I've just discovered life-changing book (for me at least) called Fantastic Voyage by Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil is the amazing inventor and futurist author of "The Age of Spiritual Machines" and "The singularity is near".

The premise of fantastic voyage is that medical science is advancing so quickly (though most of the advances are still in the laboratory) that if you are alive 20 to 30 years from now, you'll be able to stay alive indefinitely, and eventually be able to transform your body to an optimal age.

As a scientist and futurist myself, I can assure everyone that there's nothing far-fetched about this. Read sciencedaily.com or other science news sites and you'll be astonished by the amazing revolution that's occuring in medical science, and in fact in all areas of science and technology.

Our ability to read and understand our DNA is providing an overwhelming amount of knowledge about what was formerly invisible. Here's a summary from Kurzweil:

"Consider health. As of just recently, we now have the tools to reprogram biology. This is also at an early stage but is progressing through the same exponential growth of information technology, which we see in every aspect of biological progress. The amount of genetic data we have sequenced has doubled every year and the price per base pair has come down commensurately. The first genome cost a billion dollars, NIH is now starting a project to collect a million genomes at a thousand dollars a piece. We can turn genes off with RNA interference, add new genes (to adults) with new reliable forms of gene therapy, and turn on and off proteins and enzyme at critical stages of disease progression. We are gaining the means to model, simulate, and reprogram disease and aging processes as information processes. These technologies will be a thousand times more powerful than they are today in ten years, and it will be a very different world in terms of our ability to turn off disease and aging. "

Because his father and grandfather died at a young age from heart disease, and Kurzweil himself is 58, he has designed a program to keep himself from having heart disease and cancer. He has created a new methodology for using cutting edge medical science. In a nutshell he has focused on diet, aggessive supplementation, and getting yourself tested for many conditions, and correcting them using diet, supplements, and as a last resort, prescription drugs.

Those attempting to create a personal nutrition program will appreciate the comprehensive framework by which to understand which foods are beneficial and which aren't so great. He states that diseases like cancer and heart disease are from years of not taking care of yourself. But now we even have the tools to have our DNA tested to find out what DNA polymorphisms make us more susceptible to various chronic conditions, which are correctible if you know about them and monitor them.

Some people are turned off by this technological and "mainstream" scientific approach to immortality, although there's nothing mainstream about Kurzweils super-empowering point-of-view. I am into energy healing myself, however, I personally believe that science is just another form of magic that manifests if you do the right energy work. And there's certainly no reason not to continue or accelerate one's energetic healing, these two approaches complement and enhance each other.

But for me it has revived the excitement of the potential for physical immortality that I was into about 12 years ago, which I mentioned in an earlier post. It is much more motivating to correct your diet and lifestyle if you think you might enjoy another 1000 years, as opposed to just stretching our your old age for a few more years.

When I'm discussing the book with people, I always find it surprising how many people say "I'd never want to live forever". To me this is a tricky way of asking someone if they are truly happy, since the idea of living forever possibly means being stuck in your life as you currently know it for a very long time.

I personally am greatly enjoying my life, and its unfoldment, and can't imagine not wanting to extend it as long as possible assuming I'm able to continue to be healthy and creative.
Cheers,
Dlight