Paths to Immortality

From ImmInstWiki

Throughout human history our species has attempted to grapple with death by trying to understand it, by trying to predict it, and by trying to defeat it. Over the last fifteen thousand years, the communities humanity has built upon the Earth have changed dramatically. We have moved from being a hunter & gatherer-based species, to essentially maintaining globalized civilization capable of sending machines millions of kilometers deep into space to chunks of rock virgin to the hands of humanity.

As our species first began to develop and refine language and began to construct relatively large communities, they also tried to explain and rationalize why death occurs, and how they might be able to prevent it. However, as our ancient fore-bearers lacked deep naturalistic understanding of their environment, little progress was made toward dealing with death. Gods and rituals were used to place a handle on death, it provided simplistic explanations and methods for displaying grief and respect... but this was still inadequate.

Over the past 300 years, as our species harnessed the power of electricity, we adopted a more scientific approach to understanding the world, we started on a path toward understanding our own construction, we have made great leaps in our understanding of our environment, and ourselves. We have reached a stage in our development where it is beginning to look as if we may be able to slow or even prevent the damaging effects of aging at a cellular level, and it seems that we are rapidly approaching a point where we will finally break free from our biological constraints.

The word "Immortality" has always had a connotation of mysticism and magic attached to it, and since there has so far been no alternative to death, it has been seen as a fantasy to distract us from its inevitability. However, we must realize that with each scientific discovery, it provides a stepping stone towards the next, and that combined with our powers of abstract reasoning, our innate curiosity, and our relentless determination, we can dismount this word from the web of fiction it is currently entangled in, and bring it into the scientific realm.

In short, we are on the verge of a transformation, our scientific understanding of the mechanics of the universe has been increasing exponentially. In the coming decades as the fields of Bioengineering, Genetics, Nano-scale Technology, and Computing mature, we will begin to see a change in the meaning of life and death. We now have the ability to construct artificial hearts, we have utterly decimated entire viral species with our vaccines, we can control mechanical appendages with our minds, and cloning technology is maturing to the point where personalized organs can be and will be cloned when needed (which essentially means the end of death via organ failure... at least mostly). So, as we progress we must maintain a strong sense of caution, but above all, we must remain open to the possibility of transcending our biological longevity limits. Possibly living as long as you wish.

We can already see the tell-tale signs of this happening, and given an semi-optimistic estimate, we can expect to see some pretty amazing changes to the human life-span within the next 25 years. If you try your best to take care of your body in concert with these emerging technologies, you stand a much better chance of being able to take full advantage of these maturing technologies, in effect freeing you from the trap that so many billions of people before you have failed to escape from.

The Immortality Institute exists to bring all of these technologies under a common roof where people from any field can bring ideas to the table for others to work with. It is essential that every possible opportunity these technologies offer is taken under consideration in regard to it's potential to extend the human lifespan.

Paths to Immortality

From ImmInstWiki

Contents

Biology:

Physics:

AI:

Nano-Technology (See: Physics - Nano-Technology)

Outreach Programs:

General Health:

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