Longevity science

Ray Kurzweil plans to live forever. All power to him. Mr. Kurzweil’s contributions to mankind arguably have been so extraordinary that perhaps we owe it to him to provide him medical care in perpetuity.

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Ultimately, the question is this: are Americans entitled to unlimited life expectancy?

As a futurist, you are famous for making predictions of when technological innovations will actually occur. Are you willing to predict the year you will die?

My plan is to stick around. We’ll get to a point about 15 years from now where we’re adding more than a year every year to your life expectancy.

"I'm right on the cusp," he adds. "I think some of us will make it through"—he means baby boomers, who can hope to experience practical immortality if they hang on for another 15 years.

By then, Mr. Kurzweil expects medical technology to be adding a year of life expectancy every year. We will start to outrun our own deaths. And then the wonders really begin. The little computers in our hands that now give us access to all the world's information via the Web will become little computers in our brains giving us access to all the world's information. Our world will become a world of near-infinite, virtual possibilities.

Neuroscientists today can preserve small volumes (<1mm⊃3;) of animal brain tissue immediately after death with incredible precision...

...chemical brain preservation may inexpensively preserve the organism’s memories and mental states after death. Chemically preserved brains can be stored at room temperature in cemeteries, contract storage, even private homes.