• Question: could there ever be a medicine or pill made that will make us live eternaly?

    Asked by keiraharding on 6 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Alex Haragan

      Alex Haragan answered on 6 Jun 2018:

      Ah the question of eternal life. This has been asked since as long as humans have had language I think!
      There are two questions to this I think – can humans ever be made to live forever – and can we achieve that with a pill?
      The short answer is – probably not, not with a simple pill or medicine at least.
      The long: Even if we can modify our genetics and bodies – this is a hugely complex process obviously – the limiting factor is our brains.
      Our brains make us, well, us. Theoretically we could move a brain into a machine and still be us (like an android) – but the brain itself can’t live forever. I read somewhere maybe 130 years was the best we could hope for without significant modification to our bodies.
      And I think thats the point – to live for, even say only a thousand years, would require modifications that would fundamentally change our bodies.
      And if we do the same to the brain – is it even possible to retain our individual consciousness and sense of self and create a brain that can live forever?
      You’re starting to get into the realms of philosophy there (for example, I’m not the same person I am now as when I was 12 years old – but then, at the same time, both these people are/were Alex)
      Philosophical questions to one side – our science lags a long long way behind immortality – but I think we will see changes that add decades on. But I don’t think any of us will live to see the year 3000!

    • Photo: Daniel Rhodes

      Daniel Rhodes answered on 7 Jun 2018:

      Alex’s answer is really good, so I’m just going to add a side note, which is that some animals actually are biologically immortal. For example, the immortal jellyfish, which reverts back from an adult stage to an infant stage. This doesn’t mean it can’t die of other causes such as disease or being eaten though. Also could you imagine if we had to go back to being babies every so often and grow up all over again!

    • Photo: Hannah Farley

      Hannah Farley answered on 10 Jun 2018:

      I think aging has so many components that any such pill is quite a long way off. And I think it will just prolong life, not make us live forever.There are some particular enzymes and proteins, such as sirtuins and telomerase, that scientists have pointed to as being crucial for the aging process, but we’re nowhere near a single pill to target them. Some people think that eating very little will prolong your life for several years – there is a scientific logic to this, and a bit of evidence, but they really don’t eat very much at all and that sounds dull to me.

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