Immortality?¿

Have you ever thought about living forever? Isn’t it exciting, but at the same time scary to think about. Besides tales and fictional stories like the ones about the Fountain of Youth, there are scientists working on finding ways to make us immortal.

Immortality doesn’t sound so impossible after learning that, over 30 years ago, a marine-biologist found a type of living organism on the ocean floor that alternates between a cycle of getting older and getting younger over and over again, making it immortal. It is a hydrozoan, which means that it is a small invertebrate that, throughout its life cycles, can resemble either a jellyfish or a soft coral.

They found out that the organism’s cells change their function during the rejuvenating phase due to environmental stress.

The futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson believes that we should be able to achieve immortality by the year 2050. He believes that biotechnology and medicine will find ways to keep regenerating our bodies. After all, technology has been improving at a such rapid level in the last century. Why should this not be possible? We just have to make sure that our mind stays intact so that we can keep all of our memories.

There are several ways we could achieve staying immortal. We could use genetic engineering to make sure our cells do not age, or we could use 3D printers loaded with living cells to make new human organs to replace our old organs with, of course these cells would have to be able to learn to perform any cell function. An even crazier thought would be that we could link our minds to a machine and upload our consciousness into a robot or technologically enhanced body, like in the movie Ghost in the Shell with Scarlett Johansson. I just cannot imagine yet how this would work. After all, they would have to be able to give these robots a way to have all our sense and feelings to make life still feel human.

The downside of those ways to stay immortal is that they would be EXTREMELY expensive. Also, what would immortality do to our sanity? How would we ensure that we do not all turn insane or get bored of living forever? One problem is that this technically means that wars and conflicts could go on forever, grudges could go on forever. Being immortal means that groups might never be able to live peacefully or forget events.

On a positive thought, immortality also means that we could learn so much more than we learn in the present. We could focus on various sports, subjects, and major in so many fields. We could participate in year long studies or researches and learn way more about science and technology. This means that we could also end up being able to travel further into space and more. Immortality gives so many new ideas and opportunities, I don’t even know if I would want to be immortal. Would you?