SLD
Contributor
It seems to me that life is simply a matter of good chemistry. We understand biochemistry intimately but there are still mysteries to unravel. But can we get to the point where we can cheat death altogether?
We’ve seen it some extent in movies where a computer diagnoses an early tumor and cures it immediately.
But we can’t regenerate nerve cells. We can’t cure paralysis. Many other problems can’t be cured yet either, general aging. My mother’s death at 92 was just pretty much a simple degeneration all around. When she got pneumonia one winter, she went downhill fast. Without any movement for several weeks, she lost all muscle mass and eventually her lungs were discovered to be failing her.
Hard to see how that has a cure. Wasn’t any particular disease, just a general loss of everything.
But maybe we can control aging. Limit it considerably and even reverse some of the effects. Maybe then we could live for thousands of years. Although I did read that after 650 years an accidental death is likely.
What would we do with the extra years? I wonder if we could then travel the stars? We might get bored sitting on a space ship for tens of thousands of years. Civilization would have to radically change. Mating would have to be carefully controlled.
We’ve seen it some extent in movies where a computer diagnoses an early tumor and cures it immediately.
But we can’t regenerate nerve cells. We can’t cure paralysis. Many other problems can’t be cured yet either, general aging. My mother’s death at 92 was just pretty much a simple degeneration all around. When she got pneumonia one winter, she went downhill fast. Without any movement for several weeks, she lost all muscle mass and eventually her lungs were discovered to be failing her.
Hard to see how that has a cure. Wasn’t any particular disease, just a general loss of everything.
But maybe we can control aging. Limit it considerably and even reverse some of the effects. Maybe then we could live for thousands of years. Although I did read that after 650 years an accidental death is likely.
What would we do with the extra years? I wonder if we could then travel the stars? We might get bored sitting on a space ship for tens of thousands of years. Civilization would have to radically change. Mating would have to be carefully controlled.