Aggregate Thinking and Objectification

Aggregation of the Mind

 

   By Steve Rensberry

   Thinking in the aggregate is a nearly ubiquitous and irresistible human impulse, an impulse born perhaps in an increasingly complex, changing world that requires quick decisions and survival smarts. We plug people into groups, draw inferences based on averages, then move on as if all is well. But is it rational, and does it lend itself to the making of accurate, humane, and meaningful life decisions? This essay will explore the premise that such thinking is neither rational nor beneficial, and that ultimately all assessments of human beings that lean on aggregate statistical analysis, and other forms of abstract generalization, are in essence subtle and damaging forms of dehumanization. Philosophically, attempts to establish a conclusive interpretation for any individual human action by employing aggregate based calculations and related assumptions is an ontological nightmare, not unlike the epistemological quagmire we find ourselves in with platonism, structuralism and moral absolutism.

The term aggregate is used in different ways by different groups, one being the concept of aggregate demand or aggregate supply in macroeconomics, signifying some comprehensive or total value. People working in statistics, in the credit industry, or in the fields of predictive analytics and actuarial science also make extensive use of aggregate concepts. As used here, aggregate thinking is defined as the practice, whether codified into a mathematical formula or through simple every-day observation, of simply grouping and making assumptions about individual human beings derived from an analysis of the many, ostensibly to predict some future outcome, level of risk or value.

How does such thinking differ from the formation of the common stereotype, or prejudicial thinking in general, both of which are almost universally deplored? I would suggest that they differ only on a very superficial level. Judgments which seem entirely arbitrary, lacking any kind of statistical support or detailed argument, certainly appear more prejudicial. But garnish them with even the slightest amount of statistical reasoning, however superfluous, and the acceptance level rises accordingly. Conflating the abstract with the particular, and the realm of thought with flesh-and-blood existence, seems particularly easy when the subject of our analysis is of a conceptual nature, such as people, or society, as opposed to a living, breathing, individual human.

What choices do we have, really, when assessing our fellow human beings? We can consider individual people as entirely unique, living, breathing, sentient creatures, each with his or her own 100-percent unique life experiences, level of intelligence and genetic predisposition; or we can view them as something lesser, in the abstract, as just one part of a large group, defining them according to some mathematical algorithm or set of averages -- or generalization -- which assume that similar creatures think and reason in 100-percent identical ways.

Consider a group of 100 people. If 80 people out of this 100 are determined to have X characteristic, and if all those who have X characteristic engage in Y, can we take each of these 100 individuals in isolation and say that each of them has an 80 percent chance of engaging in Y? Not without committing a number of logical fallacies we can't. We commit the fallacy of division when we say that something which is true for the whole is necessarily true for each or some of its parts. We commit the ecological fallacy when we infer that statistics involving an individual can be deduced from inference for some group to which an individual belongs. The fallacy of composition involves falsely reasoning that what is true for a part is also true for the whole. The informal fallacy of hasty generalization is made when a conclusion is reached without consideration of all variables, which in this case would be those unique to a specific individual.

Put another way, is it fair to assume that each and every person in a group with predominantly similar characteristics carries the same degree of risk that the entire group does, in the aggregate? Most of us would say no, yet this type of assumption is exactly what happens in all sorts of enterprises -- in the field of insurance and actuarial science, in the determination of credit scores, in setting security clearances, in establishing citizenship, indeed with just about everything and anything that requires certification or a license. Conformity, predictability and risk aversion may be the underlying motives, but at what cost? One could make the point that the fundamental nature of organized society itself, governed by a universal set of rules and regulations, is all about the common good, and with it the implicit expectation that individuals will accept some degree of sacrifice and individualism to maintain the dominant ideal. But how far is too far, and when does mass conformity and group-think overwhelm that which makes us truly human?

Requiring people to sacrifice their individuality on the altar of the abstract, the aggregate, and the hypothetical seems to me to be fraught with dangers, among them deindividuation, defined in social psychology circles as the loss of self-awareness in groups and the diminishing of a person's sense of individuality. The belief that such states are a factor in antisocial behavior has been explored by a number of researchers, among them French psychologist Gustave Le Bon who described it as a process whereby individuals' minds become dominated by a “unanimous, emotional, and intellectually weak” collective mindset, leading to a loss of individual responsibility

In a 2002 working paper series for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, writer Thomas Garrett points to another danger, this one involving the use of regression analysis and consumer sentiment indices, and how the use of data aggregation can lead to misleading conclusions about individual economic behavior. The irony of formal regression analysis as it relates to economics is that it still involves a form of objectification, by treating a person as a mere variable. As commonly defined, regression analysis is simply a statistical forecasting method used to estimate the effect that an independent variable has on a dependent variable.

Garrett states: "Every field of economics uses aggregated data to test hypotheses about the behavior of individuals. Examples in macroeconomics include the use of aggregate consumption and income to test the permanent income hypothesis (Hall, 1978), and forecasting national personal consumption expenditures using consumer sentiment indices (Caroll, et al. 1994: Bram and Ludvigson, 1998). The use of aggregate data to explain individual behavior makes the assumption that the hypothesized relationship between the economic variables in question is homogeneous across all individuals. When the behavior of economic agents is not the same, a regression analysis using aggregated data can provide conclusions regarding economic relationships that are different than if less aggregated data were used."

Jean JacquesRousseau, in The Social Contract and Discourses, parses the foundation that we give to a very old ideal – the idea of "the strong" – seen by some (in particular the strong) as the implicit arbitrator of morality and an element of that class of things considered to be truly real.

Rousseau writes: "The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest, which though to all seemingly meant ironically, is really laid down as a fundamental principal. But are we never to have an explanation of this phrase? Force is a physical power, and I fail to see what moral effect it can have. To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will – at the most, an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty? Suppose for a moment that this so-called 'right' exists. I maintain that the sole result is a mass of inexplicable nonsense. For, if force creates right, the effect changes with the cause; every force that is greater than the first succeeds to its right. As soon as it is possible to disobey with impunity, disobedience is legitimate; and the strongest being always in the right, the only thing that matters is to act so as to become the strongest."

Where Rousseau questions the idea of force making right, we may just as well question the utilitarian idea of the right action always being that which results in the greatest good for the greatest number. In either case, we are dealing with non-physical elements of discourse, and the impossible challenge of determining what is infinitely “right” and what is infinitely “good” apart from complete omniscience, and against the great expanse of time.

The common denominator that aggregate statistical analysis, regression analysis, and utilitarian ethics all share is a reliance on non-concrete, abstract, absolutist thinking, and on the belief that it is possible to accurately define and relate to human beings as static things, things which can and should be compared to some abstract infinite quality existing entirely outside of normal time and space. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum described the process of objectification as something that occurs when a person is used as a tool, as something that is owned or interchangeable, or as something that may be destroyed without any additional permission needed. Similar to the concept of dehumanization, objectification negates the feelings and humanness of an individual, either indirectly or directly, through various levels of oversimplification and denial.

The debate over the role and reality of the immaterial is an old one and entails a number of metaphysical positions which I think are worth summarizing. They include:

Platonism: Abstract objects exist in a non-physical and non-mental realm outside of normal time and space. (Historical Platonism adherents: Plato, Numenius, Plotinus, Augustine, Ploclus. Modern platonism, small "p" adherents: Bernard Bolzano, Gottlob Frege, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, Alonzo Church, Kurt Gödel, W.V. Quine, Hilary Putnam, George Bealer and Edward Zalta).

Nominalism (anti-realism): Universal entities and abstract objects do not formally exist, as do particular concrete entities and objects. (Francis Bacon, David Hume, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Nelson Goodman.)

Conceptualism (mentalism, psychologism): Abstract objects such as numbers do in fact exist, not as independent entities but as mental constructs. (Locke, Husserl, Brouwer, Heyting, Noam Chomsky, Fodor).

Immanent realism (moderate realism): Universals exist, not in some external reality beyond time and space but within the physical world of particulars. (Aristotle, D.M. Armstrong).

Nihilism: Nothing actually exists. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Stanley Rosen, Martin Heidegger).

Naturalism: mind and non-material values are a product of matter. (John Dewey, Sidney Hook, Roy Wood Sellars, Francis Bacon, Voltaire, Paul Kurtz)

Idealism: Mind or spirit constitutes the fundamental reality. (Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Arthur Schopenhauer).

Objective idealism: Material objects do not exist independently of human perception. Spiritual realities are independent from human consciousness. (Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Shelling, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Plato)

Subjectiveidealism: Mind and mental constructs are all that exist. (Dharmakīrti, George Burkeley).

Solipsism: Knowledge outside of one's one mind is uncertain. Only one's mind is sure to exist. (René Descartes, Gorgias of Leontini, George Berkeley).

Common senserealism (Naïve Realism): Material objects do in fact exist.(J.J. Gibson, William Mace, Claire Michaels, Edward Reed, Robert Show, Michael Turvey, Carol Fowler).

Existentialism: All thinking must begin with the living, existing, feeling human being, and not with some abstract essence. (Søren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Satre, Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Albert Camus, Eugène Ionesco).

Moral Absolutism: The acceptance of or belief in absolute principles in political, philosophical, ethical or theological matters.

Structuralism: Elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure (wikipedia). Simon Blackburn: Structuralism is "the belief that phenomenon of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture."

Theories concerning the ultimate nature of reality can be broken down furthermore into several other basic categories. These include monism, representing the view that reality is fundamentally one process or being (Parmenides, Hegel); pluralism, which see ultimate reality as flexible, incomplete and unknowable; and dualism, which sees reality as split between the eternal and unchanging realm of ideas or forms (Plato) and the ever-changing, temporal realm of human experience.

We may also view such differences in terms of idealism, realism and pragmatism. Idealists emphasize the role of mind and the relationship between the knower and the things known. Realists treat the mind as secondary and separate the knower from the world he or she inhabits. And pragmatists reject both views and instead embrace the idea that thoughts and things are fundamentally inseparable in a world of pure experience.

Still others have parsed the differences into those of mysticism, emphasizing the oneness of reality; materialism, focusing on matter as the stuff which ultimate reality is made of; and supernaturalism, which presupposes a higher being or beings who transcends the natural realm and who created and sustains all that exists.

It stands to reason that modern, densely populated societies need some measure of order and rules in order to function, especially with creatures who are unpredictable at best and dangerously self-serving, exploitive and violent at worst. But on what foundation should such rules be created, and just how far can we go in treating people as numbers before we cease to treat them as people at all? Should there be some measure of objectivity and concreteness in the process, or must we resign ourselves to generalizations and aggregate-based assumptions for the sake of efficiency and order, for lack of viable options?

I think the answer is most certainly yes, there should be some extraordinary level of concreteness to that which informs our choices; and no, I do not believe that we ought to resign ourselves to thinking in the aggregate merely because it is too time consuming or too difficult to reason otherwise. Individual human beings deserve to be treated as individual human beings, in all their complexity, with all their imperfections, and taking into account all that impacts their choices in the way of culture, genetics and environment. Thinking in the aggregate may be a natural and almost irresistible human impulse, but so might be a deeply-rooted and irrational fear of uncertainty -- a fear that has effectively been codified into almost every institution that surround us.

Given the bigger picture, it behooves us to make peace with uncertainty, make greater exceptions for environmental anomalies and human individuality, aim for general compliance rather than total conformity, and pursue empathy rather than penalty.

British philosopher Alan Watts, in his acclaimed 1951 work, The Wisdom of Insecurity:A Message for an Age of Anxiety, writes: “The 'primary consciousness,' the basic mind which knows reality rather than ideas about it, does not know the future. It lives completely in the present, and perceives nothing more than what is at this moment. The ingenious brain, however, looks at that part of present experience called memory, and by studying it is able to make predictions. These predictions are, relatively, so accurate and reliable (e.g. 'everyone will die') that the future assumes a high degree of reality -- so high that the present loses its value. But the future is still not here, and cannot become a part of experienced reality until it is present. Since what we know of the future is made up of purely abstract and logical elements -- inferences, guesses, deductions -- it cannot be eaten, felt, smelled, seen, heard or otherwise enjoyed. To pursue it is to pursue a constantly retreating phantom, and the faster you chase it, the faster it runs ahead. This is why all the affairs of civilization are rushed, why hardly anyone enjoys what he has, and is forever seeking more and more. Happiness, then, will consist, not of solid and substantial realities, but of such abstract and superficial things as promises, hopes, and assurances.”

Treating human beings as human beings also demands a certain understanding with respect to choice and free will. Yes, we may feel as though we have choice, but it is a choice stripped of the power to manifest much of what the will desires. People don't choose to be born in an imperfect world. They don't choose to grow old, to have a will and desires that exceed the capability of the physical universe to fulfill. Nor do they choose to have bodies that are susceptible to disease, infection and death. They don't choose the parents who will rear them, nor do they choose the home and environment they will spend their days in as children. It may be easy, simple, and quick to ignore the bigger picture, to see human beings as isolated pockets of infinite knowledge with infinite responsibility for every action they take, but it would not be accurate. Much has been made of a study by German scientists Hans Helmut Kornhuber and Lüder Deecke regarding a phenomenon known as “readiness potential,” which suggests that the unconscious mind may actually initiate action prior to one's conscious awareness of it. Subsequent studies by Benjamin Libet in the 1980s and by John-Dylan Haynes in 2008 using MRI technology has led to similar conclusions. While such studies do not conclusively prove that free will is merely an illusion, they do present a challenge to our traditional understanding of it. As Canadian transhumanist and bioethicist George Dvorsky writes in a Jan. 4, 2013 article for the blog io9: “What would really settle the issue would be the ability for neuroscientists to predict the actual outcome of more complex decisions prior to the subject being aware of it themselves. That would, in a very true sense, prove that free will is indeed an illusion.” (See: Scientific Evidence That You Probably Don't Have Free Will).

The concepts of risk and probability, as they relate to individual human action, are two other ideas that are ripe for reassessment. While the human condition may compel us to quickly assess the probability of theoretical future events and matters affecting our safety, the mere desire for certainty ought not lead us to the dehumanization of our fellow human beings. Yes, we can determine the relative likelihood of a group of people behaving in a certain way through aggregate analysis, but what is not so easy to determine is the degree to which a specific individual within that group will behave in a certain way. The concept of bounded rationality is one that may have bearing on our propensity to jump to conclusions and generalize, with respect to assessments of probability and risk. As listed in the Cambridge Dictionary: “Bounded rationality is the theory that people can understand only a limited amount of information within a limited amount of time, and for this reason they do not always make the best decisions, especially in complicated situations.” The concept of of bounded rationality differs from “rationality as optimization,” in that the process of optimization is seen as a constraint rather than an enabler.

Platonism, with a small “p,” asserts that abstract objects are objective, timeless entities, totally separate from the physical world, even from the symbols that people use in describing them. Structuralism is a method of interpretation that focuses on a broader conceptual system that supposedly underlies individual human cognition and behavior. And absolutism presupposes the existence of infinitely fixed principles that are above and behind all individual existential realities. While such ideas may sound nice and feel good to those seeking assurance, they exact a heavy toll – stripping humanity of the innate unpredictability, the non-linear processes that reflect our various states of consciousness, the mystery embodied in our range of desires, and the exceedingly complex and symbiotic mind-body relationship that all but makes us who we are.

For further reading

Against Prediction Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age

By Bernard E. Harcourt

The Curse of the Baby Boomers
By John FitzGerald

Aggregation and the Separateness of Persons
By Iwao Hirose

The Common Good
By Claire Andre and Manuel Velasquez

The History of Utilitarianism

By Julia Driver

Space, Time and the Human Condition

 By Steve Rensberry

  Researchers at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences at the University of California, San Diego have estimated that the awe-inspiring, spiral-shaped Milky Way Galaxy, in which our own earth resides, contains more than 400 billion stars. Other estimates place the number around 300 billion, but either way we are talking about an incredibly large number.
   Furthermore, the Milky Way Galaxy contains nearly the same number of planets, scientists say, with microlensing observations suggesting that those in the habitable zone may number as high as 10 billion. The galaxy is composed of a galactic center; a rotating, flattened disk area containing a very large number of stars (along with large amounts of galactic dust and various molecular and atomic gases); and a spherical halo of presumably dark matter, whose presence is inferred by its gravitational effects on the visible portions of the galaxy. (a)
   "The halo consists of the oldest stars known, including about 146 globular clusters, believed to have been formed during the early formation of the galaxy with ages of 10-15 billion years from their H-R Diagrams," states one online tutorial written by Professor H.E. "Gene" Smith. (b)
   While an enormous amount of dark matter is theorized as being integral to the milky way's existence—and indeed the composition of the entire universe, alternative theories do exist. Astronomers at the University of Bonn, whose findings were published by the Royal Astronomical Society, are among those who have called the existence of dark matter into question.
   "In their effort to understand exactly what surrounds our Galaxy, the scientists used a range of sources from twentieth century photographic plates to images from the robotic telescope of the Sloan Deep Sky Survey.
   Using all these data they assembled a picture that includes bright ‘classical’ satellite galaxies, more recently detected fainter satellites and the younger globular clusters," the RAS states in a May 2012 update. "The astronomers found that all the different objects are distributed in a plane at right angles to the galactic disk. The newly-discovered structure is huge, extending from as close as 33,000 light years to as far away as one million light years from the centre of the Galaxy." (c)
   Lead author Marcel Pawlowski and team member Pavel Kroupa have suggested that what we are really seeing is the remnants of a collision between two galaxies billions of years ago.
   Evidence calling into question the existence of dark matter also was presented on June 18 from data collected in an unusual underground experiment at Italy's Gran Sasso National Laboratory, designed to detect the "weakly interacting massive particles” (WIMPs), which many scientists suspect dark matter to be composed of. Yet after 225 days of data collection, using an instrument far more sensitive than had ever been used before, the elusive dark matter particles remained as elusive as ever. (d.)
   To the contrary, this past month astronomers at the University of Michigan claimed to have observed what they call a filament of dark matter between two relatively adjacent galaxy clusters.
   As stated by Zeeya Merali in the July 4, 2012 online issue of Nature: "The presence of dark matter is usually inferred by the way its strong gravity bends light traveling from distant galaxies that lie behind it — distorting their apparent shapes as seen by telescopes on earth. But it is difficult to observe this 'gravitational lensing' by dark matter in filaments because they contain relatively little mass. (Jörg) Dietrich and his colleagues got around this problem by studying a particularly massive filament, 18 megaparsecs long, that bridges the galaxy clusters Abell 222 and Abell 223." (e)
   The exact nature and possible existence of dark matter, as with dark energy, is very intriguing and likely to be debated for some time. But let me turn the corner and draw your attention to something which I believe is far more fundamental.
   What needs to be debated and vigorously challenged is the human propensity to resign itself to a philosophically constricted and scripted view of the human experience; that says everything—everything—must have absolute meaning in order to have value; and which reasons that death is inevitable and merely transitory.
   How can humanity transcend the physical limitations of its existence in a real and practical sense—as opposed to the fantasy worlds built by superstition and spiritualism?
   This is the question we should be asking.
   Will we ever reach the stars?
   Not if we fail to think outside the framework of tradition.
   Not if we don’t stop ourselves from dying in the process.
   The three-star Alpha Centauri system, the closest stars to our own, lies an estimated 4.37 light years away. The red dwarf known as Barnard's Star lies 5.96 light years away; Wolf 359 lies about 7.78 light years away; Lalande 21185, also a red dwarf, lies about 8.29 light years away; Sirius lies about 8.58 light years away; Luyten 726-B about 8.73 light years; Ross 248 (HH Andromedae) about 10.32 light years; and Epsilon Eridani about 10.52 light years.
   Astronomers with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) published research this past year which said that there could be as many as 100 planets within 30 light years of earth. Billions more are presumed to exist throughout the broader Milky Way Galaxy. (f)
   But herein lies the problem.
   As defined, a light year is the distance that light in a vacuum travels in one year. That distance is calculated to be a little under 10 trillion kilometers—6 trillion miles in other words. This calculates to an incredible 186,282,297 miles per second. If we wanted to reach even the closest star system beyond our own, the Alpha Centauri system, and managed to reach speeds approaching 150,000 miles per hour, it would this infinitely flight-worthy ship roughly 18,000 years to arrive at its destination. Think about that for a minute.
   We could surely send ourselves on a one-way voyage to some new world millions of light years away, counting on the cycle of reproduction to ensure the continuation of the species, as in Paul W.S. Anderson's 2009 Sci-Fi thriller Pandora, but what would be the point when the people who arrive will be 180 generations removed from those who first began the journey? The odds of maintaining some semblance of sociological, psychological and physical continuity would seem to be slim if not impossible.
   I would not go so far as to say that such a quest would be irrelevant, but I will say this: The need to overcome disease and death, to overcome the genetic and physical imperfections of the human organism in the hear and now, in my opinion dwarfs any perceived need for space travel. When we finally get to the point where serious life extension beyond the pathetically-short 100 years or so we can hope for now becomes a reality, when the people who set off on the journey into space are the same people who will land on that new world in some distant part of the galaxy, then we'll have reason to celebrate.
References
(a) Nature, Vol. 481, pg 167-169.
(b) Astronomical Tutorial
(c) Do the Milky Way’s Companions Spell Trouble for Dark Matter?
(d) New Cern Tests Attack the Existence of Dark Matter
(e) Dark Matter’s Tendrils Revealed
(f) Astronomers Find First Habitable Earth-Like Planet

Transhumanism and the Challenges of Aging

By Steve Rensberry   

The phenomenon of aging and the ultimate disintegration of the human biological organism has been an intractable part of human existence since the dawn of civilization. Has anyone come close to stopping it, or better yet reversing it? Did the alchemists of old or the throngs of ecclesiastical authorities, supernaturalists, occultists and mystics throughout history ever truly succeed in bringing the giant to its knees? No. Many have claimed they did. But in terms of concrete, measurable progress, one camp and one camp alone stands categorically apart from the rest. That camp is the relatively modern transhumanist movement. They haven't succeeded either, but they're edging a whole lot closer than the rest.
   Transhumanists to be sure aren't alone in their desire to overcome aging, but the approach they take is clearly one of the most comprehensive. Read the Transhumanist Declaration. Joining them on the anti-aging front is a growing army of medical specialists and scientists fast at work in the battle to keep people alive.
   Change. Adaptation. Transformation. Need I say it? We live in an age of hope, but also one which is laced with an inordinate amount of hate, fear and paranoia.
  As the ideas of transhumanism have spread, there has, unfortunately, been a corresponding rise in criticism and mischaracterization. Before you follow suit, I would strongly urge you to read what they have to say first hand. Dreamers and hopelessly optimistic they may be, but the transhumanists I read and know are profoundly pragmatic, rational and as ethically-minded as anyone else. Familiar names in the movement include those of Nick Bostram, Ray Kurzweil, David Pearce,  Max More, Eric Drexler, Anders Sandberg and others whom I reference in this post.
   Not that there aren't differences of opinion, but on the subject of aging their consensus is refreshing. For those who count themselves among the critics, who lay hope not so much in the living but in some thing or being from beyond the earthly realm, I plead with you to open your mind, open your heart, and take an honest look at the realities of the human situation.
   How long must we wait? How many people must suffer as the mechanisms of aging strip them of their last dying breath, against their will and against the will of those around them? We pay homage to nature as a source of nourishment and strength, but it is as much a slave master as it is liberator. Into nature we are born and in its hands we parish. We are both dependent on it and distracted by it, diverted from a cohesive challenge by emotion, impulse and the simple need to feed the biological machine.
   The unconscious mass of forces that it is, master nature cares not about the longevity of the creatures it spawns. It just is. The entities and creatures within this earthly realm we share in live—most often—only to replicate, for those which do not simply disappear. See Life History Theory.
   Michael Anissimov, writing for Humanity+  in an articled published on March 18, 2009, entitled Engineering an End to Aging, breaks down some of the latest research and challenges of the anti-aging movement.
   "The first thing to realize is that nature doesn’t specifically want us to die. There is no 'death gene.' For any species in any environmental context, there is an ideal life span from an adaptive point of view—an evolutionary optima. One evolutionary strategy includes species that reproduce quickly and die off fast.
   Another includes species that reproduce slowly and live for a long time. Call it quality versus quantity. Thankfully for humans, we’re squarely in the quality column, but many would agree that 80 to 90 years is not enough," he writes.
   Among those whom nature seems to have bestowed with extraordinary life spans are tortoises, turtles, terrapins, whales and the microscopic hydra, which live in freshwater and are able to regenerate tissue so efficiently that some scientists believe they may, in fact, be immortal, at least in regard to the mechanism of aging. So might the worm-like planarians.
   As simple as they are, planaria are very unusual creatures—possessing both male and female sex glands, although needing another planaria for fertilization of its eggs. But when all else fails they can reproduce using a process called fragmentation, literally splitting themselves into two parts and then using their ability to regenerate body parts until there are two complete planarians.
   "Scientists have examined the internal organs of young and old turtles and found that they look exactly the same. Something in a turtle’s physiology prevents these organs from breaking down," Anissimov writes.
Crabs, lobsters, jellyfish, earthworms, and many insects exhibit varying degrees of regenerative abilities. In humans and most other higher animals regenerative powers are limited to things such as the formation of new skin tissue, the reconnection of broken bones and limited regeneration of some organ tissues.
   Anissimov's article cites the work of UK biogerontologist Dr.Aubrey de Grey and his focus on early damage repair rather than on trying to decode all of the exceedingly complex underlying causes, a plan which de Grey calls Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS).
   Cited also are the primary and most commonly understood causes of aging as noted by de Grey, namely: cell loss, cell resistance to death, mutations in nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA, excess or unusable intracellular and extracellular material, and junk molecular substances lying outside the cells themselves that form crosslink molecules at odds with healthy function.
  Here's a longer list of aging theories that I compiled some time ago:

• Autoimmune Theory or Immunologic Theory of Aging: The production of antibodies in the immune system, necessary for fighting disease, declines with age, causing the immune system to turn on itself. Examples: lupus and adult-onset diabetes. Proposed by Dr. Ron Walford.
• Calorie Restriction Theory: The theory that a high-nutrient, low-calorie diet (undernutrition without malnutrition) would dramatically slow aging. Proposed by Gerontologist Dr. Roy Walford, UCLA Medical School.
• Codon-Restriction Theory: This theory puts forward the idea that aging cells become unable to accurately translate genetic information from ribonucleic acids (mRNAs). Errors thus occur in protein synthesis. Proposed by B.L. Strehler in 1971.
• Cross-Linkage Theory: As  the number of callogen protein cross-links increases with age, it results in a reduction of skin elasticity and joint flexibility, and, and may also stop important nutrients from moving between cells.
• Death Hormone Theory (Aging Hormone): A hormone, called the decreasing oxygen consumption hormone (DECO) and released by the pituitary gland as we begin to age, produces changes in the human metabolic rate and thus accelerates aging. Introduced by endocrinologist Dr. W. Donner Denckla of Harvard University.
• Disposable Soma Theory (entire body): A theory which proposed that aging is a generalized accumulation of unrepaired faults in the cells and tissues of the body.
• Epiphenomenalist Theory of Aging (Extrinsic Theory): Suggests that aging is the result of unavoidable environmental influences. Proposed by British author Alex Comfort and Canadian scientist Hans Selye.
• Errors and Repairs Theory (Error Catastrophe Theory): A theory which observes that DNA and protein production sometimes is less than perfect, requiring repairs. When repairs are sometimes made imperfectly, the result is disease and other age-related problems. Proposed by American biologist Lislie K. Orgel.
• Exhaustion Theory of Aging: A theory which attributes aging to an essential nutrient which finally become depleted.
• Free Radical Theory: Proposed that unbalanced electrical charges within molecules produce excess free radicals within the body that attack cell membranes and disrupt DNA and RNA synthesis, along with other damage to vital biological and chemical processes. Introduced in 1954 by R. Gerschman and developed by Dr. Denham Harman of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine.
• Gene Mutation Theory (Somatic Mutation Theory, Random Hits Theory): Experiments with radiation have indicated that genetic mutations and seemingly accelerated aging can occur with certain levels of exposure. This theory attributes aging to accumulated mutations in the genomes of somatic cells). Proposed by American nuclear physicist Leo Szilard.
• Hayflick Limit Theory: The theory that aging is the result of a biological clock within each cell, limiting the number of times which human cells divide. Proposed by cell biologists Leonard Hayflick and P.S. Moorehead.
• Hormone System Decline: A theory which focuses on the fact that key hormones in the human body decline in production during aging.
• Limited Number of Cell Divisions Theory: A theory which attributes aging to the slowing rate of cell division as the accumulation of waste increases with age, thus causing increased cell degeneration. Studied by Dr. Alexis Carrel.
• Mitochondrial Theory: The theory that energy produced by the mitochondria within cells leads to an increase in free radicals, thereby accelerating aging.
• Neuroendoctrine Theory: This theory is related to the wear and tear theory on the level of the Neuroendoctrine system. This system plays a role in controlling important bodily functions and the release of hormones. Proposed by Vladimir Dilman, Ph.d.
• Order to Disorder Theory: The theory that aging is due to a general deterioration of things on the molecular level, from order to disorder.
• Oxidative Stress: Damage occurs during the collision of oxygen free radicals with cellular material. Oxygen free radicals are highly toxic.
• Programmed Aging (Genetic Control Theory): Also called the biological death clock, aging clock, clock theory and pacemaker theory of aging. Attributes aging to inherited factors of individual organisms and to a type of biological clock ticking away within the human DNA code.
• Rate of Living Theory: A theory that says we are born with only a certain, limited amount of energy. When it is used up, we die. First proposed by German physiologist Max Rubner.
• Redundant DNA theory: The theory that genetic errors which accumulate results in aging. Also blamed are "reserve genetic sequences" of the DNA which "take over." Dr. Zhores Medvedv, National Institute of Medical Research.
• Shangri-La Phenomenon: A theory which suggests that somewhere in the world resides a small group of people who are able to live to be incredibly old, as old as 140 years or more. The term was created by American biologist Gairdner B. Moment in "The Biology of Aging."
• Telomerase Theory: A sequence of nucleic acids at the end of chromosomes called telomeres have been shown to shorten each time our cells divide. Introduction of an enzyme called "telomerase," found only in such things as germ and cancer cells, may repair the telomeres. Discovered by scientists at the Geron Corporation in Menlo Park, California.
• Testicular Extract Theory: A controversial theory which says that sexual prowess in aged men can be rejuvenated by injecting them with liquefied testicles from pigs or dogs.
• Thymic Stimulating Theory: Hymic hormones produced by the thymic gland shrink in size as people age. This theory suggests that this may influence the aging process through the control of neurotransmitter production and hormones produced by the endocrine system. Researched by Washington University Biology Department Chairman Dr. Alan Goldstein.
• Waste Accumulation Theory: Attributes aging to the accumulation and inadequate disposal of waste produced by cells, called lipofuscin.
• Wear and Tear Theory: A theory which suggests that the body and organs become worn down by substances in the environment and in the human diet, as well as by such things as stress and ultraviolet rays. Proposed by German biologist Dr. August Weismann in 1882.

   The book, Reversing Human Aging, by Dr. Michael Fossel, broke new ground in 1996 in expounding on the science of telomeres and on Fossel's belief that some type of telomerase therapy might the answer. He also discussed Hayflick's startling discovery, that our cells—most of them anyway—divide only so many times before dying. Two types of cells which do not follow the pattern: germ cells and cancer cells, which manage to cheat death by using a cell's very own protein-synthesis capability to create enzymes that rebuild the telomeres.  Add sperm cells and ova among those which is some sense never die.
   What it tells us, and what Fossel believed, was that the existence of such mechanisms of immortality in germ and cancer cells, and of accelerated aging disorders such as progeria, is powerful evidence that aging is an alterable process and not at all something that is inevitable. At minimum, aging appears to be something that can be regulated and most certainly extended once we are able to control the cellular mechanisms that govern its progression.
   Nevertheless, the pace of change in the biological sciences over the past 20-30 years has raised the level euphoric predictions to new heights. Two decades after Fossel's book, I ask, will we see telomerase therapy do what it was hoped it will do, what Fossel suggested would happen in 20 years, by 2016 .
   "We will be able to prevent, even reverse, aging within two decades," Fossel writes in the second paragraph of Chapter I. "At the same time, and as part of the same process, we will also cure most of the diseases that now frighten and destroy us. Cancer, a disease in which malignant cells refuse to age, will be among the first to do."
   I encourage you to read the book, as it contains a mountain of insight and worthwhile research, but I think even Fossel may now realize the overly-optimistic projections it contains.  Maybe. On December 14, 2009, he made a blog post that said essentially the same thing that was asserted in Reversing Human Aging 13 years earlier.
   What happened to the missing years?
    "Science may soon be able to slow, stop, or even reverse the aging process in humans," he writes in his blog. "What will happen when people can live on and on for centuries? Within the next two decades we will extend the healthy human life-span indefinitely and, in doing so, alter human culture forever."
   I do hope he's right, but I just don't see it happening in "the next 20 years." Perhaps with a dramatic turnabout in collective will power, coupled with massive amounts of public funding, we might—just might—make some headway. But what are the chances?
   A major obstacle (which the transhumanists and the anti-aging researchers I know are cognizant of) is that it is not just the human body which is weak and afflicted but the human mind. Could we even handle immortality if we possessed it? Humans have had thousands of years to become maladjusted, to fight their wars, and to brainwash and hypnotize themselves into believing that death is normal. But what really do we mean by normal? The irreversibility of death has affected nearly every aspect of our being. Why not be cruel to our neighbor? — the subconscious mind reasons. Why not hog the earth's resources and turn our backs on the sick and dying when we're all due to grow old and die in a few short decades anyway? The certainty of death has given us an excuse to escape obligation, to drop out and close our minds, oblivious to our own inner suppression and delusions of grandeur.
   How many social structures and cultural mores are fabricated around the assumption that aging is unavoidable? Nearly all! Entire religions and a host of financial systems would wither away without it. There are a thousand ceremonies, habits, rituals and career decisions predicated on death's faithful execution. Children are born and families are created without the slightest worry of overpopulating the world because, of course, "no one lives forever."
   My opinion: Blunting the blow through psychological acceptance and supernaturalism may help to distract us from reality, but how long can we allow ourselves to be lulled into inaction, into the creation of meaning for comfort's sake, or into rationalizing what’s always been as somehow innately good? Perhaps the transhumanists have it right.
   For those who prefer living over death, I’d say it's time to move on.