Immortality

Photography by Nick Clark

This week was my birthday and, inevitably, the subject of aging arose. At the time it was treated jovially, but I find that it’s all too common that people express their fear of growing old, and in turn this fear is oft extended to death. I lightly touched upon this subject in my previous post, where I explained my reasoning that because death is inevitable there is no point to fearing it, and such a fear is only restrictive to an individual’s productive achievement. That is not too say death itself is insignificant; it’s finality certainly brings purpose to life, and obviously the death of someone is sorrowful. The fear of old age holds more merit; I’m certain no-one likes the idea of becoming dependant or their flesh aging. However associated health issues are best prevented in living a healthy lifestyle before reaching such an age; senescence is of course inevitable and thus, through a similar reasoning used above, should be taken in stride; whilst other, inescapable aging problems are left to fate, although that’s not too say they shouldn’t be contended with all your spirit.

When this topic of conversation occurs one notion invariably materialises; immortality. If the chance arose for you to become immortal would you take it?

Those who say yes often cite reasons such as fear of death, their unwillingness to let go of their corporeal endeavours, and their separation from kith and kin as reasons for continually living. The naysayers state that our time on Earth is long enough, or that to see all their kin die around them and to live through the commonly turbulent history of man as depressing ideas, among others. I’ve always thought I was in the ‘No’ camp when it came to immortality; personally the concept of death holds no fear, and that If I ever reached a great age I’d be content enough with my accomplishments to move on. In fact I was talking to my hairdresser in what happened to be rather odd turn in conversation (a running trend it seems) away from the typical holiday-related talk to this subject; apparently her grandmother of 98 is continuously saying that she’s bored of life and just wants it to end, that death would hurry along and get the wait over with. However holding such content for personal achievements in life that you wouldn’t mind dying must include a measure of sorts, and if I truly had an accomplished life near the end would I really want to let it go or, if I had the choice, continue building upon it? I find this question the most pertinent.

The question of immortality may seem one of high fantasy but a seemingly increasing age limit due to advances in medicine and technology indicates that future generations may live substantially longer. Indeed there are already numerous scientific theories on how life expectancy could be increased; telomeres are continuously degrading regions of repeated DNA at the extremities of chromosomes that eventually prevents cellular division thus greatly aids aging, one of the top three causes of death (the others being trauma and disease). It’s postulated that gene therapy and certain drugs could replenish telomeres, possibly permanently, and thus prevent someone dying of old-age. Telomere lengthening is one of the more popularly used examples of achieving biological immortality, however many more methods exists; the cloning of an individual’s tired organs for a fresher pair, the use of stem-cell therapy, and the application of gene therapy to replace old genes with artificial ones or even fool genes into thinking the body is younger and thus activate ‘youthful’ genes, being other possible paths to immortality. Such ideas are often treated as being within the realms of science-fiction but immortality already exists in nature:

The ‘immortal jellyfish’ Turritopsis Nutricula has the potential to live forever. This extraordinary creature, putting it crudely, has the ability of being able to convert non stem-cell cells in its medusa (the ‘umbrella’ shape) into a polyp colony, the early stage of the jellyfish life-cycle. In human terms this would be us reverting back to a baby. The jellyfish is thought to go under such transformations under great environmental stress; however the polyp colony, being at a plankton-level of life, has a high risk of being eaten. Theoretically, however, this process could be repeated infinitely and therefore would technically be biologically immortal. It’s not just the Turritopsis Nutricula that has the capability to be immortal either; many more animals are thought to have the potential to be immortal. The tiny animal Hydra can sustain its telomere length, already achieving what science is currently striving to do, whilst the oddly cute Tardigrades (‘water bears’) may have already fought off the process of aging and can even enter a type of suspended animation whilst waiting for more favourable environments, all the while be able to survive intense heat, cold and even the vacuum of space! The Methuselah fly, named after the famously long-lived Old Testament Monarch who purportedly lived for 969 years, selectively reproduces so that its spawn can live up to five times longer than their parent.

With so much evidence suggesting that other animals have achieved some sort of state of immortality through evolution what’s to say it’s not possible through science? Of course if the choice emerged in the future would you take it? And how far would you take it? Would you revert back to a baby for the chance to live forever? This brings up the another issue; if immortality were made possible would death be feared more? In the end it is it's inevitable nature that removed my fear, but if it weren't inevitable then would any effort to prevent it make it appear all the more terrifying?