In 20-30 years, the secret of immortality will be revealed, says the founder of the University of the Singularity in Silicon Valley Jose Luis Cordeiro. In an interview with RT, the scientist and futurist told what scientific discoveries brought humanity closer to eternal life. According to Cordeiro, thanks to a burst of technology, people will soon learn telepathy and be able to colonize other planets.
“You have repeatedly stated that … you will never die
- Sure. I'm not going to die. This is not part of my plans.
And how to achieve this?
- I hope to maintain a relatively good condition for another 20-30 years. And by that time, rejuvenation technologies will be created. Moreover, in 30 years I do not expect to age by 30 years, but, on the contrary, to become younger than now, because we will have rejuvenation technologies that will allow us to live forever.
Now many experiments are being carried out with cells, organs and whole organisms: for example, the lifespan of mice has been almost tripled. We now have mice that can live the equivalent of 300 years of human life while maintaining good health.
Laboratory mice globallookpress.com / CM Bahr / Arco Images GmbH
Mosquitoes are already capable of living up to an age similar to 400 human years, and worms will even last 600-1000 years of human life. We are constantly learning something new - and such results have been achieved in just 10 years. Imagine what will happen in another 10 years! When these technologies are improved, they can be applied to people. We will be able to live longer by keeping the body in good condition, and our ultimate goal is to be able to live forever.
Promotional video:
Is there a biological limit to the duration of human life?
There is no such limit. Moreover, there are cells that are essentially immortal. The best of these are stem cells. Their lifespan is not limited. True, for this they must be in the appropriate environment.
If an organism dies, where such cells are located, then they also die, although they do not age. In addition to stem cells, there are cancer cells, that is, those where a series of mutations have occurred that stop biological aging. Cancer cells are biologically immortal. Therefore, we will study cancer in more detail to understand how it managed to cope with the problem of aging. The technologies developed as a result of this research will ultimately be applicable to humans.
What will the authorities of different countries do when new methods of treating diseases are found, but will end up in the hands of private companies? In this case, these methods will be available only to wealthy people
- As a rule, technologies at the initial stage of development are very expensive, while their efficiency leaves much to be desired. Remember the first cell phones? They were huge, and they worked so-so. When technology is democratized, it becomes cheaper and at the same time more efficient. So the first "immortal" person may have to spend billions of dollars, and, worst of all, it is possible that he will still die, since the technology has not yet reached the required level.
Does the planet have enough resources for everyone? Probably, as technology develops, they will help maintain our resources at the proper level?
- Quite right, but one point must be taken into account: a noticeable increase in the population, even if it is possible, will not happen tomorrow or in 10 years. It will take centuries for this to become noticeable. So this problem will not arise soon, and the question is whether it will arise at all.
But by that time we will already be flying into space, we will begin to populate Mars. It also depends on technology. In the past, we had few of them; at a low level of their development, the world was considered overpopulated. 200 years ago, Thomas Robert Malthus said that there are already too many people (and then only 200 million people lived on Earth!), And England, with its then population of 6 million, was close to the apocalypse.
The fear of too many people has existed since the days of the Roman Empire. Then it was reborn two centuries ago in the British Empire - and this with 6 million inhabitants! They thought that England was over. Now there are over 60 million people, they live very well and will live even better. In any case, even if this problem is possible, it will not arise tomorrow, but in several centuries, and the technologies will be completely different by that time.
Tell me, what is the role of cryopreservation? After all, she was one of the first steps on the path to achieving immortality. And today around the world about 300 people are in a state of deep freeze. But they have not yet been revived
- We believe in the possibility of eternal life, we work to achieve it, and we are confident that it will become a reality in 20-30 years. But what happens to those who do not live up to this moment? They still have a second chance, which we call Plan B. Plan B is cryopreservation. We will be able to keep people in a state of deep freeze, and then bring them back to life, as we already do with embryos.
Stem cell laboratory, deep freezing using nitrogen globallookpress.com / Pravda Komsomolskaya / Russian Look
Today, thousands and thousands of people live on earth who were in a state of frost before birth. Any in vitro fertilization is based on the cryopreservation of embryos, eggs or sperm. This technology has existed for about 50 years, and today our knowledge is sufficient to preserve small cells, some tissues and organs. There have not yet been cases of the human body returning to life, but it was possible to remove worms from freezing.
You said that in the next 20 years there will be more changes than in the last 2 thousand. Are we ready for this? For example, you say that we will communicate using telepathy
- Right. It is true, we live in a time when miracles are possible. And not only because we will find what I call "the death of death", but also because other discoveries in the scientific field await us.
We will begin to communicate using telepathy, one brain will communicate directly with the other. Today our communication is imperfect, because oral speech is a very ineffective technology, I would say, primitive.
We will communicate more and better. In the world of the future, we will be able to convey more feelings, knowledge, empathy to the interlocutor. Another technology is on the way - artificial intelligence. He will develop to the human level, and then surpass him. Therefore, we will need to merge with artificial intelligence. This would be highly desirable.