I’m quite fed up with the argument against life extension and physical immortality mentioning Steve Jobs who said that “death is very likely the single best invention of life». It’s actually a form of the Buyer’s Stockholm Syndrome, when a person makes a not necessary and expensive purchase and starts to look for arguments that it’s not too bad after all. Only despair and hopelessness make a person justify death. Death is not the single best invention of life, but the worst thing that can happen in it. The whole essence of life is to struggle against death and fight for survival.
Yes, death emphasizes the beauty of life, but it can well do that in a theoretical sense. Like the worst-case scenario that should be avoided. While people are mortal, a human life is a tragedy. Regardless of what a person was doing in life, everything that they lived for will disappear including them. Only striving to immortality and the infinity of goals make sense. Otherwise one can always put the person at a stand by asking the repeating question “why are you doing this?” and regardless of the answer, ask again “and why is this?” If there is no infinity then the person comes to an unavoidable loss of sense.
My answer is that the meaning of my life is in having a tomorrow. I want every tomorrow to have its own tomorrow. Death is when your tomorrow never comes.
Maria Konovalenko 
Great writing, there really is no point, if you can’t get to the next moment with some form of consciousness whether it is in this biological construct we call human or even if we evolve to transhuman like states, keep up the proactive fight, as more people age and life expectancy increases, people will want more life, which is a little opposite from previous generations along civilization, in which many simple did not reach old age and did not have modern amenities to make older life more worth it, so many just accepted their fate, mind you the vast majority of the masses have been hoodwinked into believe in some form of afterlife, to remove any form of rationale/intellectual reasoning, so these meme’s still continue in a great way through out the world’s population. The single factor that might bring those dollars into the research laboratories as needed to improve our success rate at extended life years and decades or centuries (or indefinitely) into the future will probably come from the ageing baby boomer population that have an enormous amount of political and economic and ownership value across our planet. If you can get even a few examples of say 70 and 80 years olds with reversed ageing taking place, you will have trillions of dollars in total free’d up from millions or tens of millions of people around the world (yes grand statements, however, the psychology and the implications of such proof of concept examples to the masses, would get them thinking, well even if I can just borrow half a million or a million for the treatment I now have say another 50/100 or indefinite amount of working time left to pay it off. If and when we do get to this stage, though , the scarcity/abundance concept comes into play and also we might be on an economic paradigm ship away from existing forms of wealth/society structure. The issue you push on longevity that really does drive you is that such money is not coming on board at the moment, I think it’s a little like the promise of AI, it has come on in waves upon each sci fi popular culture giving us a glimpse of possible future reality, but in real life it has not delivered to the point of going beyond the general publics imagination, in many ways that is b/c the popular culture of games/tv/movies/innovative gadgets, just seems to stay ahead of the ‘off the shelf’ type things most can by from aldi, kmart, walmart or whatever first world country equivalent store. When you walk into a store in possibly less than ten years or definitely another 20 and some device starts conversing with you with human speech like interaction and intelligence, you have a game changer across a vast number of industries. Not to mention health/medicine/longevity research. The singularity is definitely coming if not we are smack bang in the middle of the inflection point however, we can’t see the curve of the Earth until we look down (‘back in time’) from a space(‘a different perspective’), in many ways it’s like how physics teaches us to view from a different perspective using frames of reference,
Possible, a better vehicle for longevity extension research would be to employ hollywood or young film graduates or highly skiled game makers
with the best market researchers in the world aiming solely at the 50/60+ generation targeting in a powerful conceptual way, the fact that their savings or investment might make a huge different directly to them, and
then to their kids, and grand kids and grand-grand kids.
It has to tie back into what those in that age category value as important
or all our words/beliefs/actions/motivations mean zilch to them if you have
not convinced them in some deeper conceptual way, even if you leverage
their spiritual side, or their beliefs. In the end, I would wager the vast majority (not all ) do not want to die, and if it comes down to running ten marathons in a row, to avoid death many would do that, than death, it is more than most people simple except it as BAU, status quo, nothing we can do about it, it’s not right (against god’s wishes), the list goes on.
The fact is though, give people a choice, extend (indefinitely) life, green pill, set life to a constant value red (and that constant value diminishes) people will choose the green pill. Yes a little like the matrix movie, however in this context it’s life as we know it with clear choices, invest massively in life extension or do nothing. They’ll come with the funds soon enough Anna, great little piece of writing by the way, keep up the positive work.
Apologies on the lack of Grammar, and calling you Anna, Maria. I live in Australia and here is an example of how wealthy and influential people in industry and government can bring about a change.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/wonder-cancer-drug-that-saved-ron-walkers-life-approved-for-sickest-melanoma-sufferers/story-fni0fiyv-1226922034452?nk=c52f2a73539f07cd891503d2d22c7fa4
(Definitely not a newspaper worth reading however the general outline
screams get the trial research here quickly eg in weeks, not years, there is a ground movement happening, when research even in preliminary trial stages is showing great success, then get more trials out to everywhere rather than wait, better to have tried and failed(In which case your dead, than not to have tried some other forms that at least might prevent death)
This treatment is with melanoma and not longevity however, the main person Walker has starved off death b/c of medical breakthrough/treatments that a few years ago did not exist, now b/c of the single fact that Walker is a friend of the prime minister, and only had months left of life, and was quite a wealthy individual with significant investment in this country, he has pushed individually to get this treatment down here in Australia More examples like this will build the critical mass you are after for investment hopefully.
I agree 100%
Life is the best invention. Period. Together we can figure out how to keep it going…
That is one of many mistakes Jobs made.. He was wise enough to find young talented people to help him roll over his mistakes. But mistakes he made. And deciding death was an invention of Life.. Is very unusual to say the very lest.. Ageing and death the infection of Life, must be fought the day long by the body of Life.. For one to stay alive long enough to Research the infestation/infection mankind calls ageing and sickness.. SAD Steve Jobs had enough money to end his sickness, and ageing for him and us all… But even sadder I never contacted Steve. Attempted, but he was very reclusive, to those not of his industry… The causes of ageing and sickness/death found, the cure/formula located… View at Adam and Eve Word Research .. This months post speaks of the Enzymatic formula we must formulate.. I have found the enzyme groups needed, and the ligands necessary to destroy the ageing infection hiding in us all.. Also the COOK BOOK Recipes / Methodology of eating and cooking to help keep the infection from returning to the body, as it enters and leaves us each day.. Taking with it Life… Respect to Maria and Jobs… http://adamandevewordresearch.blogspot.com/
Death is the very fuel of evolution. Without it we would never have evolved. So don’t put down death. On the other hand, death can evolve a species that’s capable of transcending death, and hopefully that’s us and soon.
Rafael Espericueta Esquire: can we not agree {those who believe death has some grand purpose/deathists} can we not agree, that mankind has been given the wisdom/capability to not just examine death, but to defeat it on the battle ground of knowledge??? {death trying to clandestinely enter man and destroy us, we now preparing to stop death} Man has proved some purpose for the carcasses of animals & plants decomposing.. But I have seen none for grave yards of Mankind… That is what ageing is, the infection/infestation of the decomposer society/fungus/molds, but in their very minute and beginning form.. Literally sub Nano/Sub Atomic in size at their beginnings in the body/blood/cells… Respect
infinity = the absence of time itself
the absence of time = the destruction of individual human purpose and loss of motivation.
lack of individual human purpose = loss of intrinsic life and spirit
there already is infinity. it already exists. humans may one day be capable of tapping into it and experiencing it, but i don’t believe humans will ever be capable of harnessing it.
the argument for the endless life seems to be a paradox, at best. The gods envy us because any moment may be our last.
He was quite ambivalent about life – otherwise, how do you explain he was on drugs for decades?
One of the particular issues I find with those whom glorify death is that they rarely glorify their own death.
I personally believe that science gives us the meaning to life and that meaning is very plainly the continuance of our genetic lineage to the next generation. To go deeper our goals could be the colonization of deep space . Those that believe death has any measurable aspect of beauty are either delusional or are not being truly honest with themselves. If anybody has seen death particularly human death face to face whether from a tragic happening such as a shooting or through a disease such as cancer or heart disease will know first hand how utterly disgusting death is. I’ve seen both circumstances as my father had died from a self inflicted gun shot to which I failed to render adequate first aid my grandmother died a slow, undignified, and painful death due to ovarian cancer and while I’ve become mostly desensitized towards death especially due to the more shocking death of my father I do not glorify it or find any beauty as my father was a talented painter and my grandmother was a great freethinker and they aren’t within my capacity to communicate with any longer.
It took 6 000 000 000 years for us to be alive today and to experience the beauty of being alive.
Since I was little I knew that I must do everything in order to preserve life, health and youth.
To be forever young can be the goal of our movement, and to end aging
and the aging related diseases.
Jobs said that knowing he will die one day is his greatest motivation to create and to ‘make a dent in the universe’. This obviously applies to everyone, even if subconsciously. KNowing one has limited time is a motivating factor to act. You have demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding of this point. Also, it’s uncomfortable how you use the word immortality so freely and then say ‘ending aging is not about ending death’. Since actual physical immortality is not possible due to the heat death of the universe, how do you reconcile the use of such hyperbole? Are scientists supposed to use such vague language?