Cryonics.Info
Definitive Information on Cryonics

About

Books and Bibliography

Cryonics Info.

Stem-Cell Research

Rejuvenation

Growth of Cryonics

Experimental Results

Survey Results

Members Join Now Login

Nature's Course

Aging does not have to be inevitable. Reversing or arresting the process of aging will give people more of what they want; more life. more and improved life is the purpose of medicine, there is no reason that medical knowledge should not be turned to this problem, we do not have to accept Nature's Course with regards to aging, no more than we accept Nature's Course with regards to infertility, disease, wounds, pain or even biological sex. As if nature has a teleology, a purpose or aim! Unless we entertain the intelligent design argument (and stand on the threshold of deism) we must assume a naturalistic stance towards natural processes like conception, gestation, growth and living, aging (whatever it is), decay, and death. Evolutionary theory does posit a sort of purpose - that of survival. But this aim arose naturally as the result of competitive pressures, of organismic expansiveness - if the organism did not try to survive by reflex or intention, then it would not last long enough to evolve very far. Evolution is a process of improvement in the ability to survive. Survival is the bottom line for every living thing, so if human beings have an ultimate evolved goal it is to continue to live. Human beings do exist very well on the whole. We live very long lives compared to other animals, and can manipulate our environment to the point that we can affect the course of evolution for other species (especially domesticated animals and plants since farming 9,000 B.C. and animal husbandry 7,000 B.C.) as well as that of our own species.

To live, age and die, animals must survive to the point of sexual maturity, reproduce and continue their genetic line. Humans survive longer than sexual maturity, we can live to ages that are beyond healthy reproductive years, giving us a greater chance of surviving long enough to reproduce. This redundancy of years, the average human life-span, is a survival mechanism that has had beneficial side-effects. Knowledgeable adults can survive long enough to teach younger people. Longevity promotes survival by giving us a better chance to reproduce and add individual thinking to a growing culture that accrues resources, improved technologies and sophisticated semiotics which in turn promotes the psychological survival of a mortally aware animal. Today we are on the threshold of an era of longevity and anti-death medicine that could render natural reproduction obsolete or a rarity, that challenges the belief-systems of our cultures, making an irrelevancy of the afterlife and a non-sequitur of death anxiety.

More:

Overpopulation

Back to:

Rejuvenation

Theories of Aging