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Introduction

A Life-Expectancy Calculation

(Based on Life-Extension Science)

Here, we present a life-expectancy calculation within the frame-work of the evolving science of Life-Extension. Keep in mind that "life-expectancy" means the number of years remaining, while "life-span" means the total number of years that are lived in a life-time. We will be dealing mostly with the former - Life-Expectancy.

The first calculation of your Life-Expectancy is "actuarial". This a standard calculation from government agencies that is used for various purposes, including insurance coverage. In the second calculation, you can refine your Actuarial Life-Expectancy by profiling your personal "Risk Factors", which either increase or decrease life-expectancy. Then, from that point, we proceed into various life-extension scenarios - e.g. 1) if you were to participate in the Life-Extension Program and change or mitigate your negative risk factors, how might that increase your Life-Expectancy over the next 5 years? 2) assuming scientific progress within the next 10 years, what might be the consequences of such advances with respect to your life-expectancy? and 3) in 15 and 20 years, what might be the consequence of further progress toward a final solution - the invention of methods to reverse ageing and restore optional biological vitality? These latter calculations may appear to be science fiction; but consider that much of yesterday's fiction is now reality.

As a first pass, these calculations can be done in about 10-15 minutes. Each module contains some comments and background information about that section; and it is worthwhile to redo, periodically, the calculations.

I would venture to claim that there are few exercises which can be more psychologically and philosophically penetrating than doing a calculation of your own life-expectancy. When presented with the idea of "life-extension" the immediate reactions are a reflection of one's personal identify and self-image - projecting that into the future. If a person's reaction to the idea of life-extension is positive, then usually one has an optimistic personality (reasonably satisfied with self and potential and looking forward to what the future might bring). The obverse is usually the case. Taking the maxim of Socrates that the unexamined life is not worth living, what, then, is the purpose of one's life - rather, your remaining life? This calculation provides a quantitative framework for addressing that issue in both practical and philosophical terms. The future really belongs to those who will take it; and those who are passive will be dragged along, kicking and complaining - "To be or not to be, that is the question ...." using another quote from Hamlet.

Keep in mind that denial is one of the main functions of the human mind; and certainly, the denial of death's inevitability is the cause for much of what we believe and do. This denial may comfort us, somewhat; but it also is the main cause, I would suggest, of many of our personal and social neuroses.

It is easier to see the inevitability of death as being a "natural act of God"; and it can strike people as being cold, mechanistic, or arrogant when we say that the inevitability of death is an engineering problem; that it is caused by biological ageing with biological ageing being a genetically programmed decline in cell number, rate, and quality; and that this process can be rendered to scientific understanding and eventual reversal and control - given the intelligent application of expertise, money, and other resources.

The adjacent quotation from Shakespeare's Hamlet captures, in poetic verse, the poignancy of this subject.

C. A. Everone

Shakespeare: Hamlet contemplating the skull of
Yorick - the Court Jester *
& **

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him .... A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times. And now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it.

Here hung those lips that I have kiss'd I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chap - fall'n? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that ....

Dost thou think Alexander looked of this fashion in the earth? And smelt so? Pah!

To what base uses we may return ...! Why, may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole?

No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it; as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam (whereto he was converted) might they not stop a beer barrel?

Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. O, that that earth which kept the world in awe Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!

* Oehlers Photography

** Dramatization

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