Category Archives: Human Immortality

Macleans November 2023 edition.

The Day of our Death is the Birth of Eternity Seneca.

The end of human life is death. This is one constant and known fact. All humans will die. But what if we didnt have to die? What if we could live forever?

Humanity is at the forefront of evolution and our creations hinge at the frontiers of a new evolution i.e., technology. Over the centuries, humans have sought the secret to long life; some people want to live for hundreds or thousands of years, some, maybe more. With scientific technological advancements, we are now beginning to look at the possibility of that. Already, we spend most of our time in the digital realm. With AI, some believe that we will not only be able to extend human life but, in a sense, become immortal.

What if theres a way to avoid the inevitable?

What if theres a way to keep some part of us alive forever?

Lincoln Cannon is a member of a trans-humanist movement that seeks the ethical use of technology to transcend the limits of human capabilities and possibly even death. He, along with some major institutions have dedicated themselves to the achievement of human perpetuity. For example, the Terracem institute, a Florida based institution, views immortality as the ultimate solution to all mans problems. The institute hypothesizes that immortality is possible because the soul is data and not material. Therefore, the soul is capturable and transferable as something called a mind-file. This would entail everything that makes you essentially you; your thoughts, feelings, moments of triumph, moments of affection, first day at a new school, first kiss, deepest loss, greatest fears; Terracem believes that these are the key to immortality if they can be captured and transferred. Institutions like Terracem believe that creating a mind-file is the first step to immortality. The idea of trans-humanists follows from this to say that we can merge our minds with machines, transfer our consciousness to artificial bodies and therefore conquer death.

On paper, all this sounds fantastically theoretical. But even as I write this article

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DIGITAL IMMORTALITY IS A REAL THING! Part 1. | by Bombulu ... - Medium

Summary

Director Eddie Alcazars Divinity emerges with a vision so distinct it sends shivers down the spine before the opening credits even roll. The collaboration of Alcazar with executive producer Steven Soderbergh promises a fresh nightmare that captivates with its audacious blend of stylistic bravado and narrative complexity. Making its grand entry through a red band trailer that premiered earlier this year, the film has since collected acclaim, initially at the Sundance Film Festival, then extending its enigmatic reach to audiences at the Taormina Film Festival in June.

The chilling preview of Divinity beckons with its melding of stop-motion and live-action footage, crafting an unsettling tone that teases the senses. The story unfolds within a surreal human existence, introducing us to Jaxxon Pierce, portrayed by Stephen Dorff, who holds the key to eternal life through the serum named Divinity. The plot thickens as two enigmatic brothers enter the fray, their intentions shrouded as they capture Pierce. A woman both enigmatic and alluring appears as Pierce's slim thread of salvation. With its monochromatic visuals and a haunting nod to the bygone era of '80s horror classics, Divinity dares the audience to gaze into the abyss of body horror and grotesque scientific endeavors.

With Alcazar at the helm, who previously wove a visually rich tapestry in Perfect, and Soderbergh's Midas touch, Divinity is poised to offer an experience that transcends the traditional boundaries of its genres. The casting alone speaks volumes, with a roster that reads like a who's who of on-screen alchemy. We find Scott Bakula donning the mantle of the original serum creator Sterling Pierce, while Bella Thorne's Ziva adds layers of mystery and allure. The talents of Moises Arias, Karrueche Tran, Jason Genao, and an array of others, lend their gravitas to this otherworldly tale, each bringing depth and intrigue to this labyrinthine narrative.

RELATED: Divinity Trailer: Sci-Fi Thriller Produced by Steven Soderbergh Offers a Guide to the Abyss of Immortality

The narrative backbone of Divinity rests on the profound and sometimes perilous human pursuit of immortality. The film weaves this theme through the life of Sterling Pierce and eventually his son, Jaxxon. When two shadowy figures appear, it triggers a spiral of events that plunges characters and viewers alike into a maelstrom of existential reflection and raw survival.

The promise of Divinity lies not just in its visual or narrative shock but in its ability to ensnare us within its psychological grasp. This film boldly immerses audiences in the intense world of science fiction terror, as evidenced by the trailer. By favoring innovation over convention, the film presents even the most knowledgeable genre enthusiasts with something entirely unfamiliar.

Divinity is slated for theatrical release on November 3, marking an occasion for those keen on cinema that challenges and disquiets. While eager fans await the film's arrival on the silver screen, the anticipation builds with no word yet on subsequent streaming availability. This serves to amplify the intrigue surrounding Alcazar's latest workeach moment until release thick with expectation.

The visceral experience that Divinity promises is not one for the faint of heart. Its a bold testament to the power of sci-fi horror when unleashed by visionary filmmakers. As the trailer invites audiences to peer into the world of Divinity, it leaves a clear impression: prepare to confront the ethereal, the grotesque, and the eerily beautiful.

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Steven Soderbergh's Divinity Unleashes a Red Band Trailer ... - MovieWeb

The UN, backer of Iran, backer of Hamas, enemies of the Jews in the open

The United Nations needs a name change: the United Tyrannies.

Why not make North Korea chair the Rights Council? Beats me.

No need to discredit the UN. They do a very good job of it themselves.

The UN just equated democratic Israel and genocidal-terrorist Hamas. The Czech Defense Minister, one day later, called for UNexit.

This is totally in line with 75 years of support of Palestinian refugees, who should not integrate into the host countries that dont want them.

With its International Criminal Court that never tried Palestinian guerillas.

Security Councils Russia told the GA Jews made ordinary people suffer and the innocent lose their lives in blind retributionlook whos talking.

The looming WWIII seems to be between countries that are democracies or willing to transform into democracies peacefully and autocracies.

Later generations will want to know how anyone could vote for evil. And we answer them: Most of these UN countries had brutal regimes that were morally blind and invested in genocide, territorial wars, terrorism, and the oppressions of democrats, journalists, women, LGBTQs, Jews, etc.

This new chair does not embarrass the UN. It clarifies it.

MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, an almost daily blog contributor to the Times of Israel, and previously, for decades, he was known to the Jerusalem Post readers as a frequent letter writer. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nutsclose to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. None of his content is (partly) generated by AI. * As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. He doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit about what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and education contribute to his visions. * If you don't know the Dutch, get an American peek behind the scenes here: https://youtu.be/QMPp6h6r72M * To find less-recent posts on subject XXX among his 2000 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog, to which one may subscribe, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/. * Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. Yet, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people who don't deserve that. He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. * Sometimes he's misunderstood because his wide and diverse field of vision seldomly fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what some love about him. He has written a lot about Psychology (including Sexuality and Abuse), Medicine (including physical immortality), Science (including basic statistics), Politics (Israel, the US, and the Netherlands, Activism), Oppression and Liberation (intersectionally, for young people, the elderly, non-Whites, women, workers, Jews, LGBTQIA+, foreigners and anyone else who's dehumanized or exploited), Integrity, Philosophy, Jews (Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust, and Jewish Liberation), the Climate Crisis, Ecology and Veganism, Affairs from the news, or the Torah Portion of the Week, or new insights that suddenly befell him. * His most influential teachers (chronologically) are his parents, Nico (natan) van Zuiden and Betty (beisye) Nieweg, Wim Kan, Mozart, Harvey Jackins, Marshal Rosenberg, Reb Shlomo Carlebach, and, lehavdil bein chayim lechayim, Rabbi Dr. Natan Lopes Cardozo, Rav Zev Leff, and Rav Meir Lubin. * One of his rabbis calls him Mr. Innovation [Ish haChidushim]. Yet, his originalities seem to root deeply in traditional Judaism, though they may grow in unexpected directions. In fact, he claims he's modernizing nothing. Rather, mainly basing himself on the basic Hebrew Torah text, he tries to rediscover classical Jewish thought almost lost in thousands of years of stifling Gentile domination and Jewish assimilation. (He pleads for a close reading of the Torah instead of going by rough assumptions of what it would probably mean and before fleeing to Commentaries.) This, in all aspects of life, but prominently in the areas of Free Will, Activism, Homosexuality for men, and Redemption. * He hopes that his words will inspire and inform, and disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. He aims to bring a fresh perspective rather than harp on the obvious and familiar. He loves to write encyclopedic overviews. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds should be disputed. In short, his main political positions are among others: anti-Trumpism, anti-elitism, anti-bigotry and supremacy, for Zionism, Intersectionality, and non-violence, anti those who abuse democratic liberties, anti the fake ME peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, pro-Science, pro-Free Will, anti-blaming-the-victim, and for down-to-earth, classical optimism, and happiness. * He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to parents who were Dutch-Jewish Holocaust survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork. He grew up a humble listener. It took him decades to become a speaker too. Bullies and con artists almost instantaneously envy and hate him. * He holds a BA in medicine (University of Amsterdam) is half a doctor. He practices Re-evaluation Co-counseling since 1977, is not an official teacher anymore, and became a friendly, empowering therapist. He became a social activist, became religious, made Aliyah, and raised three wonderful kids non-violently. For a couple of years, he was active in hasbara to the Dutch-speaking public. He wrote an unpublished tome about Jewish Free Will. He's being a strict vegan since 2008. He's an Orthodox Jew but not a rabbi. He lives with his library in Jerusalem. Feel free to contact him. * His writing has been made possible by a (second-generation) Holocaust survivors' allowance from the Netherlands. It has been his dream since he was 38 to try to make a difference by teaching through writing. He had three times 9-out-of-10 for Dutch at his high school finals but is spending his days communicating in English and Hebrew - how ironic. G-d must have a fine sense of humor. In case you wonder - yes, he is a bit dyslectic. If you're a native English speaker and wonder why you should read from people whose English is only their second language, consider the advantage of having an original peek outside of your cultural bubble. * To send any personal reaction to him, scroll to the top of the blog post and click Contact Me. * His newest books you may find here: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMoshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&s=relevancerank&text=Moshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1

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Iran to become chair of the 'UN Human Rights Council's Social Forum' - The Times of Israel

Newswise Anti-wrinkle creams, superfoods that keep you young, dietary supplements that promise improved memory, "immortal" cells that can renew themselves foreverin our stores and media, claims about aging abound.

But do you actually understand how your body and mind change as you age? How much of aging is particular to you, and how much can you control? Do you know how you want to age, or what aging well means? Do you know what aging is?

The bottom line is, for a phenomenon that's happening to all of us at this very moment, aging remains remarkably mysterious.

Experts across Tufts University are working to change that. At the School of Medicine, they are studying cardiac health in postmenopausal women; at the School of Dental Medicine, they are putting students in special suits to simulate aging; and at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, they are teaching future dietitians, scientists, and policymakers about the nutritional needs of older adults.

And the hub of it all is one of the largest research centers in the world that focuses on healthy aging and its relationship to nutrition and physical activity: the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging(HNRCA) at Tufts.

To me, aging is the most compelling issue in modern biology. Its surprisingly complex," said Christopher Wiley, a scientist on the Basic Biology of Aging Team who studies the role of nutrition and metabolism in aging at a cellular level. "There are so many ways of getting at the same problem. There's always going to be something new to figure out and something new to study."

Its an exciting moment in the science of agingand an important one, said Sarah Booth, director of the HNRCA and senior scientist and leader of the center's Vitamin K Team. Within 10 years, people aged 65 and older will outnumber those 18 and younger, according to the U.S. Census Bureaus 2017 National Population Projections. This will significantly affect public health and the health of our economy.

According to the Administration on Aging, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, consumers aged 65 and older spent an average of $6,668 on out-of-pocket health care costs in 2020, up 38 percent since 2010. In 2017-2018, 40.4 million people provided unpaid care to a family or non-family member aged 65 and older.

Booth also pointed out that one in five people aged 65 or older remain in the workforce, which raises questions about how to accommodate different generations with different skills, experiences, work philosophies, and physical needs in the workplace. Aging is the new reality, Booth said. And most people arent even thinking about the implications for society.

To adjust to this new normal, we must understand what aging really is. And from Tufts converging studies, an answer is emerginga deeper, more nuanced one that challenges and often contradicts the popular understanding, that could transform how each of us lives, as well as our whole society.

We know about aging now what we knew about cancer in the 1980s. Were just at the tip of the iceberg here, Wiley said. But we're already at a point where we are testing interventions for human aging, which is absolutely fascinating, and really exciting.

How to talk about Aging

Why do we still know so little about aging? Humans have always gotten olderyet the term geroscience, the study of the mechanisms of aging, didnt even exist until a decade ago.

Aging research is new, because aging as we know itlarge numbers of people spending long periods of time in older ageis new. Life expectancy in the U.S. was only about 62 for men and 64 for women 100 years ago, in 1943. In 2020, persons reaching age 65 had an average life expectancy of an additional 18.5 years (19.8 years for women and 17.0 years for men).

So what is aging, anyway?

Heres what it isnt, according to Wiley: conditions such as arthritis, cataracts, heart disease, Alzheimers, Parkinsons.

We associate these chronic degenerative diseases with aging, because their incidence rates increase exponentially among older people, Wiley said. The basic processes that underlie aging can drive chronic degenerative conditions. But chronic degenerative conditions are not aging, per se.

Another thing that aging is not, at least for the purposes of most research: what happens when were younger. We're technically getting older from the moment we're born, but that doesnt become relevant at the HNRCA until we reach a certain age. "We're really talking about the processes that occur either positively or negatively at a specific segment of the lifecycle at the opposite end from infants: older adults," Booth said.

"Older adults" is the proper term, Booth emphasizednot "elder, elderly, or "old, which are vague, negative, and no longer used in the scientific literature.

How old is an older adult? It depends who you ask. A number of federal agencies set it at 65, but that number may date back to the average lifespan of American men in the 1930s, when social security was established in the United States, Booth said. Other federal agencies focus on adults 60 and older, while the American Association of Retired Persons works with those 50 and older.

Sixty-five is also a common cutoff in research on older adults, Booth saidalthough studies of older women often use menopause, because it's a distinct, measurable event that changes aging. Studies of sarcopenia, or muscle wasting, often focus on adults in their 80s and 90s, which is the period when that disease tends to develop. "It really depends on the scientific question," Booth said.

Sensitivity and attention to nuance are needed not only to research aging, but also to talk and think about itand the HNRCA is up to that challenge. Its really exciting that we have a lot of people who understand the importance of looking at healthy aging from a multidimensional perspective, and an institution that not only understands the science, but respects the process of aging," Booth said.

What is Aging?

So what is the process of aging, biologically?

Wiley defines it simply: It's a loss of function over time.

It happens to everything. Metal rusts and loses strength. Springs get less springy. The wind-up toy stops working.

More complex objects have more parts to wear down, more functions to be lost, anda much wider range of possible failures. "You could have two cars, same makes, same model, driven by the same person, and two different things will fail on the car," Wiley said.

The same thing happens to the human body. "There's damage to your cells happening all the time," Wiley said. Except the body, with its many interlinked processed, systems, and levels of organization, is much more complex than a carand therefore has many more points of potential failure.

When you think about just how intricate and finely tuned the human body is, Wiley suggested, the real mystery isn't why it failsit's why it survives. "The fact that life works is amazing," Wiley said.

The body does have one advantage: it's self-repairing. "The body tries to maintain itself and restore homeostasis even in the face of all this stress and all this damage. We have these really sophisticated programs for dealing with these points of failure," Wiley said.

But as we get older, Wiley said, cells are unable to keep up with the repairs. Small failures accumulate.

"It can start with something as simple as a broken molecule, one little thing that goes wrong in one cell, and then it's like the butterfly effect," Wiley said. "The tissue starts struggling, and then the organ, and then your entire body."

Different types of cells express damage in different ways. The lenses of our eyes stiffen and cloud. The cartilage in our joints thins and our ligaments shorten, losing flexibility. Blood vessels harden, bones become fragile, and muscle and brain mass decline.

We can replace thingships, livers, even heartsbut not forever. Were too complex, and the damage too steady.

"There's definitely a misconception out there that we're trying to make people immortal. But there is never going to be an immortality vaccine," Wiley said. "There's never going to be one thing that defeats all of aging. There's always going to be another point of failure."

The Goal of Health Aging

If we can't defeat aging, what can we do?

Figure out how to live longer, is most people's first thought. Theres a lot of discussion and interest in the space of how to extend our lifespans, and more and more private philanthropy looking for magic bullets, Booth said.

But theres a fundamental limitation to studying how to make human lives longer. We dont get grants for a hundred years, Wiley said. And whos going to do it?

Also, living longer doesnt address the real problemand could actually make it worse. The challenge is that more and more people are living disabled for longer periods of time before life ends, which has huge consequences for society in terms of health care, culture, and ethics," Booth said.

Thats why more and more research and federal funding focuses not on extending chronological age (the number of years an organism has been alive) but on slowing down biological aging, or how old our cells and tissues actually are and how well they function. Lengthening the time in which we can continue to move around, care for ourselves, and participate in social life and activities, is a worthier goal than extending years of suffering, Booth argued. Were really talking about helping people live as long as they can in a healthy way, free of disability caused by chronic disease, Booth said.

People tend to use the word longevity to refer to both longer life and better health as we age, which is why Booth prefers lifespan for chronological age and healthy aging for improving biological age. Weve got a very confusing national debate right now because people are conflating a lot of different concepts, Booth said. We need to be more thoughtful on how we define terms, or they could actually be detrimental to the concept of healthy aging.

Healthspan has promise as a term for our years free of disability, Booth notedbut it doesnt cover the increasing numbers of older adults who are losing their health but retaining their abilities through the new field of gerotechnology, which spans smartphone features, ambient systems, robotics, artificial intelligence, and more. We are continuously moving that threshold of that ability to live independently, Booth said. Its a really exciting time.

The Many Drivers of Aging

How do we lengthen peoples healthy years?

First, according to Booth and Wiley, we must solve a mystery central to aging: why no two individuals age alike.

Theres really not much difference between babies, but you see much greater variation in biological aging in older people, Booth said. The big challenge is, why do some people have these aging processes that dont result in chronic disease-related disability, and others do?

Many drivers of aging are mechanisms that we have in common. We all have telomeresthe protective caps of our chromosomes, often compared to shoelace tipsthat wear down over time, leading to errors in DNA copying and an end to cell replication (called cellular senescence).

But mice have telomeres much longer than those in humans, and they live just three or four years, Wiley pointed out. Plus, humans vary in both telomere length, and how quickly they wear down. "Theres this belief out there that if you were just able to lengthen telomeres, you wouldnt get old, Wiley said. But all our evidence says it's a combination of things.

One of these things is diet, which the HNRCA is now studying in greater depth than ever before. One of six institutes nationwide to receive a grant from the National Institutes of Healthin the amount of $8.5 millionfor the cutting-edge field of precision nutrition, the HNRCA is embarking on a major study of how and why certain diets have different effects on individuals aging and other biological processes.

Other factors that influence aging are genetics, exercise, environment, stress levels, and even socioeconomic class, to name just a few. But we dont know how much each contributesits hard to isolate one factor, or even to look at all of them. We are an accumulation of everything since we were conceivedand even before that, because now theres even evidence that prior generations influence who we are, Booth said. Youre looking at a lot of factors, and youre looking across an entire lifetime. Thats a lot of data points.

Different Disciplines, Same Problem

So how do we look at everything that ever happens to us across our lifetime, and use it to understand aging?

We do it together, according to Booth. The HNRCA brings together more than 40 scientists working across a wide range of fields to study how exercise and nutrition accelerate or slow down the common biological processes of natural aging. It has research teams focusing on the brain, the heart, the eyes, and bones, along with cancer, obesity, and more.

Were bringing the broader sociological demographics to our research to understand why some groups in the population have accelerated aging compared to others, Booth said. Were bringing in engineers, mathematicians, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to look for patterns and predictive algorithms in the data from all these different disciplines.

The HNRCA also partners with dozens of departments across the university, whether examining fruit flies with the Department of Biology in the School of Arts and Sciences or comparing human and canine muscle wasting with the help of the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.

Were looking at the same question through different lenses with different tools, technologies, and perspectives, Booth said. Progress in aging research is only going to be achieved by bringing together different disciplines addressing the same problem.

And slowly but surely, that progress is happening, says Wiley. Researchers are making headway in the question of why two worms with the same genetics have different lifespans, zeroing in on small fluctuations early in life that become large differences later.

The biggest change Ive seen in the past ten years is that we really are finding new, different ways of actually intervening somewhere that could potentially extend the healthy years of life, and prevent people from getting age-related diseases, Wiley said.

Public perception has yet to catch up with the new ways scientists are thinking about and researching aging, Wiley said, but theres one thing he hopes people understand.

What aging research is really trying to do is compress the morbidity and make it as small as possibleto alleviate suffering, Wiley said. I think thats a much more humanitarian goal, and I think were having a lot of success with those efforts.

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How Scientists Are Solving the Mystery of Aging - Newswise