When Emily and I were at the Singularity Summit, we were surprised by the amount of people who were intrigued, interested and even obsessed with utilizing technology created from the Singularity to live forever. In honor of yesterday’s post on time and Aubrey De Grey’s new book Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime we thought a post on immortality and aging was in order.

After the tenth question about uploading human minds into super-computers to achieve immortality a woman stood up and boldly asked the Singularity Summit Conference Attendees, “Is there anyone here who doesn’t want to live forever? Because I certainly don’t.” Her question was met with cheers and boos. I was cheering.

Reversing human aging sounds great. Who likes getting wrinkles, saggy arms and an achy back? We use technology to help cure innumerable illnesses; why not use it to reverse aging?

First, I want to acknowledge that we don’t currently have any reverse-aging procedures so this entire post could be simply a thought experiment. But I still think, it is useful to examine our beliefs and prejudices about aging.

So why do we think that aging is a bad thing that we want to get rid of? It brings physical discomforts, aggravation at not being able to do things we once were able to do, our mind isn’t as sharp and we are seemingly closer to death. Health, youth, vitality and vigor are important characteristics we value. Large numbers of people take huge doses of vitamins, get cosmetics and surgical work done or maintain low body weight in order to slow the aging process. Many people feel that if you work hard you can stay looking young and avoid the troubles of old age. Thomas the Tank Engine, a popular children’s TV character says “being really useful” is the most important and best quality anyone can have. Americans’ deeply ingrained Protestant work ethic isn’t compatible with aging. We’re acculturated to fear, dislike and fight against the aging process. If successful aging means maintaining our youth and living as long as possible, we all fail eventually.

However, lets take a different approach. Think about the stages of life, we go from children to teenagers. During this phase we lose our child-like aspects and move into a different arena, that of young adulthood. From there we move into middle age. This process is the process of life, during each of these stages we have a different physical form and we have different perspectives on life. Ask a well adjusted middle-aged person if they’d want to go back to being a teenager? Maybe some of them would, but probably most wouldn’t. These stages are like mini-deaths.

Researchers from Stanford developed a theory called “socioemotional selectivity,” which argues:

Under time constraints emotional aspects of life are illuminated. Goals shift from those aimed at novelty or information seeking to those related to emotional meaning… older people are not suffering from limited opportunities to pursue social relations with others. Rather, they are investing carefully and strategically.

The complexity of emotion deepens under conditions that limit time. And because age is inextricably correlated with time left in life, age is associated with changes in emotion…Events that at one time were simple and straightforward now evoke mixtures of emotions ­ happiness, sadness, joy, fear and pride ­ all in the same moment. We suspect that emotional experience in later life may be richer than ever before in life.

The Stanford researchers and I both agree, that to talk about aging one has to talk about how we view death. Death has become a great taboo recently. For example, we hide ourselves and our children about our favorite meals: hamburgers, hot dogs and fried chickens. Professor Ashliman from University of Pittsburg writes:

A pet, too old and frail to live much longer, is “put to sleep.” At the human level, we are even more isolated from the one final act that we must all experience. Few people die at home. Funeral “homes” turn the act of mourning a “departed” loved one into a sanitized reunion of family and friends. The deceased are not “dead,” they have merely “passed on.” Euphemisms proliferate.

It has not always been so.

We do not like to be reminded of our own mortality, and in today’s world, institutions such as hospitals, hospices, retirement centers, and funeral homes (euphemisms abound in the language of death!) shield us from the worst of the Grim Reaper’s ravages. We cope, or so it might seem, by pretending that death does not exist.

We are all going to experience some of the declines associated with aging. We are all going to get old and we are all going to die. That’s not a threat. The knowledge that our years are limited may be what makes life precious. The Buddha tells us that the most important meditation we can engage in is of death, “Of all footprints, that of the elephant is supreme. Similarly, of all mindfulness meditations, that on death is supreme.”

Having said all this though, I don’t think we should give up the pursuit of anti-aging and rejuvinating techniques. I mostly wanted to point out some of the impetus and underlying fears and preoccupations that we a society have and how those fears are often shaping our discussion about life extension or immortality.

Perhaps this preoccupation with aging and death is our culture’s manifestation of its fear of death