Thank you for the encouragement! I would suggest reading the complete post once more, because the post/article specifically points out that that aging, which is indeed entropic and inevitable, is counterbalanced by repair: “We can overcome the extrinsic damage and gradual aging of our houses, cars and clothing with cleaning, maintenance and repair.” The key to geroscience medicine—targeting aging—will be to slow the aging process (it can’t be stopped), but also to enhance repair (which can in theory indefinitely prolong life by replacing worn out parts to keep the system as a whole functioning).
It also discusses the principles that explain why we can expect scope to improve longevity via modern medicine, such as antagonistic pleiotropy and the loss of selection pressure beyond child rearing age. Evolution isn’t trying very hard to optimize for longevity and health span, so we can do better.
Finally, the whole chapter is on the geroscience hypothesis, advocating a new approach where we treat disease by targeting aging itself. I didn’t include the fact that it specifically mentions the SENS foundation, cites de Grey, etc, but it does!
My aim in these posts will be to pretty faithfully track the order of ideas and main biological points as presented by the handbook, rather than layering in my own interpretation about the political or long-term research prospects and ethics if they’re not explicitly mentioned in the book. But the book is certainly not “deathist.”
One thing you, as a transhumanist-diaper baby and (perhaps) a person who doesn’t work professionally in biomedical research, may not know, is that there’s quite a lot of pressure in biomedicine to make measured, noncontroversial public statements about topics like this. Some writers like Aubrey de Grey just ignore all that (I believe de Grey is independently wealthy which may enable him to do so), but many are for whatever reason going to make careful statements that fit within the conventional vibes of the medical field, but still read intelligently point in a radical direction. Figuring out how to make geroscience sound conventional, safe, and like everything else we study in medicine is an important normalizing step within the research community to counterbalance the hype and controversy machine.
Thank you for the encouragement! I would suggest reading the complete post once more, because the post/article specifically points out that that aging, which is indeed entropic and inevitable, is counterbalanced by repair: “We can overcome the extrinsic damage and gradual aging of our houses, cars and clothing with cleaning, maintenance and repair.” The key to geroscience medicine—targeting aging—will be to slow the aging process (it can’t be stopped), but also to enhance repair (which can in theory indefinitely prolong life by replacing worn out parts to keep the system as a whole functioning).
It also discusses the principles that explain why we can expect scope to improve longevity via modern medicine, such as antagonistic pleiotropy and the loss of selection pressure beyond child rearing age. Evolution isn’t trying very hard to optimize for longevity and health span, so we can do better.
Finally, the whole chapter is on the geroscience hypothesis, advocating a new approach where we treat disease by targeting aging itself. I didn’t include the fact that it specifically mentions the SENS foundation, cites de Grey, etc, but it does!
My aim in these posts will be to pretty faithfully track the order of ideas and main biological points as presented by the handbook, rather than layering in my own interpretation about the political or long-term research prospects and ethics if they’re not explicitly mentioned in the book. But the book is certainly not “deathist.”
One thing you, as a transhumanist-diaper baby and (perhaps) a person who doesn’t work professionally in biomedical research, may not know, is that there’s quite a lot of pressure in biomedicine to make measured, noncontroversial public statements about topics like this. Some writers like Aubrey de Grey just ignore all that (I believe de Grey is independently wealthy which may enable him to do so), but many are for whatever reason going to make careful statements that fit within the conventional vibes of the medical field, but still read intelligently point in a radical direction. Figuring out how to make geroscience sound conventional, safe, and like everything else we study in medicine is an important normalizing step within the research community to counterbalance the hype and controversy machine.