[stalker]

I'm defining "immortality" NOT by the acquisition of The Final Cure that maintains you in perfect health indefinitely, BUT by a term called actuarial escape velocity.

Reaching actuarial escape velocity is taken to be the point at which yearly increases in life expectancy are GREATER than one year, i.e. in terms of death risks you are for all intents and purposes becoming "younger" with every passing year. Or to put it in other words, your chances of dying actually start decreasing from year to year, despite you getting "older" in calendar years. Furthermore, this doesn't just carry on for one year, two years, or five years; it is sustained into the indefinite future.

Do you, and if so when, do you expect the world (or at least the developed countries) to reach the point of actuarial escape velocity?

[Modernjan]

Never

If we could keep the body healthy century after century (which is really the same as saying your life expectany keeps increasing) there is still the question of whether the brain can store all those memories (I don't think it can), so maybe everyone would die of some neural affliction or get a strange form of dementia where you can't remember the first 50 years of your life. I think people might live to 150, 200 or even 300 years in the future (some of these people may have been born already), but not much longer than that. True immortality is of course impossible because the universe won't be habitable forever.

[Godstud]

2050(although that could be a bit soon, too) - It's going to take a while, but there is every indication that immortality is a possibility. We have the capacity to store an almost unlimited amount of information. Even then, we tend to forget unimportant things after time. That's the brain's way of "defragging the hard-drive". Immortality, for all intensive purposes, would therefore be possible. You'd only die through calamity, or choice.

Why won't the universe be habitable forever(or at least our nearest conception of forever)? There's no proof that there was nothing before the "Big Bang". It could just be a cyclic thing. Isn't a billion years pretty much everyone's idea of immortality? You wouldn't actually need to live that long to be "immortal". Immortality is a state of being.

Immortal
living forever; never dying or decaying…

[Modernjan]

We have the capacity to store an almost unlimited amount of information. Even then, we tend to forget unimportant things after time. That's the brain's way of "defragging the hard-drive". Immortality, for all intensive purposes, would therefore be possible. You'd only die through calamity, or choice.

The brain's storage capacity is hardly unlimited: there is a limit to how much information can be stored on a given surface and that limit will be crossed at some point if you keep extending your life.

Why won't the universe be habitable forever(or at least our nearest conception of forever)? There's no proof that there was nothing before the "Big Bang". It could just be a cyclic thing. Isn't a billion years pretty much everyone's idea of immortality? You wouldn't actually need to live that long to be "immortal". Immortality is a state of being.[/quote]

First all energy sources will be depleted, then the universe will achieve maximum entropy, making the extraction of energy (and therefore the existence of life) impossible. If you are content with living a billion years and calling that immortality than I guess immortality is possible (still unlikely because you would probably get an accident or be murdered along the way).

[The Immortal Goon]

It's possible now, I am ever-living proof.

Beyond that, it's quite impossible to say. It also depends on how you mean immortality being achieved. A single person or everyone?

If you mean the possibilities, perhaps it will be very expensive and only a few people will preside as ever-living gods above the peons of the Earth.

Perhaps it will be a gray-goo like scenario where everything is included into a single ever-living collective.

Regardless, this kind of poll is difficult for the very reason that almost everyone that has dared to predict the future has been wrong.

Raymond Kurzweil most famously predicts immortality around 2045 or so. Thus far, most people think he's being optimistic - though they often admit that the math he put into it seems flawless.

[SecretSquirrel]

True immortality is of course impossible because the universe won't be habitable forever.

[grassroots1]

Funny picture, but reading comprehension S_S.

I'm defining "immortality" NOT by the acquisition of The Final Cure that maintains you in perfect health indefinitely, BUT by a term called actuarial escape velocity.

Reaching actuarial escape velocity is taken to be the point at which yearly increases in life expectancy are GREATER than one year, i.e. in terms of death risks you are for all intents and purposes becoming "younger" with every passing year. Or to put it in other words, your chances of dying actually start decreasing from year to year, despite you getting "older" in calendar years. Furthermore, this doesn't just carry on for one year, two years, or five years; it is sustained into the indefinite future.

[SecretSquirrel]

Are you familiar with a certain T.R. Malthus?

[Zionist Nationalist]

I very much doubt that it will be achieved but I think at some point we will be able to extend Human lives so people instead of dying at age of lets say 80 will die at age of 150-160 there alredy was done an experiment with flies and rats that extended their live twice longer so I think it may be possible with humans too.

[Daktoria]

Anyone gunna go see that movie, "In Time"?

[SecretSquirrel]

the trailer looked promising

[U184]

The genes responsible for aging were identified in 2003 and in 2010 the gene DAF-16 was singled out as the control hub for age rate. I am positive that there are dozens if not hundreds of labs across the globe busily decoding their structure.

Given the time frame from identification to understanding, the abilities of super computers and unlimited resources it is a good bet that huge leaps in the maximum healthy life spans could double or triple in a time frame much sooner than one might think. Of course drug supplies and costs will dictate who has these longer lifespans.

My bet, is by 2020 major advances will come into the public realm and by 2050 we could very well see the average lifespan be closer to 200 rather than 80. As for "Immortality" it is not beyond the current level of technology and is not beyond the realm of possibility that some rich fuck has already undergone such gene therapy.

[Takkon]

Nope. Not possible. If you don't get killed by a disease, there is still the possibility, over time rapidly approaching 1, that you will be killed in a homicide, accident, or by the very minute risk that comes with interacting with almost any object, appliance, mode of transportation, method of infection... And not all these things give you time to counteract them with medicine, a lot of death is instantaneous.

Thus through the method described by the OP, immortality would never be achieved. However, there is the very real possibility that someone's memories and personality, their "person", can be saved somehow and uploaded to something else. It's debatable whether or not that is actually a form of immortality, but I think it's really the only realistic way that immortality may be achieved.

[U184]

^Assuming that the process of aging can be stooped at a certain age...some may actually reach something akin to immortality. Many people are healthy all their lives and medicine has come a long way and will just get better. There are also many who never have accidents, etc.

The op's concept of (Actuarial escape velocity) or more simply, a indefinite lifespan, is not impossible but people will still die, just not from aging.

I can count on 1 hand the number of times I have been sick in my life, though I tend to put myself in dangerous positions. I would think the idea of a much longer lifespan will cause many other problems... though that would be a thread in and of itself.

[Cancerkiller543]

Relax! - Achieving Human Biological Immortality Now is not a problem at all - I can make everybody Immortal in less than a month - We humans can stop aging and ailing (by wiping out all diseases) and live forever (like our Creators from the planet of Nibiru - The Anunnaki) - I got the key to our Biological Immortality - By staying absolutely healthy all the time - By doing my discovery (just an exercise for a minute a day) - My WVCD - The Weapon of Virus and Cancer Destruction, that cures and prevents any diseases, known on Earth for millions of years, even radiation disease (concerning space flights) - I will describe my WVCD to everyone, who sends me a check for one million bucks - Everybody will stay absolutely healthy all the time, living their Endless Lives, for Infinite Health = Immortality.