biotech, general, medical technology, social criticism
Nanotech, health and longevity — who makes the predictions?
Last week, Computerworld carried an interview with futurist Ray Kurzweil, who predicts that in 30 or 40 years from now nanomachines will travel through our bodies, repairing damaged cells and organs, effectively wiping out diseases:
The full realization of nanobots will basically eliminate biological disease and aging. I think we’ll see widespread use in 20 years of [nanotech] devices that perform certain functions for us. In 30 or 40 years, we will overcome disease and aging. The nanobots will scout out organs and cells that need repairs and simply fix them. It will lead to profound extensions of our health and longevity
What’s interesting is not whether the prognosis is right or wrong, naïve or realistic. Like all med-tech forecasts it probably better reflects our own time than it predicts the future.
What’s interesting is that it is said by Kurzweil. Or more generally speaking: Much forecasting about health and longevity comes from people in the computer and IT world, whereas medical doctors rarely indulge in such frivolous mental activities (see also the earlier ‘What makes the human enhancement movement tick?’ post). Why are IT people more wedded to the idea of enhancement and longevity than medical and health scientists are?
06 Oct 2009 Thomas
Hm, I think you have a point there, Thomas. Where are the medical and health scientists in the debate? The potentials of nanotechnology is often linked to the medical sciences, but it is not easy to find MD’s in the debate. Is it because MD’s just don’t like to speculate on things that are still only potential?
The quote from Kurzweil is more in line with other futurists like philosopher Natascha Vita-More (see for instance the article “Nano’s Neo Normal” at http://www.nanotech-now.com/columns/?article=355) – or maybe also with Richard P. Feynman (1918-88), the american physicist who introduced the concept of nanotechnology. At the transhumanist website http://www.humanityplus.org/ there is currently a quote from Feynman, saying:
“It is one of the most remarkable things that in all of the biological sciences there is no clue as to the necessity of death. If you say we want to make perpetual motion, we have discovered enough laws as we studied physics to see that it is either absolutely impossible or else that the laws are wrong. But there is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death. This suggest to me that it is not at all inevitable and that it is only a matter of time before the biologists discover what it is that is causing us the trouble and that this terrible universal disease or temporariness of the human’s body will be cured.”
Some IT-futurists, philosophers and physicists obviously have a lot in common, but again, where are the medical and health scientists, or biologists, saying the same?
Well, I think Feynman was a better physicist than a biologist. Of course biologists have thought about immortality. First, there are some sound hypotheses based on evolutionary theory (like there is no adaptive advantage to continue a complex of cell-lines, i.e., an organism, after reproduction). Second, there is indeed immortality in the biological world: a cell-line of HeLa cancer cells doesn’t die, it just goes on and on and on; individual cells die, yes, but not the cell-line (‘organism’); likewise, bacteria don’t die in the same sense as multicellular organisms do; a bacterium divides into two, which in turn divide ad infinitum; single bacteria can be destroyed for many reasons, but the colony (‘organism’) goes on for ever.
Immortality does not mean invinceability. Death will still come to everyone. It will just take a bit longer. If we are not killed in a plane crash or automobile accident, then we still could be stuck by lightening or fall off a cliff. We could still be shot, decapitated, blown up in a terrorist attack or drown by falling through the ice. Then there’s the earthquakes, tornadoes and other natural disasters. If we’re still find ourselves alive after a few million years or so the Earth will spit up one of its mass extinction event from which we will all surely parish.
And then there’s grief. How could we ever want to carry on following the death of a loved one that’s been in your life for thousands of years. Their death was not inevitable, but it happened anyway. That fact would haunt you forever, and I mean ‘forever’. Who would want that? Have your dream, but don’t kid yourself. We might some day become immortal, but we will never be invinceable, and it will be inevitable that we die just as before. We’ll only prolong the suffering.
Come now, Dave. You aren’t using your imagination.
Do you really think that two hundred years from now our bodies won’t be virtually indestructible? A cyborg won’t have to worry about falling through ice and drowning or falling off of a cliff or being killed in an earthquake. Our brains will be encased in the toughest, most resilient materials known to nanoscience.
And you won’t be haunted by the loss of loved ones because #1/ they won’t die and #2/ you will have full control over your emotions both directly and through virtual reality.
You also think that millions of years from now we won’t be in a position to control what happens to this planet? Really?