Against death. Longevity forever!

the fear of death is the beginning of philosophy, and the final cause of religion

–Arthur Schopenhauer

The Coalition for Radical Life Extension is a not-for-profit organization that advertises itself in terms that look like a drunken crossover between a Woody Allen movie and a play by Jean-Paul-Sartre: ‘Stand Together. For an Unlimited Future. Against Aging and Death. To connect and be heard.’ The website records:

Our purpose is to unite a critical mass of like-minded people who support radical life extension and physical immortality in order to inspire revolutionary change in how radical life extension is viewed in our world. But we need you. https://www.rlecoalition.com/

One can make a tax-deductible donation of $5 up to $100. And is encouraged to do so:

The cure for aging isn’t just a scientific challenge, it’s a people challenge. When we reach a tipping of people who want super longevity, we’ll see the massive influx of investment and support we need.

Start saving for your eternity (my bad joke). Actually, join up with other ‘radical life extension enthusiasts’ to ‘Learn the latest scientific advancements’ and ‘Help set the agenda for a new era of human advancement.’ The line that really got me was: ‘Have a blast celebrating our unlimited future together’ as I imagined a group of 120-year olds kicking up their heels, or, more realistically, shuffling around in a circle chained to their walkers.

It is the latest entrepreneurial application of science to discourage the effects of aging and to increase longevity. The Coalition for Radical Life Extension aims to be a popular mass movement.

We have different views on what radical life extension, and even what to call it. People Unlimited calls it physical immortality. Pioneer telomere researcher Dr. Bill Andrews calls it curing aging. Trans-humanist Max More prefers super longevity. But what we all agree on is that the deathist paradigm has to go; it’s time to look beyond the past of dying to a future of unlimited living.

People Unlimited – ‘Super.Longevity.Community’ and ‘Live Now. Live Forever’ – ‘is an educational, lifestyle and social organization for people interested in living unlimited lifespans’¹ based on nine principles: changeability, receptivity, reciprocity, empathy, connection, socializing comes second, no cliques, presence and this will change. Just Getting Started: Fifty Years of Living Forever sells for $16.95. But the popular razzamatazz that looks shonky is supported by respectable science.

Dr. Bill Andrews is an American molecular biologist. He ‘earned his Ph.D. in Molecular and Population Genetics at the University of Georgia in 1981 and served as Senior Scientist at Armos Corporation and Codon Corporation, as Molecular Biology Director at Berlex Biosciences and Geron Corporation as well as Director of Technology Development at EOS Biosciences. On top of his in-depth experience, Bill is also the inventor of 50+ U.S. patents issued on telomerase and author of numerous scientific research studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.’² He was one of the first to identify human telomerase, which restores short bits of DNA, permits endless cell division and is used in the treatment of premature aging.³ Telomerase deficiency has been linked to heart disease, diabetes and the lack of quality of life.⁴ Andrews started the biotechnology company Sierra Sciences in 1999 to cure diseases associated with aging, including the aging process itself.⁵ In his book Curing Aging he writes

Since before recorded history began, people have been searching for ways to live longer. We all know the story of Ponce de León’s search for the elusive Fountain of Youth, but even two millennia earlier Qin Shi Huang of China was sending out ships full of hundreds of man and women in search of an Elixir of Life that would make him immortal. The desire to live forever is as old as humanity itself.

But it has only been in the last thirty years that science has made any real progress in understanding the fundamental question of why we age and what can be done about it. These discoveries have not been widely publicized – yet -and so most people are unaware of how close we are to curing the disease of aging once and for all (p. 1).

Andrews explains that the prevention of telomere shortening may be the best way to extend life beyond the 125-year maximum lifespan extending a youth life to 250, 500 or even 1000 years ‘is not outside the realm of possibility’ (p. 10).⁶ Andrews backs his claims with respectable scientific studies.⁷ But the latest scientific results are equivocal and inconclusive. Andrews’ own products are relatively modest being restricted to repairing wrinkles and skin damage around the eye.

The best single paper on anti-aging medicine that I read is by João Pedro de Magalhães who provides senescence.info ‘An educational and information resource on the science of aging’.⁸ He is uncomprising in a comprehensive and exhaustive review of the current scientific research:

I will be clear from the start: presently, there is no proven way to delay, even if slightly, the human aging process (Olshansky et al., 2002; Hayflick, 2004). Although companies, and often journalists and admittedly scientists too, like to tout whatever-anti-aging-product-is-currently-in-the-news as the “fountain of youth” or the “holy grail”, the truth is we do not know of any way to even slightly delay the aging process, much less stop or reverse it (which is what the “fountain of youth” and the “holy grail” are all about). Unfortunately, understanding why a given anti-aging intervention is fantasy rather than science often requires time to gather the scientific data, which not everyone is willing or capable to do (Warner et al., 2005).

https://www.senescence.info/antiaging_science.html

Alex Moshakis (2019) suggests ‘Life extensionists (or longevists or immortalists) fit neatly into two types. The first are rationalists: scientific researchers at the coalface of gerontology, the study of ageing, chipping away at the many technical difficulties of ending entropy.’ The second type is comprise businessmen, entrepreneurs and wish-fulfillers generally with no formal scientific training but ‘resolutely committed to the cause, eager to rally behind new findings’ and waiting patiently for the next scientific breakthrough.⁹

There are some overlaps for the likes of Andrews who continues his scientific work and tries to harness its commercial power. The British Longevity Society¹⁰ founded in 1992 has Dr. Marios Kyriazis as its medical advisor: ‘Dr. Kyriazis is an Anti-Ageing physician, in private medical practice, trained in gerontology (the science of ageing) at the King’s College, University of London. He is also a Chartered Biologist for work in the biology of ageing.’¹¹

Human Longevity Inc. advertises itself in this way:

Welcome to the era of health intelligence. Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI) is revolutionizing human health by generating more data and deeper understanding into what can keep you living healthier longer. HLI’s scientists have created the world’s largest database of sequenced genomes and phenotypic (physical traits) data, to uncover unprecedented insights capable of transforming healthcare from reactive to proactive. https://www.humanlongevity.com/about/overview/

‘Our science’: HLI is focused on compiling and analyzing more genotypic and phenotypic data because the combination of both enables us —to generate unprecedented insights and accelerate our understanding into what makes us who we are and what we can change for a life better lived.

Anti-aging science is big business based on a promise that has not yet matured. It is not clear that it ever will. Despite this ‘promise’, millions are now prepared to invest in death-denying health and anti-aging medicine. Google Calico¹² is another science-based company with a number of research partners and plans to spend hundreds of millions researching how to extend the lifespan.¹³

Calico is a research and development company whose mission is to harness advanced technologies to increase our understanding of the biology that controls lifespan. We will use that knowledge to devise interventions that enable people to lead longer and healthier lives. Executing on this mission will require an unprecedented level of interdisciplinary effort and a long-term focus for which funding is already in place.

Elysium Health¹⁴ is a company founded in 2014 by biologists to market dietary supplements, like Sirtris Pharmaceuticals¹⁵ that is focused on Resveratrol formulations. Both are well represented on the board by prominent, award-winning biologists.

Ever-lasting life has been a promise of different religions: ‘whoever believes in God shall have ever-lasting life’ (John 3:16). But it seems our natural span is about 120 if we are very lucky. The Bible and vegan restaurants promise ever-lasting life but philosophy is silent on the issue and more inclined to discuss death. Now science-inspired prophets are proclaiming physical immortality and the science of ever-lasting life. Death is unhealthy and best avoided at all costs. And now the death-denying business is in full-swing in with a combination of diet, exercise, spiritual purification and drugs or medical intervention. It is an old secret for making money and grabbing power but as yet has no proven scientific basis. Eternal life once promised by many of the world’s religions is now proposed by radical life extensionists represented by longevity research that promises to extend the length and quality of human life. In striving towards a science-based physical immortality, these movements offer a scientific alternative to religious solutions to the fear of death.

Telomeres are only one biotechnique, others include unlocking the gene power or cloning body parts as they wear out. Cryogenics is another technique for preserving the organism and scientists are also exploring the possibilities of ‘cyber brain’, uploading the brain to a hard drive (Russia-2045). But cellular repairs through nanotechnology are seen to offer possibilities with prospects of replacing dead or dying cells with newer ones.

The fountain of youth is a fanciful story that appears in ancient Greece and in early Christian narratives as well as in indigenous peoples of the Carribean. The spring water was supposed to be a remedy for aging. These stories reached a new level of popular imagination with Juan Ponce de León a Spanish explorer who led the European expedition to Florida and later traveled with Columbus’s second expedition in 1493. In Florida, allegedly he locates the waters but ironically this is revealed only posthumously by a ship-wreaked sailor who publishes his memoir.

Immortality as being exempt from death has a new lease of life; no longer constrained by paradisal narratives derived in the Christian tradition from Elysium, a realm of men protected by the gods. Now scientists, entrepreneurs, philosophers and futurists tout the age-old idea of immortality as a state and therapy of life extension available through scientific means in the short term. Biological immortality does not repeat the religious views of the ancient Greek religion or Christianity or, for that matter, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism or the various philosophical doctrines of the immortality of the soul of Plato, Avicenna, Aquinas, Descartes or Leibniz. Scientific biological immortality, by contrast, embraces biotechnologies of life-extending substances, cryonics, cybernetics, mind-to-computer uploading and digital immortality. It seeks through biotechnological means to prevent aging and to echo the processes of the longest living organisms including microorganisms (endoliths), clonal and fungal colonies, individual plant species (the bristlecone pine), and aquatic animals like sponges, all of which can live thousands of years. Some species are biologically immortal species like bacteria, the Hydra genus and a jellyfish called Turritopsis dohrnii, found in the Mediterranean and sea of Japan which is capable of reverting to a sexually immature stage through a cell development process of transdifferrentiation.

If we ever achieve biological immortality, we may not come to see it as entirely desirable. Over a near infinite lifespan after years of boredom we might feel blessed to accept a graceful death.

Michael A. Peters
Beijing Normal University, People’s Republic of China
[email protected] http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1482-2975

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Retrieved from https://peopleunlimitedinc.com/#people-unlimited-video

2 Retrieved from https://defytime.com/bill-andrews-ph-d-best-anti-aging-anti-wrinkle-life-extension-telomere-telomeres-telomerase-supplement-defytime/

3 Retrieved from https://defytime.com/telomere-telomeres-bill-andrews-best-anti-aging-anti-wrinkle-life-extension-telomerase-supplement-defytime/

4 Retrieved from https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/labs/shay-wright/research/facts-about-telomeres-telomerase.html

5 Retrieved from https://www.sierrasci.com/

6 Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2A2i3Jn63Y and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcnuSaLNF5c

7 See, e.g. retrieved from https://defytime.com/clinical-study-bill-andrews-best-anti-aging-anti-wrinkle-life-extension-telomere-telomeres-telomerase-supplement-defytime/

8 Retrieved from https://www.senescence.info/antiaging_science.html

9 How to live forever: meet the extreme life-extensionists, Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/jun/23/how-to-live-forever-meet-the-extreme-life-extensionists-immortal-science

10 Retrieved from https://www.thebls.org/

11 Retrieved from https://www.thebls.org/drmk.html

12 Retrieved from https://www.calicolabs.com/

13 Retrieved from https://www.calicolabs.com/publications/

14 Retrieved from https://www.elysiumhealth.com/en-us/

15 Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirtris_Pharmaceuticals