A group of scientists have begun a project that has a goal of reversing the aging process in 20 years.

After nine years of research and collaboration, a group of entrepreneurs and scientists – many known to h+ readers –- are disclosing their plan “to start saving up to 100,000 lives lost to aging every day, by 2029.” A Longevity Summit in November 2009 — organized by Kekich — brought together a number of researchers on human aging and longevity for a discussion on the state-of-the-art research, the implications of their discoveries, and round table, cross-disciplinary discussions that may lead to new and accelerated results.

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The goal of the summit was “to devise scientific and business strategies with the goal of demonstrating the capability to reverse aging in an older human by 2029.” Many at the conference believe that humans are approaching something Aubrey De Grey calls “longevity escape velocity” (see the h+ article “Aubrey de Grey on ‘The Singularity’ and ‘The Methuselarity’” in Resources). This is the point at which the yearly advances in procedures for extending human life expectancy result in adding one year to the human lifespan –- potentially making death-by-aging a choice rather than a date with destiny.

I would be willing to put up signficant sums of money that they will fail. Which is not to say that this is a bad project. In fact, I’d venture that we’ll probably learn a lot from it. Not the least of which is that we still have a lot to learn about the aging process. I wish this project the best of luck. I really do. I wouldn’t be surprised if it manages to extend the human lifespan by 20 or 30% in a healthier way.

But reverse aging?

Immortality?

Pipe dreams.

I say this because we still don’t know all the questions to ask about how human biology works–much less the answers. You can see it in the article attached which already has several different proposed mechanisms and solutions to the problem of aging–which suggests that there are further problems and mechanisms to discover in the years ahead. Which means that we don’t even have a complete picture of aging yet.

I think that some of the starry-eyed singularity/immortality optimists really overlook just how long initial discoveries take to turn into reality, and how long it takes for society to adapt to those changes. It seems like living in the information age that we rapidly moved into the age of personal computers and smartphones with access to internet in just a couple of decades.

In reality, though, it took centuries for the initial first thoughts about computing to make it into reality. And that required other discoveries in the areas of electricity, manufacturing, radio etc.

And compared to the complexities of human biology, computing is as easy as addition and subtraction is compared to complex topology and partial differential equations.

Maybe one day that human race will manage to conquer death. But that day is a long, long way off. Certainly longer than 20 years. It’s centuries, perhaps even millenia away. And I doubt anyone living today is one of the “first of the immortals.”

Hadley Leggett reports that neuroscientists working on computerized prosthetics are just now getting around to realizing that “Hey, these things might get hacked!”

For example, the next generation of implantable devices to control prosthetic limbs will likely include wireless controls that allow physicians to remotely adjust settings on the machine. If neural engineers don’t build in security features such as encryption and access control, an attacker could hijack the device and take over the robotic limb.

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Some might question why anyone would want to hack into someone else’s brain, but the researchers say there’s a precedent for using computers to cause neurological harm. In November 2007 and March 2008, malicious programmers vandalized epilepsy support websites by putting up flashing animations, which caused seizures in some photo-sensitive patients.

“It happened on two separate occasions,” said computer science graduate student Tamara Denning, a co-author on the paper. “It’s evidence that people will be malicious and try to compromise peoples’ health using computers, especially if neural devices become more widespread.”

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Despite the risks, Kohno said, most new devices aren’t created with security in mind. Neural engineers carefully consider the safety and reliability of new equipment, and neuroethicists focus on whether a new device fits ethical guidelines. But until now, few groups have considered how neural devices might be hijacked to perform unintended actions. This is the first time an academic paper has addressed the topic of “neurosecurity,” a term the group coined to describe their field.

“The security and privacy issues somehow seem to slip by,” Kohno said. “I would not be surprised if most people working in this space have never thought about security.”

Wonderful, wonderful. Never thought about security? Ugh. And note that here, the article is solely concerned about hacking from malicious outsiders. But what about malicious manufacturers?

Imagine, for example, a neural prosthetic that is linked into the pleasure and pain centers. Couldn’t a device that had an ostensibly legitimate function also have a classified function? Like, for instance, causing mild discomfort when considering a competitor’s product?

I personally think that the potential hazards of brain-neural interfaces should cause people pause over pursuing the technology. Of course, it’s going to continue apace anyway.

One thing that never fails to amaze me about the proponents of the “Geek Rapture” (aka the Singularity) is that they don’t seem to grasp that technology doesn’t always work. In a world of viruses, blue screens of death, smartphones that freeze every five minutes, and spyware, I’m not sure that I would want to integrate my mind with a computer, thankyouverymuch.

Also, AIs that are programmed to sell viagra and online poker? Terrifying…

Mark Shiffman makes the rather bold philosophic claim that reason demands the existence of a creator.

Science necessarily recognizes that there is order in the universe. It can offer explanations of why the universe has the kind of order it has. It can never explain why there is any order at all.

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Creation is an answer to the question why there is order. Is it a rational explanation? Yes. It is the only rational explanation.

What shape would a rational answer to this question have to take? If there is a cause of the order of the universe, it cannot be explained in terms of the order of the universe. It is cause that shapes effect, not the other way around. This means that the cause of the order of the universe cannot be confined to or circumscribed by the principles that order the universe.

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If we want to give an account of what may be responsible for the orderliness of the universe, the cause (if cause is the right word) will unavoidably have some of the features of the God that Jews, Christians and Muslims believe in as the Creator. It is reason that tells us so.

This is, of course, just another variation on the themes that Thomas Aquinas first played back in the 13th century, and suffers from the same logical flaws.

The primary flaw with this notion of “transcendent order” is that the same argument that Shiffman demands must apply to an orderly universe applies equally to a creator god, if not more so. After all, a creator god would also have to be composed of some sort of order, n’est-ce pas? And if there is order caused in some sort of god, then that god cannot have caused that order–by Shiffman’s own argument.

Now, it appears that Shiffman wants to avoid this conundrum by arguing that God is eternal and timeless. He argues:

Thus, reason tells us that the only way to explain why there is order at all in the universe is to appeal to something that transcends that order. It transcends the confines of all finite limits and all oppositions. It transcends the opposition between changing and unchanging, between unity and multiplicity, between simple and complex. It transcends the requirement that everything that exists be caused by something other than itself.

It follows from his logic, then, that we can avoid the need for creation should we find reason to assume that the universe itself is timeless and eternal. Fortunately, our current models of the universe assume just that. According to our current understanding of physics, all of the matter and energy in the universe always existed. Prior to the Big Bang, all of the matter and energy in the universe were compressed into a singularity–a state of being which has no time, and therefore no requirement for causality. Time itself is a function of the thermodynamic order which did not begin until the moment of the Big Bang.

Accordingly, to solve Shiffman’s problem with the creation of order, we don’t have to make up some sort of creator whose existence also demands explanation. The fact is that as far as we can tell, the matter and energy universe has always existed–it simply changed form as a consequence of the Big Bang.