In theory could someone live forever?

Question

For about 1 week I have been suffering with this obssesive thought and it will not go away. I'm only 16 and what the hell? My thought has concluded that as long as the universe exists why can't we live tell the end of that, because matter can not be created or distroied. It just so happens that what if you could keep the atoms you are made of intact for that long.

Answer 1

Sooner or later, the universe will either collapse back to the way it was after the big bang or else it will get very cold and everything will turn to entropy and there won't be any free energy for your body to function. Either way, nobody will be around to see the end. That's for sure.

Answer 2

Of course it's possible *in principle* to keep replacing your atoms by whatever means until life in the universe comes to and end, but don't plan on the technology being available in your (natural) lifetime.

Furthermore that's not "forever", Issac Asimov wrote a short story on this theme called "The Last Question", I suggest tracking it down. The problem with your conclusion is that the existence of matter is a *necessary* condition for life, but not sufficient. You also must constantly increases the entropy of the universe in order to support life. The limit to this is that it's impossible in principle to ever *decrease* the entropy again, and there is a maximum theoretical limit to how high entropy can be. That means life in the universe has a finite amount of time, regardless of the details of how things end up.

Answer 3

Mind you, very few people actually die because of what might be considered "old age," or "natural causes."

The top five causes of death are heart disease, cancer, stroke, lung disease, and accidental injuries. While most causes of death become more and more likely, and are worsened by age, very few are *directly* related to aging.

If you could, for the most part, cure or prevent heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and Alzheimer's, you could probably increase the average lifespan by about 10-25%

Even if humans didn't age at all, accidents, infections, viruses, suicide, and homicide, would get all of us eventually. Probably in less than 250 years.

Secondly, because of the laws of thermodynamics, *no repair process can be perfect.*

You can only repair a part from a machine so many times, before that part fails, and simply has to be replaced. You can only replace the parts of a machine so many times, before the *entire* machine just won't operate anymore. Maintaining Old, inefficient, unreliable machines, tends to cost much more than simply replacing them.

Over time, the body tends to accumulate defects, wrinkles, scars, inflammation, irregularities, cellular waste and debris, that simply can't be removed or repaired. The body's supply of precious "stem cells" gets depleted, the brain and nervous system slow down and stop working well.

Now, I'm not saying humans are exactly like machines in an assembly line, merely that we must both obey the same laws of physics.

Also, in from evolutionary viewpoint, it actually makes more sense for an organism to live a shorter life, and to reproduce quickly. Animals with a very short life cycle, tend to be able to evolve and adapt to changes in their environment much more quickly than long lived ones.

In fact , evolution may actually *cause* an organism to die; once it can no longer reproduce, or somehow benefit it's descendants. This is because an old, nonreproducing organism, would compete for valuable space and resources that could be used by the new generation. For example, all salmon inevitably die after swimming upstream and spawning; their bodies just spontaneously give out on them.

Hope that makes sense,
~W.O.M.B.A.T.

Answer 4

Perhaps.
It all depends on how long is forever?

On the other had you are posing a fundamental question of information conservation. If the universe exist then information must be preserved and it is possible to live forever so long as the information is preserved. On the other hand if the universe in our discourse seized to exist so will the meaning of time within this that universe.

Answer 5

Your body is constantly making new cells to replace old ones that no longer function. In fact, your body completely replaces itself about every seven years. The problem is that each time your body produces these new cells, the programming deteriorates to some extent. That's why we get old and wrinkly. Even if you don't succumb to an accident, an act of deliberate violence, or a disease, your body will eventually deteriorate to the point that your organs will no longer function, and you'll die.

But your sixteen for cryin' out loud! You've got a good sixty years or more ahead of you! Why are you worrying about stuff like that now?

Besides, there's another life after this one, and that's where things REALLY get interesting.......

Answer 6

Yeah, they're trying to say on TV than nanobots can go in and repair cells. Whatever.