonds, Qin Shi Huang's pursuit of immortality... This is a human need, and you cannot say that he is against nature, an illusion of falsehood.
José Luis Cordillo, founder of Silicon Valley Singularity University, says that in 20-30 years, the secrets of immortality will be revealed. In an interview with RT, the first Russian all-weather English-language news channel, the scientist and futurist recounted which scientific discoveries brought humanity closer to immortality. At least we want to stay in a good shape for 20-30 years. According to Cordillo, thanks to the leaps and bounds of technology, with the technology to make us immortal, people will soon learn telepathy and colonize other planets.
Many experiments are now conducted with cells, organs, and entire organisms: mice, for example, have almost tripled their lifespan. The mice we have now can live to the equivalent of 300 years of human life while remaining healthy.
Experimental mice
Mosquitoes can already survive to the age of about 400 people, and worms can even last 600-1000 years of life. We're constantly learning new things – and we've achieved that in just 10 years. Imagine what will happen in another 10 years! Once these technologies have been improved, they can be applied to people. By keeping our bodies in good shape, we will be able to live longer, and our ultimate goal is to be able to live forever.
So how do you achieve this goal?
1. The Immortality of Cybernetics: If we learn a lot from movies and learn a lot, then it's safe to say that of all the possible ways to achieve immortality, this is the best. Scientists call it the RoboCop method.
Intelligence is the user of the tool: this is perhaps an important factor in determining the development of our species. So even if we never crack the laws of genetic aging or refine ways to grow an alternative liver, we can rely on our abilities to build great mechanical tools for immortality. That's what we do.
And we're already moving forward — with artificial hearts, instead of limbs and artificial nerves , we're already rebuilding humans (albeit piecemeal) into robots. Put the stethoscope on the chest of former Vice President Dick Cheney and you won't hear anything — he doesn't have a heart, but a machine that draws blood. If we can replace one part, then we can replace another part.
Many of the limitations of these technologies — the weight and durability of materials and energy efficiency — will disappear with the development of technologies such as carbon nanotubes and metamaterials.
2. Part (or whole) of cloning: Although no reliable person has ever cloned (or claimed to have cloned) a human being, it seems scientifically reasonable, so it has been suggested that it be used as a means to enable humans to maintain their lives beyond their normal survival date.
The first is to make new, healthy, completely "your" organs to replace the old ones at birth. Apparently, most people die from specific organ failure. So, even if there is no other result on this list, replacing parts of a car's transmission like you can extend the service life indefinitely. Organ implantation is a less ethically obscure method of cloning because it only requires cloning a single body part.
Another approach would be to use fully grown clones as containers for aging brains.
3, gene therapy: that is, we manipulate the genes inside the cell to treat diseases.
For us, there's an enzyme called telomerase that acts like a little plastic thing at the end of a DNA shoelace – it prevents the end of dna from breaking. Unfortunately, every time a cell divides, some of them are lost, which means that every time you grow or heal, you destroy your body's ability to regenerate itself. Medical scientists are looking for ways to revive telomerase or prevent telomerase loss in the first place. If they succeed, they can effectively stop or even reverse the aging process.
4. Mind Upload: Back up all your thoughts and consciousness to your computer. This is one of those ideas that sounds ridiculous but may be closer than imagined.
There are huge differences in scientific estimates about how much computer hardware it takes to simulate your brain, because the human brain stores information in a completely different way than your computer. For example, if you only count neurons, its original storage space is only a few gigabytes, which is smaller than the thumb-sized USB drive on your desk, but the brain uses a flexible system that allows it to store something closer. Information worth 2.5 petabytes (or 2500 TB).
Obviously, we don't have computers that can mimic or carry human thought processes, mostly because we don't know enough about how the brain acquires thoughts and memories. But in terms of the power of the hardware, once they figure out how it works, we can build something that can do it.
So, that's actually probably less than the rest of the list of science fiction. Scientists have made the work of neurointerlacing technology: for computers and robots, and even to create animal brains simulated using supercomputers. These are the first steps in digitally documenting the human mind (called whole-brain simulations). You can then create a digital backup just in case. From there, the possibilities of this particular method of immortality are limited only by our imagination. You can download it into the body of a robot or a cyborg, perhaps a fantasy synthetic engineered organism.
5) Nanotechnology Cell Repair – Nanotechnology (i.e., microscopic machines and materials that can build and fix things) is fast becoming part of our culture, like atomic energy in the 1950s, which is a world-changing technology that always produces monsters in science fiction. It can easily be replaced by the capabilities of nanotechnology. Just like any technology, there are limitations. However, it is also difficult not to get excited.
These techniques are not theoretical. Scientists have successfully utilized nanotechnology by building customized synthetic molecules.
Is there a biological limit to the duration of life?
There is no such limitation. Moreover, some cells are immortal. One of the best are stem cells. Their lifespan is unlimited. Yes, for this, they must be in the right environment.
If the organisms die (where such cells are located), then they will also die, although they will not age. In addition to stem cells, there are also cancer cells, that is, cancer cells that have undergone a series of mutations that prevent biological aging. Cancer cells are biologically immortal. Therefore, we will study cancer in more detail to understand how it copes with the problem of aging. The technology developed through this research will eventually be applicable to humans.
Does the planet have enough resources for all to use? As technologies evolve, may they help keep our resources at the right level?
Even if it were possible, a significant increase in population would not occur tomorrow or within a decade. It would take centuries for this to catch people's attention. Therefore, the question will not arise soon, but the question is whether it will appear or not.
But by then, we'll be able to fly into space, and we're going to start spreading to Mars. It also depends on the technology. In the past, we rarely saw each other. At the low level of its development, the world is considered overpopulated. 200 years ago, Thomas Robert Malthus said there were already too many people (there were only 200 million people on Earth at that time!). England, which had a population of 6 million at the time, was close to the end of the world.
Since the days of the Roman Empire, there has been a fear of too many people. Then it was reborn in the British Empire two centuries ago – and had 6 million inhabitants! They thought England was over. There are now more than 60 million people who are living well and will be living better. In any case, even if this problem were possible, it would not appear tomorrow, but centuries from now, when the technology would be completely different.
The next 20 years will change more than in 2000. Are we ready? For example, using telepathy to communicate.
We live in a time when miracles are possible. Not only because we reveal what is called "death," but also because other discoveries in the field of science await us.
We will start using telepathy to communicate, and one brain will communicate directly with another. Today, our communication is not perfect, because oral presentation is a very ineffective technique, it is primitive.
We want to communicate more, better. In the world of the future, we will be able to convey more feelings, knowledge, and compassion to our interlocutors. Artificial intelligence is on the rise. He will develop to the level of humanity and then surpass us. Therefore, we will need to integrate with artificial intelligence. This would be ideal.