Humanity is seriously concerned about the problem of immortality. Almost every modern person wants to know how to live forever, because we cannot even imagine that someday this world will exist without us. Back in the Middle Ages, alchemists were looking for recipes for a magical remedy that would grant eternal youth and life. With the development of scientific thought, people began to hope that advances in the field of gerontology and bioengineering would one day allow every inhabitant of the planet to control his own life expectancy. Futurists and science fiction writers have written about this more than once, playing with the idea of immortality from different angles. However, in recent years, scientists are increasingly saying that it is possible to live forever. Developments in this area are carried out by the most famous scientific laboratories around the world. To date, this work has several directions. In which of them there will be a scientific breakthrough, no one knows yet. But scientists are surethat in forty-five to fifty years they will be able to make an exact recipe for living forever.
Immortality: an unbiased look at the problem
Since ancient times, people's thoughts revolved around the theme of death and eternal life. Over time, almost every nation has formed certain religious beliefs that correspond to the ideas of immortality.
For example, the northern Scandinavian peoples believed that being a warrior meant living forever. After all, only the most courageous and desperate could count on death in battle, and it, in turn, led to immortality in Valhalla - a heavenly heavenly chamber for those who were ready to give their lives for a just cause and their people. Here, warriors can feast with the gods, enjoying the luxurious decoration of the halls and young beauties.
Love lives forever. Probably everyone has heard this phrase, but everyone perceives it in their own way. Many people believe that you can become immortal only in your children, born of great love. Indeed, in this case, the spark of this divine feeling will always burn in descendants, which means that a person will never be able to sink into obscurity. Some philosophers were sure that true and sincere love reveals the best qualities in people, including creative talents. Lovers begin to write poetry, paintings and in every possible way manifest themselves in other directions. Such creations can become masterpieces, reminiscent of the love that gave birth to them.
Religion gives its answer to the age-old question of how to live forever. For example, Christianity teaches a person thatrighteous deeds during life cannot stop the natural aging of the body, but give the soul the opportunity to receive eternal life, given by God. But sinners will be eternally punished for their deeds in hell. It is worth noting that a similar view of immortality exists in almost every religion. It gives an idea to a person that his body is prone to disease and is extremely imperfect, but the soul has more potential, therefore it is immortal.
If you've been paying attention, you've noticed that most research on immortality always focuses on the soul. However, this approach does not suit a modern person, he wants to live here and now in his body, which should remain young and he althy. "I want to live forever!" - this is a kind of creed of the people of the twenty-first century. It can be said that we are so focused on the material component of the world that we do not even want to think that we will grow old and die. Scientists have been struggling to solve the problem of immortality for several decades, and it is worth noting that in recent years they have managed to make significant progress in their work.
Aging of the body: causes
Every day on the planet about a hundred thousand people die of old age. For a long time, this was perceived quite naturally, because aging is an integral part of the life cycle. It has always been believed that all living organisms are born, mature and die. There is no other option for nature. However, it turned out that this was not the case at all.
Our world is inhabited by organismswith unlimited life resources. Some of them live so long that people can't even catch the oncoming signs of old age in them. For example, the Antarctic sponge lives for about twenty thousand years. At the same time, throughout the entire time of its existence, it is in the same state, its cells successfully divide, remaining young. The Aleutian sea bass is another mystery of nature - it lives for at least two hundred years. Moreover, the prototype is considered to be a fairly young individual that retains reproductive functions. Why does a person age? What mechanisms cause the body to stop cell division?
Scientists have proved that the youth of the body is provided by cells that can "repair" any damage in time. At a young age, the regeneration process occurs much faster than damage to any tissue. But in the future, the cells begin to divide more slowly, and at some point they stop altogether. This is what death is. Science has long tried to understand what happens in our bodies as we age. Why is the process of cell regeneration and division suspended?
As it turned out, two reasons contribute to this:
- With each division, the DNA molecule shortens a little and at a certain stage becomes unsuitable for further division. This leads to aging of the body.
- Our cells are programmed to self-destruct. The fact is that with age, the body begins to produce a protein that orders the cells to begin self-destruction, that is, the cessationdivision. Interestingly, experiments on mice proved the possibility of blocking this protein. In this case, their life expectancy increased by thirty percent.
After reading what was written, you can ask a reasonable question: "Why are we still dying, if scientists have long figured out how to live forever?". Take your time, because knowing the cause of aging and neutralizing it are completely different things.
Science for life extension
In principle, scientists were able to understand the mechanism of aging of the human body, but nature was not so simple - it hid a lot of different commands in different cells that make them stop dividing. Uncovering one or two reasons cannot fundamentally change things and help create the youth pill that almost everyone in the world dreams of.
It is interesting that almost every person can extend their active life for ten to fifteen years, adhering to the simplest rules (we will talk about them a little later). But after all, people do not want this, they are waiting for a way that can give them youth and he alth for at least two or three hundred years. Many dream that in the future science will make a real breakthrough and people will be able to live an unlimited number of years. What prospects does this hold for humanity?
Why live forever?
We want to prolong our lives so much that we often do not even realize why we need an unlimited existence so much. Imagine that youlive forever. What would change in your life?
Scientists are quite optimistic about this issue. They believe that the problem of overpopulation of the planet, which has been scaring us for many years, is far-fetched and irrelevant. After all, if a person can live as long as possible, then his return to society will be incommensurably greater. Of course, a change in life expectancy will lead to a complete change in the structure of society, but you should not be afraid of this. Each person will be able to bring great benefits to their planet.
Just imagine that such a thing as retirement age will completely disappear among people! Most likely, each member of society will be allocated certain years of rest, after which he can receive a new education and qualifications. Such a reset will be carried out repeatedly throughout life.
Distant galaxies and planets will become available to mankind. Indeed, in the case of immortality, a person will be able to go on stellar expeditions of any duration. People, if they lived forever, could colonize numerous planets, which no one even dreams of now.
Scientists believe that an increase in life expectancy will be accompanied by an extension of the reproductive age in men and women. Therefore, people will be able to give birth to children in a hundred and two hundred years, after they have done a lot of good for their planet.
Of course, it is possible that not every person wants to live in a new way. Therefore, scientists admit the existence of social structures that will preach existence with a limited life span. Similar peoplewill have a high level of self-awareness, which scientists started talking about at the end of the seventeenth century.
Immortalism
With the development of science, humanity began to understand that life extension is possible thanks to the latest developments. However, it is difficult to separate science from philosophy, therefore, by the beginning of the twentieth century, a special trend was formed - immortalism, dealing with the problems of immortality. His followers do not question whether it is possible to live forever. They know for sure that this is in the competence of science. However, immortalists argue that one should not forget about the elementary rules of life, allowing to prolong youth. Indeed, in the absence of self-control, a person will be able to bring himself to death even with a high level of development of medicine.
Immortalism considers immortality as a set of scientific developments and systems for the development of self-consciousness. Only with such a correct approach, according to the followers of this teaching, a person will be able to extend his life almost indefinitely.
"I want to live forever": simple and important tips
Approximately seven years ago immortalists put forward the theory of six levels of life extension, which are available to mankind now. The first three are quite difficult for ordinary people to understand, but the rest can be used by absolutely all people on the planet:
- Give up bad habits. Scientists have long proven that smoking and alcohol age our body several times faster. With this lifestyle, cells receive a signal of self-destruction at a fairly young age. Therefore, people who abuse alcohol and tobacco look much older than their peers, and are also at risk for cardiovascular disease.
- Do not neglect the intake of vitamin complexes and various dietary supplements. They help the body produce the substances needed to prolong youth.
- Keep a he althy lifestyle that includes moderate exercise, a balanced diet and regular medical check-ups to detect symptoms of various diseases in time.
By the way, most scientists argue that dietary restrictions have a very positive effect on life expectancy. During the experiments, it was found that hunger causes the body to mobilize. It is tuned to protect cells, which causes dramatic changes in physiological processes. As a result, aging slows down.
The path to eternal life
Currently, scientists are working in several areas in the field of extending human life. The most interesting and promising of them are:
- anti-aging pills;
- cryofreezing;
- nanorobots;
- cyborgization;
- digitization of consciousness;
- cloning.
We will briefly tell you about each of the directions.
Treatment for old age
Most gerontologists consider old age a disease, and therefore see the solution to the problem in finding a cure for cell aging. Moreover, according to the latestAccording to sensational statements, such a drug may appear in three years, and in another thirty years, almost every person will have the opportunity to extend his life by several decades. What are these rosy prospects based on? Let's try to figure it out.
In recent years, the number of scientific discoveries related to the treatment of various senile diseases has increased. For example, NASA has developed a drug intended as a vitamin supplement for astronauts. As a result, it turned out that it very effectively removes age-related changes such as wrinkles and age spots, and, therefore, slows down the aging process of cells.
Russian scientists have learned how to plant a special drug on the cells of the body with cancer, which literally restores the damaged cell, completely eliminating relapse. In the same way, they plan to treat a person from various senile diseases, thereby increasing his life expectancy.
Cryofreeze
This is one of the most popular ways to extend life at the moment. However, this method is very controversial and causes a lot of criticism. The thing is that modern scientists have learned to freeze human cells, but they cannot bring them back to life. Therefore, hope is placed on the science of the future, which should develop methods for defrosting and creating, on the basis of the obtained material, an absolutely he althy person.
Nanotechnology
Nanorobots are not unseen in the scientific world for a long time. Scientists are currently working on creatingmicroscopic robots that can easily move around the human body and patch up damaged tissues. It has recently been suggested that nanorobots will completely stop aging with their ability to replace dead cells.
Cyborgs among us
Technically, humanity has long been ready to replace some parts of the body with artificial ones. Therefore, it is likely that the immortality of man is behind this scientific direction. Today, several thousand people live in the world with artificial prosthetic arms and legs, heart valves and even microcircuits implanted in their brains.
If the quality of such prostheses improves in the future, then their production can be put on stream. And, therefore, a person will be able to live up to three hundred years. Its capabilities will be limited only by the resource of the brain, which, unfortunately, is not unlimited.
Identity Digitization
Scientists are actively working on the so-called digitization of consciousness. They believe that the human personality can be recorded on a hard disk, which will enable it to exist after the death of the physical body in the virtual space. IBM specialists are very active in this area.
Recently, one of the Russian millionaires announced work on a claim project, which should lead to the creation of an avatar with an artificial brain and a digitized personality of a person. According to the millionaire, he will achieve the first success by 2045.
Cloning
Mankind has been thinking about this for a long time, but human cloning is prohibited in many countries of the world. Although people continue to conduct experiments on the cultivation and cloning of individual organs, which are planned to be used for transplantation in the future.
If successful, scientists hope to lift the ban, which could lead to the creation of numerous clones. They will become the most effective cure for old age for the people of the future.
It is difficult to say whether humanity will be able to overcome old age and come close to the secrets of eternal youth. Nobody knows. However, even Leo Tolstoy at one time argued that in order to live forever, one must tear, burn and fight. Perhaps he is right, and in this movement, people will finally be able to achieve the longed-for immortality.
