Nature has designed us to live indefinitely

[Mrs Zeta]

After studying tables of current life expectancy (life expectancy increase per decade, in years, based upon United States National Vital Statistics) I found embedded a virtually perfect Fibonacci sequence.

 

To my knowledge, this has not been described before. This is important because, based on my ideas regarding Global Brain acting as a catalyst for promoting extreme human lifespans it may help us predict with some accuracy any dramatic increases in life expectancy. For example, the model predicts that the current maximum lifespan of 110-120 years will be increased to 175 in the next 20-30 years.

 

In simple terms, the fact that life expectancy increases in a certain manner, and this manner obeys deep-routed and universal natural laws, indicates that it may be possible to:

 

1. Predict life expectancy in the near future. Based on the Fibonacci sequence,

 

a 90 year old today, can expect to live another 5 years

a 95 year old can expect to live another 8 years

a 103 year old can expect to live another 13 years, then…

a 116 year old can expect to live another 21 years

a 137 year old would expect to live another 34 years

a 171 year old would expect to live another 55 years

a 236 year old would expect to live another 89 years

a 325 year old can expect to live another 144 years,

and so on.

 

2. Question the presence of ageing and death in an ever-evolving intellectually sophisticated human (who is a valuable component of the Global Brain). Based on current facts, the Fibonacci sequence with regards to life expectancy ends abruptly when lifespan reaches the limit of approximately 120 years. Why is this so? Why should a naturally extending lifespan deviate from universal natural laws? Life expectancy should continue to increase as an individual manages to survive to a certain age. The presence of ageing and death could therefore be considered unnatural.

 

3. Support the notion that ‘you need to live long enough to live forever’ (see Kurzweil here, and also De Grey’s ‘Longevity Escape Velocity’ suggestions here).

 

Those who manage to survive to extreme age are more likely to see their life expectancy increase even further, and so on, recursively. Kurzweil believes that this scenario will be achieved through use of technology. De Grey believes that this will be achieved via biological developments. I think that this ‘live long enough to live forever’ scenario will happen naturally (with minor input both from technology and from biological research). Those individuals who fully integrate their activities within the Global Brain will experience a natural-driven ever-increasing life expectancy.

 

For more details see this.

.

[Psycho]

Except we haven't actually increased the human life span by much at all, all we have achieved is to get a greater proportion of people to it.

 

Anyone who reaches the longest life span around 110-115 has lived in an age when these levels of healthcare weren't available but still no one expects the current generation to live much past 110, they just expect a greater proportion to get close.

 

Life expectancy is just an average of the ages people die, it has no correlation to the age the body can effectively manage itself (therefore be alive).

[insane_alien]

For example, the model predicts that the current maximum lifespan of 110-120 years will be increased to 175 in the next 20-30 years.

 

show me someone who can age 55 years in 20-30 years and i might be convinced.

 

1. Predict life expectancy in the near future. Based on the Fibonacci sequence,

 

a 90 year old today, can expect to live another 5 years

a 95 year old can expect to live another 8 years

a 103 year old can expect to live another 13 years, then…

a 116 year old can expect to live another 21 years

a 137 year old would expect to live another 34 years

a 171 year old would expect to live another 55 years

a 236 year old would expect to live another 89 years

a 325 year old can expect to live another 144 years,

and so on.

 

 

where are these figures from? have you any proof? can you make retrodictions in the same manner?

[CharonY]

This is highly speculative. I am going to move it into the speculations forum (unless some hard data is provided at some point).

[TonyMcC]

I have read that today's children are likely to have a lower lifespan than their parents due mainly to factors such as obesity and lifestyle.

[Psycho]

I have read that today's children are likely to have a lower lifespan than their parents due mainly to factors such as obesity and lifestyle.

Lifespan and average life expectancy are vastly different one is for the singular and one is for the populous, lifespan is rather irrelevant in terms of statistics or any kind of measure of increased social advancement and well being, the average life expectancy of children today is considerably higher than that of previous generations due to the current (relatively) rapid advancement of medical treatments for degenerative diseases, cancers and cardiac conditions, however none of these effect the maximal lifespan of a human they just stop premature death.

 

One thing that does have promise to increase the maximal lifespan is stem cell therapy as this gives the ability to 'reset' your cells allowing you to grow new organs, tissues and anything you want from them and in theory these could be used to replace the old (it has been done with a trachea), I think the real key bottleneck will always be the brain, if not growing a new one then transferring your conciousness over to it, but their will be many hurdles to come before that is even need to be considered as an issue.

[questionposter]

Except we haven't actually increased the human life span by much at all, all we have achieved is to get a greater proportion of people to it.

 

Anyone who reaches the longest life span around 110-115 has lived in an age when these levels of healthcare weren't available but still no one expects the current generation to live much past 110, they just expect a greater proportion to get close.

 

Life expectancy is just an average of the ages people die, it has no correlation to the age the body can effectively manage itself (therefore be alive).

 

Well, there is a gene that you can manipulate to double the life-span of the thing you alter it of. Its already been done in worms and I'd imagine there has to be some kind of human testing, at least eventually. And then even before that, it was found that taking in 30-40% less calories a day turned on some kind of survival genes that boosted your immune system and physical health.

[Bobbicus]

C. elegans is the worm I think! I did a presentation on that article in undergrad (years ago). About a week or so ago I read that calorie restriction had a similar effect for the worms. The article I read about the calorie restriction in was just some MSN/Google or something article, it wasn't a peer reviewed journal, so I wouldn't put much stock in it. That research might come into play later but at the moment I think the most immediate benefit to extending life is going to come from organ transplanting. If we could figure out how to synthesize arteries/veins and then also how to transplant them we'd be able to extend life for a very long time.

[Mrs Zeta]

show me someone who can age 55 years in 20-30 years and i might be convinced.

 

 

 

where are these figures from? have you any proof? can you make retrodictions in the same manner?

 

If life expectancy has already increased (for every decade of life) by the following years: 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13 (with some exceptions for the 50 year old age group) up to the age of 110, THEN I am speculating that it should continue to increase by the rest of the Fibonacci sequence i.e. 21,34, 55 etc per decade, starting from where it currently stops, i.e approx the age of 110/120 (which is currently the maximum human lifespan).

 

This maximum lifespan will (must) become obsolete once new developments in Synthetic Biology etc become established. In addition, the realisation of what is called 'the Global Brain' would (certainly IMO) change the way humans continue to evolve. Death by ageing would cease to be a major problem, as humans will continue to live well beyond the 120 year limit, by being valuable components of the Global Brain.

 

C. elegans is the worm I think! I did a presentation on that article in undergrad (years ago). About a week or so ago I read that calorie restriction had a similar effect for the worms. The article I read about the calorie restriction in was just some MSN/Google or something article, it wasn't a peer reviewed journal, so I wouldn't put much stock in it. That research might come into play later but at the moment I think the most immediate benefit to extending life is going to come from organ transplanting. If we could figure out how to synthesize arteries/veins and then also how to transplant them we'd be able to extend life for a very long time.

 

Since you brought up the matter of calorie restriction, see this peer-reviewed paper I wrote a couple of years ago, for more information

http://www.benthamscience.com/open/tolsj/articles/V003/SI0016TOLSJ/17TOLSJ.pdf

[questionposter]

This is highly speculative. I am going to move it into the speculations forum (unless some hard data is provided at some point).

 

 

I don't know how to google that is specific enough, but do you happen to know that/those gene(s) I'm talking about where scientist manipulated them in worms to make them live twice or half as long? It's just that it comes up more than once and I haven't been able to give even the name.

[Mrs Zeta]

I don't know how to google that is specific enough, but do you happen to know that/those gene(s) I'm talking about where scientist manipulated them in worms to make them live twice or half as long? It's just that it comes up more than once and I haven't been able to give even the name.

 

I think you are talking about the Daf-2 gene/receptor and its related signalling pathway, which is also found in humans. But there is a great distance (both biological and functional) between a gene in worms and the genetic make-up of humans, even if some genes are shared. Ageing in humans does not entirely depend on the function of a few genes.

[Sergej Shegurin]

The current situation:
1. We all are condemned to death during next 50 years for we age and we are not children.
2. As we age our bodies turn into macabre lock-ups for our souls.
3. As it infers from above, we have nothing to lose.
4. The only way to save ourselves is a rapid development of science and technologies, the realisation of a superproject for overcoming aging and death. Many investigations are carried out today but it's only a one thousandth of what must be done. What we have now is like studies of atomic nucleus in 1930s. However, we need a new Manhattan project to fight death.

[pwagen]

1. We all are condemned to death during next 50 years for we age and we are not children.

I would hope a life span of 80 years would be doable by now.

2. As we age our bodies turn into macabre lock-ups for our souls.

There still haven't been a single piece of evidence of a soul.

3. As it infers from above, we have nothing to lose.

Both of the above were wrong.

4. The only way to save ourselves is a rapid development of science and technologies, the realisation of a superproject for overcoming aging and death. Many investigations are carried out today but it's only a one thousandth of what must be done. What we have now is like studies of atomic nucleus in 1930s. However, we need a new Manhattan project to fight death.

Why? Why not take better care of ourselves while we live instead of trying to live miserable lifes forever?

[Przemyslaw.Gruchala]

However, we need a new Manhattan project to fight death.

 

It would break whole economy - imagine billions of people taking annuity for life. Immortality = infinity long taking money from government...

 

If governments would work at it, they wouldn't tell this to people, and it wouldn't be freely available for everybody.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Przemyslaw.Gruchala

[Bill Angel]

There are plenty of homeless people in the USA who have nothing to look forward to but death. I would think that eliminating homelessness would rank higher as a positive social goal than lengthening peoples' lifespans.

[cladking]

The current situation:

1. We all are condemned to death during next 50 years for we age and we are not children.

2. As we age our bodies turn into macabre lock-ups for our souls.

3. As it infers from above, we have nothing to lose.

4. The only way to save ourselves is a rapid development of science and technologies, the realisation of a superproject for overcoming aging and death. Many investigations are carried out today but it's only a one thousandth of what must be done. What we have now is like studies of atomic nucleus in 1930s. However, we need a new Manhattan project to fight death.

 

Virtual immortality is so simple a caveman could do it.

 

The problem is that modern people are too ossified in their thinking and too wed to their beliefs to even see this as a beneficial thing. So long as we believe only our science (or religion) can provide total knowledge of nature and divine intent it will be impossible to redevelop the technology anyway. Ironically, up until the 16th century the quest for immortality drove much of human progress but then science began returning significant amounts of technology and creature comforts and it's like people just got tired of living individually and collectively. ...Quantity over quality.

[krash661]

" Nature has designed us to live indefinitely ",

I'm confused,

IMO this is contradicting.

and obvious from this thing called nature it self.

[Delta1212]

[Mrs Zeta]

It would break whole economy - imagine billions of people taking annuity for life. Immortality = infinity long taking money from government...

 

If governments would work at it, they wouldn't tell this to people, and it wouldn't be freely available for everybody.

Also imagine billions of people living and working indefinitely, and as a consequence, paying taxes indefinitely. Governments will earn a lot of money!

[John Cuthber]

OK, common sense and the data say that remaining life span fall as a you get older or, equivalently, the older you are the more likely you are to die in the next year.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Excerpt_from_CDC_2003_Table_1.pdf/page1-593px-Excerpt_from_CDC_2003_Table_1.pdf.jpg

 

So the idea that, at 100 you have a longer life ahead of you than you had at 90 is experimentally wrong.

Since the effect described does not actually happen (older people don't expect to live longer than younger ones) there is no need to call on some weird hypothesis to explain it.

Indeed, if, as stated elsewhere, this increase in lifespan among the elderly is a natural consequence of the "Global brain" and this increase does not happen, it is evidence that this "Global brain" (whatever that might mean) does not exist.

Edited June 26, 2013 by John Cuthber

[Delta1212]

OK, common sense and the data say that remaining life span fall as a you get older or, equivalently, the older you are the more likely you are to die in the next year.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Excerpt_from_CDC_2003_Table_1.pdf/page1-593px-Excerpt_from_CDC_2003_Table_1.pdf.jpg

 

So the idea that, at 100 you have a longer life ahead of you than you had at 90 is experimentally wrong.

Since the effect described does not actually happen (older people don't expect to live longer than younger ones) there is no need to call on some weird hypothesis to explain it.

Indeed, if, as stated elsewhere, this increase in lifespan among the elderly is a natural consequence of the "Global brain" and this increase does not happen, it is evidence that this "Global brain" (whatever that might mean) does not exist.

He wasn't sasying that a 95 year old can expect to live longer than a 90 year old. He was saying that the increase in life expectancy will rise at such a rapid pace that a 90 year old with a 5 year life expectancy would find, after 5 years, that their life expectancy had actually gone up to 8 more years. In other words, life expectancy will increase by more than a year per year.

 

Not that that's realistic either.

[Mrs Zeta]

OK, common sense and the data say that remaining life span fall as a you get older or, equivalently, the older you are the more likely you are to die in the next year.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Excerpt_from_CDC_2003_Table_1.pdf/page1-593px-Excerpt_from_CDC_2003_Table_1.pdf.jpg

 

So the idea that, at 100 you have a longer life ahead of you than you had at 90 is experimentally wrong.

Since the effect described does not actually happen (older people don't expect to live longer than younger ones) there is no need to call on some weird hypothesis to explain it.

Indeed, if, as stated elsewhere, this increase in lifespan among the elderly is a natural consequence of the "Global brain" and this increase does not happen, it is evidence that this "Global brain" (whatever that might mean) does not exist.

This 'Global Brain' is not some giant brain floating above the Earth. It is merely another term for the total digital connections between all hyper-connected individuals (the total number of people using the internet and the emerging concequences of this usage). It is impossible not to exist, unless we all stop using digital communication completely.

 

Also, the increase in lifespan mentioned earlier is not specifically with regards to the elderly. It is for all of those who use and share meaningful information (i.e those who are active 'components' of the Global Brain).