Radical Life Extension & Immortality

Evolution results from gradual change to DNA over many generations, as gene mutations continue to occur through cell division. Mutations may be beneficial or harmful, spontaneous and unexplained or caused by environmental factors. Gene variants passed down from interbreeding thousands of years ago between our ancestors and the Neanderthals and Denisovans, two long-extinct human species, still affect our health and traits. The Black Death that ravaged Europe in the fourteenth century may also have influenced genes involved in immune responses and present-day susceptibility to disease, while remnants of ancient viral pandemics are still active in healthy people.

Examples of successful genetic mutations that are still found in specific human populations include the ability to live at altitudes up to 4,000 metres and to dive underwater to 70 metres. Genes are also influenced by lifestyle, behaviour and experience, but such changes are epigenetic, so don’t alter our DNA and are not irreversible. Some scientists think that much of current evolutionary biology is too preoccupied with how genes in a population change over time. They argue that this neglects how animals and other organisms shape their environments and adapt themselves to survive and reproduce.

At this stage of our history, scientific advances are giving us an unprecedented opportunity to make choices about the course of our human evolution. Since the first successful in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedure in the 1970s, assistive reproduction has led to the birth of an estimated ten to twelve million babies worldwide. Scientists are also working on new reproductive technologies that may be offered in the near future. These include: lab-grown eggs and sperm developed from adult skin cells turned into stem cells; gene editing of embryos to prevent heritable conditions; three-person IVF through mitochondrial transfer, where a fraction of egg DNA is replaced by donor DNA to eliminate a genetic disease; the creation of synthetic embryos for research purposes; and the construction of an artificial womb for babies born prematurely, with close to natural biological conditions and an artificial placenta that is connected to the baby’s umbilical cord.

In the medium term, we may see further developments in response to shifts in social attitudes, beliefs and expectations. These could include babies who are biologically related to both partners in a same sex couple, children who have multiple biological parents and prospective parents who choose to gestate their babies artificially, rather than within the womb. DNA testing of embryos has also reached the point where some fertility clinics in the US and Europe claim to know whether one embryo is more likely than another to develop a range of health conditions. However, there are warnings that the polygenic scores used have no clinical validity and that risk reduction may be higher than modelling suggests, particularly as the analysis moves beyond health issues into spheres of intelligence, physical attributes and less tangible qualities.

Clearly, embryo research raises many ethical questions about how and when we can and should disrupt or redirect natural processes. Lab experiments are bringing us close to a future where a model human embryo is created from pluripotent stem cells. At present, gene editing of embryos and human cloning are both still widely banned across the world, despite the birth of gene-edited twins in China (2018) and the arrival of Dolly the cloned sheep back in 1997.

Rapid advances in biotechnology and medicine make it difficult and perilous to determine the limit to human lifespan, even before potential non-biological means of life extension, advances in genetic engineering, merging with the fungal world or interplanetary colonisation are taken into consideration. Some experts have suggested 150 and 200 years as realistic future lifespans for people treated with the senolytic anti-ageing drugs that are already in development. Others offer more conservative predictions, but it still looks likely that slowing or altering the ageing process will radically change the lives of our near future descendants.

Gene therapy, now used to treat specific conditions and diseases, may lead to cell reprogramming for rejuvenation in the coming years. Biotech companies are also exploring the potential of plasma therapies, involving infusion of blood from young people to tackle diseases of ageing and rejuvenate the weakening systems of older humans.

Radical ideas about life extension can spring from recent scientific progress in treating illness or remedying the effects of injuries and congenital conditions. Brain-computer interfaces are developing at pace and starting to enable people with quadriplegia and certain other disabilities to interact with the world and recover lost functional ability. Evolving technologies include machine-learning algorithms that interpret signals from the brain and translate them into bodily responses and movement. Researchers are also working on ways of restoring sight with technologies for bionic eye systems, which are still in early stages.

These advances are happening alongside cultural shifts among young people, some of whom are keen to experiment with their bodies and emphasise their physical individuality (e.g. with extensive tattoos). While prosthetic limbs once had a social stigma, the new bionic versions may be viewed as cool and stylish, leading young disabled people to look for a personalised design with maximum functionality and advanced features, rather than a replacement limb that looks as close as possible to the real thing. When these sophisticated bionic devices are able to outperform their human equivalents, people without any medical need may decide to replace their body parts in order to enhance their abilities and perhaps develop into cyborgs with brain-controlled devices that increase functionality and life expectancy.

The deepening knowledge of internal body structures and their functions and inter-relationships has led to growing interest in our perception and sensory experience. Beyond the traditional five senses, neuroscientists are now also studying proprioception (sensing the presence, location and movement of muscles), the vestibular system (sensing orientation and balance in space) and interoception (awareness of internal sensations). Virtual reality is also adding a new dimension and heightened perception to books, films and games, enabling readers, audience and players to engage spatially with the characters and move through the fictional universe.

Some scientists claim that we are already living in a techno-human era, where humans are becoming components in larger operating systems. One example is the outsourcing of cognitive expertise to smart appliances, high-tech vehicles and online search engines. Changing social patterns, with more people moving into urban areas, also mean that we expect to have a higher number of short-term or fleeting relationships, many of which are conducted online. As dating matches are increasingly made using apps, we are in effect part-delegating our sexual selection to algorithms that aim to recommend suitable new partners.

There is also the widely noted observation that a high proportion of people are immersed with their phones while in a public space. On a different level, novel technologies that reflect an early techno-human era include development of AI to enable deceased people to live on as chatbots, using personal information such as images, voice data and social media posts. How such forms of tech-symbiosis will affect the design and functioning of the human brain and mind, and whether it could lead to a form of radical life extension, is as yet unknown.

The ancient Greeks believed that the spirit left the body at death and travelled over the River Styx to the palace of Hades, god of the underworld. In the three main monotheistic religions, there is (simplistically) a split between the fate of the righteous and that of the unworthy: the souls of the former go to heaven or paradise and the souls of the latter endure pain and suffering in hell. In these religions, there are varying beliefs about when and how people are judged and whether there is an intermediate place, such as purgatory, where the soul may be purified and cleansed of sin.

In other present-day religions (again simplistically), the soul is embarked on a spiritual journey, with one’s actions in this life determining the next one. The soul may be reincarnated from one embodied state to the next, through a cycle of birth and death that can ultimately lead to a higher existence. The belief in reincarnation remains alive in 2048, as Suzanne in the Lifespinners novel is a 98-year-old mystic space artist who has been reincarnated several times.

Millions of people have reported a near-death or out-of-body experience, which leads some to believe in an afterlife. These experiences tend to be profoundly vivid and moving, as well as coherent. They are not explained by neuroscience or by the effects of the imagination, fear of death, psychosis, drugs or other causes.  Scientists and medics involved in the resuscitation of patients after cardiac arrest are particularly keen to understand what occurs in the brain during these events, which indicate a unique cognitive state with variations of the same features: a strong sense of the spiritual; feeling separated from one’s body and observing it from above; heading towards a destination; reliving one’s life; and seeing (or being approached by) a light.

The desire for immortality and eternal youth has always had the backing of powerful, wealthy citizens, from ancient Chinese emperors to our modern tech entrepreneurs. While in the past there was mysticism and magic attached to the quest, the emphasis now is firmly on scientific, high-tech solutions. Strands that have attracted major financial investment include: cellular rejuvenation; creation of backup copies to replace malfunctioning cells; computer storage of DNA; implanted microchips; and the transhumanist ambition of uploading the mind into a supercomputer and preserving it in digital form.

A small number of companies offer to cryogenically freeze human bodies or heads, in the hope that customers can be reanimated at a future time when science makes this possible. Some cryonics experts think this could happen through nanobot technology (artificial molecular machines doing repair and reconstruction), but dealing with the effects of the cryopreservation and prior deterioration or disease will be a tall order. While some animals are able to freeze their bodies to survive, humans cannot. It is possible to freeze and thaw a small number of cell types and simpler tissues, such as eggs and sperm for fertility purposes and bone marrow, stem cells and corneas for transplantation, but complete organ transplants depend on chilled, not frozen organs, and brain cryopreservation and revival will require huge research breakthroughs.

Proponents of transhumanism contend that the body and mind can escape biological limitations and transcend into a future without death. Conceptually, enhancing the mind can be viewed as a logical extension to the use of widely accepted body enhancement devices, such as cochlear implants to restore lost hearing and pacemakers to maintain a regular heartbeat. However, the task of uploading the human mind as an entity is at another level. Scientists don’t yet understand how our brain structure and function connect with our subjective, conscious experience, nor how much computing power would be required to operate a computerised mind.

One radical idea is to embalm the brain so that it can be reawakened and linked to a computer, creating a total backup. The intention is to preserve the brain’s contents, keeping all memories and their emotional context intact and ready to be reactivated. Brain emulation technology, which aims to build an equivalent computer neural network from a scanned brain, may offer a different route. An even more far-out idea is to upload the brain to the metaverse and then install it in an artificial body. While some scientists argue that mind uploading can be achieved through extrapolations of existing technology, others challenge the feasibility of separating mind from body and argue against the assumption that consciousness and the mind are explained as functions of the biological brain.

Foreseeable technologies for human enhancement and radical life extension – using drugs, genetics, microchips, AI or brain emulation to choose or augment desirable features and qualities – may result in new human forms not seen in biology. In one conceivable scenario, the population may divide into those who want to enjoy the benefits of such technologies and those who refuse them on principle, with an uncertain group in between. If this really happens, we might expect to see the emergence of a post-human genetic and/or cyborg group of people alongside those who regard themselves as genuine humans. With brain emulation creating a neural network from an individual scanned brain, some people could potentially leave the animal kingdom for the software one, or even move between the two parallel worlds. The appeal of this revolutionary option might include the resource efficiency of software intelligence, which can think and act millions of times faster than a natural biological brain.

Edited October 2024