The idea of living forever has been studied and evaluated for years. It kind of depends on what your religion is and whether or not you'd rather stay on earth or go to that promised paradise in the sky. Of course staying on earth would have to be accompanied by some means of maintaining physical and mental health which then addresses our biological side. In the past it has been much too complicated for scientists to arrive at a solution so the concept is relegated to the future.
National Geographic has come up with something called the immortal jellyfish that defies death...
"One of the planet’s most extraordinary creatures floats in the Mediterranean Sea. The pale pink disk doesn’t look like much, but this jellyfish, called Turritopsis dohrnii, has a survival skill like none other: When injured or dying, it can return to its juvenile form, becoming young again."
There's more...
"That ability gives Turritopsis dohrnii its nickname: the immortal jellyfish. Scientists are studying these creatures closely, hoping to uncover secrets about human aging. Is it possible that someday we could go on living far into the future?"Venki Ramakrishnan, Nobel laureate and author of the newly released “Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality,” says, "Science is making anti-aging progress. But do we want to live forever?" Here's the scenario...
"Ramakrishnan opened his packed Harvard Science Book Talk last week by noting the vast variabilities of lifespans across the natural world. Death is certain, so far as we know. But there’s no physical or chemical law that says it must happen at a fixed time, which raises other, more philosophical issues."
The next thing that comes to mind, will future generations be born with the ability to plan their lives all the way to their deaths? Kindergarten will provide the introduction to life for children that precedes future grades literally walking them through that life with all the joys one experiences mixed with the hardships they might encounter. After reaching the age of eighteen - an arbitrary choice - you decide how many years you want to live. Your decision would be based on the knowledge of your futuristic upbringing.
And if you still have a hankering to break the 100 mark, or maybe even 200, 400 years, read this article from Salon. Scientists have determined that death is “kind of arbitrary” and they "want to upload the brain so we can live forever." The piece starts with background on the latest quest for immortality, cryonics, that is a process which preserves biological tissues by storing them at extremely cold temperatures in the hope of someday reviving them.
Enter Dr. Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston, a research fellow at Melbourne’s Monash University who makes the case that cryopreservation is possible and should be more widely available. Zeleznikow-Johnston argues a human’s connectome — a high-resolution map of all their brain connections — could be theoretically recorded perfectly before they die. The concept is very complicated and there are many who disagree with Zeleznikow-Johnston. Are talking about brain without body?
My advice is, if you have a very scientific mind, read the article, If you're a layman like me, just take the man's word that someday we will be living longer, maybe considerably longer.
