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Chasing Immortality
How some life on Earth achieves near-immortality, and how we might someday in the future
The year is 2573:
Lilara’s laughter fades into awed silence as the autocab drifts to a stop. It was a long ride from the Johannesburg spaceport, but finally, the family had arrived at their destination: Lilara’s mother’s old family estate. Her mom met her father there when he was just a 24-year-old graduate student performing ecological research on the 50,000-acre preserve. That was in 2088 when the desert was threatening to overtake everything completely.
Eventually, Lilara’s parents moved together to Mars City Two, also known as Olympia, where they became leaders in the terraforming initiatives. Over the next few centuries, Mom and Dad would end up holding some of the most senior roles in Mars’Sci. Because of them, Mars was fast becoming a wet, green planet that would be on par with Earth in another couple of centuries.
After dinner in the guest house, the little family spent a few hours with Lilara’s grandparents in the VR world Archeon, where all of her relatives who died since about 2100 continued to live. It was always bittersweet since everyone who visited knew that one day they would be there, too. All the Archeonese assured the Living, however, that they couldn’t tell any difference between their biological lives and their virtual ones.
Mom and Dad waited so long to become parents because they were busy, important people, and there was so much to do. But Lilara knew that when they did decide to have her, it was the happiest choice they’d ever made. They had spent a long time to make sure the people of Earth could have a second home if they needed it, and now they would spend just as much time making sure their daughter could have the same opportunity if she ever chose to.
Immortality
More than a few scientists believe that a baby born today might never die.
“Immortality” is a loaded word, for sure: In the broadest sense, it refers to not being able to die, ever. To know what immortality is, however, we need to define death. For us, death is a permanent cessation of all vital functions: the end of life. (Merriam-Webster)
