From "He Said He Was the World’s Healthiest Man. Then Came a Stunning Diagnosis. Bryan Johnson, the longevity guru, wants to live forever. But the big question is why" (NYT gift link).
You can read that essay, but I went on to look for more about that Chinese emperor. I found this: "Trying To Live Forever Killed The Creator Of China's 'Forever Army'/Even the Terracotta Army can’t save you from mercury poisoning" (IFL Science): "Qin Shi Huang may have been the first emperor to die from a long-life preparation containing mercury, but he was certainly not the last. In fact, so many have died from it that it’s even been given a name: Chinese alchemical elixir poisoning. Now, mercury is just one of the reasons archaeologists are too scared to open Qin Shi Huang's tomb."
What are some other examples of efforts to achieve immortality that ended up killing the person? To get away from the stories of ingesting chemicals, I found Empedocles of Akragas. According to one legend, "he jumped into the volcano to prove to his disciples that he was immortal: he believed he would come back as a god after being consumed by the fire. In Icaro-Menippus [it], a comedic dialogue written by the second-century satirist Lucian of Samosata, Empedocles's final fate is re-imagined. Rather than being incinerated in Mount Etna, one of its eruptions carries him up into the heavens. Although singed by the ordeal, Empedocles survives and continues his life on the Moon, surviving on dew."
पोस्ट्स
२४ टिप्पण्या:
These are things one should not touch. Those who would make literary anarchy under the pretext of novelty lapse into error. One does not dare attack God; one attacks the immortality of the soul. Yet the immortality of the soul, that too, is as old as the world's foundations. What other belief will replace it, if replaced it must be? It will not always be a negation.
Lautreamont
No matter how I struggle and strive, I'll never get out of this world alive.
Hank Williams
Planned personhood is a multivariate solution.
"At 6am, he washed down 54 different pills with a shake containing amino acids, creatine, collagen peptides and chlorella powder; …"
All it would take is for one of those to be harmful rather than helpful. We just don't know enough yet to go diving into that pool.
"..But the big question is why.."
to quote the hot blonde from Conan the Barbarian..
"What do you want to do? Live forever?"
ps: Today I Learned that she had a name..
she was called 'Valeria', that is: before she died
I like this guy. He’s experimenting on himself, tracking the results, and sharing both the good and the bad. We all do this to some extent: try a different exercise, supplement, or food, then pay attention to whether it improves our well-being enough to keep doing it. Johnson is simply much more meticulous and transparent about the process.
His silence toward Emanuel was wise. Emanuel’s views on aging and declining life-extending care after 75 are well known. He seemed to be looking for an argument, and Johnson wasn’t going to ruin the dinner just to indulge it.
Jumping into a volcano was good for Joe, it cured him of his deadly case of brain fog and he ended up with Meg Ryan!
At some point in our lives we go from thinking that the wish to be immortal is natural to thinking it's some kind of mental illness.
The Buddhists were right: eventually all this repetition gets too repetitious and nirvana seems like a good idea. Or at least they were half-right: given the choice I'd like to be able to take a look around every now and then and see what's happening after I'm gone, rather than be fully extinguished.
The secret is bacon - lots of bacon.
"The secret is bacon - lots of bacon."
And coffee. Is there anything it can't do?™️
Okay, I just found out there are guys out there who inject Botox into their dicks.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...
Okay, I just found out there are guys out there who inject Botox into their dicks.
"Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?"
People think that medieval alchemists wanted and sought to change lead into gold to get *rich*. Wrong. Changing lead to gold was thought to be the ticket to *immortality*. Why? Because gold was *incorruptible*—immune to acids and other corrosive agents.
Thus, by the kind of analogue-ic thinking then considered the height of proper reasoning, succeeding somehow in transforming gross corruptible matter into gold becomes the obvious direct route to *personal incorruptibility* a.k.a. immortality.
Immortality is a scam.
Do those who seriously wish for immortality feel that they have only a tenuous connection to the future? Like, no kids, only a passing interest in reproduction, not personally connected to the people in their community? in other words, narcissists.
"Okay, I just found out there are guys out there who inject Botox into their dicks."
I guess that smooths out the wrinkles, but there are better ways, and no needles.
"At 8am, he ate a bowl of puréed vegetables" Laborious chewing can take years off your life. I see a future of all meals blended and pre-digested for convenience.
The late Jack LaLanne famously said, "I can't die, it would be bad for my reputation."
Lawnerd said...
"Jumping into a volcano was good for Joe, it cured him of his deadly case of brain fog and he ended up with Meg Ryan!"
"I knew it! I mean I didn't know it, but I knew it."
Also, Joe vs the Volcano is one of the best lit films I've ever watched. Seriously.
Tolkien's LOTR is an exploration of varieties of longevity. I will not summarise, but only point you to the contemplation of what he thought would be the result of extended vs perpetual vs eternal (in another mode) life. I recommend this be a discussion question with people you think wise.
While I have no wish to depart anytime soon, I have the sense that a person would get bored much past 100. Whatever you were going to be, you have been. Whatever you were going to do is done. A friend's grandmother lived to 105. At about 103, still of sharp mind, she quipped to my friend "I asked God, 'What is this? Some sort of sick joke?' "
"While I have no wish to depart anytime soon, I have the sense that a person would get bored much past 100."
Not if you're a scientist. What I regret about having to shuffle off is I'm not going to find out what dark matter is (does it even exist?), dark energy ditto, is gravity quantized?, what is quantum entanglement?, what was the big bang?, what is time?, ad infinitum…
Many people say that they wouldn’t want to live much past X. But that “much past” always seems to expand as X approaches.
One of the few reasons I would like to live longer (if my health were to not get worse) is to learn. I never had what is at my fingertips today to gather information.
टिप्पणी पोस्ट करा
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