# Who wants to live forever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 31, 2000, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657 "2000-03-31T20:11:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hanzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hanzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanzo)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2000, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/1 "2000-03-31T20:11:00Z")
How long do you think it will take scientists to find out a way for us to live forever by regulating the amount of Telomerase in the body? And do you think, due to the current Telomere research, that living forever is possible at all? I give them 10 years before we have the Highlander walking around. ~Hanzo “You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” ---
**Author:** ![billehunt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c37758/32.png) [@billehunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billehunt)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2000, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/2 "2000-03-31T20:20:00Z")
Well, I don’t think we’ll see this in a decade, but I do think that all of us missed out by being born 100 years too early. Between bio and computer advances, there’ll come a point where we can either back up our brain and plug it in a new body, or live inside a machine that lasts forever. We missed it by a few generations though. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2000, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/3 "2000-03-31T20:21:00Z")
I don’t know that it has been proven beyond doubt that shortening of the telomeres is the cause for aging. Do you have any articles or sources to which you can point us? ---
**Author:** ![egkelly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/db5fbb/32.png) [@egkelly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/egkelly)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2000, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/4 "2000-03-31T20:25:00Z")
What would “life” be like for a dis-embodied brain? Dalto Trumbo explored this in his antiwar novel “Johnny Got His Gun”-basically, I think your brain just hallucinates when you don’t have any sensory inputs. Suppose your thoughts, dreams,emotions could be dowwnloaded onto CDROM-would you come alive when the disc was accessed? Would you experience time? Heavy stuff this! ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2000, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/5 "2000-03-31T20:32:00Z")
Oh Lord, what if you DON’T want to live forever? Sometimes I don’t even want to live until the end of the day. I thought the kids from “Fame” already had the whole thing figured out, anyway. * * * “Mrs. Krabappel, are you trying to seduce me?” ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2000, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/6 "2000-03-31T20:34:00Z")
## The downloaded brain scenario asks some philosophical questions that may not have answers. Just because a machine has the content of your noggin and passes a Turing test doen’t mean that it’s self aware. I think, therefore I am, but don’t take my word for it. ---
**Author:** ![Myron\_Van\_Horowitzski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Myron\_Van\_Horowitzski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myron_Van_Horowitzski)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2000, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/7 "2000-03-31T21:27:00Z")
Waaaalllllll, lemme just tell you about it… Your-brain-in-a-jar, Myron * * * Imbibo, ergo sum. ---
**Author:** ![Hanzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hanzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanzo)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2000, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/8 "2000-03-31T21:41:00Z")
Well about the brain in a jar… Since while you are sleeping you have little or no sensory input, I guess this would make dreaming a halucination in his definition. I don’t want to make this into a soul debate. I was hopeing Cecil would touch on this topic, but he never has. There dosen’t seem to be any one summation what the telomere is capable of. Most webpages are hopefull that the studies will bring about the end of cancer. The reason is because the less your cells self destruct the less chance one has to mutate into a cancerous cell. As for the aging aspect explained technically…I will keep looking. If you know anthing about telomere research that is interesting please let me know. ~Hanzo “You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” ---
**Author:** ![billehunt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c37758/32.png) [@billehunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billehunt)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2000, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/9 "2000-04-01T00:19:00Z")
**Padeye** wrote > [@](#): > > Just because a machine has the content of your noggin and passes a Turing test doen’t mean that it’s self aware. Of course it does. The brain is nothing more than the best computer devised on this planet to date. Evolution is extremely slow, especially compared to Moore’s Law. It’s just a matter of time before we’re surpassed. And who would want to live in this flesh brain, when you could think faster, remember more, see more and move faster with an artificial one. We just missed the window by a century or two. A fun book of some overlap is “The Astonishing Hypothesis” by Crick. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2000, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/10 "2000-04-01T00:47:00Z")
What if you don’t want to live forever? That’s easy. No matter how long your telomeres are, they won’t protect you from various of the more violent demises available. ---
**Author:** ![quadell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/b9bd4f/32.png) [@quadell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quadell)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2000, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/11 "2000-04-03T16:38:00Z")
Okay, old-school ethical problem: Imagine I’ve inveted a machine, the Immortalizer. I put someone under, say, Bob, and this machine slowly disects Bob’s brain, copying every synnapse into software. When it’s done, Bob’s head is gone, but his mind is in some machine. After the inevitably rocky adjustment period, you can talk to Bob, Bob says he thinks it’s wonderful he’s going to live forever, and people sign up in droves to be immortalized. Then, in a couple years, I improve the Immortalizer. Now it can read every neuron in the brain through a CAT scan, and it doesn’t need to destroy the head. I scan Cathy, and put her synnapses into software. Cathy survives fine. But a copy of her brains is also in the computer. The software-Cathy has the same memories, the same personality, etc, and it will live forever. But the person-Cathy will still die. And Bob’s dead too; it’s just his copy that’s immortal. See? The brain is mortal. (Living cells deteriorate eventually, no matter what you do.) And copying a brain won’t make the person immortal; it’ll only make the copy immortal. Food for thought, Your Quadell ---
**Author:** ![G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c67d28/32.png) [@G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.B.H.Hornswoggler)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2000, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/12 "2000-04-03T19:09:00Z")
[raises hand] Me, for one. I’d like to take a stab at living forever. I mean, living is certainly better than the alternative, right? As far as the ethical questions, they’ve all been hashed out at great and entertaining length in that great field we call science fiction. I particularly recommend the short stories of John Varley for clear thinking about serial immortality and related subjects. * * * I’m your only friend I’m not your only friend But I’m a little glowing friend But really I’m not actually your friend But I am ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2000, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/13 "2000-04-03T20:06:00Z")
::This is a test post. Please ignore it. If you see multiposts above, please ignore them, too. I’ll clean them up.:: * * * [NYC IRL III](http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/006163.html) is on April 15th. Do you have what it takes? ---
**Author:** ![Yue\_Han](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/eada6e/32.png) [@Yue\_Han](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yue_Han)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2000, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-live-forever/9657/14 "2000-04-03T20:08:00Z")
No one will live forever. (Disregarding religious angles.) Thermodynamics; Heat death of the universe; Ring any bells? –John * * * 'Twis brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.