In the distant future, will humans live significantly longer lives/forever?

Scientists have already increased the lifespan of rats in experiments, and are saying that similar drugs could increase the average life span of a human being by about 30% in the very near future.

Our cells replicate and die, day after day, throughout our entire lives. Unfortunately, as we continue to age, the replicated cells become less accurate copies, less efficient in the way that they work.

If scientists can slow down this process, or prevent cell deterioration all together, humans could live for extremely long periods of time. Cell deterioration is a big factor in the prevalence of numerous diseases and afflictions that effect us as we age. Along with this increase in life span, would likely come an increase in health.

There are also plenty of scientific outlets (like theNational Science Foundation) who profess that humans may have the ability to upload their conciousness to computers before this century is up. (A $1 computer in 2030 is expected to have the processing power of a human brain.)

Science is expanding at exponential rates. Scientists will discover more in the next 10 years than they have in the last 50.

I don't think it's a question that humans will continue to live longer and longer lives. But do you believe that human beings will ever live for multiple centuries?

Do you believe that humans (in the distant distant distant distant future) will live forever?

I think all you say can be true, i don't know about living forever, but with the use of drugs is very powerful

If it does happen, then all pregnancies/births would have to stop IMMEDIATELY. There would also have to be an economic system in place so we don't have to work for all eternity. I don't know about you, but I don't want to work for 1000 years.

i saw this show on the discovery channel called super humans, this guy took like 150 pills a day and i think hes like 80 with a body of a 50 year old or something, i only remember vaguely

I would think it is highly possible to do so but can lead to some problems. Just because people can live longer doesn't mean that they won't show signs of aging. By the age of 100 or little over that just look at the condition of most people that made it that far. Chances are since they are so old their bodies can't do much and extending their lives anymore would have probably been worthless to even themselves.

If it does happen, then all pregnancies would have to stop IMMEDIATELY.

Pirate700

I would think it is highly possible to do so but can lead to some problems. Just because people can live longer doesn't mean that they won't show signs of aging. By the age of 100 or little over that just look at the condition of most people that made it that far. Chances are since they are so old their bodies can't do much and extending their lives anymore would have probably been worthless to even themselves.

styx56

Scientists have already increased the lifespan of rats in experiments, and are saying that similar drugs could increase the average life span of a human being by about 30% in the very near future.

Our cells replicate and die, day after day, throughout our entire lives. Unfortunately, as we continue to age, the replicated cells become less accurate copies, less efficient in the way that they work.

If scientists can slow down this process, or prevent cell deterioration all together, humans could live for extremely long periods of time. Cell deterioration is a big factor in the prevalence of numerous diseases and afflictions that effect us as we age. Along with this increase in life span, would likely come an increase in health.

There are also plenty of scientific outlets (like theNational Science Foundation) who profess that humans may have the ability to upload their conciousness to computers before this century is up. (A $1 computer in 2030 is expected to have the processing power of a human brain.)

Science is expanding at exponential rates. Scientists will discover more in the next 10 years than they have in the last 50.

I don't think it's a question that humans will continue to live longer and longer lives. But do you believe that human beings will ever live for multiple centuries?

Do you believe that humans (in the distant distant distant distant future) will live forever?

FlyingArmbar

Eternal life violates the laws of physics. No chance it can ever happen.

A human will only be able to live so long, regardless of what you do to the cells and whatnot. Also, humans living longer would also mean a population problem eventually.

WeedleLad

Eternal life violates the laws of physics. No chance it can ever happen.

MrGeezer

It's not just living longer that's important. Would you want to live an extra 10 years if you had severe dementia?

also i read something about some number crunching that said that at the current rate of population growth in 500 or so years the earth would be a giant ball of humans expanding outward faster than the speed of light

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

Eternal life violates the laws of physics. No chance it can ever happen.

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

Eternal life violates the laws of physics. No chance it can ever happen.

Pirate700

Wrong. The universe is expanding. As in, cooling down. All indiations are that this will happen FOREVER.

In the long run, all life becomes impossible. No more stars, no more planets, and certainly no available energy left to fuel "life".

[QUOTE="Pirate700"]

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

Eternal life violates the laws of physics. No chance it can ever happen.

MrGeezer

Wrong. The universe is expanding. As in, cooling down. All indiations are that this will happen FOREVER.

In the long run, all life becomes impossible. No more stars, no more planets, and certainly no available energy left to fuel "life".

According to some scientist, it's possible.

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

[QUOTE="Pirate700"]lol it may violate the current state of biological science but it has nothing to do with physics. :lol:

mramz88

Wrong. The universe is expanding. As in, cooling down. All indiations are that this will happen FOREVER.

In the long run, all life becomes impossible. No more stars, no more planets, and certainly no available energy left to fuel "life".

several hundred billion years from now. we were thinking more like 1000 years max

mramz88

Well, that's not even close to living forever, is it?

[QUOTE="mramz88"] several hundred billion years from now. we were thinking more like 1000 years max

Well, that's not even close to living forever, is it?

[QUOTE="mramz88"]

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

Wrong. The universe is expanding. As in, cooling down. All indiations are that this will happen FOREVER.

In the long run, all life becomes impossible. No more stars, no more planets, and certainly no available energy left to fuel "life".

Pirate700

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

[QUOTE="mramz88"] several hundred billion years from now. we were thinking more like 1000 years max

super_mario_128

Well, that's not even close to living forever, is it?

Beats me, but people are weird. I don't know why anyone would want to get their head cryogenically frozen either.

[QUOTE="mramz88"] several hundred billion years from now. we were thinking more like 1000 years max

Well, that's not even close to living forever, is it?

[QUOTE="super_mario_128"][QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

Well, that's not even close to living forever, is it?

zero9167

The history channel just had a special (that's impossible) were they say within our life time life expectancy is supposed to sky rocket. They even talk about the life span reaching biblical levels (several hundred years) eventually.

What possible entertainment could someone get from being dead?zero9167

[QUOTE="zero9167"][QUOTE="super_mario_128"] I don't see why anybody would want to live forever. What possible entertainment could someone get out of life after all that time?mramz88

[QUOTE="mramz88"]

[QUOTE="zero9167"]What possible entertainment could someone get from being dead?_en1gma_

[QUOTE="_en1gma_"]

[QUOTE="mramz88"] its peaceful. like a few vicodin. plus we wont interact with anythign in the future, it will all be based on virtual reality and we will create our own paradises and live in them only to "come out" of virtual reality and into the "real world" from time to time to maybe scratch an itch or go crap or something.

mramz88

[QUOTE="zero9167"][QUOTE="super_mario_128"] I don't see why anybody would want to live forever. What possible entertainment could someone get out of life after all that time?mramz88

I think that a few centuries will be a possibility in the future.

Health care and medical techniques will progress enormously in our lifetimes, so I think that longer lives could certainly be lived in greater health.

Imagine the implications of even just nanotechnology in medicine.

Me, personally, wouldn't really want to live that long anyhow. :\

I don't see why anybody would want to live forever. What possible entertainment could someone get out of life after all that time?super_mario_128

A vast life span alone would probably get old fast, but an eternity in the company of an enormous society of others wouldn't be so bad. You just continue going about whatever it is you do for a much longer period of time, and you keep a healthy, young body.

I suppose a lot of it has to do with the personality involved. If you get easily bored with life, this probably wouldn't be for you. I'd like it though - to be the fly on the wall watching things take shape on a grand scale, instead of getting glimpse of existence which is quite frankly nothing in the grand scheme of things.

i love the idea of transferring my consciousness to teh interwebs.Crucifier

If we ever develop extremely long life spans, I'm sure it will be in a technologically supported form. And that will probably begin with the uploading of your consciousness to a computer system. Some estimates put this at about 2050 if you're extremely wealthy or important, and it wouldn't be "affordable" until many decades after that. So it's probably useless to most people in our generation.

But there's no way to tell if these predictions will be accurate or not. I would think they're probably overly optimistic.

If that transhumanist idea comes around (see sig), maybe then we will live forever.CRS98

I believe that the human lifespan will be longer in the future than what it is now. However, there is no such thing as "living forever". The universe itself will end someday in the distant future. When I say "distant future", I mean billions of years.

No, it is not going to happen.

A human will only be able to live so long, regardless of what you do to the cells and whatnot. Also, humans living longer would also mean a population problem eventually.

WeedleLad