Who wants to live forever?
20/10/09 14:31 Filed in: Musings
Not me. At least, not the way scientists are trying to go about it. Scientist Ray Kurzweil claims that humans could become immortal in as little as 20 years’ time through nanotechnology. He’s not quite a nutcase; he has a track record of predicting new technologies.
He argues that the technology to replace many of our vital organs could be available by then. Already artificial pancreases and neural implants are available.
He writes, “I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogramme our bodies so we can halt, then reverse, ageing. Then nanotechnology will let us live for ever.”
“Within 25 years we will be able to do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath, or go scuba-diving for four hours without oxygen.”
It still sounds pretty fantastic—ie. mostly fantasy—to me. It would certainly make the Olympics a non-event. And there’d be little need for performance enhancing drugs when we can all run like a gazelle.
Yet from time immemorial man has sought ways to find the elixir of youth and live forever. In more recent years those rich enough have settled for plastic surgery and looking like a youth until they die. And those richer still, and even more hopeful of scientific progress, have had themselves cryogenically frozen in the hope of a second shot at life at a future date.
Much and all as I enjoy life, I can think of few things worse than living forever in this world. This world is profoundly messed up, and for all the progress that science has made, it has failed to deal with the problems of the human heart. The thought of living forever in a world surrounded by selfishness, greed, evil, murder, dishonesty, etc is a depressing one. Despite the compensations of friends, family and pleasures, an eternal nightly litany on the news of abuse, violence, corruption and immorality isn’t a particularly appealing one.
I do want to live forever, but not here. I want a perfect world, one where the problems of the human heart have been dealt with. And that’s not a pipe dream. While it can’t be done by science, it’s why Jesus came to live and die here: to deal with the problem of the human heart, so that that longing that lies deep within us—the hunger to live for more than the few short years we have on this earth—could be fulfilled.
He argues that the technology to replace many of our vital organs could be available by then. Already artificial pancreases and neural implants are available.
He writes, “I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogramme our bodies so we can halt, then reverse, ageing. Then nanotechnology will let us live for ever.”
“Within 25 years we will be able to do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath, or go scuba-diving for four hours without oxygen.”
It still sounds pretty fantastic—ie. mostly fantasy—to me. It would certainly make the Olympics a non-event. And there’d be little need for performance enhancing drugs when we can all run like a gazelle.
Yet from time immemorial man has sought ways to find the elixir of youth and live forever. In more recent years those rich enough have settled for plastic surgery and looking like a youth until they die. And those richer still, and even more hopeful of scientific progress, have had themselves cryogenically frozen in the hope of a second shot at life at a future date.
Much and all as I enjoy life, I can think of few things worse than living forever in this world. This world is profoundly messed up, and for all the progress that science has made, it has failed to deal with the problems of the human heart. The thought of living forever in a world surrounded by selfishness, greed, evil, murder, dishonesty, etc is a depressing one. Despite the compensations of friends, family and pleasures, an eternal nightly litany on the news of abuse, violence, corruption and immorality isn’t a particularly appealing one.
I do want to live forever, but not here. I want a perfect world, one where the problems of the human heart have been dealt with. And that’s not a pipe dream. While it can’t be done by science, it’s why Jesus came to live and die here: to deal with the problem of the human heart, so that that longing that lies deep within us—the hunger to live for more than the few short years we have on this earth—could be fulfilled.