X-Message-Number: 32345
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:32:30 -0700
Subject: Re: Life is short and brutal.
From: MARK PLUS <>

In Cryonet  #32338, J Coetzee writes:


>Wake up! Forget the ideas of Audrey de Gray. He is a piper leading millions to 
their doom. Dump those vitamins in the trash. Your death is waiting around the 
next corner.

We've already seen the discrediting of the anti-aging "experts" back
in the 1970's who predicted that we could throw away the actuarial
tables by now instead of our vitamins. Bohemians on the fringes of
cryonics back then like Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary and F.M.
Esfandiary helped to popularize these forecasts.

Several years ago Thomas Donaldson made an analogy between aging
research and the history of astronomy. Because planets appear to move
so slowly relative to observational conditions on Earth, it took the
efforts of generations of astronomers, across a succession of
civilizations, before scientists starting in the 17th Century could
formulate an adequate model of planetary motion.

Because already humans live longer than most other mammals, Donaldson
analogizes, it will probably take several generations' worth of effort
before scientists can accumulate enough data to formulate an adequate
theory of aging. Then it will take even more decades to see if
interventions into the human aging process work to extend maximum life
expectancy.

Those predictions from the 1970's that we'd have 300 year life
expectancies by now never made sense any way. Someone born in 1980
would have to survive to the year 2280 before other people alive in
that year would have that knowledge; we have no way of acquiring that
knowledge in the year 2010. The preponderance of evidence still
supports the validity of the actuarial tables in predicting the life
expectancies of currently living people.

By contrast, Donaldson says, we can perform experiments in the
cryopreservation of the brain and derive useful data in a matter of
days. So I agree with Coetzee that we should make cryonics research a
priority and not chase after the "actuarial escape velocity" mirage.

Reference:

Why Cryonics Will Probably Help You More Than Antiaging, by Thomas Donaldson



http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/why-cryonics-will-probably-help-you-more-than-antiaging/

Mark Plus

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