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Robert Anton Wilson predicted "immortality" for himself in 1978.

advancedatheist

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http://www.futurehi.net/docs/RAW_Immortality.html

Next Stop: Immortality
Extrapolative projections into the future by today's outstanding visionaries

Robert Anton Wilson

Future Magazine, November 1978


According to the actuarial tables used by insurance companies, if you are in your 20s now you probably have about 50 years more to live. If you are in your 40s, you have only about 30 years more and if you are in your 60s your life-expectancy is only about 10 years. These tables are based on averages, of course — not everybody dies precisely at the median age of 72.5 years — but these insurance tables are the best mathematical guesses about how long you will be with us. Right?

Wrong. Recent advances in gerontology (the science of aging, not to be confused with geriatrics, the treatment of the aged) have led many sober and cautious scientists to believe that human lifespan can be doubled, tripled or even extended indefinitely in this generation. If these researchers are right, nobody can predict your life expectancy. All the traditional assumptions on which the actuarial tables rest are obsolete. You might live a thousand years or even longer.
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Robert Anton Wilson, who died back in January of this year, wrote this essay around the age of 46. It turns out that the actuarial tables predicted his remaining life expectancy from 1978 pretty much on the money.
 
When I was actually working as a geneticist, back in the early '90's, my research was in this area (not that I did much, I was a very junior scientist then) - understanding aging and the genetics underlying the processes of aging. From what I remember, it was very poorly understood at that point, and from what few journal articles I see today, it's still very poorly understood.

1978 was way too early to predict something like that. I do think that in time we will crack aging, and maybe even slow or stop it. But I doubt it will happen within the next 100 years. It's just such a complex system.

Cheers,
TGHO
 
I wonder when Aubrey de Grey will die.

Here are the 7 types of aging damage proposed by de Grey, which need to be solved to achieve immortality.

1. Nuclear Mutations/Epimutations:

These are changes to the DNA, the molecule that contains our genetic information, or to proteins which bind to the DNA. Certain mutations can lead to cancer.

2. Mitochondrial Mutations:

Mitochondria are components in our cells that are important for energy production. They contain their own genetic material, and mutations to their DNA can affect a cell’s ability to function properly. Indirectly, these mutations may accelerate many aspects of aging.

3. Intracellular Junk:

Our cells are constantly breaking down proteins and other molecules that are no longer useful or which can be harmful. Those molecules which can’t be digested simply accumulate as junk inside our cells. Atherosclerosis, macular degeneration and all kinds of neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer's disease) are associated with this problem.

4. Extracellular Junk:

Harmful junk protein can also accumulate outside of our cells. The amyloid plaque seen in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients is one example.

5. Cell Loss:

Some of the cells in our bodies cannot be replaced, or can only be replaced very slowly - more slowly than they die. This decrease in cell number causes the heart to become weaker with age, and it also causes Parkinson's disease and impairs the immune system.

6. Cell Senescence:

This is a phenomenon where the cells are no longer able to divide, but also do not die and let others divide. They may also do other things that they’re not supposed to, like secreting proteins that could be harmful. Immune senescence and type 2 diabetes are caused by this.

7. Extracellular Crosslinks:

Cells are held together by special linking proteins. When too many cross-links form between cells in a tissue, the tissue can lose its elasticity and cause problems including arterioscerosis and presbyopia.[6]
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He didn't die at 46. He wrote it at 46 in 1978, but died in the last 6 months or so.

His books are silly. And very amusing. And contain quite interesting ideas. The Illuminatus! trilogy, with Robert Shea, is his best in my view. Schrodinger's Cat is good too. He was a bit woo in some ways. But he was above all sceptical about everything, including himself and his own ideas.

Illuminatus! is one of the few books I've ever read which did actually change the way I thought about things and view the world.

I'm a fan, as you may have guessed. I think he was a bit of a doofus and wrote a lot of crap, too. That is, I like to think, the type of cognitive dissonance that R.A.W. himself would have liked. ;)
 
The writings from these counterculture visionaries and pranksters active the 1960's and 1970's don't seem to have worn all that well. We don't have the radical life extension, greatly expanded LSD-induced "consciousness" and space colonization predicted for right about now by Wilson and his buddy Timothy Leary back in the late 1970's.

princhester said:
He didn't die at 46. He wrote it at 46 in 1978, but died in the last 6 months or so.

His books are silly. And very amusing. And contain quite interesting ideas. The Illuminatus! trilogy, with Robert Shea, is his best in my view. Schrodinger's Cat is good too. He was a bit woo in some ways. But he was above all sceptical about everything, including himself and his own ideas.

Illuminatus! is one of the few books I've ever read which did actually change the way I thought about things and view the world.

I'm a fan, as you may have guessed. I think he was a bit of a doofus and wrote a lot of crap, too. That is, I like to think, the type of cognitive dissonance that R.A.W. himself would have liked. ;)
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princhester said:
He didn't die at 46. He wrote it at 46 in 1978, but died in the last 6 months or so.

His books are silly. And very amusing. And contain quite interesting ideas. The Illuminatus! trilogy, with Robert Shea, is his best in my view. Schrodinger's Cat is good too. He was a bit woo in some ways. But he was above all sceptical about everything, including himself and his own ideas.

Illuminatus! is one of the few books I've ever read which did actually change the way I thought about things and view the world.

I'm a fan, as you may have guessed. I think he was a bit of a doofus and wrote a lot of crap, too. That is, I like to think, the type of cognitive dissonance that R.A.W. himself would have liked. ;)
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my bad. should read more carefully. and I get the dissonance, which I, too, like.

with Leary, you could never be sure where the huckster ended and the acid damage (or whatever) started.

say more about Illuminatus! would I like it at my age? (49), or do you have to be, as they say, young and dumb and full of come-hither attitude?
 
Illuminatus is unique and difficult to classify. It's long and its style is apparent from the beginning so you should pick it up and give it a try. It's "way out there science fiction", not in the impossible Star Trekkie way, but in a "different way of looking at the world" way. There are also many good short Wilson books that are non-fictiony but reveal is style of thinking. However, they read more like boring textbooks: Promethius Rising and Quantum Psychology.
 
I think Wilson and Shea's description does it the best justice. It is a tripped out mystery novel, written by two acid-heads who tried to make the most outlandish conspiracy novel ever.

Wilson later wrote that he and Shea tried to make the strangest CTs, and never was able to make anything so strange, so bizarre that someone didn't write them and say that they'd heard it before.

I recommend checking it out from you library. It's a worth-while read, and if you can make it past the first 100 pages or so, you'll probably not be able to put it down. The first 100, however, take a bit to get through.

And yeah, Tim Leary and SMIILE was, to be kind, a bit ahead of their time. I admire Tim and Bob for what they contributed to my life, they were probably the two authors most responsible for getting me away from religion. They're a bit...odd though.
 
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