How do you interpret the following situation: we have a life extension technologist whose all endeavors is about pushing this issue to its very limits and making things possible but on the other hand this very life extensionist himself is not driven by actually living as long as he can.
It seems that SENS theorist Aubrey de Grey, who is chronologically 45, (BioBarCamp photo by Ricardo) is taking roughly the above position in a recent interview. Aubrey is a good and witty interviewee and of course the interpretation of what he is saying is strongly context dependent so here is the full question and answer:
Question: One hundred years of life can wear you down physically, but it can also wear you down emotionally… perhaps even existentially. For you, is a desire to live long accompanied by a desire to live long in a much-improved human civilization, or is this one satisfactory?
Aubrey de Grey: I’m actually not mainly driven by a desire to live a long time. I accept that when I’m even a hundred years old, let alone older, I may have less enthusiasm for life than I have today. Therefore, what drives me is to put myself (with luck) and others (lots and lots of others) in a position to make that choice, rather than having the choice progressively ripped away from me or them by declining health. Whether the choice to live longer is actually made is not the point for me.
Let’s see 2 possible and extreme interpretations of this answer (neither of them is my own interpretation) and I hope my readers can find fine-tuned arguments in between while thinking a bit about this still rather philosophical topic:
1., Saying that we want the process (a robust healthy lifespan technology) but not necessarily the product (a robust healthy lifespan) of our own business is a disaster from a marketing point of view and has a withdrawal feeling that comes in handy for any kind of anti-life extension position. It’s Steve Jobs using a Windows PC instead of a Mac and an Android G1 instead of an iPhone. Or simply it is Aubrey saying no to a would-be personal MitoSENS somatic gene therapy putting backup copies of Aubrey’s own vulnerable mitochondrial genes into the nuclei later on in order to live a longer life.
2., It’s the only realistic position current day middle aged life extensionists can take: working to empower future generations to make that choice while it is utterly unrealistic that any substantial technological benefit will return to the current generation. From this angle the life extensionist activity can be interpreted as a noble altruist endeavor raising intergenerational justice by reducing the asymmetry in the relations of past and future generations.
Update: Aubrey was kind enough to answer my interpretative question in a detailed comment included here:
Neither of these interpretations is correct, not even close! My answer in that interview (which I have given in many other places too) is a true reflection of what I feel. Concerning (2), no, I think I do have a respectable chance of benefiting from rejuvenation technologies, especially since I’m signed up to be cryopreserved. Concerning (1), the product is not only the lifespan but the avoidance of frailty and disease, and that’s the main thing that drives me (which is convenient, because it is indeed easier to market).
But even if we presume complete success against frailty and disease, and we just look at lifespan per se, then I don’t see any problem with my position – either a logical problem or a marketing problem. I think there are valid reasons for wanting to live literally forever, particularly the philosophical view that one’s life is meaningless if one ever dies – but I don’t hold that view, or at least I don’t base my life around any concept of the meaning of life. Wanting to live as long as one can is something that can be motivated by, for example, having things one wants to do that may take an extremely long time, such as visiting extrasolar planets – but I don’t have any such desire. One might want to avoid dying for social reasons, such as preventing the suffering of one’s loved ones who will be bereaved, but that’s not much of a reason in my view. Then there is the innate enjoyability of life, the fact that certain activities provide immediate pleasure – but death removes the
motivation to plan for future gratification, so “living for the moment” doesn’t seem to motivate living longer than the specific moments that one is already anticipating. So, what does that leave? – only a desire to live long enough to fulfil one’s current goals, plus an expectation that one will continue to acquire new goals. But an expectation of future desires is not the same as a present desire, because the expectation may not be borne out: it’s only an argument for forward planning. And that’s all I was saying.
Deep, healthy lifespan extension 
Neither of these interpretations is correct, not even close! My answer in that interview (which I have given in many other places too) is a true reflection of what I feel. Concerning (2), no, I think I do have a respectable chance of benefiting from rejuvenation technologies, especially since I’m signed up to be cryopreserved. Concerning (1), the product is not only the lifespan but the avoidance of frailty and disease, and that’s the main thing that drives me (which is convenient, because it is indeed easier to market).
But even if we presume complete success against frailty and disease, and we just look at lifespan per se, then I don’t see any problem with my position – either a logical problem or a marketing problem. I think there are valid reasons for wanting to live literally forever, particularly the philosophical view that one’s life is meaningless if one ever dies – but I don’t hold that view, or at least I don’t base my life around any concept of the meaning of life. Wanting to live as long as one can is something that can be motivated by, for example, having things one wants to do that may take an extremely long time, such as visiting extrasolar planets – but I don’t have any such desire. One might want to avoid dying for social reasons, such as preventing the suffering of one’s loved ones who will be bereaved, but that’s not much of a reason in my view. Then there is the innate enjoyability of life, the fact that certain activities provide immediate pleasure – but death removes the motivation to plan for future gratification, so “living for the moment” doesn’t seem to motivate living longer than the specific moments that one is already anticipating. So, what does that leave? – only a desire to live long enough to fulfil one’s current goals, plus an expectation that one will continue to acquire new goals. But an expectation of future desires is not the same as a present desire, because the expectation may not be borne out: it’s only an argument for forward planning. And that’s all I was saying.
Aubrey, thanks for the clarification I think now it is a lot easier to apprehend your short interview answer specially what concerns the motivation for living a long time.
But I think it is hard to accept your argument concerning point 2:
“Concerning (2), no, I think I do have a respectable chance of benefiting from rejuvenation technologies, especially since I’m signed up to be cryopreserved.”
The fact that you’re signed up to be cryopreserved can be interpreted as you think that you only have a respectable chance of benefiting from rejuvenation technologies in the distant future but not within our current and continuous lifetime. Cryopreservation as a tool for life extension is really a tool for switching generations if it works at all. A successfully cryopreserved and resuspended/reanimated man is leaving his chronological generation behind and switching to a later generation in order to live longer than expected.
Maybe it’s better if I reformulate point 2 in order to put the crypreservation argument aside in the following way:
2., It’s the only realistic position current day middle aged life extensionists can take: working to empower future generations to make that choice while it is utterly unrealistic that any substantial technological benefit will return to the current generation within its current and continuous lifetime.
Heh – I see your point – but the operative word in my answer is “especially” – I think I would have a respectable chance even without cryopreservation.
I, for one, would especially like to enjoy a long life void of frailty and disease without being cryopreserved 🙂
All this talk about future technologies that may provide us means for longer life is interesting but not as fruitful as what can we do today to improve our health and avoid diseases.
What can you tell us today, to live an healthier life, beside the obvious like exercise, avoid overweight and cigarettes etc…
Their seem to be a lot of contradictory opinions on that matter. How could this be clarified? I think that would be a good start in the right direction.
Lets start with what we know, educate the population and build from there. I belive that a community of health aware people will more likely be participant and supportive of research in improving life expectancy.
Thank for all sharing
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Thanks it’s a good article.
I, for one, would especially like to enjoy a long life void of frailty and disease without being cryopreserved
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Soft-updates is an alternative to this scheme where the filesystem keeps a list of dependencies that must be satisfied before a change to the filesystem can be visible on disk. For example, you wouldn’t want to write a directory entry pointing at an inode until the inode was initialized on disk and marked allocated. Softdep handles this by rolling back changes to metadata that don’t yet have their dependencies satisfied when we try to write a block. In this way we can commit any completed ‘transactions’ while keeping the disk state consistent. Softdep also allows these dependencies to discover operations which cancel each other out and thus nothing makes it to disk. For example, let’s say you create a temporary file and then remove it after writing some blocks, which compilers often do, if it all happens within the interval of the syncer nothing will make it to disk.
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From an individual point of view, of course we all want to live a long and healthy life – as long as possible. From an economic and social point of view however, the effects of a growing population of people living to 100+ will be devastating. The effects of a huge and growing aging population are already draining resources of countries like Japan. And over population is a serious threat as we face dwindling resources.
I agree with Aubrey’s statement that it is reasonable to expect to have less enthusiasm for life as one gets older – as one loses abilities, loved ones, and hope for a better future.
I don’t think that a long life is desirablin itself, – it is a long and high quality life that is what life extensionists are striving for. Ellyn Deuink
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rolling back changes to metadata that don’t yet have their dependencies satisfied when we try to write a block. In this way we can commit any completed ‘transactions’ while keeping the disk state consistent. Softdep also allows these
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The fact that you’re signed up to be cryopreserved can be interpreted as you think that you only have a respectable chance of benefiting from rejuvenation technologies in the distant future but not within our current and continuous lifetime.