Immortality (or eternal While in the popular mind, eternity often simply means existence for a limitless amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside of time. There are a number of arguments for eternity, by which proponents of the concept, principally Aristotle, purported to prove that matter, motion, and time must have existed life) is the concept of living Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have self-sustaining biological processes from those that do not–either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as "inanimate." in a physical With regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death. The study of the workings of the body is physiology or spiritual form The soul, in some religions, spiritual traditions, and philosophies, is the immaterial or eternal part of a living being, commonly held to be separable in existence from the body—the metaphysical part as distinct from the physical part. The soul is generally conceived as existing within humans and sometimes within all living things, inanimate for an infinite Infinity is a concept in mathematics and philosophy that refers to a quantity without bound or end. People have developed various ideas throughout history about the nature of infinity. In mathematics, infinity is defined in the context of set theory. The word comes from the Latin infinitas or "unboundedness." or inconceivably vast length of time.[2]
As immortality is the negation of mortality—not dying or not being subject to death—it has been a subject of fascination to humanity since at least the beginning of history. The Epic of Gilgamesh The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Ancient Iraq and is among the earliest known works of literary writing. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the mythological hero-king Gilgamesh, which were gathered into a longer Akkadian poem much later; the most complete version existing today is, one of the first literary works, dating back at least to the 22nd century BC, is primarily a quest of a hero seeking to become immortal.[3] What form an unending human life would take (as well as whether it is subject to incapacitation), or whether the soul The soul, in some religions, spiritual traditions, and philosophies, is the immaterial or eternal part of a living being, commonly held to be separable in existence from the body—the metaphysical part as distinct from the physical part. The soul is generally conceived as existing within humans and sometimes within all living things, inanimate exists and possesses immortality, has been a major point of focus of religion A religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs, as well as the subject of speculation, fantasy, and debate.
It is not known whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering. As of 2009, natural selection Natural selection is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations. It is a key mechanism of evolution has developed biological immortality Biological immortality is the absence of a sustained increase in rate of mortality as a function of chronological age. A cell or organism that does not experience, or at some future point will cease, aging, is biologically immortal. However this definition of immortality was challenged in the new "Handbook of the Biology of Aging", in at least one species, the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula Turritopsis nutricula is a hydrozoan whose medusa, or jellyfish, form can revert to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature. It is the only known case of a metazoan capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary stage. It does this through the cell development,[4] one consequence of which is a worldwide population explosion Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. In common parlance, the term usually refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth of the organism.[5]
Certain scientists, futurists, and philosophers, such as Ray Kurzweil Raymond Kurzweil [dubious – discuss][where's the stress?] (born February 12, 1948) is an inventor and futurist. He has been a pioneer in the fields of optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He is the author of several books on health, artificial, advocate that human immortality is achievable in the first few decades of the 21st century, while other advocates believe that life extension Life extension, also known as anti-aging medicine, experimental gerontology, and biomedical gerontology, refers to attempts to slow down or reverse the processes of aging to extend both the maximum and average lifespan. Some researchers in this area, and "life extensionists" or "longevists" , believe that future breakthroughs is a more achievable goal in the short term, with immortality awaiting further research breakthroughs further into an indefinite future. Aubrey de Grey Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey is an English author and theoretician in the field of gerontology, and the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Foundation. He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Rejuvenation Research, author of The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging (1999) and co-author of Ending Aging (2007), a researcher who has developed a series of biomedical Biomedical research , in general simply known as medical research, is the basic research, applied research, or translational research conducted to aid and support the body of knowledge in the field of medicine. Medical research can be divided into two general categories: the evaluation of new treatments for both safety and efficacy in what are rejuvenation Rejuvenation is distinct from life extension. Life extension strategies often study the causes of aging and try to oppose those causes in order to slow aging. Rejuvenation is the reversal of aging and thus requires a different strategy, namely repair of the damage that is associated with aging or replacement of damaged tissue with new tissue strategies to reverse human aging (called SENS Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence is the name Aubrey de Grey gives to his proposal to research regenerative medical procedures to periodically repair all the age-related damage in the human body, thereby maintaining a youth-like state indefinitely. The term first appeared in print in de Grey's 1999 book The Mitochondrial Free Radical), believes that his proposed plan for ending aging may be implementable in two or three decades.[6] The absence of aging would provide humans with biological immortality, but not invulnerability to death by physical trauma Physical trauma refers to a physical injury, generally of a considerably severe degree. A trauma patient is someone who has suffered serious and life-threatening physical injury with the potential for secondary complications such as shock, respiratory failure and death:
Eternal life can also be defined as a timeless existence, which is also not known for certain to be achievable, or even definable, despite millennia of arguments for eternity Arguments for eternity composed a particularly important area of philosophical debate among Greek, Jewish, Islamic, and Christian philosophers during the ancient and medieval periods. The foremost philosopher arguing for eternity was Aristotle. Those ascribing to Creationism ex nihilo challenged these arguments for eternity, and held instead that. Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language, in a notably non-theological interpretation of eternal life, writes in the Tractatus Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the only book-length philosophical work published by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein during his lifetime. It was an ambitious project, to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science. It is recognized as one of the most important philosophical works of the that, "If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present."[7]
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