Nano-Immortality: Living Indefinitely in the Age of Nanotechnology
by Mark Thomas
Principal Staff Writer
LONGEVITY ESCAPE VELOCITY: TARGETING ETERNAL LIFE
“Our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” (Vladimir Nabokov)
The train announcement! The quote you’re planning to open with at the conference! Looking up from your laptop, you notice something equally strange. The other passengers. All with their eyes buried in their electronics.
Didn’t they didn’t hear it?!
“If you live long enough for antiaging research to start adding at least one year to your remaining life expectancy annually, that will buy you enough time for nanomedicine to cure any remaining facets of aging. This is Longevity Escape Velocity.” (Aubrey de Grey)
Again, echoing throughout the car are the quotes you’ve selected for your address. But how?! And why aren’t they paying attention?!
Just looking at them, trying to make sense of this, you notice something else. Another part of this that seems incongruous - inexplicable. All are young professionals, nearly indistinguishable and perfect. And oblivious to the announcements and everything and everyone around them.
How odd yet also familiar this seems. Like a recurring dream or that inner voice forever guiding or scolding you for your thoughts and decisions.
What is this? What’s happening to you?
With the train slowing, you collect your things – still struggling – wondering why your mind would conjure this. Decide now to haunt you with the speech you’ve been working on for weeks. Your words over the audio system. With no one – not one of them noticing.
When the train stops and the doors open, you take a breath and stand with the others - hoping this is your imagination, stress about this evening.
Praying in your mind for it to end.
MOLECULAR ENGINES: OF CREATION AND REGENERATION
“I think it’s reasonable to suppose that one could oscillate between being biologically 20 and biologically 25 indefinitely.” (Aubrey de Grey)
Image by StockCake
‘Once nanorobots can selectively repair, regenerate or destroy individual cells, we will master our biology, and medicine will achieve the exactness of a purely mathematical science.’
You don’t remember getting into this lift. And stepping from the train onto that platform only vaguely. But the young man in front of you just delivered another passage from your speech into his phone.
Is he also working in nanotech? Doing the same research? Trying to conquer the same obstacles – providing power and programming to the molecule sized engines – directing them to complete repairs and maintenance from inside the body?
Your work is revolutionary, government sponsored and classified with none of your recent advances published.
You’re not prone to irrational episodes. Certainly, never hallucinated or experienced episodic delusions. But fear, stress and overwork are hormonal triggers. And you have been under pressure from the time you started this research.
Feeling compressed – closed in and panicky, you put your eyes on the floor indicator and focus – trying to turn off your surroundings.
Nelson Mandela said: “Courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” And why you’re pulling up Nelson Mandela quotes in a lift mid-paranormal experience is truly fear-inducing. And perhaps of equal concern.
MERGING BIOTECHNOLOGY WITH AI: THE PHASES OF LIFE EXTENSION
“In the 2020s we are starting the 2nd phase of life extension which is the merger of biotechnology with AI.” (Ray Kurzweil)
Image by StockCake
After passing through the turnstiles, you step outside from the station, and freeze. If the train and lift were chilling, this is nightmarish theatre. Like you’ve been dropped into someone’s dystopian, Sci-Fi thriller. Wall-to-wall people are moving along herdlike in an apocalyptic haze.
Millions – thousands of millions! And again, you’re struck by something you can’t logically reconcile. Not one looks a day over 20.
With your thoughts racing, you’re desperate to bring it down - to process, plan and wake from this irrational but familiar dream. But your opportunity passes when you’re swept like a baby trout into a vicious stream of perplexingly similar other baby trout.
‘There are many possibilities being explored for powering medical nanorobots, but I believe the most promising solution is internal energy harvesting from chemical gradients or biohybrid systems using cells.’
Another line from your draft! This one from the girl trout in front of you speaking with her companion.
‘In the next phase of life extension, we’ll use nanotechnology to overcome the limitations of our biological organs.’
More! This from a guy trout to your right staring into his tablet videoconferencing. You’re in a sphere of strangers all talking nanotech. All using the words you’ve laboured over - written and rewritten endlessly.
At the corner of Shaftesbury, you look up at the massive LCD above the Palace Theatre running text for the current performance. You watch it change. It now reads…
‘The first person to live forever is already alive.’
“STOP!”
‘…live forever …forever. …is already alive …live forever …forever.’
“STOP! PLEASE!”
CELLULAR METABOLISM AND REPRODUCTION: WHY WE AGE
“The wiser mind mourns less for what age takes away than what it leaves behind.” (William Wordsworth)
Image by StockCake
You don’t remember falling, but evidence suggests, in all that madness you did. And you’re now on your knees with your hands covering your ears crying – sobbing. Pleading for it to stop.
“There’s an ambulance coming.” A quick look up at the girl. Kind and compassionate – there to help “After all, isn’t the ultimate goal of medical care to prolong life?”
Staring now, in disbelief, you’re ready to yell out again – to cry and fold into yourself, when you turn at the sound of screeching tyres – and car doors.
Then boots on the pavement and gun shots – a spray from an automatic weapon, and people in the crowd scattering. This nightmare in Central has suddenly turned into a Netflix series.
And there they are. A young woman and two men in dark clothes and knit hats with handguns and assault rifles.
“Get her arms.” After giving her orders to the men, the girl goes for your laptop case and pack, slings them over her shoulder and turns. “Hold on, Doctor.”
With the men carrying you beneath the arms, the girl grabs the rear door of the van and slides it back for the men who carry you in.
CURING AGEING: THE DREAM AND CURSE OF THE MANY
“There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives.” (Aubrey de Grey)
Image by StockCake
Running. Car doors. You hear them climb in. The engine. Screeching tyres. Menacing thoughts and puzzlingly quick acceptance that you’re in a van with an armed trio who look like terrorists moving south away from Central.
The girl up front points the driver to turn onto Holborn then looks up through the windshield at a police helicopter hovering above. He spins the wheel at the corner and jams the pedal to the floor. Three police cars with sirens and lights fly by in the opposite direction – back towards Leicester.
Halfway down the street, she turns and looks at you over the seat. “Not the morning commute you were expecting, eh Doctor Roth?”
“Who are you?”
“In the grand scheme of things and with few alternatives, you may wish to view us as the good guys in this.” She turns back to the driver. “They’ll have the motorways. Take side streets.”
Knowing exactly what she was after, she pulls your soft zip case onto her lap and goes for your laptop.
“Why?” Watching her, you catch the quick glance she shoots at the driver. “Back there. Why? And how do you know who I am?”
After a moment and another look at her companions – as if drawing a consensus among them that you’re ready, she reaches to the mirror and repositions it.
Suddenly speechless and stricken, you take both hands to your face - and stare in shock. It’s you. But it’s you when you were 19.
How? What kind of macabre theatre is this? What nightmarish paranormal experience have you been pulled into? “My God!”
The girl continues with your laptop - now typing, getting in with your password. “I guess you can blame him.” She waits for your desktop to appear. “But I think we both know he had nothing to do with this one, don’t we.”
With her searching your files, you manage to pull your eyes from that mirror. Trying not to think but also to think – you’re desperate for answers. How this all came about. And the suggestion of hers that somehow you caused it.
All of it taking you back to the train and the same confusion: What is this? What pulled you into this psychological thriller?
ADDRESSING THE POSSIBILITY: OF AN IMMORTALITY WORLD
“The power to control our species’ genetic future is awesome and terrifying.” (Jennifer A. Doudna)
Image by StockCake
Extending life expectancy with medical nanotechnology is more than speculative science fiction. And reaching LEV – Longevity Escape Velocity, where a person adds one year to their life span annually once we conquer specific hurdles, is not just hypothetical, it’s inevitable.
And reachable within our lifetimes.
But is that future, a future where people can live comfortably, indefinitely the reason for this? Why you, a leading researcher in the field have been dragged into this mind-bending drama with guns and rebels and helicopters and leading train announcements – and people on the street reading from your conference address?
Is that what this is?!
And these rebels or terrorists. Are they truly here to help? Or have you been kidnapped for your research by a rival lab, corporation, the Sy-Fy channel or hostile government.
And with everything, all the excitement there’s still the nagging feeling that – you’ve done this before. You’ve lived this episode. But how?
OUR PLANET’S CAPACITY: REACHING FOR THE TIPPING POINT
“In thinking about nanotechnology today, what’s most important is understanding where it leads.” (K. Eric Drexler)
Image by StockCake
Once at their Southbank warehouse, the metal door slides open, and the van is soon inside. After climbing out, you make a quick scan of their base. A converted machine shop with drop lights from a high ceiling, windows fronting an office park, lots of modern tech and three guys at desks with more computers than you have at your lab.
The girl, the apparent leader who the driver called Kate, hands your laptop to the youngest of the three who puts it in front of his large monitors and goes immediately to work.
“What is he looking for?”
Grasping you’re ready for conversation, Kate comes over and nods to a makeshift living room with deep sofas and glass tables. Though captive, you’re unthreatened with the continued feeling you’ve been here – done this – lived this episode.
Even as you walk, you sense familiar territory. Like walking into a dream but a recurring dream. One with no menace ahead. No danger.
Grabbing a seat, you wait for her to pour coffee from a thermos then sit facing you on the opposing sofa. After an uncomfortable moment, she lowers her cup.
“I want to ask you something about your research.”
“Of course.”
“Who gets Immortality?”
“Immortality.”
“Your research, Doctor. At that conference in 2025… you claimed you’d solved two important problems with medical nanotechnology. How to design nanorobots that can draw energy from their surroundings and accept programming from the outside.”
Aghast, you stare. “Claimed?”
“You said it was possible through a process you called Biomimetic Propulsion. A process you developed in your clever little lab. Delivering the world something it was neither ready for nor could ever be ready for. And back to my question – who? Universal right for everyone? Or only the rich.”
Insanity. Why? Why are you here with this girl? Using these words. With knowledge of you and your future that she seems preposterously aware of.
“You’re speaking of work I haven’t completed in the past tense.”
She leans forward. And speaks to you in a low voice. “Where are you, Doctor?” Staring now, trying to absorb her words, you look her in the eyes and wait for the rest. “Think about the events of today. And everything that brought you to this moment.”
A deep, reflexive moment – then a scan around the warehouse. “This isn’t your… You mean we’re not…”
“…Think about it Doctor. Where are you right now? And more importantly… when?”
Where? When? You’re spinning from the enquiry and her suggestion that you question this reality. And suddenly, it’s as if you receive an upload of your past. But not the past of your life outside. Not a linear succession of the events that took you through childhood, then school into your professional life.
The memories you’re accessing are an endless replay of this day – this manufactured episode. Always with the same theme – but never, you believe with this action-adventure plot twist.
THE PSYCHOLOGY AND PRACTICALITY: OF LIVING INDEFINITELY
“It’s the fleeting nature of life that makes it special.” (Sarah Govett)
Image by StockCake
‘Granted immortality, people might experience profound boredom, lose a sense of purpose, or find new purpose, mastering endless skills exploring space or creating virtual worlds.’
Updated now with your past, it’s logical your mind would recover those words from the speech you delivered at the Royal Institution over 400-years ago while listening to Kate describe a world in which medical nanotechnology had progressed in concert with AI.
How, with your creative leap moving us foreword it was bone and tissue regeneration. Then life extension – ultimately reaching Longevity Escape Velocity with nanorobots replacing biological organs in the 2030s.
Then reaching immortality in the 2050s.
But what happened next was the ultimate dystopian fiction turned reality. Something you and everyone should have anticipated. Massive overpopulation, resource scarcity, extreme social stratification, perpetual resource wars and stagnation.
Added to that, the pollution, food and water shortages. Transport systems and housing that were needed that only increased demands that could never be met.
Then came the loss of purpose.
Who was truly ready to go to the same job, wake up with the same partner or share time with the same friends for hundreds of years? Or accept that our world, with all its attractions had finite surprises – little to offer after centuries of leisure and exploration. All this leading to the need for…
“Virtual worlds?”
Kate looks over at her team – all busy planning their next rescue with the techs pulling data from the domain’s intranet. “This one’s not so bad.”
“You’ve been in others?” She turns back and nods. “How long? And where are we out there?”
“In some containment facility. Somewhere rural I guess where it’s still…”
“…I hate to break this up, you guys, but it’s time to run!”
Before she can finish, there’s one of her team with assault rifles and extra clips. Kate stands, grabs one and racks it. She looks at you after noting the sound of the helicopters closing in from the west.
“You mean, I can join you? This isn’t my destiny to…”
“…The AI running this was programmed to give us what we want. Or feel we deserve. Join us. You’ll have more fun than riding that train every day paying endlessly for your part in messing up the world.”
Without hesitating, you stand and grab a rifle and clip from Kate’s driver who gives you a nod and a warm smile. “I’m Jason. You’re with me in the first jeep.”
Nodding, you dutifully rack your weapon.
IMAGINING THE FUTURE: AS AN ENDLESS REPLAY OF TODAY
“Each day is a precious gift knowing the day will come when the precious gifts end.” (Author)
Image by StockCake
With a helicopter hovering above the warehouse and police cars out front, you follow Kate, Jason and the others out the back to the awaiting jeeps, take cover, turn and begin firing at the aerial gunship.
“411 years.”
After punching holes in the 1st chopper sending it up and over, you drop down next to Kate to change clips. “That’s how long you’ve been in here?”
“Yeah… different reasons though. You probably got depressed and volunteered – we weren’t given a choice.”
“Like… prison?”
“Yeah, well. Immortality, right? No consequences. I gave up worrying about being judged in some afterlife at around 150.”
Jason drops in next to you. “You want to wrap this up and chit chat on the way? Or should we let the guy on 7th street rot?”
Suddenly smiling at the absurdity and what feels like an adrenaline rush, you jump up and head for the jeep while firing at the agents hanging out of the second helicopter.
Moments later, you’re jamming through the office park, dodging bullets from above looking forward to your next adventure – rescuing people – possibly like you from the dreary existence of eternal punishment for their well-intentioned, but tragically delirious mistakes.
Mark Thomas
