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Physical
Immortality
 butchersam +Illustrations by Matt Rebholz |
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Desire for Immortality: The tenacious clinging to the self, the insistence on continuance.
Century of Death
The 20th century was the Century of Death, and it is not over yet. Waking up from the nightmare of the age that innovated more horrific methods of death than any before it -- the N-Bomb, the plane crash, AIDS -- won't be easy. Government is addicted to death, taking more and more pleasure in dispensing it at home and abroad. It is time to drop out, to participate in a great refusal. Surveying the wreckage, the despoilment, the dead bodies piled up in mounds -- the legacy of a ruinous age -- we know we can do better.
| Post- or trans-humanists believe that our technology has brought us to a breaking point; that the 'human' era has passed. |
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The desire to achieve permanence and the persistence of an obsession with immortality have informed a large part of our society's moral, intellectual and spiritual beliefs throughout the ages. Humans of ancient times, who had not much extended themselves technologically and were immersed in a world of near continuity with nature, gave over their craving for immortality to a transcendence -- a Creator with whom individuals would be reunited in eternal continuance. But over time, advances in technology increasingly set humanity apart from the natural world surrounding them. Increasing mastery of space and science provided our ancestors with confidence and the belief that they could control their own immortality. E.M. Forster, remarking on the impact of the Gutenberg printing press on the Renaissance, wrote that it "had been mistaken for an engine of immortality, and men had hastened to commit to it deeds and passions for the benefit of future ages." Humans began to recognize the opportunities of physically embodied immortality, a persistence in this world.
In our present time we have extended our bodies and nervous systems through technology to such an extent that we no longer need rely on metaphors or objects of permanence: an immortality in type or on tape is cold comfort to the cadaver.
| The human genetic code has become self-aware and self-loving. |
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Through genetics, medicine and technology many scientists and futurists believe they have glimpsed a physical immortality that offers us the permanence of the undiluted essence of ourselves. They are devoting their life to research in this most implausible of fields, tirelessly and hurriedly toiling so that future generations need not understand death as the ultimate inevitability.
What is Aging?
Our scientific age understands life as a code that continues through replication and mutation. Manifested as humans, our code has become self-aware and self-loving.
The Dreams of
Robert Ray Hedges :  |
It is determined to stay put rather than accept the continuance offered by the succession of generations. There are many techniques proposed to achieve this permanence, several of which may seem more distasteful than the stoppage (death) they strive to thwart. Accident cannot be overcome entirely, but the progressive deterioration of our physical forms no longer seems to be necessary or unavoidable.
Crucial to the achievement of physical immortality is an exact definition of aging. One functional definition of aging is that put forth by Butler, et al. of the International Longevity Center-USA in Biomarkers of Aging: From Primitive Organisms to Man.:
"a process that progressively converts physiologically and cognitively fit, healthy adults into less fit individuals with increasing vulnerability to injury, illness and death." Aging here is merely the effect of the progressive disordering of the atoms that compose of cells.
However, evidence exists that there is a programmed-in terminal clock in our genes that limits the amount of successful replications a given cell can perform in a lifetime. Could this predetermined cell death, aptosis, be an indicator of a programmed in organism wide death mechanism, a phenoptosis? As characterized by V. P. Skulachev in an engaging 1997 article in Biochemistry (Moscow), such an event would define aging not as a debilitative randomization of the structure of an organism, but instead as a deliberate evolutionary strategy that rids populations of older genetic predecessors. According to this perspective, aging is the ticking of a clock counting down towards an inevitable terminal point.
Both notions demand attention to the definition of 'aging' and what constitutes objective evidence of it, topics about which there is little consensus among experts. It is generally agreed that no reliable biomarkers to rate the progression of age from individual to individual have been identified. Indeed, the ponderous nonspecifity of the Butler definition suggests the difficulty of accurately identifying objective indicators of aging.
Both understandings of aging, though, contain the implication that the process, whether programmed-in or the result of the assaults of a hostile environment, can be altered, even subverted. Humanity is no longer at the mercy of the blind shuffling forces of evolution. In the 20th century the evolutionary mechanism was uncoupled from sexual reproduction and moved into the laboratory and factory. Stumbling evolution, with its stubborn reliance on successive generations, can no longer do the job.
| Immortality research seeks an actual new context of human experience. |
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Two discoveries relating to the conceptualizations of aging above are the progressive shortening of "telomeres" in adult cells and the intracellular build up of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Telomeres are 'caps' at the end of chromosomes that are not transcribed with each cell replication. Each time a cell divides, the telomere of its chromosomes "acts a buffer to protecting those genes from loss during each round of DNA replication" (L. Hayflick in "Mortality and Immortality at a Cellular Level"), and, consequently, the telomere itself shortens. After a number of replications, the cell's telomere becomes too short to adequately protect the genetic material and dangerous mutations or damage may occur to the cell's DNA. Eventually, the cell will no longer be able to reproduce itself.
This vulnerability to genetic mutation is similar to the effects on a cell of the accumulation of ROS. Oxidation within a cell's mitochondria -- the mechanism that produces the energy animals need to survive -- also creates a harmful byproduct: free radicals, highly reactant oxygen forms that bond to cellular structures and in doing so damage them. Both oxidative stress and the shortening of telomeres may degrade the integrity of a cell.
Many authors claim that action on either of these items, or a host of others, may hold the key to immortality. Indeed, antioxidants (found in plentiful supply in green tea and elsewhere) have been identified as a way of cleaning up ROSs, and telomerase, an enzyme that exists in fetal and stem cells, has been demonstrated to replenish the length of the telomere.
However, in our enthusiasm to find solutions to aging and disease we must be careful to discriminate between science, pseudoscience and out-right bullshit. In their Is there an "anti-aging" medicine? pamphlet the ILC-USA(International Longevity Center) observes that the multibillion anti-aging industry offers a baffling range of devices, supplements and techniques promising to combat aging and prolong life, but determines that, at this time, "there is no hormone or vitamin cocktail that can slow down aging.
| "mutation involves changes that are literally unimaginable from the perspective of the future mutant" |
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Don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise." Concerning telomere research the reports concludes that "while it is an important area of research to pursue, there is insufficient basis at present for claiming that preventing telomere shortening would influence any aspect of aging." The conclusions in the report on antioxidants and the reduction of oxidative stress damage are similar. In other words, though it may be possible to develop methods to prevent telomere shortening and the accumulation of oxidative stress related cellular damage, at present there is no demonstrable evidence to suggest that either result would have any impact on either longevity or quality of life in old age. We are back where we started, groping for an adequate and useful definition of aging and with little concrete idea about what the actual indicators of aging are.
The Coming Future?
Before losing all hope though, it is useful to remember that the ILC-USA is examining only the kind of traditional medical research that characterized "medicine" as it was known in the 20th century. If we can get our heads around them, there may be other pathways to the eternal. Caution is probably the watchword when moving into this speculative realm; it is a move from experiment and procedure to redefining notions of life and humanity and considering technologies that do not presently, and may never, exist. These new vistas are the domain of the 'posthuman'.
Post- or trans-humanists believe that our technology has brought us to a breaking point; that our advances will very soon necessitate the radical redefinition of our understanding our ourselves,
INTERVIEW WITH
Robert Ray Hedges - Part 2 : |
that the 'human' era has passed and that, if we survive the coming changes, we and our descendents will be fundamentally altered. Posthuman thinking is characterized most broadly by instances of ecstatic technophilia in which augmented humans interact with superintelligent machines on earth and across the stars, and by doomsday forecasts of technology run amok by design or accident.
Life may be ultimately reducible to code, but, as N. Katherine Hayles in How We Became Posthuman reminds us, all code (information) must be housed in something material. This seems to be the crux of the immortality quest -- in what our code is stored makes all the difference. Evolution is a process with no concern for the manifestation of the code that it preserves and modifies. It simply rearranges and replicates directions for forms that can survive and reproduce successfully in their environment. I suspect that humanity, when it fully embarks upon the deliberate refashioning of itself, will be considerably more image conscious. What form extreme longevity or immortality takes distinguishes the delirious dream of continuation from the nightmare of eternal expanse.
Our mind in a box, like water in a metal pail, vs. dynamic pleasure giving bodies and the vast spectrum in between.
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Some angles on the eternal
Cryonics: The most popular and currently realizable step toward physical immortality. Cryonic suspension isn't a solution in itself, but it is hedging your bets: if you die today, the services offered by cryonics companies like the Alcor Life Extension Institute gives you a chance at waking up some time in 'the future'. Cryonics is not simply throwing a body (or, if you're on a budget, just your head) in the freezer, but a much more intriguing process. Alcor calls their process 'vitrification'. According to their website, the process involves removing the body's water, replacing it with an antifreeze compound and immersing the member in liquid nitrogen. This cools the body to approximately -130° C, but does not result in freezing. Instead the suspended tissue becomes 'a rigid glass with no ice crystal damage.' Of course, aside from managing to cure or reverse whatever disease killed the person, before revival is possible a technique must be developed for reversing the vitrification process. We'll disregard cryonics as insufficient-it seems to be more of a stalling tactic than a move towards a viable solution. No doubt many gifted researchers will pursue related technology, and such advances will be beneficial in the times to come, but for our interests it is a waste of time. Eternity as a head in the freezer does not appeal.
Download of Consciousness: Out of the disembodying concepts of information theory comes the notion of copying the entirety of the mind and identity of an individual and subsequently transferring this copied consciousness into a computer, effectively divorcing a person entirely from their physical shell and giving them the 'gift' of pure mind. This otaku dream is pretty wiggy and is best explored through reading the science of Hans Muravec or the fiction of William Gibson.
Therapeutic Cloning (Stem Cells and Telomerase Production): These techniques promise the ability to repeatedly replace organs and tissues when they break down, as well as to rejuvenate active structures. It also brings to mind creepy images of a future in which everyone has vats of spare kidneys and skin tissue in their basement.
| Nanotechnology: the belief in molecular technology hinges on the understanding that such machines already exist. |
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Nutrients/Vitamins/Herbals: Certainly taking vitamins, etc. has an impact in improving the quality of life and health of people, especially as they age. It is a good idea to watch your nutrients, as it is to avoid foods high in saturated fats and loaded with chemicals and pesticides, but we do not expect that any sort of nutrient/herbal cocktail is going to hold the key to significant extension of human life spans. Any such claims are probably put ons from people out to make a buck.
Pharmaceuticals/Nutriseuticals: This is a category to be even more wary of than herbal or nutrient supplements promising long life. Synthesized nutrients, hormones, and pharmaceutical compounds have proven their use in medicine, but have equally well shown great risks, side effects or even spectral results when analyzed in the long term. As things stand right now, buying these compounds will contribute more significantly to the bank accounts of the firms producing such products than to your own life span.
Nanotech Immune Systems and Cellular Repair Devices: Probably the most appealing view we're familiar with of a technological means to achieve immortality, and not least of all because this solution, to a significant extent, avoids the issues of leaving our bodies behind in our quest for permanence of 'self'. Nanotechnology, or 'molecular technology' refers to the development of machines on an atomic scale.
The belief that operational machines so infinitesimally small can be built hinges on the understanding that such machines already exist. They are viruses, bacteria and the protein based mechanisms in our own cells (like ribosomes and enzymes). In such a view of cellular activity, DNA is a design code, a set of instructions for molecular protein machines. As K. Eric Drexler envisions it in his book Engines of Creation (one of the first and still most comprehensive articulations of this emerging technology), molecular machines can be developed by mimicking RNA 'tapes' that contain programs on how to build other structures.
Returning to the notion of aging (and, indeed, all illnesses) as an issue of the atoms in our bodies being misarranged, nanotech offers the possibility of rearranging atoms back into a properly functioning configuration-using manmade molecular machines to repair 'natural' molecular machines.
Such a race from the bottom up is still the stuff of speculation, but if the levels of committed funding to developing nanotech in the public and private sector are any indication, it may not remain so for long. While short term goals focus mainly on the efficient and directly targeted delivery of drugs and use of nanomachines as sensitive probes to read DNA and detect disease, the fact that researchers are already at the beginnings of building simple nanoscale structures suggests that nanotech is a field set to explode, with huge implication for all aspects of life on earth. Let's hope that the drivers of the War Machine don't hijack and monopolize nanotech for their own vile ends before it can be put to use in the benefit of life and the environment.
Cyborg/Body Replacement: Depending on how you define body boundaries, cyborgs may be considered to already be around us. You are probably related to one -- it is not unreasonable to view individuals with pacemakers, artificial hips or permanently implanted insulin pumps as machine/animal fusions -- cyborgs. An implanted pacemaker is not particularly threatening to our sense of ourselves as 'organic' beings, but at what point does the incorporation of technology into the body become the creation of something entirely new? The point of intersection of organic bodies and superintelligent machines is an imposing one, but since cyborgs are currently mostly an issue of theory and science fiction, a detailed discussion of cybernetic organisms is outside this project.
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Everything is new
In considering the pursuit of extreme longevity/immortality it is essential to make a clear distinction against the commercialized youth obsession of American culture. What immortality research seeks is a radical break from history -- a transformation. The goal here is not the elimination of wrinkles or a new way a avoid flab and sag, but an actual new context of human experience. We look at Tom Cruise at 40 and see something startling;
INTERVIEW WITH
Robert Ray Hedges - Part 3 : |
he is undoubtedly more youthful in appearance than most 30 year olds. Are we to recognize in this remarkable image of vitality presented by Cruise (or Madonna, or Cher) the manifestations of a coming era of physical immortality? No -- his physique is astonishing, but we recognize nothing actually new here. Rather, the drives of our society and its definition of celebrity have inscribed and molded Cruise bodily. He has made himself according to the prerogatives of the celebrity system, his 'youth' is necessitated by its requirements and expectations. He literally physically represents the ageism and planned obsolescence of our times! To remain a viable commodity on the market, Cruise must fix himself in place, remain eternally the boyish Top Gun star.
Opposed to this systems stands the heavy transformations implicit in the real defeat of death. Immortality research is not a deferral or a cover up, but instead grapples with the concept of a continuance that that spans centuries. Anti-aging attempts to present the mirage of eternal youth(fullness); immortality research seeks to overthrow the whole dismal system.
Immortality research does not seek to artificially fix in place the present -- it has no intention (or illusions) to lock in place present circumstances and appearances indefinitely. It explicitly acknowledges that the achievement of extreme longevity entails an entirely new set of rules that will erase the assumptions and prerogatives that have historically driven the strange species will call humanity. Humans exhibit a remarkable ability to adapt, through, truthfully, this adaptability is more a result of anesthesia than of consciousness. The 20th century most of all demonstrates this primacy of anesthesia -- this ability to live in a rapidly and radically transforming world and yet believe that old rules and habits still apply. Even those who recognize how incredibly quickly old rules and previous circumstances have vanished most often cannot really understand or explicate what it means to be living in a world that has no similarity (at all) to the one that existed even 50 years ago. Of course, again, such observations belie a blindness to and centrism against the greater reality of the world. Most denizens of the world have not shared in, or even seen, any of the radical transformations that have defined life for the technologically privileged minorities of the US, Europe and metropolitan residents of technologically sophisticated Asian countries.
When/If the breakthroughs of immortality research are realized (and assuming the inhabitants of the planet survive the monumental simultaneous shifts that will concurrently be brought about) it is fair to say that we can scarcely imagine from today's vantage point who it is that 'we' will be and what the earth we live on will be like.
Issues, as with all technologies, of availability and distribution will arise. When considering the possibility of immortality, the gulf between haves and have-nots dwarfs all previous such discrepancies. An elite immortal clique who shield themselves from (or worse yet, eliminate) a disease ravaged and deprivation prone mass is an horrific image indeed. That said, we'll evade this issue for the moment by focusing on the concrete possibility of immortality research and the assumption that if it is possible, scientists, corporations and governments will pursue such technology regardless of social ramifications. It is coming.
Our minds and our imagination have not caught up with our technologies. William S. Burroughs, who himself lived more consciously in the present of the 20th century (and therefore further into the future) than most anyone else, writes in The Adding Machine: "Immortality is prolonged future, and the future of any artifact lies in the direction of increased flexibility, capacity for change and ultimately, mutation … mutation involves changes that are literally unimaginable from the perspective of the future mutant … There will be new fears like the fear of falling, new pleasures and new necessities … Mutation is not a matter of logical choices!"
Get Ready.
a-diction.com
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