Discussion continues ...

Dear Readers,

I am continuing this discussion on http://www.seraphthorn.com 

My latest posts are on Top 10 Ways to Live Longer and A Few of My Favorite Things ... and

• Does the individual matter for humans? Yes.

I appreciate your support.  Thank you.

Yours truly,

Christie

What is God?

By Christie Ewen

“Wake me up from my hibernation” – Bjork (Pagan Poetry)

As a parent, I am overwhelmed by a sense of responsibility for both life and death.  It’s incredible for me to know so much over a new life.  I feel like I am all-knowing as I watch my newborn learn about the world and discover things I used to take for granted … such as sleep.  It frightens me to think one day when I die, I will be helpless to ever waking up and as a parent, I am saddened to think the life I have given will one day also slip away helplessly into the void, all alone.

When I say, “God, help me” …
I see God.  God gave me life.  God was my mother.  God helped my mother give birth.  God was her doctor.  God gave my mother life.  God was my grandmother.   God is everyone.  God is everywhere.  God is everything.  I am God.

“May God Be With You” …
Communicate and “God” will save you.  Note, that I put God in quotes.  God is not one entity.  God is not the trinity.  God is not any number of entities but rather in life lending its hand in progress.

“God save me! (from the deepest, darkest pit of emptiness)” …
God is the police, firemen, government, worker.  God is the scientist.  I’m putting my plea out there on the internet to communicate with you all that we’re capable of bringing back people from the dead.  My hope is that you will one day bring me back to life.  Life is programmable and so is our consciousness.  Our consciousness, our self, our soul is programmable.

Sometime after writing my blog "What is God?", I watched an interesting in-depth analysis about resurrection on the TV series Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.  According to the show: maintaining a continuum of our memories makes us who we are so cloning is not enough.  I disagree.  Although I may have lost some of my memories over the years, I still have a sense of who I am.  I am not you and you are not me.  I have a very real sense of myself.  Clones are not empty vessels.  I believe consciousness is a manifestation of the physical human body.  This is a question I'd like to further investigate: Is a clone a copy of the soul?  I agree that memory is important for context but not necessary.  Including memory as part of resurrection would be an added bonus.

Some say life does not seem much of a life worth living if it’s just spent worrying about death.  The alternative is to live life blissfully and just accept death as a natural part of life.  Rather than worrying about death but working towards not dying makes sense.  We do it every day.  By "it", I mean "not dying".  The next step is to not do it ... ever.

Please note, that sometimes my blogs are edited without notice.  No need to be alarmed, it's merely my making adjustments in my writings to reflect my true thoughts.  I realized after re-reading my posts, I didn't elaborate enough and there was too much left up for interpretation.  I'm rewriting some of my posts to make myself more clear.

REFERENCES:

What is Life?
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2119649,00.html?xid=fblike

Bonnie Bassler on How Bacteria Communicate
http://www.ted.com/talks/bonnie_bassler_on_how_bacteria_communicate.html

Robin Ince says, “that science dictates we can live forever- not our consciousness, not ourselves, we only have one go at it”  Well, I disagree.  I believe ourselves and our consciousness is ingrained in our cells and that could be recreated.
http://www.ted.com/talks/robin_ince_science_versus_wonder.html

Is Death the End?
http://science.discovery.com/videos/through-the-wormhole-2-is-death-the-end.html

Grey Hair

By Christie Ewen

I started having gray hair when I was in my teens.  A few strands here and there.  Not the stringy, dry, mass of gray hair I have today.  Well, I noticed today that a strand that was once gray turned black.  I was watching for this since I changed my diet.  It started with one strand then I noticed more.  I followed a diet with more copper such as avocado, radishes, and spirulina according to Live Strong’s website on fruit and vegetables that reverse grey hair.  I also drank a cup of coconut water daily.

Since there was a deliberate recent change in my diet, there’s no denying that diet has made a significant improvement in my case.  It has already been established according to several sources that diet is one of many influences of grey hair so it should come as no surprise.
 

REFERENCES:

Live Strong Fruit and Vegetables that reverse grey hair

http://www.livestrong.com/article/325982-fruit-vegetables-that-reverse-grey-hair/

World's Oldest Person Turns 128

http://www.thedominican.net/articles/pampo.htm

Life After Steve Jobs

(February 24, 1955 à Oct. 5, 2011)

By Christie Ewen

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new." -Steve Jobs, Stanford University commencement speech, 2005

Just believing is where I find religion to play a significant role in what is possible.  Unfortunately, Steve Jobs accepted that mortality is a necessary part of life: in his own words, “And that is as it should be”.  How could a man worth over 8 billion dollars who lived every day of his life as if it was his last not live forever?  I believe the cure is in reprogramming the genes.  If only he had contacted me ...

Steve Jobs has done so much for humanity in liberating knowledge and I’m ever so grateful.  I wish he could have stayed true to himself to the very end – “stay foolish” and ultimately defied death.

References:

Steve Jobs: 20 Best Quotes

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/steve-jobs-death-20-best-quotes/story?id=14681795#

http://www.mfoundation.org/

Nature vs. Nurture

"The winner was a mouse that did not receive any dietary or pharmacological treatment at all, just an enriched environment. The mouse lived for 1551 days (about 4.2 years)." -- http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/


We have polluted the earth almost to the point of no return.  I am astonished by how many plastic bags are distributed in stores.  Consumerism for economic recovery does not have to be irresponsible spending in plastic and toxic wastes.  Protecting our environment is critical for longevity.  


I have this idea for a business and longevity (you are more than welcome to implement this particular cemetary/agriculture idea): What begets life begets death and vice versa.  How about a cemetery that accelerates this process?  Cremation is not the answer for reincarnation rather a cemetery that is also used for agriculture.


(c) Christie Ewen 2011

How does something old turn new again?

Life and death go hand in hand.  What gets old need to turn new again and that usually happens by destruction.  Imagine if people were like bacteria, never to die but get old complete with the accumulation of the diseases of mind and body - Mankind would be wiped out as we know it.  The multi-priceless question is: How does something old turn new again? and how can we go about this in a continuum?  How can a person be immortal?

Reproduction through intercourse was through evolution and the next evolution will come about by self reproduction.

Is there an example of life where something old turns new again through which humans can imitate?

It has been a while ...

I was reminded what's been going on in the NYTimes article about "Awaiting the Genome Payoff". I can't believe the daily obstacles that are getting in the way of progress. Progress has been slow but there is progress. The most awesome news to date is the creation of artificial life.

I'm going to raise the question again: "Where is the soul?" In the DNA. Simply the recreation of an individual is the recreation of the soul.

Why are we here?

I am fascinated by the NYTimes article about our existence. Can our existence be explained by simple mathematics? Given more matter than anti-matter we exist ... as opposed to being less than dead?

What is the difference between positive and negative in magnetism? They are opposite forces where morality doesn't even play a role. We understand positive to be good and negative to be bad when really they are just labels.

We could exist in an alternate universe if we made it happen ... not in binary but whatever distribution we want.

(c) Christie Ewen 2010

Hydra

by Christie Ewen 2/13/10

This fresh water organism deserves more attention. Hydra may be immortal because they regenerate their tissues and organs without an apparent end state. There's not enough data to make a conclusion but Daniel E. Martinez's study appears to suggest Hydra are indeed immortal.

An interesting point raised about evolutionary biology in both sources listed below is about TIMING. Just having the desired genes (that includes the so called "junk" DNA) is not enough to make an organism immortal, switches need to turn the genes ON and/or OFF at specific times.

REFERENCES

MORTALITY PATTERNS SUGGEST LACK OF SENESCENCE IN HYDRA

by Daniel E. Martinez

PBS Nova What Darwin Never Knew

What is the difference between aging and senescence?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3401/01-ask.html

Training to Be Young Again

How about training to be young again? In the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a man regresses from an old man into a baby. Rather than just growing into an adult how about switching gears to be young again?

Do you remember what it was like to be young? so carefree? happy? hopeful? Your heart beats differently. No bills to worry about. No worries about invisible invaders called germs. All the stress that goes hand in hand with growing up. What if we could pick what we can forget? like selective amnesia?

And if we can regress like in the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, who will take care of us? Interestingly, the Dali Lama monks believe in reincarnation and they take it as so far to take care of a child believed to be an incarnate of someone deceased. Perhaps, these monks have been preparing for the day when reincarnation is made possible through science. Maybe science is not exactly what they expected but the idea of living forever and how to deal with immortality is the same.

Complete Human Genomes on the Cheap

An entire human genome can be sequenced now for less than $5,000, down from $20 million a few years ago. This trend suggests prices will be negligible to the point procedures will become routine. Affordability dictates how soon we can expect individualized medicine, nutrition, ancestry tracing, cures for diseases, genetics design and engineering, and even physical immortality.

-- Christie Ewen

For more information see ars technica:

Complete Genomics produces a cheap—well, $5,000—human genome

A brief guide to DNA sequencing

DNA sequencing part 2: ligases and PCR

Partheno - what??? PARTHENOGENESIS!

PARTHENOGENESIS IN KOMODO DRAGONS (read more about it on nature.com)

A female Komodo dragon isolated from males produced an offspring without male fertilization. This goes to show Nature's proclivity for life proliferation is so strong, life will clone itself. True, genetic diversity is necessary for survival in the face of unpredictable environmental forces. Whereas in terms of searching for physical immortality, manipulating our genes to trigger self cloning will allow for greater control over our environment (i.e., we could ride the moon).

In the interest of searching for physical immortality, it would help to understand the genetic makeup of the Komodo dragon and the triggers for parthenogenesis which could aid in better understanding self cloning in the face of mortality.

By Christie Ewen

Soul: Nature vs. Nurture?

Where is the soul of a person? What happens to the soul when the body dies?

Experiences don't define a person. Obviously a good environment that nurtures the body for proper development is necessary. But if you reconstruct a person using genetic information then you are recreating the exact same person. The soul arises from the physical being created from the genetic information. If the person dies, the soul dies as well.

What about Identical twins who share exact genes?

They are the same person.

How can we test this idea of the soul arising from the body? What is a valid scientific approach? How can we test this idea by observing the behavior of cloned insects or animals?

In the news:

Do Twins Have a Sixth Sense?

-- Christie Ewen

What is the Impact of Lactose in Adults?

I've been thinking about lactose intolerance and galactosemia.  Perhaps, adults shouldn't be drinking milk? or dairy products?  Although most people have developed a tolerance to lactose, I'm wondering what are the other possible deleterious effects of lactose.

Lactose is broken down into glucose and galactose.  Those with galactosemia cannot break down galactose which leads to serious health problems.  The only treatment is eliminating lactose and galactose in the diet.

It should be noted that The Okinawa diet consists of almost no dairy products.   Unlike, the Blue Zones diet which encourages the consumption of goat's milk (contains lactose).

Also, cheese lactose content is much lower than milk or yogurt (See Stonyfield's lactose chart)

This needs further investigation.

by Christie Ewen

Life and Death (Yin and yang)

Does life and death go hand in hand?  What gives life, gives death and vice versa.  What form of death is necessary to be born again (sounds almost biblical)?

Here's an idea (not entirely thought through): How about introducing a virus that carries genetic information that mirrors the genetic information of the individual minus certain information to start a regression?  Then reintroduce the full genetic information at a desired age to kickstart the progression?  Finally, introduce a repeat cycle information.

-- Christie E.

A Look at Biologically immortal species

"Of particular interest is the Turritopsis nurticula.  Life is dynamic and this example is familiar in nature.  The pattern mirrors the universe breathing: expanding and contracting." -- Christie Ewen

Biologically immortal species

See also List of long-living organisms

Life defined as biologically immortal is still susceptible to causes of death besides aging, including disease and trauma, as defined above. Notable immortal species include:

• Bacteria (as a colony) — Bacteria reproduce through cell division. A parent bacterium splits itself into two identical daughter cells. These daughter cells then split themselves in half. This process repeats, thus making the bacterium colony essentially immortal.
  Recent research, however, suggests that even bacteria as a colony may eventually die since each succeeding generation is slightly smaller, weaker, and more likely to die than the previous.^[11]
• Hydra can be considered biologically immortal as they do not undergo senescence or aging.
• Turritopsis nutricula, a jellyfish, after becoming a sexually mature adult, can transform itself back into a child (the polyp stage) using the cell conversion process of transdifferentiation.Turritopsis nutricula repeats this cycle, meaning that it may have an indefinite lifespan.^[12]
• Bristlecone Pines are speculated to be potentially immortal; the oldest known living specimen is over 4800 years old.

REFERENCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortality

YouTube: Quest for Immortality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfTqXL0d9Ls

Word of the Day: quantal

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quantal

Enzymes are catalysts for accleration

While reading about proteins, I came across an interesting fact about enzymes: they act as accelerators.  Perhaps, manipulating the enzymes involved in aging can delay death.