Re: [DIYbio] Fwd: [tt] Geneticists Discover a Way to Extend Lifespans to 800 Years

I'm neither for or against post-humanism as a goal for some, but I
personally value the integration of my mind and body. I can forsee
technologies that extend my lifespan, and I can forsee others that
augment the limitations of biology that will not yet have been
surmounted: I'd like to leverage these to live, as a human, for as long
as I'm comfortable and productive. Perhaps afterwards, in our sing-song
imaginary post-scarcity future, I'd consider uploading.

For now though, we were griping about limitations on achieving a
human-body lifespan in excess of ~120 years or so. My basic point was
that I think it's certainly possible to create a body that regenerates
indefinitely, but that certain parts of humanity require an unchanging
element, such as a dependably constant neural network.

You could probably engineer neurons that carefully supplant themselves
over time, perhaps by asymmetric cell division to create an embryonic
neuron within an existing one, which grows and branches to fill out the
existing space before the mother cell undergoes apoptosis completely.
This would be wholly unnatural, and would therefore require a bucketload
of incredibly complex work, but it's the only avenue for
persistence-of-brain that I can currently think of that doesn't involve
simulation/uploading of dying matter.

On 30/01/13 14:47, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 06:43:45PM +0000, Cathal Garvey wrote:
>
>> Without context, older memories would probably be inaccessible to this
>> process of "wildcard recall"; what would this mean for Methuselahs of
>> the future? Would they succumb to the stereotypical stasis of ancient
>> fictional characters like the vampires in Anne Rice's novels?
>
> If you have enough control at molecular scale to halt and reverse
> senescence or use vitrified patients in the dewar as blueprints
> who would want to keep wearing that stupid man suit longer than
> necessary?
>
> Humanity as is is far from being optimal. It's just a passing phase.
>

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