What Would You Do With 150 Years

I watched a very good presentation by Aubrey de Grey on TED. I am going to embedd the video below and then talk a little bit about these thoughts.

So this is amazing to think about, to say the least. If I could live to 150 years of age what would I do with this time? Learn languages, become a yogi, work towards Enlightenment and watch the Cubs win another series?

I first became familiar with Aubrey when I joined a site called BetterHumans and began to read his comments on the forums and his papers. He struck me as a pragmatic optimist. He could see that there is a chance we, as a race, could attain immortality, and he had the tools to do his part.

This all made me wonder why aren’t humans immortal already. I mean, you can look around at the world and realize that biodiversity is wonderful and obviously brilliant, so why not an organism that can live forever? Doesn’t that seem like the goal? I don’t think it is actually.

The goal of every organism I know of is simple: reproduce. Create offspring and ensure that your genus survives the drought, or the winter or the predator or whatever. So why would your individual genes try to create the super-being, one that would live forever if left alone.

I know that I don’t want to live forever, not in this world of suffering. But I would take an extra 60 years to get myself ready for the bardo if I don’t wake up first.