Immortality is the concept of eternal life. Some modern species may possess biological immortality.
Some scientists, futurists, and philosophers have theorized about the immortality of the human body, with some suggesting that human immortality may be achievable in the first few decades of the 21st century with the help of certain technologies such as mind uploading (digital immortality). Other advocates believe that life extension is a more achievable goal in the short term, with immortality awaiting further research breakthroughs. The absence of aging would provide humans with biological immortality, but not invulnerability to death by disease or injury. Whether the process of internal immortality is delivered within the upcoming years depends chiefly on research (and in neuron research in the case of internal immortality through an immortalized cell line) in the former view and perhaps is an awaited goal in the latter case.
What form an unending human life would take, or whether an immaterial soul exists and possesses immortality, has been a major point of focus of religion, as well as the subject of speculation and debate. In religious contexts, immortality is often stated to be one of the promises of divinities to human beings who perform virtue or follow divine law.
Anti-aging movement
Life extension technologies claim to be developing a path to complete rejuvenation. Cryonics holds out the hope that the dead can be revived in the future, following sufficient medical advancements. While, as shown with creatures such as hydra and Planarian worms, it is indeed possible for a creature to be biologically immortal, these are animals which are physiologically very different from humans, and it is not known if something comparable will ever be possible for humans.
Soul and Resurrection
Immortality in religion refers usually to either the belief in physical immortality or a more spiritual afterlife. In traditions such as ancient Egyptian beliefs, Mesopotamian beliefs and ancient Greek beliefs, the immortal gods consequently were considered to have physical bodies.
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
The Fountain of Youth is a mythical spring which allegedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks or bathes in its waters. Tales of such a fountain have been recounted around the world for thousands of years, appearing in the writings of Herodotus (5th century BC), in the Alexander romance (3rd century AD), and in the stories of Prester John (early Crusades, 11th/12th centuries AD). Stories of similar waters also featured prominently among the people of the Caribbean during the Age of Exploration (early 16th century); they spoke of the restorative powers of the water in the mythical land of Bimini.
The philosopher's stone, or more properly philosophers' stone (حجر الفلاسفة; lapis philosophorum), is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (chrysopoeia, from the Greek χρυσός khrusos, "gold", and ποιεῖν poiēin, "to make") or silver. It is also called the elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and for achieving immortality; for many centuries, it was the most sought-after goal in alchemy.
General resurrection or universal resurrection is the belief in a resurrection of the dead, or resurrection from the dead (Koine: ἀνάστασις [τῶν] νεκρῶν, anastasis [ton] nekron; literally: "standing up again of the dead") by which most or all people who have died would be resurrected (brought back to life). Various forms of this concept can be found in Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Samaritan and Zoroastrian eschatology.
Explores the intersection between transhumanism and religion, discussing the evolution of the transhumanist movement and its potential as a secular religion.
Explores replicative immortality in cancer cells, focusing on telomere erosion, telomerase activity, and the role of p53 in maintaining genomic stability.
, ,
The Seventh International Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Meeting was held May 21-25th, 2018 at the Asilomar Conference Grounds, Pacific Grove, California, United States. The interactive nature of this conference was embodied by 25 workshops covering topics ...
Much has been learned about the genetics of aging from studies in model organisms, but still little is known about naturally occurring alleles that contribute to variation in longevity. For example, analysis of mutants and transgenes has identified insulin ...
A family of models is proposed to describe the motion of holes in a fluctuating quantum dimer background on the square lattice. Following Castelnovo et al. [Ann. Phys. (N.Y.) 318, 316 (2005)], a generalized Rokhsar-Kivelson Hamiltonian at finite doping whi ...