Agree with those who point out that a fundamental breakthrough could open up life extension, but that is also pretty hard.

I am stunned also seeing the rates of cancer prevalence once people start to get elderly – they just shoot up.

Some fundamental change in cell aging would be required; but equally (and now I am playing hunches only) it seems that much of the excess complexity in cell operation is down to layers of defensive and self-repair systems to maintain the stability and integrity of the genome and its expression against cancer, viruses etc.

I think an engineering approach (physicists, pah!) will rapidly find that it is very hard to avoid the aging mechanisms without breaking the system. Which is fine with me because the genome is more or less immortal even if the sleeve isn’t.

Equally, the big error in mind-as-algorithm is not so much analog vs. digital as whether there is sufficient structure within the mind-computers so that you can map mental concepts onto stable sub-sections of code, copy the code into someone elses programme and have them acquire the concepts mentally.

I see no reason to believe there is some shared high-level mental programming language or data format that is shared across brains except for the hormones and neurotransmitters that set to some extent the basic mood.

Anyway, too much cold water. My attempt at life extension is at primary school now, and is making me very happy.

That’s the most optimistic thing I’ve heard all day. Makes me want to gird up the ol’ loins and keep shouldering on!