Discussion Group Report

Our society's youth orientation has created a consumer culture devoted to prolonging our vitality and lives. Perhaps someday soon scientists will learn how to extend the human life span indefinitely, which may lead us to create a race of human "immortals." This will inevitably change our attitudes towards family and aging, not to mention our understanding of life itself. Are we prepared to answer the questions this possibility will raise?

This question is raised by Brian Trent in his article, "The Future of Immortality," in the May/June, 2004, issue of the Humanist.

"Death is natural, but not everything natural is good," he says. There is a time-honored tendency to erect an altar to nature while simultaneously rebuking human civilization for its ingenuities. We choose to imagine the natural as a sort of Disney character filled with benevolence and tenderness, and in doing so we evade the more brutal, red-in-tooth-and claw reality. The scavenging life of our earliest human ancestors who tread the narrow threshold between survival and extinction is forgotten--the winters that drove them into caves, the mortal combat with wooly titans of yesteryear, the young aspirations of a being who could hope for 20, maybe 25 years of life…

"With no claws, no fur, no poison sacs or natural armor, the naked ape was headed for early and permanent retirement: a dead-end of evolution. Instead this vulnerable being made use of the only asset that distinguished it from its unforgiving environment: a three-pound organ housed within a delicate skull. And with this tool it enacted a legacy spanning from the first flint knife to the surgeon's scalpel forever remaking the world to suit its needs. With its meteoric ascension came an increase in longevity."

Brent Jones, says Trent, doesn't exist, but one day someone like him most likely will. He wakes up each day with the perspective that tomorrow is forever because he is forever. Yesterday he celebrated his 800th birthday though he looks barely more than 30. He has lived longer than the entire history of the Roman Empire. He is the living example of homo sapiens' most enduring dream: he is an immutable being. Perhaps he takes a weekly dose of youth drugs, or maybe his own genes have been permanently engineered to keep him perpetually youthful.

Perhaps someday soon, scientists will learn how to extend the human life span indefinitely. To a growing number of scientists and commentators, this is neither wild dreaming nor science fiction. The mechanics of aging and death are being laid bare in laboratories around the world. Evolutionary biologist Michael R. Rose of the University of California at Irvine has bred "immortal" fruit flies. While an average fruit fly lives several weeks, Rose possesses flies that have lived 24 years and still have a daily metabolic rate which is the same as that of normal flies. Trent says, "The Holy Grail of this research will be to discover what enzymes allow the insects to enjoy these stellar life spans and then find an equivalent dose for human beings." Or it might be 62 enzymes plus DNA treatments.

As the human genome gets mapped, attention has fallen on two genes that seem to be managers of the death process--Mortality 1 and Mortality 2. These genes seem to be responsible for ordering the body to wither and die. The Grim Reaper is truly under the microscope. It may bring to life a dream as old as civilization.

Death was an obsession to the brilliant Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, who devoted much time in his Meditations to proclaiming that "human lives are brief and trivial; yesterday a blob of semen, tomorrow embalming fluid and ash." The ancient Egyptians interest in eternal life is well documented and formed the basis for their mummification rituals. In China the self-proclaimed First Emperor Ch'in Shi Huangdi was so obsessed with finding immortality that he sent thousands of explorers to seek it out. When their efforts failed, he commissioned a full-body suit of pure jade to be his funeral cerements (Jade was believed to have magical powers of rejuvenation.)

Can we build a race of immortals? At what cost? But should we? Trent asks.

The first chorus of objections will hail from a familiar source: the major parties and religions. They will parallel the vociferous objections bandied about when it was first suggested that the Earth wasn't flat, that the sun was at the heart of the solar system, and that humanity evolved from early primates. After all, religion's greatest strength is in providing hope for the life beyond the one we now have. But if science suddenly could gives eternal life, then scientists would become the new priests, handing out eternity in pills rather than prayers.

Today the cosmetics industry offers an array of makeup, concealers, moisturizers, and other treatments to make wrinkles go away. Is it likely that consumers who fuel this global market will back off if eternal youth comes in pill form?

Secular opponents will raise their voices, too. The fear of overpopulation is the most immediate quandary. Already more than six billion strong, a race of immortals inevitably strain the planet's resources to the breaking point. The prospect of constructing permanent settlements on the moon and Mars has found its way into the political spotlight. Would there be a ceiling for human population?

There's something else to consider. If forever pills went on the market tomorrow, not everyone would take them. Many people are perfectly content to cash in their chips and go forth to whatever fate they believe awaits them--pearly gates, Valhalla, or the happy hunting grounds. There will likely be people who, after a full life of 200 or two million years, will decide that enough is simply enough.

General social upheaval is the next and biggest concern. What do you do when a company has an immortal board of directors? Or when you're married to someone for nine centuries and finally become bored with it all? Or when you have a senator who has lingered in the government for five thousand years? With the possibility of immortality, the fabric of society may be stretched and pulled until it breaks and will have to be rewoven. Even the scientific community could raise objections. Immortals could represent an affront to and the end of evolution. But this is nothing new. We don't surrender to nature; we fight back. Not just biological evolution but creative and social evolution as well will be under threat. Will immortal nations enter a state of torpor, devitalized by a lack of ambition and innovation? Or will limitless horizons be seized with new force? Will a poet's lament be not over death but be over the vastness of eternity?

Life isn't always pleasant, even if we subtract the dread of dying from the equation. If 80 years is difficult to cope with how would Brent Jones handle 800? With newscasts showing him the latest wars, disease and human cruelty, does there ever reach a point when he decides to cancel his dose of eternity? If the doors of the brave new world swing wide, everything will be transformed. We might perish like bacteria in a petri dish. Or an undying race might achieve a perennial Golden Age even the most inspired Greek dared not imagine.

Either way," says Trent, "the immortals are likely coming… There may be people alive right now who could live to see endless sunrises. Dreaming of the reality for so long, humanity won't back away when the creeping dawn of attainment can already be seen brightening the attainment."