Ray Kurzweil, a “futurist” who is famous for making predictions that have actually become true, says that he believes that humans will achieve immortality in seven years!
Kurzweil, best known for his popular book, The Singularity Is Near, says that within seven years, humans might be able to live indefinitely. He believes that with the technological advances and expansions, we’re already witnessing today in genetics, robotics, and nanotechnology; we’ll soon have nanobots running through our veins.
Nanobots are tiny robots, 50-100 nm wide, which carry out tasks in clinical medicine. They are used in research as DNA probes, cell imaging materials, and cell-specific delivery vehicles.
Kurzweil thinks that nanobots are the future of medicine. They will be able to repair our bodies at a cellular level, making us immune to diseases and aging, and eventually death. He also believes that very soon, humans will be able to upload their consciousness into digital form, achieving immortality.
In a recent interview with PBS News, Kurzweil said, “We’ve been expanding our life expectancy for thousands of years. It was 19 1,000 years ago. It was 37 in 1,800. We’re going to get to a point 10-15 years from now (by 2025 or 2030) where we’re adding more time than is going by to our remaining life expectancy. People say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to live past 90’. But, you know, I talked to 90-year-olds, and they definitely want to live to 91 and then to a 100.”
He further says, “We’re going to be able to overcome disease and aging. Most of our thinking will be non-biological that will be backed up. So part of that gets wiped away, you can recreate it, and we’ll be able to extend our lives indefinitely”.
1 comment
It always amazes me how many people do not understand what the “life expectancy” numbers actually mean. This article says it was 19 a thousand years ago, which some take to mean that virtually no one lived past that age. The truth of the matter, though, shows that many people in that time lived well into their 70s and 80s, and some beyond. The “life expectancy” numbers count that over eight out of ten children died before they were five years old. If a person made it to sixteen in those days, his chances of living for seven or eight decades were good. Better medicine reduced the numbers of childhood deaths, but did not much affect the ravages of old age until very recently in medical history.
Effective immortality has been a topic in science fiction for decades, and in most of the cases, it benefits the powerful and wealthy, but not available to the poor and the working classes. Considering that our political system has been focused on what is good for Corporate America and the wealthy, rather than the poorer 90% of our population, I can see such a plan unfolding.
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