"The meaningless absurdity of life is the only incontestable knowledge accessible to man."
Leo Tolstoy
Key words: ageing, anti-aging, biomedical, biogerontology, gerontology, immortalist, life-extension, life span, lifespan, longevity, medicine, physical immortality, rejuvenation
I'm afraid to die. No, that's an understatement. I'm terrified about it. The impossibility to conceive the nothingness that happens after death is so dreadful. Death is infinite suffering, an everlasting prison. As far as I can tell, my death is the end of the world. I'm atheist, which means I don't have religion to give me hope--and doesn't hope derive from a fear to face reality? I'm my own God, showing, perhaps, a certain egocentricity but also leaving no hope of salvation except at my own bare hands.
Back in elementary school, I realized I had a genetic, lethal disease called aging and because of it my existence was ephemeral and meaningless. At the time, I felt like I was being told I had AIDS or some lethal form of cancer. Death was inevitable. So, still a child, I found an objective, a purpose for my life: to cure human aging.
I want to conquer aging because aging is and will be the major cause of suffering and death among the ones I love. I want to end aging to safeguard the future because I want to choose my future instead of being ruled by this hostile force. I want to cure aging because otherwise I will die. I don't know if I'll succeed, but I know I will not quit since to quit is to die.
"Death is an imposition on the human race, and no longer acceptable."
Alan Harrington
Assuming you live that long, your future is forgetting your children names, becoming sexually inactive, going five times a night to the bathroom, and having as main activity getting bored in hospital waiting rooms--assuming you're not in pain. My future is a future of unknown paths; my future might be to die tomorrow in a car accident or it might involve a holiday in Mars by the year 3000. I want to be a part of the future and not just a road to it.
I aim for immortality, literally, not metaphorically, speaking. Yes, really. I don't claim it will be easy or even possible. All I claim is that I will try. The first, most prominent obstacle to achieve immortality is aging, and so I chose an academic career as a gerontologist. I hope my work and ideas can be useful for the understanding and control of human aging, a daunting but not impossible task.
"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."
Henry Ford
Back in 1997, I started senescence.info as my way of showing my commitment and dedication to life, to eternal life. With time, ironically the driving force of the enemy I want to conquer, senescence.info has become a portal for aging research with tutorials mixed with deeper sociological and scientific essays. So please read on and don't be more afraid of life than of death.
I hope senescence.info can also make people aware of the problem that is aging. Aging will likely be the major cause of suffering and death of those you love. It is the main reason why great artists, scientists, sportsmen, and thinkers die. In fact, aging is becoming a worldwide social and economic problem (UN Programme on Ageing). Even so, few resources are aimed at tinkering with the biological causes of aging and most people are not even aware of that research is done on the biology of aging. Rivers of money, both in the industry and academia, flow to fight specific age-related diseases, but not to fight the aging process. Less than 20% of the National Institute of Aging's budget goes to research the basic causes of aging, which pales in comparison with the resources available to other medical problems like neurodegenerative diseases or cancer (Adelman, 1998; Warner, 2001; Miller, 2005). Hopefully, senescence.info can contribute to make the public aware of the work done by gerontologists.
I've been asked before: Why prolong life? I can give a million reasons but I think my highest objective is to discover the secrets of this infinite universe. Perhaps it's a dream, but the future is made of dreams, and I believe in the beauty of my dreams.
"There are three requisites for growth without bound, and only three: the will to remake oneself; the genius to survive; and the strength to suffer."
David Zindell
May dreams become the future
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Copyright © 1997 - 2001, 2004, 2005 by João Pedro de Magalhães. All rights reserved.