Longevity

So there's all kind of limits in our cells on how long they can live, and if we turn them off we'll be a walking bag of cancer in short order, right?

It would seem the only way of immortality is indeed through our children, but that's a poor trick at best. Continuity is key here, and preventing moments lost in time like tears in rain, etc., etc.

So we want to get some of the benefits of life on a macroscopic scale, like a flock of animals replaces and renews itself, to apply to our own internal cells. Offspring and change are central here.

I'm not thinking about something primitive like harvesting our children for organs. That's crude and intrusive, and of course hopeless when it's your brain that's going. I'm talking about growing fresh cells produced by sexual reproduction and injecting them into your body, making you an artificial chimera. You'd probably have to do some genetic engineering to make the immune systems totally compatible.

The idea would be for over 80% of your cells to be replaced by age 70 or so, ready to fill in when the cells with your original DNA start croaking of age and obsolescence. By then you'd probably have three to five different distinct DNAs in you, all mixed up. Change, with continuity.

Thoughts?

>>12
Kind of true. Your probability of pulling trough any one particular disease seems to be rising steadily, but when you look at how technology and science has progressed, the increases we have seen in average life expectancy seem relatively meager.

We are getting a deeper understanding of molecular interactions and exponentially more computing power to play around with, we have gotten better manufacturing techniques both for medicine and for surgical equipment. Previous known instrument have become cheaper and lighter, and supplemented by expensive new ones. Why aren't we gaining a deep enough understanding of our biology to create and modify it at will?

>>11
Actually, looking at the statistics for the U.S., at least, heart disease is the country's major killer, followed by cancer. These are both diseases that mostly befall the elderly, especially heart diseases. Cancer is somewhat more even-handed, but you have a much better chance of pulling through if you're otherwise healthy. If we could make the elderly just a bit less elderly-like, life expectancy would shoot through the roof. I'm not doubting that in the world at large, disease, famine and war kills a depressingly large amount of people, but those now have apparent and uninteresting solutions in the hard sciences, and are waiting for macroeconomics and politics to catch up.

There's a couple of years to be gained by improved diet and fitness, but even the best countries currently have a quite unspectacular lead over the U.S., which is generally regarded as something of a slob.