There are many virtues to growing old. [long pause] I am
just trying to think what they are.
—Somerset Maugham at the age of eighty
As much as we may wish otherwise, old age is an unpleasant and unattractive affliction. Some people, it is true, have been active and productive into very old age—among them Picasso, George Bernard Shaw, Ludwig von Mises, Arthur Rubinstein, and Helena Rubinstein. But such people are exceptions. And we don’t think anybody will argue that they were as vigorous in old age as in their youth. Here we take a hard look at the basic reason why we ourselves have devoted so much of our time and energy to the scientific investigation of aging: because old age without intervention really isn’t beautiful. The best that can be said for aging is that it is better than being dead.
Most people believe that there is nothing they can do about aging. Their strategy for facing this unpleasant prospect is first, to deny their own decline into old age and, then, to resign themselves to the progressive deterioration of mental and physical capacities. Finally, as joy in life fades away, many old people even welcome death. This tragic scenario need not
be exactly like this for you, if you take action to change it.
We must face the facts of aging in the absence of intervention. Your body’s muscles become weak, your senses lose acuity, your mental faculties lose clarity and slow down, your skin wrinkles and sags, and your desire for life may be lost. The sight of very old people struggling to walk or talk, their
limbs trembling, can be frightning. Social consequences for the old,
with their deteriorating minds and bodies, include rejection of them and disinterest among the younger and more vigorous. The very old are thought of as living on borrowed time and are not considered for future plans. Obviously the old do not have much of a future.
The philosophical among the old point out that there are some folks like Bertrand Russell who have been productive even into very old age. But Bertrand Russell himself points out that he was a mathematician early in life and then became a philosopher. Because of aging, he explained, he could no longer handle the complexities of mathematics and so
switched to the less intellectually rigorous (to him) occupation
of philosopher.
We are indeed fortunate to live in a time when the traditional horror story of old age is not necessarily inevitable.
The practice of life extension requires effort, but with the technology that has been demonstrated in some laboratories, scientists have succeeded in doubling the life span of various animal species. Evidence shows that the aging mechanisms acting in humans are basically like those in other animals.
We have to deal with Man as a product of Evolution; with
Society as a product of Evolution; and with moral
phenomena as products of Evolution.
—Herbert Spencer, Principles of Ethics
We did not always live as long as we do now. A few million years ago, human forebears lived only to about half our current life span. Modern chimpanzees, very close relatives to man, live only 45 or 50 years, about half man’s present maximum life span. How did we develop into such a long-lived creature? How can we use this knowledge to live even longer?
In this post, we tell you about some current thinking on the role evolution plays in the determination of a species’ maximal natural life span. We are looking for evolutionary reasons why animal species live to a particular life span. Why not more—or less?
Evolution is the sum of the genetic changes that occur over time as species adapt to their changing environments. The animals best adapted to an environment tend to be more successful than their competitors in producing offspring, eventually displacing those competitors. Evolution is concerned with the stuff of heredity, the genes, which carry the
DNA, the genetic blueprints. A gene is successful, in evolutionary terms, if it increases the number of existing copies of
itself.
People concerned about the limited life span of automobiles sometimes refer to “planned obsolescence” without realizing that extending automobile life span is costly. In fact, the goal of maximizing auto life span is different from the goal of producing the most cost-effective auto (the most transportation service per dollar).
Are you interested in life extension products?
mod4all ships all major brands of Modafinil from the UK
All products shipped from the UK by tracked post. We guarantee delivery.
We guarantee delivery, free reshipping.
Any questions at all about payments, shipping, etc. Anything at all, just email us.
Comments (0)