Mankind is seriously concerned about the problem of immortality. Almost every modern person wants to know how to live forever, because we can’t even imagine that someday this world will exist without us. Even in the Middle Ages, alchemists were looking for recipes for a magical tool that would give eternal youth and life. With the development of scientific thought, people began to hope that achievements in the field of gerontology and bioengineering would one day allow each inhabitant of the planet to control his life span himself. Futurists and science fiction writers have written about this more than once, outplaying the idea of immortality from different angles. However, in recent years, scientists are increasingly saying that it is possible to live forever. Developments in this area are carried out by the most famous scientific laboratories around the world. To date, this work has several directions. In which of them there will be a scientific breakthrough, while no one knows. But scientists are confident that in forty-five to fifty years they will be able to make an exact recipe for how to live forever.
Immortality: An Unbiased Look at the Problem
Since ancient times, human thoughts have revolved around the theme of death and eternal life. Over time, almost every nation has formed certain religious beliefs that meet the ideas of immortality.
For example, the northern Scandinavian peoples believed that to be a warrior means to live forever. After all, only the most courageous and desperate could count on death in battle, and she, in turn, led to immortality in Valhalla, a heavenly chamber of heaven for those who were ready to give their lives for a just cause and their people. Here warriors can feast with the gods, enjoying the luxurious decoration of the halls and young beauties.
Love lives forever. Probably everyone heard this phrase, but everyone perceives it in their own way. Many people believe that you can become immortal only in your children born of great love. Indeed, in this case, the spark of this divine feeling will always burn in descendants, which means that a person can never sink into obscurity. Some philosophers were sure that true and sincere love reveals in people their best qualities, including creative talents. Lovers begin to write poetry, paintings and in every possible way to manifest themselves in other directions. Such creations can become masterpieces reminiscent of the love that gave rise to them.
Religion gives its answer to the eternal question of how to live forever. For example, Christianity teaches a person that righteous deeds during life cannot stop the natural aging of the body, but give the soul the opportunity to receive eternal life, granted by God. But sinners will forever be punished for their actions in hell. It is worth noting that a similar view of immortality exists in almost every religion. It gives an idea to a person that his body is susceptible to disease and extremely imperfect, but the soul has greater potential, therefore it is immortal.
If you were careful, you noticed that most of the research on immortality always focuses on the soul. However, this approach does not suit a modern person; he wants to live here and now in his body, which should remain young and healthy. "I want to live forever!" - This is a kind of credo of people of the twenty-first century. We can say that we are so focused on the material component of the world that we do not even want to think about what we are getting old and die. For several decades, scientists have been struggling to solve the problem of immortality, and it is worth noting that in recent years they have been able to significantly advance in their work.
Aging: causes
About a hundred thousand people die every day on the planet from old age. For a long time, this was perceived quite naturally, because aging is an integral part of the life cycle. It was always believed that all living organisms are born, grow up and die. There is no other option provided by nature. However, it turned out that this is not so.
In our world live organisms with unlimited vital resources. Some of them live so long that people can’t even grasp the upcoming signs of old age. For example, the Antarctic sponge lives for about twenty thousand years. Moreover, throughout the entire time of its existence, it is in the same condition, its cells successfully divide, while remaining young. Aleutian sea bass is another mystery of nature - it has been living for at least two hundred years. Moreover, the prototype is considered a fairly young individual that retains reproductive functions. Why is a person aging? What mechanisms cause the body to stop cell division?
Scientists have proven that cells that can "repair" any damage in time provide the body with youth. At a young age, the regeneration process occurs much faster than damage to any tissue. But in the future, cells begin to divide more slowly, and at some point they completely stop. This is death. For a long time, science has been trying to understand what is happening in our body with age. Why is the process of cell regeneration and division suspended?
As it turned out, two reasons contribute to this:
- With each division, the DNA molecule shortens a little and at a certain stage becomes unsuitable for further division. This leads to the aging of the body.
- Our cells are programmed for self-destruction. The fact is that with age, the body begins to produce protein, which orders the cells to begin self-destruction, that is, the termination of division. Interestingly, experiments on mice proved the possibility of blocking this protein. In this case, their life expectancy increased by thirty percent.
After reading what you have written, you can ask a reasonable question: "Why are we still dying, if scientists have already figured out how to live forever?" Take your time, because knowing the cause of aging and neutralizing it is completely different things.
Life Extension Research
In principle, scientists were able to understand the aging mechanism of the human body, but nature was not so simple - it hid a lot of different teams in different cells that make them stop dividing. Disclosing one or two reasons cannot fundamentally change the state of things and help in creating a tablet of youth, which almost all people in the world dream of.
It is interesting that almost everyone can extend their active life for ten to fifteen years, adhering to the simplest rules (we will talk about them a little later). But people do not want this, they are waiting for a way that can give them youth and health for at least two or three hundred years. Many dream that in the future, science will make a real breakthrough and people will have the opportunity to live an unlimited number of years. What prospects does this promise to humanity?
Why live forever?
We want to extend our life so much that we often don’t even realize why we need a limitless existence. Imagine that you live forever. What would change in your life?
Scientists on this issue are quite optimistic. They believe that the problem of overpopulation of the planet, which has been scaring us for many years, is far-fetched and irrelevant. After all, if a person can live as long as possible, then his return to society will be incommensurably greater. Of course, a change in life expectancy will lead to a complete change in the structure of society, but this should not be feared. Everyone will be able to bring great benefits to their planet.
Just imagine that among people the concept of retirement age will completely disappear! Most likely, each member of the society will be allocated certain years to rest, after which he can receive a new education and qualification. Such a reboot will be carried out repeatedly throughout life.
Distant galaxies and planets will become accessible to mankind. Indeed, in the event of immortality, a person will be able to go on stellar expeditions of any duration. People, if they lived forever, could colonize numerous planets, which no one even dreams of now.
Scientists believe that an increase in life expectancy will be accompanied by an extension of reproductive age in men and women. Therefore, people will be able to give birth to children a hundred and two hundred years after they do a lot of useful things for their planet.
Of course, it is possible that not everyone will want to live in a new way. Therefore, scientists allow the existence of social structures that will preach existence with a limited life. Such people will have a high level of self-awareness, which scientists started talking about at the end of the seventeenth century.
Immortalism
With the development of science, humanity began to approach the understanding that life extension is possible thanks to the latest developments. However, it is difficult to separate science from philosophy, therefore, by the beginning of the twentieth century, a special trend had formed - immortalism, dealing with the problems of immortality. His followers do not wonder whether it is possible to live forever. They know for sure that this is in the competence of science. However, immortalists argue that one should not forget about the elementary rules of life, allowing to prolong youth. Indeed, in the absence of self-control, a person will be able to bring himself to death even with a high level of development of medicine.
Immortalism considers immortality as a combination of scientific developments and systems for the development of self-awareness. Only with this right approach, according to the followers of this teaching, can a person extend his life almost to infinity.
“I want to live forever”: simple and important tips
About seven years ago, immortalists advanced the theory of the six levels of life extension that are available to humanity now. The first three are quite difficult for ordinary people to understand, but the rest can be used by absolutely all people on the planet:
- Give up bad habits. Scientists have long proved that smoking and alcohol age our body several times faster. With this lifestyle, cells receive a signal of self-destruction at a fairly young age. Therefore, people who abuse alcohol and tobacco look much older than their peers, and are also at risk for cardiovascular diseases.
- Do not neglect the intake of vitamin complexes and various dietary supplements. They help the body produce substances necessary for prolonging youth.
- Lead the right way of life, including moderate physical activity, a balanced diet and regular medical examination, which allows you to identify the symptoms of various diseases in time.
By the way, most scientists say that dietary restrictions affect life expectancy very positively. During the experiments, it was found that hunger causes the body to mobilize. It tunes in the protection of cells, which causes cardinal changes in physiological processes. As a result, aging slows down.
The path to eternal life
Currently, scientists are working in several areas in the field of prolonging human life. The most interesting and promising of them are:
- tablets for old age;
- cryogenic freezing;
- nanorobots;
- cyborgization;
- digitization of consciousness;
- cloning.
We will briefly tell you about each of the directions.
Old age treatment
Most gerontologists consider old age a disease, and therefore they see a solution to the problem in finding a cure for aging cells. Moreover, according to the latest sensational statements, such a drug may appear in three years, and after another thirty years, almost every person will have the opportunity to extend their life for several decades. What are these bright prospects based on? Let's try to figure it out.
In recent years, the number of scientific discoveries related to the treatment of various senile diseases has increased. For example, NASA has developed a drug designed as a vitamin supplement for astronauts. As a result, it turned out that it very effectively removes age-related changes such as wrinkles and age spots, and, therefore, slows down the aging process of cells.
Russian scientists have learned to plant on the cells of the body sick with cancer, a special drug that literally repairs the damaged cell, completely eliminating relapse. In the same way, they plan to treat a person for various senile diseases, thereby increasing their life expectancy.
Cryo-freezing
This is one of the most popular ways to extend life. However, this method is very controversial and causes a lot of complaints. The thing is that modern scientists have learned to freeze human cells, but they cannot bring them back to life. Therefore, the hope rests on the science of the future, which should develop techniques for defrosting and creating, on the basis of the obtained material, an absolutely healthy person.
Nanotechnology
Nanorobots have long been unseen in the scientific world. At the moment, scientists are struggling to create microscopic robots that can easily move around the human body and patch up damaged tissue. Recently, it has been suggested that nanorobots will completely stop aging with their ability to replace dead cells.
Cyborgs among us
Technically, humanity has long been ready to replace some parts of the body with artificial ones. Therefore, it is likely that the immortality of man is precisely behind this scientific direction. Today, several thousand people live in the world with artificial prostheses of arms and legs, heart valves, and even microcircuits implanted in the brain.
If in the future the quality of such prostheses improves, then their production can be put on stream. And, therefore, a person will be able to live up to three hundred years. Its capabilities will be limited only by the resource of the brain, which, unfortunately, are not unlimited.
Digitization of personality
Scientists are actively working on the so-called digitization of consciousness. They believe that a human person can be recorded on a hard drive, which will enable it to exist after the death of a physical body in virtual space. Very actively in this area are specialists from IBM.
Recently, one of the Russian millionaires announced the work on a claim project, which should lead to the creation of a kind of avatar that has an artificial brain and a digitized personality of a person. According to the millionaire, he will achieve his first success by 2045.
Cloning
Humanity has been thinking about this for a long time, but human cloning is prohibited in many countries of the world. Although people continue to conduct experiments on the cultivation and cloning of individual organs, which are planned to be used for transplantation in the future.
If successful, scientists hope to lift the ban, which may lead to the creation of numerous clones. They will become the most effective cure for old age for people of the future.
It is difficult to say whether humanity will be able to overcome old age and come close to the secrets of eternal youth. Nobody knows that. However, even Leo Tolstoy at one time argued that in order to live forever, one must tear, burn and fight. Perhaps he is right, and in this movement people will finally be able to find the coveted immortality.