Inventor sets his sights on immortality

Three bridges to immortality
In his latest book, Kurzweil defines what he calls his three bridges to immortality. The “First Bridge” is the health regimen he describes with co-author Dr. Terry Grossman to keep people fit enough to cross the “Second Bridge,” a biotechnological revolution.

Kurzweil writes that humanity is on the verge of controlling how genes express themselves and ultimately changing the genes. With such technology, humanity could block disease-causing genes and introduce new ones that would slow or stop the aging process.

The “Third Bridge” is the nanotechnology and artificial intelligence revolution, which Kurzweil predicts will deliver the nanobots that work like repaving crews in our bloodstreams and brains. These intelligent machines will destroy disease, rebuild organs and obliterate known limits on human intelligence, he believes.

Immortality would leave little standing in current society, in which the inevitability of death is foundational to everything from religion to retirement planning. The planet’s natural resources would be greatly stressed, and the social order shaken.

Kurzweil says he believes new technology will emerge to meet increasing human needs. And he said society will be able to control the advances he predicts as long as it makes decisions openly and democratically, without excessive government interference.

But there are no guarantees, he adds.

Meanwhile, Kurzweil refuses to concede the inevitably of his own death, even if science doesn’t advance as quickly as he predicts.

“Death is a tragedy,” a process of suffering that rids the world of its most tested, experienced members — people whose contributions to science and the arts could only multiply with agelessness, he said.

The future of human nature
Kurzweil said he’s no “cheerleader” for unlimited scientific progress and added he knows science can’t answer questions about why eternal lives are worth living. That’s left for philosophers and theologians, he said.

But to him there’s no question of huge advances in things that make life worth living, such as art, cultural, music and science.

“Biological evolution passed the baton of progress to human cultural and technological development,” he said.

Lee Silver, a Princeton biologist, said he’d love to believe in the future as Kurzweil sees it, but the problem is, humans are involved.

The instinct to preserve individuality, and to gain advantage for yourself and children, would survive any breakthrough into biological immortality — which Silver doesn’t think is possible. The gap between the haves and have-nots would widen and Kurzweil’s vision of a united humanity would become ever more elusive, he said.

“I think it would require a change in human nature,” Silver said, “and I don’t think people want to do that.”

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