Name: Anonymous 2008-09-16 16:15
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?
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?