Experts believe science can conquer death by 2040

By Dick Pelletier

     The funny thing about life is that so far, nobody has managed to get out of it alive. Even with healthy diets; a lifelong commitment to exercise; the most powerful nutrients money can buy; and the best positive attitude imaginable, it sadly seems everyone is doomed to die sometime.
     However, forward-thinkers believe that biotech and nanotech revolutions expected over the next three decades, will change this age-old thinking about life and death; even challenge our traditional views on what it means to be human.
     Cutting-edge science and technologies, experts say, will one day provide everyone with radically increased intelligence, futuristic healthcare that prevents sickness and disease from ever happening, and a lifespan approaching immortality.
     We begin our trek into this positive future with The Federal Initiative for Regenerative Medicine, an aggressive biotech program that promises to provide tissues and organs "on demand” for every American by 2020, regardless of ability to pay. With replaceable tissues and organs available, doctors will easily prevent deaths from cancer, heart disease, and many other human ailments.
     In the following decade, 2020-2030, we will radically upgrade many physical and mental systems using advanced nanotech to replace frail biological parts with powerful non-biological components.
     UCLA’s Robert Freitas believes nanotech will provide us with "respirocytes”, tiny robotic blood cells that can store extra oxygen. During a heart attack, these clever ‘bots would keep patients alive for hours until medical care arrived, preventing tissue damage and death.
     Futurist Ray Kurzweil, in The Singularity is Near predicts that between 2025 and 2030, nanobot "cell-repair machines” will cruise through our bodies to prevent aging and stop pathogens before they cause harm. Nanobots will reprogram DNA where necessary keeping us forever young and in perfect health.
     Stephen Hawking recently commented in Focus magazine that computer intelligence will surpass that of humans within a few decades. He advocated that we "develop as quickly as possible technologies that make a direct connection between mind and computer, so that artificial brains contribute to human intelligence rather than opposing it”.
     By 2030, reverse engineering the human brain will be complete, which will enable non-biological intelligence to merge with our minds. It will be routine to have billions of nanobot computers coursing through our brains, communicating with each other and our neurons, allowing us to reach unimaginable levels of ‘processing power’.
     "Merging with machines in this manner”, Kurzweil says, "will bring about a billion-fold increase in intelligence”.
     As our brain and body becomes increasingly non-biological and more powerful, we will realize that we no longer need to accept the risks of living in a frail body. By 2035, most humans will have extensive amounts of technology inside them including ‘bots and other systems that maintain health and enhance experiences and intelligence.
     In the 2040s, our 100% non-biological body will boast a zero failure rate. Even if a destructive accident were to occur, molecular nanotech would immediately construct a new body, retrieve our mind and memories, and allow life to continue; dying would be about as disruptive as a bee sting, and would take even less time to forget it even happened.
     Can this "magical future” without death become reality? This positive futurist believes it can!

This article appeared in various print media and blogs; comments always welcome. See other published work by Dick at http://www.positivefuturist.com/archive.html