• EU approves Western world's first gene therapy
    45 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;38307932]Only if you had complete control over it. Otherwise, who's to say you won't forget something like your name, or something of high value to you?[/QUOTE] I'd imagine you'd be more likely to forget recent memories that aren't as ingrained into your mind than old ones. I mean, have you ever met anybody with Alzheimer's for example? They seem to lose their memories in reverse chronological order. If you were to start replacing memories I'd presume it'd probably be the more recent ones and not ones like your name. Although, on that note, that does actually go against the first point I was trying to make. If you're ONLY forgetting the recent stuff that'd be annoying. I'd rather forget my oldest memories (well, memories of events, etc, not stuff like my name) and work my way back to my most recent memories before jumping back to the start over... y'know, only ever replacing the last 25% of my memories. At least in the former case time would seem somewhat continuous whereas in the latter case you'd have this ever expanding gap of time between your oldest, most ingrained memories and your most recent ones.
So... Being immortal causes Alzheimer's symptoms? Interesting.
I'm pretty sure that overactivity of telomerase in cells is often a good indication of cancer.
[QUOTE=thisispain;38304918]no i would prefer people die within a reasonable time frame.[/QUOTE] What you prefer has nothing to do with what's best for our species.
[QUOTE=mac338;38300134]All I want is the hDEC2 gene, that's all I'm asking. Please.[/QUOTE] I want the ATA gene, it might be useful.
I'd only take immortality if I knew all my friends and family were getting it as well. I'd hate to lose people and still be kicking around for the next several millennia or so.
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;38307600]All of that aside, I don't think most people are mentally capable of handling immortality. The human brain, as amazing as it is, does have limitations, and that's not even getting into the psychological conditions that are bound to develop. Whether or not those constraints can be worked around or eliminated entirely remains to be seen. Regardless, that's yet another limitation, on top of the laundry list of other problems immortality brings up.[/QUOTE] Well I'd much rather take a stab at it than have someone just decide it shouldn't happen[I].[/I] [editline]4th November 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=woolio1;38308349]So... Being immortal causes Alzheimer's symptoms? Interesting.[/QUOTE] No, people think it might. [editline]4th November 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=lavacano;38309161]I'd only take immortality if I knew all my friends and family were getting it as well. I'd hate to lose people and still be kicking around for the next several millennia or so.[/QUOTE] Losing people sucks, but you always get over it. Why would you suddenly be incapable of getting over someone's death when you're immortal?
[QUOTE=sltungle;38307857]I'm sure we could probably solve the memory problem eventually - obviously not indefinitely, but for a fairly long period of time (like thousands of years) by tacking in some additional storage space somehow. Although, even if you couldn't find a way to wire the brain up to electronic components or bioelectronic components to increase your capacity for memory it might not be so bad a thing to start forgetting things. At least that way life wouldn't start getting repetitive, because you'd have forgotten a lot of the shit you did in the past and you wouldn't feel like you were repeating yourself over and over.[/QUOTE] There's folk already working on essentially building a secondary hippocampus so it's really not like we're gonna run out of space, given enough time and we could easily tackle any of the issues that come along with immortality. [editline]4th November 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Jabberwocky;38308843]I'm pretty sure that overactivity of telomerase in cells is often a good indication of cancer.[/QUOTE] Pretty sure that's only when the actual Telomares have been destroyed/removed and the chromosomes are left bare.
[QUOTE=Rocksalt;38309995]There's folk already working on essentially building a secondary hippocampus so it's really not like we're gonna run out of space, given enough time and we could easily tackle any of the issues that come along with immortality.[/QUOTE] EVENTUALLY you'll run out of space. Unless you're willing to build galaxy sized hard drives with a constant uplink to your own brain to house the past 407 billion years worth of memories you've managed to accumulate due to your immortality, you're going to eventually hit a point whereby you HAVE to start replacing shit, or... well, I'm not sure what the alternative to that is. Having a messed up brain? A complete inability to form new memories? Although I agree that in the short-term you could tackle those memory issues.
[QUOTE=sltungle;38310043]EVENTUALLY you'll run out of space. Unless you're willing to build galaxy sized hard drives with a constant uplink to your own brain to house the past 407 billion years worth of memories you've managed to accumulate due to your immortality, you're going to eventually hit a point whereby you HAVE to start replacing shit, or... well, I'm not sure what the alternative to that is. Having a messed up brain? A complete inability to form new memories? Although I agree that in the short-term you could tackle those memory issues.[/QUOTE] Well yeah at some point you're getting need a hard drive the size of a planet or some shit but really that's gonna be in hundreds of billions of years as you say, but to be honest by that time you'll probably have died in some accident. Another option would essentially uploading memories to a memory bank and when you need to remember less used memories you could essentially stream it. Saves you from wearing a giant hard drive attached to your brain.
[QUOTE=Atlascore;38310065]Immortality doesn't mean invincibility, it just means you don't age, there are so many ways to die, eventually something like cancer, a disease or virus, or some sort of natural disaster would get you, making this whole argument about our brains running out of space silly. You would have to be incredibly lucky to survive past a hundred & fifty years if you were "immortal".[/QUOTE] I'm sure by the time we're able to keep people eternally youthful and make people immortal things like cancer will probably be a moot point.
[QUOTE=sltungle;38310170]I'm sure by the time we're able to keep people eternally youthful and make people immortal things like cancer will probably be a moot point.[/QUOTE] Especially considering we're nearly at the point where we can just totally regrow affected organs, never mind trying to blast shit like lung cancer or bowel cancer, we can just remove and overhaul the damage and on the upside, fresh healthy organs too, none of this second hand lung nonsense.
[QUOTE=Rocksalt;38309995] Pretty sure that's only when the actual Telomares have been destroyed/removed and the chromosomes are left bare.[/QUOTE] Works both ways I guess. Too much telomerase and the cell is immortal, building up mutations in the DNA. Too little and chromosomes are damaged, causing things to go nuts (assuming apoptosis mechanisms are compromised).
[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;38309255]Losing people sucks, but you always get over it. Why would you suddenly be incapable of getting over someone's death when you're immortal?[/QUOTE] It's more I'd have to get over it countless times, potentially until the heat death of the universe (though as mentioned it's a bit more likely that I'd get killed somewhere along the way before then). And I get really attached to my friends.
[QUOTE=lavacano;38310554]It's more I'd have to get over it countless times, potentially until the heat death of the universe (though as mentioned it's a bit more likely that I'd get killed somewhere along the way before then). And I get really attached to my friends.[/QUOTE] The problem here is that you're assuming that immortality would be rare, given enough time the mthod of becoming biologically immortal would become more refined and cheaper so eventually a lot of people would have it, so your friends might actually become immortal within your lifetime. Of course people will still die but it probably won't be as bad as you imagine it.
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