In this recently published article, they claim to have stopped (or slowed down) the aging of a whole organ. As science rapidly progresses, I will not be surprised if it learns how to stop aging altogether in the next 50 or so years, thereby basically achieving human immortality.

My question is, how p*ssed would you be to die right before this becomes available? It is one thing to not be concerned by death and one's own mortality when it is the natural and inevitable course of things all around you. Everyone dies, so it's no big deal that I will too. Some might even look forward to getting some eternal rest. But it is a whole other thing when humanity is on the brink of immortality (50 or a 100 years into the future) and you will die and be forever lost while the very next generation or the generation after that will live _forever_. [Obviously, once immortality is reached, there will be no more children allowed.]

wow.

isn't there something about a finite number a cell can divide/regenerate itself?

I don't think it's a fundamental obstacle - I think it's determined by telomeres (a sort of a marker on the dna). If we can manipulate it, we can make the cell divide an infinite number of times.

Wouldn't you need to modify the DNA of each individual cell on a living person? How would you do that?

Easy. A virus. [A very efficient self replicating delivery mechanism].

it would get into all the cells? pretty cool.

wouldn't people still die of sickness?

Possible. But in time we would learn how to eliminate sickness too. (Again by tinkering with genetic code and putting up better defenses and perhaps pro-active offenses on the mutating bacterial and viral infections).

If you view the human body as a machine, then there is no fundamental reason why it should be mortal. Take your car, for example...another machine. What's to stop you from continually repairing it and replacing the worn out parts, and having it work forever?

What's the point?

of what?

Immortality.

I don't know. These genetic cures are still in infancy, maybe we are assuming too much...

But it's certainly more possible than ever.

It would be awesome when it happens.

What's the point of life?

Death.

More years to do mitzvos?

What's the point of death?

Why? Haven't you ever watch StarTrek. The Q aren't very happy at all... but totally bored having experienced everything life has to offer ad nausium.



But if you never died, you'd never be rewarded.