sf concepts: telomerase and immortality
Eric Ammadon
be useful in a story, I bookmark it for possible later reference.
It's usually material more suitable for sci-fi than fantasy, but some
cross over or are just interesting factoids that might tie in somehow.
This morning I found an article about telomerase and telomeres and
aging as a factor of cell reproduction. I thought it might be of
interest to some. I can think of half a dozen storylines (some that
have been done before more than once) that could wrap around the idea
of an age-extending drug:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8359735.stm
--
arggh, is it priate day again?
Brenda Clough
Has anybody already written a book revolving around this?
Brenda
Eric Ammadon
Wasn't there at least one classic that involved the development of an
immortality drug and the subsequent social furor? Everybody wanting
it, restriction to the power class, population issues, and so forth?
I was sure it had been done more than once, though the drug involved
consisted of handwavium. I could be mistaken.
Eric Ammadon
The book I was thinking of is _Eternity_ by Mack Reynolds with Dean
Ing (1984).
The premise is slightly different (spoiler warning).
There are a few folks who are immortal because they're mutants or
whatever and they've been around for a long time. Then gerontology
research comes up with an immortality drug, and the research group and
their backers set about attempting to eliminate those who were
immortal because of mutation.
I seem to recall a couple other references, maybe in one of Heinlein's
"Lazarus Long" books or in whoever's Foundation series.
Maybe it hasn't been as widely done as I thought, dunno. I thought it
was cool that current research is starting to find some clues, figured
if anyone wanted to hit the theme again it might be good ammunition.
Brenda Clough
Whenever I do it I certainly resort to handwavium. The problem is not
that immortality isn't interesting, but that the mechanics can bog down
the story terribly.
Brenda
Eric Ammadon
Making the mechanics believable is what I think has the potential to
bog things down. Using a couple buzzwords from the article might be
sufficient explanation, or not, depending on how you work it. "Based
on the research of blahblah in 2009 blahblah developed an actual
working immortality drug" etc.
Personally I think the subject of immortality remains dull and
uninteresting unless (a) the story explores the problems/benefits of
an extended lifetime, or (b) some have it and some don't and they're
squabbling over it. Aside from that immortality is just a whole lot
of more of the same.
Joel Polowin
> Wasn't there at least one classic that involved the development of an
> immortality drug and the subsequent social furor? Everybody wanting
> it, restriction to the power class, population issues, and so forth?
Wyndham's _Trouble With Lichen_.
Brenda Clough
Also kate Wilhelm wrote one. I think the title was Welcome, Chaos. In
which someone developed a drug that would kill nine out of ten people
who took it, but the one survivor would be immortal.
Brenda
Brenda Clough
>
> Personally I think the subject of immortality remains dull and
> uninteresting unless (a) the story explores the problems/benefits of
> an extended lifetime, or (b) some have it and some don't and they're
> squabbling over it. Aside from that immortality is just a whole lot
> of more of the same.
>
Oh good. The one I've written will go up on Book View Cafe sometime
next year.
Brenda
Eric Ammadon
"Sometime next year" encompasses a bit of time, please do let us know
when the time is closer to hand. I'm sure your book will be more
interesting than some fellow doing the same job, watching the same tv
shows, and eating the same foods for hundreds of thousands of years.
<g>
Eric Ammadon
The planet is pretty crowded and occasionally boring, please pass the
kool-aid. <g>
Brenda Clough
Tch. Trust me. The day I write a book without incident is the day I die.
Brenda <anathema to boredom>
Ric Locke
A long-ago story in F&SF was about a sort of immortality -- a house that
didn't /quite/ exist forever... the story was interesting, but then it
was really only about the last few hours.
Regards,
Ric
John W Kennedy
> Tch. Trust me. The day I write a book without incident is the day I die.
"Why should you always have /live/ things in stories?" said the
Professor. "Why don't you have events, or circumstances?"
"Oh, /please/ invent a story like that!" cried Bruno.
The Professor began fluently enough. "Once a coincidence was taking a
walk with a little accident, and they met an explanation -- a /very/
old explanation -- so old that it was quite doubled up, and looked more
like a conundrum --" he broke off suddenly.
"/Please/ go on!" both children exclaimed.
The Professor made a candid confession. "It's a very difficult sort to
invent, I find. Suppose Bruno tells one, first."
--
John W. Kennedy
"The pathetic hope that the White House will turn a Caligula into a
Marcus Aurelius is as na�ve as the fear that ultimate power inevitably
corrupts."
-- James D. Barber (1930-2004)
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> Brenda Clough wrote:
>> Tch. Trust me. The day I write a book without incident is the day I
>> die.
>
> "Why should you always have /live/ things in stories?" said the
> Professor. "Why don't you have events, or circumstances?"
>
> "Oh, /please/ invent a story like that!" cried Bruno.
>
> The Professor began fluently enough.
"The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline."
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Brian
> The day I write a book without incident is the day I die.
>
> Brenda <anathema to boredom>
Keep a diary. If you die, write it down. By the logic above, you
can never die.
John F. Eldredge
This sounds rather like the inscription on the cave wall about the
Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
Brenda Clough
I'm not really interested in personal immortality (esp. if it doesn't
include good health) but I will write about it.
As to incident, let me see. I think this is the book in which the hero
is assaulted by a lion. Also there is the incident with the handcuffs
and the iron bedstead...
Brenda
James A. Donald
> Personally I think the subject of immortality remains
> dull and uninteresting unless (a) the story explores
> the problems/benefits of an extended lifetime, or (b)
> some have it and some don't and they're squabbling
> over it. Aside from that immortality is just a whole
> lot of more of the same.
Very long lifetimes, with minds not much larger than
they are now, would render people prone to forgetting
who they are and what they are doing, hence the
immortality stories with some kind of equipment to
manage memories, to control what was forgotten and what
was remembered.
Suppose that immortality comes in the form of a
multitude of medical advances - expensive medical
advances, resulting in immortality for as long as you
can pay your medical bills. Class war ensues, but the
story inevitably has to be on the side of the immortals,
since even though the proles will be told by the
politicians that the rich are like vampires, extending
their lives at the expense of the masses, the reader
will know that this is not true, and that the
politicians have neither the intention nor the ability
to provide immortality to all.
Such stories wind up with the elite genociding the
impatient masses, or otherwise rendering them a non
problem "If only they had waited a little longer, the
cost would have come down"
Eric Ammadon
>
>> Personally I think the subject of immortality remains
>> dull and uninteresting unless (a) the story explores
>> the problems/benefits of an extended lifetime, or (b)
>> some have it and some don't and they're squabbling
>> over it. Aside from that immortality is just a whole
>> lot of more of the same.
>
>Very long lifetimes, with minds not much larger than
>they are now, would render people prone to forgetting
>who they are and what they are doing, hence the
>immortality stories with some kind of equipment to
>manage memories, to control what was forgotten and what
>was remembered.
After being faithfully married to the same woman for several decades
I'm rather looking forward to the opportunity to have stranger-sex
with her. <g>
As for forgetting who we are, I'm not convinced that most of us ever
know that.
And forgetting what we're doing... during the '60s and '70s some of us
did a great deal of experimentation regarding just how much can be
done with just how little short-term memory, and the answer seems to
be that quite a lot can be done with very little.
As you might recognize if you've thought about it, understanding and
memory are not the same thing. To use the analogy of a computer,
understanding is embodied in the program and memory is embodied in the
data. Both computers and people tend to discard data whose continued
storage is considered useless. I figure that if a fellow can retain a
year's worth of memories he has far more than he actually needs in
order to remain quite functional, so long as understanding remains
intact. With sufficient understanding memory may not be necessary at
all beyond what the senses provide -- as Barbarella was told, "angels
have no memory".
>Suppose that immortality comes in the form of a
>multitude of medical advances - expensive medical
>advances, resulting in immortality for as long as you
>can pay your medical bills.
Yes, that does sound like unending financial slavery, keep paying the
bills or you'll die. Have you noticed that grocery prices seem to be
increasing? I wonder how much is profit and how much is cost, drought
does cause an increase in the need for irrigation. But we do have to
pay the price or, well, well die, right? Same old same old.
> Class war ensues, but the
>story inevitably has to be on the side of the immortals,
>since even though the proles will be told by the
>politicians that the rich are like vampires, extending
>their lives at the expense of the masses, the reader
>will know that this is not true, and that the
>politicians have neither the intention nor the ability
>to provide immortality to all.
I don't necessarily agree with that. The rich are already like
vampires, sending jobs overseas to maximize profit, sending rents
through the roof so they can sit on their duffs while their mortgages
are more than fully paid by those who need office space so they can
work and pay taxes.
>Such stories wind up with the elite genociding the
>impatient masses,
When class war ensues nobody ever truly knows what the outcome will
be, or one side or the other would back off.
During the depression of '29 the rich remained able to purchase
Duesenberg automobiles, but stopped doing it to the extent that the
company went out of business. Why? Either they were embarassed to
display their wealth before the poor, or they got tired of having
rocks and rotten fruit thrown at them as they drove past.
> or otherwise rendering them a non
>problem "If only they had waited a little longer, the
>cost would have come down"
Yes, the fools should have waited until we decided we'd made enough
money and ought to reduce our profit margins, that's always the way of
it eh?
Dan Goodman
That could be made interesting, though. There might be someone whose
job is to spy on him till he commits such-and-such crime -- and is
veeery slow to realize that he's being punished/sidelined.
--
Dan Goodman
Journal at:
dsgood.livejournal.com
dsgood.dreamwidth.org
dsgood.insanejournal.com
Brenda Clough
> Yes, that does sound like unending financial slavery, keep paying the
> bills or you'll die. Have you noticed that grocery prices seem to be
> increasing? I wonder how much is profit and how much is cost, drought
> does cause an increase in the need for irrigation. But we do have to
> pay the price or, well, well die, right? Same old same old.
>
It's mainly the cost of gasoline or energy: the chemicals for
fertilizer, the fuel to harvest and process, the gasoline or diesel to
haul the food to your supermarket.
Brenda
Peter Knutsen
> Also kate Wilhelm wrote one. I think the title was Welcome, Chaos. In
> which someone developed a drug that would kill nine out of ten people
> who took it, but the one survivor would be immortal.
Damon Knight talks about some basic research he did on immortality, and
the eventual solution, in "Creating Short Fiction", but it is possible
that it was research for a story Vilhelm was writing, rather han one of
his own.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org