The Never-ending Chase of a Never-ending Life Since the dawn of man, mankind has been intrigued by achieving a never-ending youthful life. The phenomenon of immortality can be observed in various forms of literature, as well as in mythology and myths, which have led both real and fictional characters to pursue the temptation of living forever. The ancient epos of Gilgamesh is not only the first known literary work in history, but also is the start of depicting the quest for immortality, befitting only immortal gods. According to the Sumerian/Babylonian creation story, Enuma Elish, the many polytheistic gods were created when the two origin gods, Apsu and Tiamat, mingled their respective salt and fresh waters together (Enuma Elish
[6][7] Regeneration in biology, however, mainly refers to the morphogenic processes that characterize the phenotypic plasticity of traits allowing multi-cellular organisms to repair and maintain the integrity of their physiological and morphological states. Above the genetic level, regeneration is fundamentally regulated by asexual cellular processes. [8] Regeneration is different from reproduction. For example, hydra perform regeneration but reproduce by the method of budding. The hydra and the planarian
Kirsten Kimball Dr. Moore LS 630 2 December 2014 Transhumanism and Human Nature The values and goals of transhumanism are implementing science and technology as stepping-stones where humans are stronger, smarter, disease free, and possibly immortal, thus transcending us physically, mentally, and emotionally. Transhumanism is a loosely defined movement that has developed gradually over the past two decades. It is based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development, but rather a transition phase to becoming posthuman. Max More, a philosopher and futurist, defines transhumanism as “a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent
Basic laws of physics, biology, chemistry have a process of the origin of life of living things which been larger enough through the process of natural selection of a human. We use intelligence and technological process to accelerate the process of evolution to evolve the transhumans. Immortality is only taken in indefinite life spans but humans will still die by means of ageing or aging, like illness, accidents and diseases. If aging was eliminated the life span have a estimated of one thousand seven hundred years. While, accident death injuries will limit life span beyond that age.
Vestigial structures are structures which have lost most of their ancestral function but have been retained through evolution. Examples of these are the Os Coccyx (tailbone) in humans, the appendix in humans and leg bones in whales. These structures, which Darwin observed, also prove his idea of common descent. Imperfect structures are structures which are designed in a very unintelligent way. An example of this is the human oesophagus.
Instead of prolonging life in order to preserve knowledge, he aimed to focus on a certain speck of a moment in which a person could live an infinitely larger amount of time. Indeed, he managed to create this mixture, which he placed in a green phial, color which is representative for the alchemical stage of transformation between “death [and] a new growth” (Raff 12), and in Gibbern’s case, between the usual life and the unusual experience, between the ordinary and the spectacular. The substance was to be taken with water, element which, in alchemy, “is either a healing factor, or poisonous and destructive” (Franz 101). Gibberne’s meddling with time was not only extremely dangerous because of the possibility to catch fire, but the discovery in itself would represent a great threat should it fall in the wrong hands. Such knowledge is rarely contained and most often abused – the Mephistopheles of Wells might have released into the world a poison far more damaging than anyone
It involves interdisciplinary research on biological aging's causes, effects, and mechanisms. Biomedical gerontology, also known as experimental gerontology and life extension, is a sub-discipline of biogerontology that endeavors to slow, prevent, and even reverse aging in both humans and animals. By preventing senescent changes in animals, these therapies would prevent the onset of age-related disease and frailty, extending both average and maximum lifespan. Most "life extensionists" believe the human life span can be increased within the next century, if not sooner. 1.0.6 Effects of aging on humans Many common characteristic features of aging are observed by most of humans during their life span from birth to death, few of them as listed below: • The ability to hear high frequency sounds above 20kHz is lost in teenage years.
hether you believe or not, most of us have thought about death, and for many “something” after our present life seems better than a dark eternal gloom forever. Hoping the Bible, Koran and virtually every religious publication are right, let us nevertheless speculate on the biological option, for there is a finite chance that they might all be wrong. I certainly haven’t seen anything close to compelling proof. What is “eternal life?” In one sense, all living creatures today are essentially already immortal. We should be able to, someday, trace ourselves back through 50 billion DNA copyings over 4 billion years to determine our LUCA.
It is the research and application of slowing down the aging process through medicine and other technologies. Therefore, it “concerns all attempts to promote health and quality of life, to slow or "reprogram" the process of biological aging, to augment our natural self-repair and immune systems, to cybernetic-ally "upgrade" the human body, and possibly in the distant future to allow a human being to transcend natural biology.” [1] Typically, there are two subgroups in life extension. One is called “Strong Life Extension”, which is an increase in life expectancy and life span. The other one is called “Weak Life Extension”, which is an increase in life expectancy while life span does not change. The terms “life expectancy” and “life span” describe two distinctly different things, although people tend to use them interchangeably.
Albert G. Thomas refutes the notion of an afterlife in his article, “Continuing the Definition on Death Debate: The Report of the President Council on Bioethics on Controversies in the Determination of Death” by introducing the concept of an internal integrative unity which organisms possess and is a sign of life (106). This means that organisms are alive when all their parts are working in unity and are maintaining an internal homeostasis (Thomas 105). According to Thomas, once an organism exhibits integrative unity, then emergent, holistic properties will form, such as consciousness and a soul (106). Essentially, emergent properties are a sign of life that only comes about when the entire system of you is working together in unity. Thomas discusses integrated unity and homeostasis to point out that life is only possible when there is an internal integrated unity and organisms are maintaining internal homeostasis, while death is a loss of this unity.