Extending life well beyond the norm

[wcknight]

Science is rapidly finding ways to extend human life far beyond what it is now. Organs can be cloned or grown, Mapping ones DNA will one day be affordable, and with nano technology, science can build molecules and arrange atoms into any shape they want. New body parts will be available for anyone. Cures for many diseaces will be common place.

While it may not be readily available in time of our generation, in the next or certainly in the ones slightly beyond that, life for humans may become almost limitless (except for accidents or murder or suicide).

How far off would you willingly extend your life if you could choose.

 

[GEddie]

Indefinitely. I long to be physically alive to see our LORD return.

ICXC NIKA

 

[virtueseeking]

Science is rapidly finding ways to extend human life far beyond what it is now. Organs can be cloned or grown, Mapping ones DNA will one day be affordable, and with nano technology, science can build molecules and arrange atoms into any shape they want. New body parts will be available for anyone. Cures for many diseaces will be common place.

While it may not be readily available in time of our generation, in the next or certainly in the ones slightly beyond that, life for humans may become almost limitless (except for accidents or murder or suicide).

How far off would you willingly extend your life if you could choose.

Let me see…

It is unlawful to keep from conceiving by unnatural means, it is unlawful to conceive by unnatural means, just exactly how far do we get to go to stay alive by unnatural means?

We are already prolonging deaths, in the guise of saving lives. How long would one like their death to be prolonged?

I would not extend my life one minute longer then God wills it…what would be the purpose? (just until a Priest is able to come)

blessings

 

[Gorgias]

Indefinitely. I long to be physically alive to see our LORD return.

And if all of your plumbing were replaced with machinery, are you still sure that it would be “you” that’s alive to see the parousia?

 

[King_Lazy]

How far off would you willingly extend your life if you could choose.

Well, I’ve seen enough of the world that it would be no great loss to me if I were to die now (I’m not even 30 yet, lol), but I love living and I’d like to spend more time with the family and friends that I love, and keep on doing the things that I like to do in this life.

And so I’ll content myself with the 0 to 50 or so years I may have left, based on current average life expectancy.

I’m more interested in maintaining my independence and mental faculties while I am still alive, so I’ll gladly avail myself of technology that can slow down the gradual deterioration of health with age, but I’m not too bothered about how long I live.

Sooner or later, death will come, and that will suck, but it’s what comes after that matters.

 

[GEddie]

And if all of your plumbing were replaced with machinery, are you still sure that it would be “you” that’s alive to see the parousia?

As long as my head remains natural, I doubt there would be an issue. It is our heads, after all, and not our internal organs (“plumbing”) that makes us human beings.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Gorgias]

As long as my head remains natural, I doubt there would be an issue. It is our heads, after all, and not our internal organs (“plumbing”) that makes us human beings.

Hmm… so, if you were decapitated and your body given to science, but your head kept alive… then you’d still be “you”?

 

[GEddie]

Hmm… so, if you were decapitated and your body given to science, but your head kept alive… then you’d still be “you”?

Well, yeah. I’d still have my mind and 4 of my senses (ok, maybe not the nose, if I couldn’t breathe);…although such an existence would massively suck, I’d be more “me” in that condition than as a “pure soul” or as a dead head/body.

ICXC NIKA

 

[GEddie]

Thought_Officer:

I have a running joke with a friend that I wouldn’t want to live forever, just a ridiculously long among of time: 100 000 years or something, even if I was the only one. Oxygen and people go extinct in the first 20 years. They come back a decade before I die. I go mad from isolation. Most of my existence has been a meaningless trifle. Dies.

I have a sneaking suspicion that by the time I’m 80 or 90 (fate-willing), I won’t mind giving up the carbon, as it were. There’s only so much joy and novelty that can be wrought in one lifetime. You grow up, get an education, have a job, have a family, secure a comfortable retirement, maybe you go on a cruise, you visit an exotic place, you learn a hobby, you read a few fascinating books, and have a one-with-all moment here and there. That stuff’s not entertaining ad infinitum. When it’s time to go, it’s time to go. Whatever your orientation (life after death, dirt after death), you won’t miss what you’re leaving behind.

Nevertheless, the tenacity of the living is just that.

Disagree. I can’t imagine ever being ready to cease seeing, smelling, breathing, movng etc.

The fact that death is presently inevitable does not make it acceptable, to me. It’s like that old unfunny joke about rape.

ICXC NIKA

 

[OrdinaryMelkite]

I will leave this up to our Good Lord. HE ans will and he alone shopuld decide when or when not I should live. I will take care of myself, think good thoughts, and so on (in other words, try to live as long of a life as possible), but ultimately He will determine my fate and no one else. Amen

 

[ASimon]

Hmm… so, if you were decapitated and your body given to science, but your head kept alive… then you’d still be “you”?

Certainly, you would be. The seat of all consciousness is the brain. If you can keep that alive, your “you-ness” would remain.

 

[edwest2]

Science is rapidly finding ways to extend human life far beyond what it is now. Organs can be cloned or grown, Mapping ones DNA will one day be affordable, and with nano technology, science can build molecules and arrange atoms into any shape they want. New body parts will be available for anyone. Cures for many diseaces will be common place.

While it may not be readily available in time of our generation, in the next or certainly in the ones slightly beyond that, life for humans may become almost limitless (except for accidents or murder or suicide).

How far off would you willingly extend your life if you could choose.

Not more than a few years and only if I felt it necessary and in keeping with Church teaching if it should become possible.

I think the next question that needs to be answered is, what would the psychological effect be?

Peace,
Ed

 

[GEddie]

Not more than a few years and only if I felt it necessary and in keeping with Church teaching if it should become possible.

I think the next question that needs to be answered is, what would the psychological effect be?

Peace,
Ed

Whatever psychological effect there might be, would be far less severe than that of being dead.

That, in a way, is the point

ICXC NIKA

 

[King_Lazy]

Not more than a few years and only if I felt it necessary and in keeping with Church teaching if it should become possible.

I think the next question that needs to be answered is, what would the psychological effect be?

Peace,
Ed

Erm, if I were mostly immortal, I’d hope they’d reduce the tax on tobacco and I’d take up smoking again. I’m generally quite negligent of my health now, but I would be far more reckless. Otherwise, I can’t imagine my mentality being too much different, given that I’m still young, and death (of natural causes) seems a long way away. But whereas I can expect my mentality to change as I get older, I’d imagine if I were (mostly) immortal, I’d continue to be quite carefree in that regard well into the second millennium of my life.

 

[Gorgias]

Well, yeah. I’d still have my mind and 4 of my senses (ok, maybe not the nose, if I couldn’t breathe);…although such an existence would massively suck, I’d be more “me” in that condition than as a “pure soul” or as a dead head/body

OK: “live head” is *more *‘you’ than “dead head” or “dead body”, per se. However, that doesn’t mean that “live head” is you, per se! There’s a certain similarity, for sure – and maybe even something that we might define as “consciousness” would perdure (although we’d have to be careful in how we define it), but it would be difficult to say that if all that remained of you was a ‘head in a vat’, that it’d be you…

 

[Gorgias]

Certainly, you would be. The seat of all consciousness is the brain. If you can keep that alive, your “you-ness” would remain.

So, people who have brains that are alive (i.e., physically maintaining function) are still themselves?

 

[Mystrx]

As long as I can I guess, God’ll end it when he sees fit to though regardless of science. If I am going to live for a thousand years it better be without any serious decrepitude.

 

[Kithrus]

Life is currently limited at this point becasue of cancer and a little thing called oxygen.

As it stands we need air to breath aka oxygen to function. The thing about it that’s kill us is that like all things oxygen touches we take the organ equivalent to ‘rust damage’. that’s why health people push the whole ‘antioxidants’ card for a healthy diet to limit said damage.

Research shows that if we can find a way to limit this damage by any sizable amount we can extend our lives almost double if not triple its current expectation.

Makes you think huh…

 

[ASimon]

So, people who have brains that are alive (i.e., physically maintaining function) are still themselves?

Yes.

 

[InJesusItrust]

I would choose to cut my life time in half if it was moral. Death will bring me before God. I really wonder what plans God has for my life since I am still alive. I really don’t think I could do anything glorious for God. I can’t even take up a religious vocation and I don’t think even if I were healed that I am being called there. The most I can do is evangelize on Facebook.