Entitled Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence at Queens College in Cambridge, UK, and hosted by Aubrey De Grey, the event attracted many big names on the cutting edge of anti-aging research.
Aubrey was kind enough to answer a few preliminary questions about the prospect of physical immortality.
Aubrey de Grey
IMMINST: Among qualified scientists, you are one of the most outspoken proponents of the likelihood of 'extreme' life extension. For what do you accredit your outspokenness in comparison to other scientists?
ADG: Two main reasons, I guess. Firstly, I am more outspoken because I am more optimistic about the timeframe for developing 'extreme' life extension. The reason I'm more optimistic is that I know more than my colleagues about the details of how to go about developing extreme life extension, and that's because I've spent more time exploring (and in some cases inventing) such approaches than they have. Secondly, I am more outspoken because I can get away with it. Most scientists are unable to say what they think when doing so might annoy a lot of their senior colleagues, because that could adversely affect their ability to get grant applications funded in the future. My salary comes from work that is completely unrelated to my gerontology research, and my research doesn't involve experiments so is more or less free; thus, I don't have that problem.
IMMINST: In an email exchange earlier, you say that you are "very opposed" to the term "immortality" for "anything less than (say) a million-year life expectancy." A million years seems to be a fairly arbitrary length of time. What makes one million years different from the "five-thousand years" you project for the potential of human life span if we succeed in conquering aging?
ADG: The difference is that a life expectancy of 5000 or so years is what we can be expected to get if we conquer aging but still die of accidents. (If we die of accidents at the rate that we do today, life expectancy will only be about 1000 years, but I think it's likely that we will be quite a lot more risk-averse in a post-aging world so I think 5000 is a better guess than 1000.) But that still means people would be dying at a rate of a few thousand a day! Death would still be something with which we were wholly familiar -- all of us would personally have known someone who had died within the past few years. I think we should use the term "immortality" only for a world in which death is a rare event in society as a whole, something that gets onto the news -- or at very least a world in which all causes of death with which we are familiar today (except suicide, I guess) have been reduced in incidence by a very large factor, maybe 1000. Since that includes accidents, which I can't see us reducing by a factor of more than about 10 just by greater risk aversion, and since aging will be reduced as a cause of death by much more than 1000, I get to a million or so as a minimum life expectancy that can fairly be called "immortality to all intents and purposes".
I should note the reason why I'm "very opposed" to using "immortality" more broadly, rather than just calling such a use incorrect. I think terminology implying any sort of **supernatural** control over events is hugely damaging to the public image of any effort to develop solid technical solutions to real-world problems. This is especially so in cases where there are perfectly good alternative terms with only about the same number of syllables, such as "indefinite lifespan" or "absence of aging".
IMMINST: Thanks for clarifying your views. I noticed in your recent Betterhumans' interview (below) where you say that "infinite lifespan is physically impossible" because of the heat death of the Universe. Thus, hopefully without getting to personal here (you don't have to answer if you don't want to), how would you address the question of your expected death and the continuance or non-continuance of your consciousness? Are you resigned to the fact that one day in the far future that youll completely end in oblivion - or do you hold out hope for expectations of an afterlife?
ADG: I really have no idea. What I am resigned to is that there will at some point be something that happens to me whose aftermath I can't influence in advance. That could be being hit by a truck tomorrow, or dying of old age before we know how to fix that, or the Earth being hit by an asteroid before I can get off it, etc, etc. What "I" (whatever that means) exist as or experience after that is not something I can influence to even the slightest degree (except to the extent that possibly there is a supreme being that might decide on my fate on the basis of my present actions -- but how they might make that decision even if they do exist seems hard to predict), so I don't lose sleep over it.
Related Links:
Kevin Perrott's review of the IABG Conference: here
An Engineer's Approach to the Development of Real Anti-Aging Medicine
Aubrey's Work on Anti-Aging and recent articles: here
SF: Are you as hopeful about the prospect of immortality?
ADG: Um...your "as" has thrown me. As hopeful as what? I could also ask what you mean by "immortality" -- indefinite lifespan, or infinite lifespan? Please elaborate.
SF: Well, are you as optimistic about the prospect of immortality -- the possibility that one could live forever if one wanted to -- as you are about life extension?
ADG: Ah, okay. There's a difference between an indefinite and infinite lifespan. An indefinite lifespan is like a radioactive atom -- one day it will decay, but at any time that we find it hasn't decayed we can say that its average remaining time before decaying is the same as it ever was. Using this analogy, an infinite lifespan is like a stable atom which never decays. So if we fix aging completely but we still die of accidents and so on, our lifespan is indefinite but not infinite.
Of course, an infinite lifespan is physically impossible (heat death of the Universe, that sort of thing), but the difference between not dying of aging and not even dying of accidents etc is still so vast that it seems reasonable to call the latter "an infinite lifespan." I'm easy with calling that "immortality." I don't like "immortality" as a description of just not dying of aging, though.
So, am I optimistic? Certainly with regard to indefinite lifespan, yes. As I said earlier, I think there will be only a short interval between the time when we first have genuine life extension treatments and the time when we're improving those treatments faster than we're aging, which is all that's necessary to give us an indefinite lifespan. We currently have no idea what sort of treatments we'll need to keep us going when we're 200, but that's okay, because we won't need those treatments for over another 100 years. So long as we look hard at 180-year-olds as soon as we have any, and also at 80-year-old chimpanzees once we have them (which will be sooner, of course) for signs of trouble on the horizon, we'll have time to head off that trouble before it kills anyone.
With regard to an infinite lifespan, the approach that I think most likely to appear is "slow teleportation." By this I mean a noninvasive scan of the brain that records the pattern of synaptic connections and so on in such good detail that a new brain could be built, of new neurons, and micromanipulated to have the same synaptic interconnections. There is a fair chance that that would be enough to reproduce the persistent parts of the identity of the person -- not what they were thinking about when the scan was done, but possibly a pretty good rendition of the person's personality, memories, tastes. Such rebuilding would in principle only be done as and when the person died.
I think most people (once they got used to the idea) would probably regard this as a genuine continuation of their existence (much like waking up from a long coma), and would be getting these backups every month or so. The idea that continuity of identity requires corporeal continuity is actually pretty arbitrary.
Am I optimistic about that development? No idea. All I know is that I can't think of any biology that we know now that says it's impossible. It's obviously far, far harder than the sort of stuff I'm proposing we develop now. But we have to look at the timescales. If my plan works in the timeframe I have mentioned, no one presently under 30 in wealthy nations need have a life expectancy under about 1,000 years (which is how long we'd live now if our risk of death per unit time at any age were the same as it currently is at age 15 or so). In practice we will be a lot more risk-averse, so I expect life expectancy to be at least 5,000 years. So, even if it takes 500 years to develop, most of us who stick around long enough to get an indefinite lifespan will still be around for "slow teleportation" (presuming it's possible at all).
"I think most people (once they got used to the idea) would probably regard this as a genuine continuation of their existence".
After I got used to the idea, I did. I even advocated and debated for it in various arenas.
Then, a few more years of consideration passed, and I find that nothing less than a Moravec procedure would do. Sure, I suppose it would be nice to activate a backup to continue having someone identical to me continue to interact with those I cared about rather than disappearing suddenly, But unless there's something necessarily transformative, rather than duplicative, about the procedure, the experience of this me is anything but guaranteed.
10:06:08 prometheus Aubrey. I see that you have powerpoint files and audio files available. Will they remain so indefinitely? 10:06:15 ag24 sorry - I'm new to this - what should I do with that link, if anything? 10:06:33 ag24 ppt and audio - yes I think I can keep them up indefinitely. 10:06:43 kevin Ag.. you can just click on it and it should bring up a browser window with your interview with BJ in it.. 10:06:51 Bluesteel What reaction have you had to your 'WILT alternative' as proposed at IABG 10? It seemed very radical... 10:07:03 caliban the link is just for the information of others... a primer
10:08:20 ag24 WILT: very heartening. Initially I have been frustrated that most people hang up on the feasibility of the stem cell transplantation 10:08:50 ag24 but at the conference and since then, most discussions have been about whether it is ambitiuos enough. 10:09:24 ag24 There is a lot of concern -- which I very much share -- that ALT is more dangerous than it may look and that it may not be amenable to gene deletion as easily as telomerase is.
10:10:21 Bluesteel Those I spoke too were more concerned over the regular procedure necessary, more than the feasibility 10:10:47 ag24 That's ointeresting. (Hm, I've just discovered that backspace doesn't work in this...) 10:11:13 ag24 Yes, I think the feasibility of the therapy does come down to the frequency. 10:11:29 ag24 and of course the sheer nastiness of it! 10:11:35 Bluesteel And the expense.... 10:11:42 ag24 but that can be improved by degrees. 10:11:48 ag24 and so can the expense.
10:11:57 kevin Is the ALT-ernative pathway really that dangerous.. ? and can we not produce apoptosis mechanisms with gene therapy to take care of cells.. ? And what about the telomerase vaccine of Geron?..w ould that not be a feasible alternative to stem cell transplantation?
10:12:36 ag24 The people swho focus more on the ALT problem are ones that I've already convinced that the stem cell part may be doable tolerably in the 10-20 year timeframe that I'm discussing.
10:13:20 ag24 to answer kevin - I very much buy all these approaches, which is why I invited the top people pursuing them to the nmeeting, but Ithink they won't be powerful enough.
10:13:38 caliban Taking each day individually, which presentations do you think made the greatest impact?
10:13:52 ag24 The problem is as I said in the talk -- these therapiers can all be "escaped" too easily, but turning one or two well-chosen genes on or off.
10:14:26 ag24 wow, hard question! I think every day had a big impact in defferent ways and on different peope. 10:14:46 ag24 On the foirst day I know a lot of people were blown away by Brockes's newts.
10:15:02 kevin Yes.. I understand that mutations make cells almost infinitely flexible in trying to escape death on their own scale.. 10:15:08 ag24 On day 2 I like to think I impressed (or at least annoyed!) people a lot.
10:15:27 kevin Rosenthal and Brocke made my mouth jaw drop.. 10:15:31 ag24 On day 3 it was definitely John Archer who made the biggest impression -- he has been fending off interested people ever since 10:15:59 ag24 on day 4 I think Stock and Haseltime both got pepole thinking a lot.
10:16:01 MichaelA hm, the overall optimism at that conference seemed amazing 10:16:22 ag24 that was my plan - get people to educate each other. 10:16:34 ag24 everyone is optimistic about the rate of progress in their own field 10:16:49 ag24 but they assume by default that everyone else ois having a harder time! 10:17:09 Bluesteel I got the impression that all had moved from an 'if' to a 'when' as far as SENS is concerned 10:17:33 ag24 Certainly not "all" -- but certainly a sufficient proportion to make me very confident. 10:17:43 Bluesteel Which was more than I had expected 10:18:00 ag24 That was the thing that struck me most about the discussion after the ethics session: 10:18:04 kevin Everyone seemed very tentatively eager to hope.. 10:18:28 ag24 even though a large majority of those present said we should not be talking about timescales for hiuman life extension, 10:18:47 ag24 they were not prepaered to say I was wrong about mouser rejuvenation within 10 years. 10:18:55 MichaelA heh
10:18:59 kevin Caplan's talk spoke directly to that feeling.. that life-extension was on the defensive 10:19:01 MichaelA a silent consensus 10:19:24 ag24 I think that any biogerontologist who holds both those views is one who has not come to terms with their responsibilities to society 10:19:37 MichaelA that is unfortunate 10:19:47 MichaelA because there is a profound humanitarian responsibility involved 10:19:56 kevin and Will Haseltine at that session asked him what would happen if we were discussing immortality instead of just life-extension.. 10:19:56 MichaelA have you received any negative media coverage thus far? 10:19:57 ag24 No, not unfortunate - it' s just that they hadn't had time to digest it. 10:20:05 caliban How was the press coverage? 10:20:26 ag24 I think very few peope, arrived in Cambridge agreeing with me about the 10-year timeframe for robust mouse rejuvenation 10:20:49 ag24 negative media - basically none. In fact absolutely none in actual media per se, just a few emails 10:21:12 prometheus That is a tragedy. 10:21:15 ag24 press coverage was not as extensive as I was hoping for, but it's persisting - I'm doing a lot of interviews at the omoment
10:21:28 ag24 what is a tragedy? 10:21:41 prometheus No coverage. At least initially. 10:21:50 MichaelA Transvision got about 7 or so articles covering it 10:21:57 kevin Ag: I noticed Campisi said in her session that for the 'first time' she felt that life-extension was possible.. I cheered. 10:22:02 ag24 ah yes - well, there's oftennot much coverage of scientific meetings. 10:22:09 MichaelA I would think that a Cambridge conference would come across as more significant 10:22:29 Bluesteel Any post IABG increase in Methuselah Mouse funding? 10:22:44 ag24 nah - lotso of conferences happen in Cambridge -- but still, a few journalists canme - which is more than at most gerontoogy meetings! 10:22:49 prometheus Perhaps there needs to be some translation for the lay audience.
10:23:21 ag24 Campisi - yes, I think she agrees very strongly with me that cancer is the hardest nut to crack, and I think she thingks I may be onto something with WILT.
10:23:33 kevin prometheus: I think the situation wil be different quite shortly... there was a spate of LE articles a couple months ago all over the internet and I think everyone's taking a break.. it will resurface.. 10:23:40 ag24 MMP funding - again lots of media interest (more than for IABG) 10:24:13 ag24 translation - yes. I have urged delegates to write meeting reports and lots of them are doing so, many of them for lay publications
10:24:30 kevin The MMP is certain to capture a lot of interest at the academic level... I've talked about it with a few people thus far and after they get over the idea that the work is even being done they begin to smile.. 10:24:54 caliban in the past you have sometimes been criticised for your interdisciplinary outlook - do you think that people are less prone to look at the bigger picture in reversing aging - or is everybody doing their own thing? 10:25:00 ag24 Yes. I've been particularly heartened than none of my colleagues has said that it trivialises the science.
10:25:28 BJK_ Aubrey, after pestering you relentlessly to show up.. i failed to show up on time.. sorry.. but thanks for spending time with us.
10:25:37 ag24 I haven't been criticised for being interdisciplinary - only for being ignorant of how hard experiments are! 10:25:38 kevin AG: There are going to be two 'conferences' next year? One for SENS and one for the IABG? 10:25:49 Bluesteel Interdisciplinary will be the 'in word' in the next few years 10:25:53 ag24 Hi Bian 10:26:09 BJK_ it's Bruce..
10:26:11 kevin Ag: Thought experiments are the cheapest.. but must come before real ones can occur. 10:26:21 ag24 Yes 2 conferences (probably) - but not 2004, 2005. 10:26:32 prometheus Aubrey, Do you think that you can top this years lineup for IABG? 10:26:45 ag24 heh Bruce - sory! This is tiring and I've only been going 20 minutes!
10:27:07 ag24 Thought expts - no, they have to alternate with bench exts 10:27:11 BJK_ heh, you take your time.. no worries :-)
10:27:28 kevin ahh.. thanks.. Are the new planners of the IABG going to follow your lead in including a philosophical debate? 10:27:30 ag24 I'm certain I can top this year's livneup, yes - I have a track record now 10:27:42 prometheus That's true.
10:27:53 ag24 I expect that IABG in 2005 will be a fairly conventional meeting, and that's what I want, 10:28:05 prometheus I will certainly have to make it next time. 10:28:17 kevin Ag: I meant.. one must actually think of an experiment before it can be tested.. :-) 10:28:20 ag24 because that will allow me to be more "sens" esque and not overlap too much in subject matter 10:28:46 caliban so the overlapping DOES harm? 10:28:47 ag24 kevin - yes I understood - but one can't think of useful expts without knowing a lot of results of earlier ones 10:29:03 kevin I think its a good idea to not DILUTE the aims of SENS.. 10:29:13 ag24 o/lap - not hardm, except that fewer people wil be willing to go to both meetings 10:29:53 ag24 not dilute - yes exactly - this year I had quite a few talks that were't really my scene (esp the last afternoon) and I will probaly leave that area to the Danes in 2005 10:30:05 kevin
10:30:13 Bluesteel Will you be inviting any nanotechnologists to your next meeting? You know its a hobbyhorse of mine 10:30:37 ag24 My plans for 2005 are still v preliminary. I will think about having a nano person. 10:31:20 Bluesteel Robert Freitas Jr if you can get him 10:31:30 ag24 yes
10:31:30 MichaelA * MichaelA was also wondering about the presence of nanotechnology as an idea among biogerontologists 10:31:36 kevin AG: A lot of peopole are involved in caloric restriction work.. 10:31:41 kevin Ag: From what I understand.. you think that the efforts at using the effects of caloric restriction to extend life will not really confer the extension people think... care to elaborate?
10:32:11 ag24 I don't think any biogerontologists are really thinking about stuff as far off as nanotech, no 10:32:21 prometheus The latest issue of "Genetic Engineering News" features Nanobiotechnology. 10:32:31 ag24 CR: wherw, OK, what can I say in the time available. Basically it's the weather. 10:33:06 kevin * kevin chuckles..
10:33:14 ag24 we only exvolve and retain the genetic machinery to do what the environment requires us to do to maximise our contribution to the next generation. 10:33:18 caliban how much of an awareness was there among delegates of the Transhumanist agenda? 10:33:30 ag24 This is why aging exists at all (as Medawar noted 50 years ago) 10:34:03 ag24 but it's also why nematodes can extend their lifespan by a factor of 10 in response to starvation and mice can't.
10:34:40 kevin so you feel that CR although it can extend lifespan in certain organisms will bring about different effects than life-extension in humans? 10:34:47 ag24 My guess is that the same extrapolation can be done to humans: i.e. that in fact most anuimals can respond to conditions by living several months longer than they other wise would 10:35:33 ag24 but that the degree of environmental challenge that the organism finds it worthwhile to be able to meet by progressively more extreme metabolic acrtobatics varies with their lifespan. 10:35:59 ag24 so no organism wshould be able to extend their lifespan by more than a couple of years in response to (eg) starvation 10:36:42 ag24 I dont think anyone at IABG who wasn't aware of TH became much more aware of it - and most biogerontologists are unaware of it 10:36:43 kevin ..ahh... so perhaps increased health would be the main outcome of CR.. perhaps only mild CR.. rather than life-extension
10:37:24 ag24 increased health - yes indeed - but then of course only for those who are not healthy anyway. There is not nmuch evidence that CR compresses morbidity in mice, for example 10:37:28 BJK_ I had a chance to listen to John Harris' speach that was uploaded via MP3, re: 'Immortal Ethics'...great stuff! should we expect more from John in the future? 10:37:45 ag24 Oh yes, Harris is a major guy in this area 10:38:12 BJK_ It seems he's getting a nice reception from some... 10:38:51 caliban John is a famous agitator :-) 10:38:55 BJK_ Thanks for uploading all the mp3's, they have been great listening
10:39:10 ag24 Thank Kevin Perrott! 10:39:21 BJK_ heh, right 10:39:31 kevin nah.. happy to do it! 10:39:32 caliban thanks Kevin! 10:39:49 BJK_ * BJK_ doesn't fly 10:39:56 caliban any more questions to Mr. de Grey? 10:40:08 Bluesteel Yes, thanks Kevin, its made my report writing easier... 10:40:28 kevin just his feelings on the use of the word immortality when discussing life-extension.. 10:40:35 ag24 OK....
10:40:37 kevin I know he answered BJ.. 10:41:26 ag24 I think that over-broad use of "immortality" is very harmful to the quest for transfumanists and such like to be taken seriously by biologists. 10:42:02 MichaelA this is indeed a tough issue 10:42:07 ag24 We all know that curing aging will still leave us with only a 4-digit lifespan unless we do quite a lot to avoisd age-independent causes of death. 10:42:15 BJK_ do you think it's been overused as media hype? 10:42:24 ag24 Hence, we should be sure never to equate curing aging with achieving immortality. 10:42:35 caliban * caliban applauds
10:42:38 ag24 I'm less hard-line than many of my colleagues on this in fact -- 10:43:00 kevin -although it is the most logical term to use.. there's a lot of baggage associated with it.. and it does evoke ALOT of emotions if that's what you're trying to do.. sometimes the wrong ones. 10:43:01 ag24 as I said in my interview with BJK, I think it **is** legitimate to use "immortality for a state in 10:43:31 ag24 which every cause of death that we currently know (except suicide) is drastically reduced.
10:43:51 ag24 because that means you're just saying "immortality for all intents and purposes", which is OK. 10:44:11 prometheus Perhaps "immortality" can be a hook used to educate the public about life extension? 10:44:29 BJK_ but, you *not* saying you wouldn't want to live forever.. as in infinite lifespan.. right? 10:44:50 BJK_ if given the chance 10:44:55 ag24 No. Just as was just mentioned, it's too evocative and it makes people sound as though they are going to appeal to one's emotions rather than talk solid science. 10:45:14 BJK_ * BJK_ nods 10:45:39 kevin I personally don't want to alienate people to the concept based on a knee jerk reaction.. 10:45:40 prometheus But does the general public respond better to emotion or rationality?
10:46:04 BJK_ welcome back 10:46:11 kevin I personally don't want to alienate people to the concept based on a knee jerk reaction.. 10:46:11 kevin But does the general public respond better to emotion or rationality? 10:46:13 ag24 OK - sory, suddently my typing wasn't coming out 10:46:27 kevin no problem.. computers are funny like that..
10:46:36 ag24 far better to rationality when they are planning long-term 10:47:10 prometheus Like investing for their retirement? I am not sure about that.. 10:47:31 ag24 ah no, different question 10:47:59 kevin Reason of the Longevity Meme suggested beginning a "Walk for Aging" cure.. do you think the time is right for this kind of activity?
10:48:07 ag24 that's whether they can come to terms with what they know; if in the short term one option is simple inaction, that's a danger 10:48:38 ag24 but if you use emotion then it can backfire into active resistance to what you're saying 10:48:50 prometheus That is true too. 10:49:02 ag24 "walk for aging" -- not heard about this - please elaboate 10:49:06 caliban To be fair he suggested a "Walk to CURE aging" 10:49:27 kevin Ag: the backfiring is exactly what I'm afraid of.. the public need to be led toe first into the pool of life-extension.. much like that 18th centure slide that kept popping up at the IABG.. 10:49:39 kevin correced caliban 10:49:43 kevin *corrected
10:50:53 Bluesteel There are some who want to go straight into the Tent Keven 10:50:59 caliban on the topic of raising sponsorship- any big news on the Methusaleah Mouse? 10:51:14 kevin * kevin laughs -> Bluesteel! 10:51:34 kevin I'm thinking Ag is having kb troubles. 10:51:38 Bluesteel An IABG 'in joke...'
10:52:15 ag24 too 'in' for me to understand, in fact!
10:52:31 ag24 MMP news, no, nothing recent - but there may be stuff soon 10:52:33 kevin 'the fountain of youth... was quite prevalent. 10:52:59 caliban "ther may be stuff soon?" ? 10:53:19 Bluesteel Is the 'MMP totaliser' applet available now? It seemed a neat addition to related websites 10:53:27 ag24 David Gobel has hooked up with a very smart progreammer who is doing some java things for us 10:53:39 ag24 early days yet, though David showed a prototype at the IABG 10:53:51 ag24 ah Julian beat me to it 10:54:06 Bluesteel Great minds...
10:54:30 Bluesteel Oh, it doesn't do the wink smilie... 10:54:38 kevin There's been a revision to it.. I think the said he would be making it publicly available when the 'donor matching fund' was realized. 10:54:47 BJK_ so, Aubrey.. have you ever typed so fast and much in one hour before? 10:55:05 kevin * kevin thinks this is normal speed for Mr De Grey.. 10:55:14 BJK_ of course
10:55:50 ag24 how do you do that "kevin thingks" thing? 10:55:57 Bluesteel Yes, Aubrey is the first person I think I've seen who's capable of being in several places at the same time if the IABG is an example! 10:56:02 BJK_ type "/me thinks" 10:56:03 kevin type "/me
I'm most grateful for all this feedback -- particularly Dale's, which I'll leave till last. First a few short replies to other points:
Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote:
>> Well... you and I probably have, shall we say, a dispute about the >> timing of related events, to put it as elliptically as possible, and >> hence about which technologies it constitutes genocide to delay, or >> develop improperly, as turns out to be a much worse problem.
We may not be as far apart as you suppose. I'm not sure if you know that I worked in AI research from 1985 to 1991, principally on fully automated software verification of normal imperative programs, which I succeeded in demonstrating is quite feasible after all, even including loop invariant discovery. (This was done with commercial motives and never published.) The project was intended as the first stage of development of a GOFAI, and recently I came across something I wrote in 1987 (when I was 24, as it happens) concerning the ethical and related implications of AI other than GOFAI. Perhaps we can set aside an hour or two at Foresight in May (where I hope to be) to get to know each other better; we may be more use to each other than it might seem.
>> "... If the audience's free acceptance of whatever >> you can honestly establish isn't good enough for you, you will end up >> fighting the audience over the remaining points. And losing."
I agree about this (and the rest of your quote), but the requirement is thus to determine in advance what one can honestly establish and what one can't, and most of the arguments that life-extensionists typically use in support of their views are ones that I find quite unconvincing. I really have no idea whether people will find it hard to have fewer children around, whether they will get awfully bored, or even whether they will feel their life has less "meaning". I'm pretty sure none of these will happen to me, but I can't speak confidently for others. The arguments for aging research based on "compression of morbidity" so popular with many of my gerontologist colleagues are even more broken, since they are so utterly at variance with the science. Thus I feel we **must** "dwell on mortality per se" (to quote Dale), because a longer life with an undiminished proportion lived frail is so clearly a mixed blessing. Not being good at convincing others of things I myself doubt, I have gravitated to the argument at <why.htm> by default.
Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>> ### I'll up the ante, Aubrey - what you say will happen, but not in ten >> years, but next year.
I'd love you to be right, of course. But why haven't you signed up the mice in question to the Methuselah Mouse Prize? There is no requirement to reveal your methods in advance, and now that we've decided to verify age after death using aspartate racemisation it is much easier to enrol mice that are part of an ongoing experiment. See the website or ask me if you need more info.
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>> How can you extol the virtues of your methods while at the same time >> lament the lack of results? Have you ever considered a possible >> cause-and-effect relationship here?
You'd have a point if it weren't for the even more robust resistance to engaging in debate that I (and most who propound radical ideas in staid communities) experience when discussing the science. I get my scientific ideas discussed only by taking the initiative to an extreme degree -- by convening expenses-paid meetings such as SENS 3, for example. There is a deep-seated terror in most people (maybe in everyone) of finding their belief system to be seriously in need of revision, and a well-understood (if seldom expressed) appreciation that the surest defence against such a discovery is to avoid engaging in conversations with anyone who they fear might bring it about. Hence the rarity of spontaneous contact -- and, for that matter, the frequency with which one encounters strenuous efforts to change the subject when a conversation strays into risky territory. My colleague Rich Miller, who thinks my approach to fixing aging is absurd but who wants to fix it just as much as I do, tells a splendid story about a friend of his wife who now refuses to come to dinner at their house for this reason.
>> I have also noticed that the hands-on people actually working with >> these future technologies tend to have a more conservative time-table >> than the fan-club people who like to read about these technologies. I >> think that vaporware and hype influences people to make more optimistic >> predictions, and most people lacking hands-on technical experience with >> these technologies can't distinguish hype from reality. >> > >>> > But yes, just as I do not expect the >>> > arrival of post-biological superintelligence within fifty >>> > years, neither do I expect the arrival of radical longevity >>> > in that time. > >> >> This fits in with my predictions as well. We are plowing ahead at full >> speed, constantly making substantial breakthroughs. But people who are >> not familiar with the technology underestimate how complex it is. For >> every publicly known problem, there are thousands of non-famous >> problems that also need to be solved. For every breakthrough in >> science, there are dozens of new problems or questions raised.
I used very often to be disparaged by experimental biogerontologists on just these grounds, but that happens a lot less now, because of the monotonous regularity with which, when they get to know me and actually discuss the nuts and bolts of one or other proposed approach to fixing an aspect of aging, they discover that my optimism is solidly based in experimental results that they haven't come across because they are too busy (doing experiments, writing grants) to read as widely as I do. I often point out that physics doesn't have this problem -- there are as many theoreticians in physics as experimentalists, more or less, and for just the reason that I make a difference, viz. that progress is fastest when some people are focused narrowly and some more broadly. We all know how certain the academics whose advances underpinned the understanding of aerodynamics were that heavier-than-air flight was impossible, right up until it was demonstrated. Perhaps your remark is true for some definitions of "actually working with these future technologies" but not others.
Anyway, I am always delighted to discuss biological aspects of SENS at whatever level of detail, just like sociopolitical aspects.
Dale Carrico wrote (replying to Mark Walker):
>> Immortality certainly wouldn't arrive suddenly or soon, and whenever >> it does arrive (if it does), wouldn't it be in the aftermath of a long >> series of steps every one of which would need funding and support on >> its own?
I'll come to your reply to me in a moment, but I want to deal with this first. In a forum that is so at home with recursive self-improvement, grey goo and other such processes I find it extremely surprising that there's any difficulty in taking on board my bootstrapping logic that refutes this view (and which you later mention that you've read). A panel of therapies that doubled the remaining healthy lifespan of those in their 50s would keep them alive for an extra 20-30 years, such that when they were 80 they would be broadly in the state that they were in at 50-odd before their treatment. The likelihood that in those 20-30 years we would have failed to refine and extend those first-generation therapies enough to keep those same people alive for a further 20-30 years is, I claim, very low indeed. In other words, we will very probably have reached "escape velocity" even by the time we achieve that relatively modest result. If you dispute this reasoning, please elaborate.
Now...... Dale Carrico wrote (replying to me):
>> I have always read your genocide argument as a provocation intended to >> consolidate the fervor of that small coterie of folks who are already >> committed to the possibility of extreme longevity medicine in their own >> lifetimes, as well as a kind of left-field brickbat intended to nudge the >> majority who have never considered the possibility of such medicine from >> their complacent slumbers and then to recontextualize all the key issues >> from the frame of "natural" expectations and into the field of intentions >> and political projects.
Only the latter -- consciously, anyway.
>> you need to pitch your case for the old ladies who vote and the old >> guys who still have all the money.
The difficulty I've always had with that strategy is that SENS will take a minimum of 15-20 years to reach the clinic and very probably 25-30. The resources wielded by those too old to have much chance of making the cut will simply not be wielded if the argument focuses on personal gain: we have to appeal to their enthusiasm for helping others.
>> You admit up front that "a lot of people don't like me saying that," so >> stop right there.
You make an excellent point here, which prompted my "consciously, anyway" just above. In truth, this is the first time anyone has actually told me that this is bad public relations: when I wrote that, I was (I only now realise) really thinking "a lot of people probably **will** not like me saying this, because they often don't like me calling a spade a spade in other contexts". Specifically, gerontologists (who are overwhelmingly in favour of curing aging as soon as possible, though of course most of them are more pessimistic than I about timescales) mostly don't like me talking about timescales at all, however much I back them up with solid science. So, what I want to stress is that the people I was referring to in that statement were gerontologists, who are nearly all among the supporters of curing aging.
Yes -- very well put. I'm taking this very seriously.
>> Calling not actively or adequately supporting research into longevity >> medicine genocide looks to me nothing like calling a spade a spade.
...
>> People who fail to entertain the possibility that humanity's >> three-score and ten is not in fact a "natural" limit may be guilty of >> a lack of imagination, or what you may take to be skewed priorities -- >> but it actually seems a bit perverse to name them criminals.
Yes.... I think you put your finger on what I have been eliding here when you note this:
>> even in cases where genocide is diffused through bureaucratic >> apparatuses that make assigning intentions difficult ... we still want >> to assign blame when we deploy categories of justice and injustice
My reasoning has been: sure, calling something genocide that involves no (or even a few-digit) loss of life is palpably rhetorical and hence bound to be counter-productive, but calling something genocide when it involves loss of life far exceeding any genocide that history has yet seen is just the opposite, it's instilling a proper sense of proportion. What I think you're saying is that even if that's true, we should not be equating delaying the cure for aging by prevarication with genocide because prevarication (inaction) is less worthy of blame than action. Is that an accurate statement of your view? (Apologies if I put words in your mouth, but I think I'll understand you most quickly if I try to express your view in my own words.) If so, I need to get to the bottom of whether action and inaction really are at all different, which I have long believed not to be the case.
>> Are you sure that you want the category of murderous intent to attach >> to the verdicts of reasonable deliberation just because they disagree >> with your own? What about with people who might come to support a >> different strategy for longevity-medicine than your own (I realize that >> you are largely the only game in town, this is a thought exercise)? >> Still genocidal, are they?
This is (I think) the fulcrum of your argument, and at first reading I found it highly compelling. I'm not saying I now think it's bunk, but I do need to probe it further before coming off the fence about it. [I don't address support for different life-extension strategies here -- the page asks "Why should you do whatever you can to expedite the defeat of human aging?", not "Why should you pursue these specific projects?" -- though I accept I've carelessly muddied this elsewhere on the page.] What worries me about it is that we assert a general responsibility to form such conclusions only after reasonable and objective consideration of the facts. If Hitler's reasons for embarking on the Holocaust were that he had (by whatever route -- voices in his head, for example) come to the conclusion that the Jews would exterminate the rest of humanity unless they were exterminated first, we would indeed still consider him genocidal -- right? -- because we don't accept the reasoning underlying his conclusion.
So what I guess I'm trying to say with my argument (and I do now accept that I need to say it differently -- I'm just not yet sure exactly how differently) is that murderous intent is one thing, but manslaughter is also a crime, as is "just obeying orders" to cause people's death, so it seems logical that this is reprehensible even if those "orders" are the prevailing priorities of society.
My dilemma is that on the one hand prevarication regarding SENS is only blameworthy once one accepts the science and the consequent numbers of person-years involved, but on the other hand we are talking about millions (if not hundreds of millions) of lives being shortened by centuries or millennia, not even by decades. Until that sinks in, I can't see how people can be shaken from their fear of the unknown.
>> I think you would be better served to make the case that the word >> "aging" is a muddle-minded prescientific term, like "instinct" is, used >> to apply a veneer of intelligibility to a complex of processes that we >> do not understand well enough yet. "Aging" is a mystification. Its >> routes and forms are multivarious.
Not only is this a strategy I haven't contemplated, it it's one that I don't recall seeing anyone else try either. It looks hard, given that "aging" is a common term that people think they understand. Do you think you could have a go at expanding the above into a few hundred words? I would be very interested in what you could come up with.
>> I am convinced enough to agree with you that you are on the right >> track, or at any rate you are on a better track than comparable others, >> and that what you are doing is worthy of support. To go on to say that >> those who assess these things differently are thereby genocidal would >> require evidence of an altogether different order, however -- and just >> the fact that even in your most confident and proximate predictions you >> say "should" rather than "will" it is clear that your argument does not >> yet rise to the level that would justify the genocide claim.
Here I have the same problem that Mark has. How certain does it need to be that a genocide-scale number of lives are being shortened by a given action before it becomes accurate to describe that action as genocide?
>> To the extent that it also risks alientaing the people whose money and >> support and understanding you want, it seems to me a questionable >> rhetorical move as well.
Right - this is of course the key point. Will I lose more support by being seen as unreasonable, or will I gain more by instilling a sense of proportion? I really, truly don't know -- but my hunch has been that the softly-softly approach has fared pretty damned dismally for a rather long time, so the odds are that a more direct approach won't do any worse and might just do better.
However, I too want to end on a complimentary note. I will definitely reflect in detail on your remarks and I'm sure the result will be some substantial changes in the "Why" page, which will materialise in the next day or two. I honestly don't yet know how substantial -- I need to ponder these points more -- but I thank you for stimulating that pondering. I welcome any further comments you (or others) may have in response to the above.
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