Feeling better than yesterday (in all honesty, nothing too bad), but still not 100%. A mild case of osłabienie (temperature oscillating between 37.0 C and 35.9 C), vague muscle fatigue and tiredness. Blood pressure normal (111/80). Worst I've felt in over two years, which makes me grateful for my general health. Time to take it easy. For the first time in many months, no walk, no exercises; same today. Rest is in order. Such a minor thing yet can't pin down the cause (viral? Bacterial? Something else? Old age creeping up?)
A time, then, to think about mortality. We've all experienced death at second-hand, loss of loved ones, famous people - but we've never experienced it personally!
But... what if death is something that will never happen to you? Consider this thought experiment: in ten or 15 years' time, science comes up with a cheap, accessible genetic treatment that stops ageing. Something to do with telomerase, for example.
[Impossible? Consider the lobster. Now, lobsters don't slow down, weaken or lose fertility with age. Their longevity may be due to telomerase, an enzyme that repairs sections of DNA sequences at the ends of chromosome - telomeres. Telomerase is expressed by most vertebrates during embryonic stages, but is absent from adult stages of life. Unlike most vertebrates, lobsters express telomerase as adults through most tissue. Ultimately, lobsters' lives are limited by their growth and their exoskeletons, which need to be moulted; with age and size it requires more energy. And consider the Greenland shark, Somniosus microcephalus. Individual sharks have been proven to live up to 500 years, the longest known lifespan of any vertebrate species. Science is busy unravelling the mysteries of longevity and ageing; my guess is that the life sciences and healthcare will experience a boom rivalling that of IT over the past four decades and the drive to halt ageing will be at the forefront of that boom.]
So - let's say that a DNA-based anti-ageing drug is developed and brought to market. You take it, and your body ceases to age, and barring physical accidents, you can carry on living for ever. You'd be part of the very first generation that has conquered death. You have become immortal. Not so hot if you're 80-plus, but for children born after that time, they'd reach adulthood and stop ageing with their physical bodies in optimal shape, but with a brain that can continue to learn for centuries, acquiring ever-greater knowledge and wisdom. There would be many new social and economic issues for humanity to deal with in such a scenario, but huge new opportunities too.
Interstellar exploration - a trip to the nearest star system, even travelling at a tenth of the speed of sound, would take 40 years - what's that when you're lifespan is 900 years or more? Incidentally, 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar object detected passing through our solar system in 2017 has been conjectured by Prof Avi Loeb, chair of Harvard University's Department of Astronomy, to be a product of alien technology, on the basis of its size and shape (a cigar-shaped object, up to 1,000m long, 110m average diameter), the fact that it was ten times shinier than any asteroid or comet ever seen before, and its path and acceleration, which the sun's gravity and outgassing alone could not explain. Not a bad place to be spending a small part of your life as you reach out to other worlds...
All this dreaming! I think humanity will get there, but it will take a lot longer. We will have to have evolved away from the brute anger and ignorance and ego that mires our species at present; tens of thousands of years to mature into a higher form of humanity, vastly wiser and far more knowledgeable than we are at present; at that point in our future, we will be ready for physical immortality - and interstellar space travel.
All Things Must Pass, written by George Harrison, came to mind as I looked over the 'this time x years ago' section below. Though human existence is indeed transient, the song radiates hope against fatalism. A new day always dawns, even though all things must pass.
This time last year:
Teetering on the Edge of Chaos
This time three years ago:
Jeziorki viaduct takes shape
This time eight years ago:
Goodness gracious!
This time nine years ago:
Muddy feet
This time 11 years ago:
Secrets of success
This time 12 years ago:
S2 works move ahead
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