"Being born is not a crime so why must it carry a sentence of death?" - Robert Ettinger, Founder of the Cryonics Institute
". . . I argue that human enhancement is necessarily good and that immortaltiy, as the ultimate form of human enhancement, turning humans into Gods, and finally destroying the myth that there is anything dignified about humanity, is irresistible to any but those with terminal failure of either the imagination or of morality."
Professor John Harris, Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, University of Manchester, UK.
Promoting his presentation"The long dark teatime of the soul - and other mythtakes about immortality" at the University of Birmingham, UK.
"Many people, perhaps most, would be prepared to endure the long, dark teatime of the soul, or its equivalent, in exchange for permanent remission of the death sentence that we are currently forced to live with. Indeed, there is much evidence both from literature and the scientific literature, that suggests that many people are willing to trade off quality of life for longevity. From the pact of Faust . . . to choices made by cancer patients with terminal diagnoses, the evidence is very strong that people want extra lifetime even at substantial cost in terms of pain, quality of life and even when the outcomes are highly uncertain."
John Harris, September 24, 2002 at the International Longevity Center (ILC) New York.
"That people should make excuses for death is understandable. Until recently there was absolutely nothing anybody could do about it, and it made some degree of sense then to create comforting philosophies according to which dying of old age is a fine thing ("deathism") . . . Today, we can foresee the possibility of eventually abolishing aging and we have the option of taking active measures to stay alive until then . . . This makes the illusions of deathist philosophies dangerous, indeed fatal, since they teach helplessness and encourage passivity."
"It is to be hoped and expected that a good many of death's apologists, if they were one day presented with the concrete choice between (A) getting sick, old, and dying, and (B) being given a new shot of life to stay healthy, vigorous and to remain in the company of friends and loved ones to participate in the unfolding of the future, would, when push came to shove, choose this latter alternative."
From an article "Nothing's Certain But . . . Taxes" posted at Beliefnet.com
". . . for humans to extend life we must do two things: first, eliminate the toxins in our environment that make short telomeres a "good thing" while finding a dietary or pharmaceutical method for increasing and preserving the length of our cells' telomeres. The twenty-first century may well be the era in which humans learn the secrets of eternal life . . ."
Gary Vey
(From his article, "Human Immortality: A Scientific Reality?" for Viewzone.com)
"One of the assumptions is that life expectancy will rise a bit and then reach a ceiling it cannot go through . . . But people have been assuming that since the 1920's and it hasn't proved to be the case."
Jim Oeppen, senior research associate at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, BBC News, May 9, 2002.
"If you're 80, but you're really like a 45-year-old, if you look like a 45-year-old, I mean, you're not just healthy, but you are young, then you're not going to be susceptible to these [age related] diseases until much later . . . So how realistic is this? We already know that this can happen in these long-lived animals. We see it. It's amazing . . . This is a revolution. This is a big deal. It's like going to the moon. It's like Ponce de Leon, you know? It's like the quest for the Fountain of Youth when there's a possibility of finding it."
Cynthia Kenyon PhD, Director, The Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging , University of California, San Francisco.
(From the PBS program, "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer", March 31, 2008)
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