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| Some scientists think there’s no upper limit on ageing. Let’s hope they’re wrong | Some scientists think there’s no upper limit on ageing. Let’s hope they’re wrong |
| (3 days later) | |
| “A hundred and ruddy 20 … within 30 years, that’s what they’re saying … just imagine, being 50 again … after all, we are simply material cells … ah, but what about the mind?” | “A hundred and ruddy 20 … within 30 years, that’s what they’re saying … just imagine, being 50 again … after all, we are simply material cells … ah, but what about the mind?” |
| A post-bingo conversation with some of my crumbly friends in the community centre. We are discussing the new prospect of amortality. It has created a major row among academics, with the publication of a paper by Jan Vijg, an eminent geneticist, suggesting there is an upper limit of around 115 years before we shuffle off this mortal coil being vigorously challenged by Professor Jim Vaupel, a specialist in ageing, and colleagues, who maintain there is no ceiling on longevity. | A post-bingo conversation with some of my crumbly friends in the community centre. We are discussing the new prospect of amortality. It has created a major row among academics, with the publication of a paper by Jan Vijg, an eminent geneticist, suggesting there is an upper limit of around 115 years before we shuffle off this mortal coil being vigorously challenged by Professor Jim Vaupel, a specialist in ageing, and colleagues, who maintain there is no ceiling on longevity. |
| So the post-bingo exchange of a bunch of geriatric amateurs may seem an act of trespass on bio-techie turf. However, what the learned men in the ivory towers observe is daily experience among us crumbling edifices. What they talk, we walk. If anyone is a “specialist in ageing”, it is the aged themselves. We have life cred. | So the post-bingo exchange of a bunch of geriatric amateurs may seem an act of trespass on bio-techie turf. However, what the learned men in the ivory towers observe is daily experience among us crumbling edifices. What they talk, we walk. If anyone is a “specialist in ageing”, it is the aged themselves. We have life cred. |
| Yet amortality is the current cherry on the scientific cake. From the beginning of human time, death has defined human life. Now science has achieved a degree of biological understanding and technological capacity that allows it to hold out the possibility of making lifetimes infinite. Man has become a god. | Yet amortality is the current cherry on the scientific cake. From the beginning of human time, death has defined human life. Now science has achieved a degree of biological understanding and technological capacity that allows it to hold out the possibility of making lifetimes infinite. Man has become a god. |
| The basic creed of amortalist theology seems to be that all our organs are simply machines that, like car parts, start to malfunction with use and age, and that, to continue the analogy, can be either repaired or replaced. The idea is that we report in every few years for a service that not only keeps the motor running but, with progress, will positively enhance its performance. This proposal offers a socio-political vindication with an ethical twist. Its exponents cite the “right to life” clause in international charters, leading to the conclusion that death is therefore a crime against humanity. | The basic creed of amortalist theology seems to be that all our organs are simply machines that, like car parts, start to malfunction with use and age, and that, to continue the analogy, can be either repaired or replaced. The idea is that we report in every few years for a service that not only keeps the motor running but, with progress, will positively enhance its performance. This proposal offers a socio-political vindication with an ethical twist. Its exponents cite the “right to life” clause in international charters, leading to the conclusion that death is therefore a crime against humanity. |
| Ageing is an issue on which, as a member of the crumbly generation, I feel I can comment with authority. Not only am I old, I also spend a day a week working with people with early-onset dementia. From my perspective, the amortality proposal is the product of academic hubris. It does not factor in the reality of longevity. | Ageing is an issue on which, as a member of the crumbly generation, I feel I can comment with authority. Not only am I old, I also spend a day a week working with people with early-onset dementia. From my perspective, the amortality proposal is the product of academic hubris. It does not factor in the reality of longevity. |
| That reality is that the body is the least of our worries. It is all in the mind. And, as Noah Yuval Harari and many other experts insist, we simply do not understand the mind. But we do know the consequences of its decline. As the cells misfire, the chemicals unbalance, the synapses disconnect, we are losing our mental faculties along with our keys, spectacles, directions. We are demoralised as our cognitive triggers fail and we alienate neighbours and confuse friends with our social dyspraxia. These memento moris of growing frailty are reinforced by increasingly frequent attendance at the interment or combustion of erstwhile companions. This marble deficit further humiliates us as citizens, unable to separate the ideological wheat from the factional chaff. | That reality is that the body is the least of our worries. It is all in the mind. And, as Noah Yuval Harari and many other experts insist, we simply do not understand the mind. But we do know the consequences of its decline. As the cells misfire, the chemicals unbalance, the synapses disconnect, we are losing our mental faculties along with our keys, spectacles, directions. We are demoralised as our cognitive triggers fail and we alienate neighbours and confuse friends with our social dyspraxia. These memento moris of growing frailty are reinforced by increasingly frequent attendance at the interment or combustion of erstwhile companions. This marble deficit further humiliates us as citizens, unable to separate the ideological wheat from the factional chaff. |
| The prospect of another 20 years or more of this appals me and my geriatric companions. For the vast majority of us, our aspiration is for a dignified culmination that will impose the minimum burden and distress on our friends and families. We are all too aware of the strain that we put on society through our increasing dependence on medical resources. We are conscious of the calls we make on our own elderly children, who too often are torn between us and their own grandchildren. | The prospect of another 20 years or more of this appals me and my geriatric companions. For the vast majority of us, our aspiration is for a dignified culmination that will impose the minimum burden and distress on our friends and families. We are all too aware of the strain that we put on society through our increasing dependence on medical resources. We are conscious of the calls we make on our own elderly children, who too often are torn between us and their own grandchildren. |
| Amortalists' theology is that organs are like car parts that, when they malfunction, can be either repaired or replaced | Amortalists' theology is that organs are like car parts that, when they malfunction, can be either repaired or replaced |
| Indeed it goes further; as a community worker, I am witness to the exhaustion of our children’s generation in their 60s; they used to be the material that maintained the social fabric, as trustees, administrators, facilitators of the third sector, of the myriad small voluntary groups, the Rotaries, Lions, the Akelas. Now they have neither the time nor energy to repair its cloth due to their extended family and work commitments. | Indeed it goes further; as a community worker, I am witness to the exhaustion of our children’s generation in their 60s; they used to be the material that maintained the social fabric, as trustees, administrators, facilitators of the third sector, of the myriad small voluntary groups, the Rotaries, Lions, the Akelas. Now they have neither the time nor energy to repair its cloth due to their extended family and work commitments. |
| On a personal level, longevity has become a pre-traumatic stress disorder, but at its core, it is a social and ethical issue. It is already creating massive intergenerational conflict. I am in the way of the young. I block the doorway, obstruct the pavement, hold up queues, cause tailbacks, block beds. I am becoming a waste of space – a space that is already crowded enough without adding yet another “generation” to it. Longevity has transformed the human paradigm and our inherited moral compass is not fit for purpose in this new ocean. | On a personal level, longevity has become a pre-traumatic stress disorder, but at its core, it is a social and ethical issue. It is already creating massive intergenerational conflict. I am in the way of the young. I block the doorway, obstruct the pavement, hold up queues, cause tailbacks, block beds. I am becoming a waste of space – a space that is already crowded enough without adding yet another “generation” to it. Longevity has transformed the human paradigm and our inherited moral compass is not fit for purpose in this new ocean. |
| From my personal experience of pre-early-onset dementia, and my communion with those who suffer the real thing, I would appeal to the scientific elite to stop squabbling over the medical equivalent of angels on pinheads and to use their privileged talents to attend to the real needs of the elderly. We need purpose not redundancy, meaning not irrelevance, dignity not distress. In other words, we simply want to lead better lives, not longer ones. | From my personal experience of pre-early-onset dementia, and my communion with those who suffer the real thing, I would appeal to the scientific elite to stop squabbling over the medical equivalent of angels on pinheads and to use their privileged talents to attend to the real needs of the elderly. We need purpose not redundancy, meaning not irrelevance, dignity not distress. In other words, we simply want to lead better lives, not longer ones. |