Stopping Aging

Some thoughts on aging. Aging seems to me 'unnecessary'.

Imagine all the benefits if we could cure aging, and have lifespans of over 1000 years.

If we had 1000-year+ lifespans, journeys to other stars that may take e.g. 'hundreds' of years would suddenly seem reachable 'within a human lifespan'.

I see curing aging as ultimately "just" a (big, complex) technological problem to solve. A big complex puzzle with lots of pieces, but a solvable puzzle.

A very big, complex and difficult problem to solve (to be sure) - but I feel it must be solvable. Our bodies are ultimately just machines. Really complex machines.

And solvable possibly potentially within most of our lifespans, if we try.

Attitudes like "Oh, we are just meant to age" seem like confounders to progress toward solving these problems - we could solve it faster if more people dedicated attention to it instead of simply assuming it's unsolvable, or adopting irrational quasi-religious views like "We are meant to age".

To be sure, and I'm not denying, there are many difficult challenges to solve. E.g. tricky issues like build-up of mutations over time in the body's cells. But we will solve them. Hey, 'nobody said would be easy' - but it will an interesting and fun challenge to solve.

I still feel it's solvable, if we work hard and put our minds to it, and put attention and resources toward solving the problem.

The approach should include things I feel we should do in general anyway, e.g. exploring and understanding more and more of the human body on a molecular level (and in the process building ever-increasingly detailed and larger databases like the Protein Databank, molecular simulation models, molecular simulations of human cells etc.) - and also increasingly start looking at how we can utilize and integrate AI models like ChatGPT toward helping solve these problems. We should build increasingly sophisticated AI models, then link them directly to databases like Protein Databank, and link them more directly to molecular simulation supercomputers, and allow researchers to use AI as advanced 'medical research assistants' and harness them to help both cure regular diseases and cure aging at the same time. Also techniques like in silico drug design and pre-screening.

Curing aging is a big, complex 'puzzle' to solve, but ultimately I feel it must be solvable - we need to just get to work on the "how", do more research, make lists of the challenges that need to be solved, and come up with ideas on solving each.

We should also work on how to solve regulatory obstacles that may arise in a way that allows humans to move forward on solving problems like this.

These technologies shouldn't be forced on anyone - ultimately, if some individuals still believe humans are "meant to age" then they should be allowed to choose to age and die "naturally" - but as we solve the problems technologically, individual humans could and should be able to decide for themselves if and whether to adopt it in their lives.