That people are starting to view death as a medical failure is one of the best things that could happen. I personally don't expect to die of old age.
Something said, I suspect, by every young person since the time of Hammurabi. I suppose that expecting to live forever in this world is no more irrational than expecting eternal life in another world.
Feel free to die then
Do you honestly think that was my point? That I'm looking forward to dying?
The current state of affairs is certainly abysmal. Some live over a century, while others die in their childhood. We age before we die. I'd rather die at 75 with a healthy body rather than dying at 75 with 10 years of senescence behind me.
So, a better system (should it be possible), would be to get rid of senescence. Even better, we could get egalitarian about death: no involuntary death before age X, at which point you die instantly. Sounds horrible? But it would be much better than the current system, where we let chance decide on the number of years we can live. Plus, you can actually make preparations for your departure.
So, what value would you chose for X? And of course, it would apply to you as well.
I agree that a world without aging would be better. I also think it would be a better world if the moon were made of cheese and I could get there by building a tall enough ladder. But if I spend all my life building ladders in service of that desire I'm a fool.
We don't live in a world where people live forever or can avoid old age except by dying young. All composite things decay. There are so far no exceptions, and no solid theory that suggests otherwise.
I am entirely in favor of medical research that seeks to improve and extend human life. But by not coming to grips with our impending deaths, we aren't living as well as we could. Take the guy upthread who thinks he will live forever. People like that check into hospitals every day unprepared for the reality they face. As the article makes clear, that wastes a lot of money and causes a lot of suffering.
Shakespeare's sonnets are artfully composed, and I'd say we've done a decent job of keeping them around and finding uses for them.
I agree that few people imagining they can have eternal life think that they will suffer. But that's exactly the problem. They haven't thought it through. They don't yet understand what life is. Which is why they are so woefully unprepared to handle the parts that don't match their fictions.
The bit about Shakespeare's sonnets I take to be a counterargument to "all composite things decay". That we have managed to keep 100k of text around for less than half a millennium seems like poor evidence that immortality will soon be ours. People die. Species die. Planets and suns die.
It's a long way to go, or at least a very long shot, but a long life is possible in principle. Things decay, but they can be fixed or replaced (even the brain: current physics says that copy-paste transportation actually works —in principle). We just don't know how to do that yet. Now, about my personal immortality, I see little hope short of Friendly AI or cryonics, and even those are a long shot.
I also agree with you that the various theoretically possible techno-miracles likely won't mean much for us than a modestly longer old age. So I think everybody should really come to grips with what dying means. E.g., by filling out a living will and discussing end-of-life issues with family. If it turns out that preparation is wasted, I don't think anybody will complain too much.
The first part of this sentence seems strange.
If you assume your healthy 75yr young body doesn't die of external forces (drowning, fall off cliff, etc.), which you don't seem to be implying, isn't this a contradiction?
In this context, the "senescence" is a precondition for death, right?
Being able to get rid of senescence might be nice, but making everyone die at age X does not make sense.
> Something said, I suspect, by every young person since the time of Hammurabi. I suppose that expecting to live forever in this world is no more irrational than expecting eternal life in another world.
One could argue that this is the crux of the world's oldest story, "The Epic of Gilgamesh".
You cannot escape true death. Nothing you could say, do or know will ever change the fact that your life will end. You need to come to terms with that before the inevitable happens. Once you are aware that you will die it becomes easier to really live.