It’s Mathematically Impossible to Beat Aging, Scientists Say

Megalith

Megalith

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Any attempt to stop aging is futile, according to University of Arizona researchers who say that it's mathematically impossible to do so in humans and other multicellular organisms. There’s a catch-22 of sorts: as you age, most of your cells lose function and stop growing, but if you try to get rid of these, that allows cancer cells to proliferate, and vice versa.

"You might be able to slow down aging, but you can't stop it," Masel said. "We have a mathematical demonstration of why it's impossible to fix both problems. You can fix one problem, but you're stuck with the other one. Things will get worse over time, in one of these two ways or both: either all of your cells will continue to get more sluggish, or you'll get cancer. And the basic reason is that things break. It doesn't matter how much you try and stop them from breaking, you can't."
 
I was going to say, "But lobsters!" Apparently though they seem to somewhat prove the point as well:

Finally, older crustaceans stop shedding their exoskeletons altogether—a clue that they’re near the end of their lifespans. They run out of metabolic energy to molt, and their worn-and-torn shells contract bacterial infections that weaken them. Shell disease, in which bacteria seeps into lobster shells and forms scar tissue, adheres the crustaceans’ bodies to their shells. The lobster, attempting to molt, gets stuck and dies. The disease also makes lobsters susceptible to other ailments, and in extreme cases, the entire shell can rot, killing the animal inside.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...tually-immortal-88450872/#k2l8k9F0e2U0UR5J.99
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Then I'll be a jellyfish and live forever.

It's fine with me. Life has an expiration date. Might as well have a kick ass time while you're alive! If you never die, what's the point? You could always go to Paris next year... Or the year after that. Fuck it. Do it as soon as you can. Live, you fools!
 
I'm by no means anything even resembling an expert, but I find this somewhat hard to believe. I happily acknowledge the issues that they bring up. However, I have to think that there's some way that you could eventually be able to alter cells to regenerate or resist aging in the first place, and still resist viruses/cancers. Maybe with the tech and thought processes we have now it's not possible, but I have to think people will continue to get smarter, learn new things, and eventually figure this out. (if it should even be figured out in the first place)

People that say things like this are impossible are usually proved wrong at some point. Maybe it's a ploy to get grant money to prove something that will take many years to prove. :D
 
Ur_Mom said:
Then I'll be a jellyfish and live forever.

It's fine with me. Life has an expiration date. Might as well have a kick ass time while you're alive! If you never die, what's the point? You could always go to Paris next year... Or the year after that. Fuck it. Do it as soon as you can. Live, you fools!
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Bbbbbbbut what about my retirement plan?

I agree. Enjoy it. I am learning to do that a bit better each day. Tonight I will be rolling with my wagon, cooler of beer for myself and partaking parents, and a bucket of candy for the kids while we are on the move. Enjoyment :D
 
doz said:
Bbbbbbbut what about my retirement plan?

I agree. Enjoy it. I am learning to do that a bit better each day. Tonight I will be rolling with my wagon, cooler of beer for myself and partaking parents, and a bucket of candy for the kids while we are on the move. Enjoyment :D
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You need to get one of those "pedal bar" things. :D You could pedal from one house to the next, while drinking at the bar with friends.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Then I'll be a jellyfish and live forever.

It's fine with me. Life has an expiration date. Might as well have a kick ass time while you're alive! If you never die, what's the point? You could always go to Paris next year... Or the year after that. Fuck it. Do it as soon as you can. Live, you fools!
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But.....I don’t want to go to Paris.
 
This is silly. The idea was never to stop the aging process, it's to reverse aging to a point where as person doesn't get older.
We know that by reproduction it's possible to create new cells without any aging issues.
 
N4CR said:
So don't get rid of them, instead rejuvenate them at a quantum and electrical level. Fucking hell the assumptions for clickbait scientific media are insane.
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consciousness transfer to prepared clone. Silly mathematicians, can't think outside the equation.
 
I'm gonna jack the Valkeries when they come after me and the crew, and steal their horses.

We'll see from there. :)
 
J3RK said:
I'd rather go to Nice, but Paris would do in a pinch.
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Ur_Mom said:
They have baguettes. And coffee.

I guess there is always Pyongyang.
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I can go a lot of different places that have bread and coffee. Or I can go to Dublin and have potatoes and whiskey and Guinness instead.

Frankly I’m concerned that you equate not having an interest in Paris with being similar to deciding to travel to Pyongyang.
 
You age because cells replicate/repair themselves non-stop, and each replication/repair, there are minor differences. Like copying a copy of an original, several millions of times. The end result is a blurry copy. The only way to stop this aging process, is to have fresh copies. A great source of these originals are from yourself as a newborn.
 
hurleybird said:
Not sure they know what the words "impossible" and "mathematically" mean.
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Agreed!

The thing with their claims are that they're looking at the issue myopically. Yes there is an inherent link between ageing and cancer and we're not arguing that. We're also not arguing if you bluntly change the lifespan of a cell (e.g. telomere operation) you open yourself up to cancer not being stopped.

Where I disagree with the article is that they're arguing their methodology for expanding lifespan is the only one - or that the natural cancer prevention of the body is the only thing that can prevent cancer. What about fixing DNA within the cell, roving nanobots fixing cells on the fly, killing cancer in the process?

I accept that there are many engineering and scientific challenges to "fixing" the ageing process, but they are challenges and can only impossibilities when science and research have hit a wall that they cannot pass. No solution has been discovered but that doesn't mean you can assume such a wall exists, that's not how science works. Mathematics looks as probability, which uses past data to forecast future performance in a reductive manner.

I'd bet that there will be gene therapy before 2030 extending lifespans (people who look 60 years old will actually be 80 years old. Another 10-15 years later and we'll start to see manipulation of our cells by persistent or semi-persistent artificial mechanisms that will do the cellular defragging and error correction at a basic level. Add another 5-10 years and this process will get to the point that we hold off ageing, and then in another 5 years we'll start to reset cells and revert to 25-28 year olds. Mental illnesses will remain a challenge.
 
Nanogrip said:
You age because cells replicate/repair themselves non-stop, and each replication/repair, there are minor differences. Like copying a copy of an original, several millions of times. The end result is a blurry copy. The only way to stop this aging process, is to have fresh copies. A great source of these originals are from yourself as a newborn.
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Fresh copies are good, or many many copies to identify errors would work. Think of it as 50 million copies of the same book that we hand out to people and they can each make a thousand changes from words, sentences to chapters. The original copy of the book is easiest to get the truth, but from the 50 million books you'll be able to pattern match the original format - and even failing that fill in the gaps using our future understanding on genetics.
 
Nolan7689 said:
I can go a lot of different places that have bread and coffee. Or I can go to Dublin and have potatoes and whiskey and Guinness instead.

Frankly I’m concerned that you equate not having an interest in Paris with being similar to deciding to travel to Pyongyang.
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Frankly I'm concerned you're taking me that serious. :p

You should go visit the Canary Islands. They're nice this time of year. (please don't take serious either. I have no idea how it is this time of year! I've never been!)
 
Once they tell me what the square root of -1 really means, then I'll listen to them.
 
bullshit.

and here's my evidence.

Keanu-Reeves-Is-He-Immortal.jpg
 
Every time I hear someone ask why I would want to live forever?, I ask why would you want to die?
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Every time I hear someone ask why I would want to live forever?, I ask why would you want to die?
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Overpopulation would be an issue if it were everyone. If it were just me, I'd watch everyone I love live and die. Rinse and repeat. I couldn't do it. I'd want to die eventually. It sucks, and I don't WANT to die. But, it'd eventually become hell if you couldn't die...
 
don't worry about aging, you're going to live forever. The question is .... where?
 
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