Medical Research - Writers Forum

ILoveBooks · 01-19-2006, 08:12 PM

Hi all

I have come up with an idea which involves reading a lot of complicated medical jargon, and it is scrambling my brain! So I decided to come on here for a bit of a pick me up, and also to pick your brains and ask opinions.

Firstly, does anyone know of any good medical research sites in the area of ageing and cryogenics?

Secondly, what is the general consensus about immortality? Do you consider it to be good or bad? Why? Do you think it is morally wrong?

Thanks!

character1_Caitlin · 01-19-2006, 08:44 PM

http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/jou...on#description

http://www.cryonics.org/

I think you have your terms mixed up. If your referring to immortality you must be talking about freezing a human before they die or just after they die and bring them back to life when a cure is "found" .

Cryonics is that one. Cryogenics is something else but still involving liquid nitrogen or something .

Getting older is natural. Cant fight it , the cosmetic companies are just handing us a line of crap.

ILoveBooks · 01-19-2006, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by character1_Caitlin

http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/jou...on#description

http://www.cryonics.org/

I think you have your terms mixed up. If your referring to immortality you must be talking about freezing a human before they die or just after they die and bring them back to life when a cure is "found" .

Cryonics is that one. Cryogenics is something else but still involving liquid nitrogen or something .

Getting older is natural. Cant fight it , the cosmetic companies are just handing us a line of crap.

I did indeed mean cryonics... its 1.49am here, I think my brain is scrambled!

character1_Caitlin · 01-19-2006, 08:54 PM

Well Im confinced. Im gonna give them 35,000 dollars.
Did you look at that site?
Those 71 people , ummmm. they wasted their money as their brain must have already been frozen.

ILoveBooks · 01-20-2006, 06:24 AM

I was actually thinking less about cryonics, and more about the subject of immortality, and what that would mean to everyone if it were possible? Good or bad? Moral repercussions?

character1_Caitlin · 01-20-2006, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ILoveBooks

I was actually thinking less about cryonics, and more about the subject of immortality, and what that would mean to everyone if it were possible? Good or bad? Moral repercussions?

If it was possible in time we would see our resources so depleted that we would become extinct. Not sure on moral repercussions , just that perhaps crime would rise more due to people competing for material good and competing for love.

woodcut.evolution · 01-20-2006, 11:57 AM

I don't know about the morality of immortality per se. But think of the social ramifications of the abbility to prolong life forever, or seemingly forever. Advanced science and medical procedures cost lots and lots of money. So the rich would live forever and the poor would not. Is that right? What makes one person more deserving of immortality then another. There is a more specific moral question in there somewhere. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it's in there.

mammamaia · 01-20-2006, 05:55 PM

the major stumbling block for cryonics is not the brain... it's the 'mind'... sure, they'll probably be able bring the body back to 'life' physically, one day... but the trick is to also store the 'mind' [what i call the 'intellessence'] of each person, along with their frozen flesh 'n bone remains...

till they can do that, where's the memory bank gonna suddenly reappear from?... i doubt it's all stored away like data on a hard drive in our brain cells, which simply enable us to think, remember, etc...

see 'simple matter of life and death' and 'mind over matter' on my website's writings/essay section for a logical pov on both questions...

lisajane · 01-20-2006, 11:35 PM

Immortality would suck. If none of your friends or family chose immortality along with you, then you'd see EVERYONE you'd love die before you and eventually be stuck on your own.

If everyone was cursed with immortality, then there would be too many people for Earth to handle. Maybe an Earth-wide no child policy until have the population 'disappears' somehow.

Hodge · 01-21-2006, 01:33 AM

I like immortality. Clinical immortality is the only kind we can hope to achieve, so taking care of an over-populated planet wouldn't be a problem...