The biggest stumbling block to living forever…or at least a whole hell of a lot longer, is the cancer factor. You tell cells to keep dividing past their normal point of doing so, you run a very big risk of telling them to be cancer cells.
It’s gonna be quite awhile before we defeat age, and we’ll never defeat death. And don’t worry too much about overcrowding, it won’t be the kind of thing avaiable at your local drugstore and your health insurance won’t cover it. It will be an option of the wealthy.
I have not heard of any formal studies on the subject, but there seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that older people who feel they no longer have any use seem to fade and die pretty quickly after the change in circumstance. Someone who has always been active and involved in life, career, family, or scholarship, then is suddenly deprived of it after 70 or 80 years may simply stop taking care of themselves, feeling they have nothing else to live for. Eating and exercise habits slacken, and physical and mental depression have been shown to have a strong negative effect on the immune system.
There have certainly been studies on mental decline in older people once they give up their independence. I’m trying to find a link to one I read recently about a study done on retirees which seemed to conclude that there was far greater mental accuity and better general physical health among seniors who did not own a television but who read constantly than among their TV-watching counterparts.
I heard a remarkable program on NPR about 2 yrs ago. Scientist (sorry, no cite) are working on computer chips of info lazed onto protien shells (hence no rejection) for hardwire embedding, to be able ‘download’ your ‘mind’ into a computer. Thus allowing you to ‘live’ forever, albiet without your body. I know this sounds wacky, but it was gone into in great detail by what I, and the NPR, took to be reputable scientists.
Re OP: I believe it is biologically possible to will yourself to die.
The telemeres in a cell are of a certain set length. Every time the cell divides, a tiny bit of protein is snipped off the end. When the chain gets short enough, no more division. None. The cell sits stagnant or dies.
Telemerase would 1)halt the shortening of telemeres, making you stop aging or possibly 2)lengthen the shortened telemere chains, allowing your aging to be reversed somewhat or dramatically.
Telemerase wouldn’t ‘magically’ fix a bad heart, or a bad back, or bad bones, or a dying mind. If a cell doesn’t divide, telemerase would not help. It would only help the soft tissues that continue to grow and divide your entire life. Telemerase would help sagging skin and stuff like that, but not instantly, it would be months, perhaps years before the changes would become noticable, because of the speed of cell division, and the time it takes to replace the cells.
And then there’s free radicals.
Of course, by the time I die, aging may well be conquered, so I’m not too worried, geezers.
Perhaps the best bet at defeating death is nanotechnology, molecule-sized robots in our body constantly making small repairs. This would effectively stop aging, not to mention curing diseases, even genetic ones. About population: Space. We can already live in space stations, and living on the moon is a trivial extension of that technology. Mars is the same way. And there are plenty of asteroids around, and the Jovian moons and the moons of Saturn. We could easily utilize raw materials from all those places, once the infrastructure was in place. And that’s just our own backyard. There are new solar systems only a few light-years distant. Colonization will happen. It’s only a matter of when.
Here’s an interesting thought-experiment I thought up: The average human lifespan is being extended rather rapidly these days, partially due to procedures that can extend the lifespans of the aged. How about this: Someone could live ‘forever’ even before death itself is cured by ‘riding the wave’ of advances. Every so often, they get a new procedure done, buying time until the next one is invented, which buys them more time, by which time a new procedure has been invented, etc. How about it? A rich man’s sport, yes, but it might benefit Mr. Gates.
I witnessed a Dr recently documenting on a death certificate that the patients cause of death was “being born in 1901”.
yes…I believe that once people reach their “use by date”, they will not tend to will themselves to live on. It is interesting to note too, that peoples general requirements that they learn over their lifespan (ie: feeding, walking, hygiene etc) which they learn from an early age, are all skills they lose once they reach a certain period in their life!