- Hélène Merle-Béral, doctor, specialist in leukemias, directed the biological hematology service of Pitié-Salpêtrière, studies in "Biological immortality" the concepts of death and immortality.
- Is man doomed to age and die or can we hope that transhumanist prophecies will come true?
- Medicine has already made great strides in understanding the mechanisms of aging.
Why should man bear aging? Hélène Merle-Béral, doctor, specialist in leukemia, studies this terrible injustice to which most living species are subject in Biological Immortality , published this Wednesday by Odile Jacob. Transhumanism is not afraid to consider immortality as a future reality. Some, like the entrepreneur Laurent Alexandre, think that the man who will live 1,000 years has already been born. What does science say about it? Hélène Merle-Béral helps 20 Minutes to go around the question.
How is death different from old age?
Death depends on cultures. Not all organs stop suddenly. There is a state of coma, pre-death. What is considered official death by the WHO is brain death, the electroencephalogram flat. There is no longer any link between the neurons, there is no longer any nerve impulses. But there are several types of death. Official death is clinical death. Other than that, certain organs can continue to function for some time. Sometimes the heart continues to beat while the brain is turned off. Three organs - the brain, the lungs and the heart - need each other. If one does not work, the others die.
So, old age is a pre-death?
Death can occur through accidents, external phenomena, diseases, viruses, suicide, murder ... The chapter on aging, I find it hellish because it shows that all the organs age more or less, more or less rapidity. It also depends on genetic factors, social, economic factors ... Inevitably all the organs age, wear out. There is an entropy, the cells find it increasingly difficult to communicate with each other. It is the communication with the external environment and the other cells which keeps alive.
In genes, there is a programming: what is called programmed cell death. Cells are destined to die, there is a limit to cell division. It has been shown that after a certain number of cycles of cell division, which depends on organisms, the cell must die. For humans, it's around 52.
You talk about biological immortality in your book, can you explain what it is?
Biological immortality exists, it can be observed in nature. It is the ability for an organism to rejuvenate and age forever. It becomes a biologically immortal being but it remains sensitive to external aggressions. In nature, there is only one example, the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula. It is an example of absolute biological immortality because it can live in two forms: the polyp form and the jellyfish form. She has this extraordinary property of refusing to die. When it is in stressful conditions, dangerous conditions, it goes back to the polyp state, it reverses the aging process. When the external conditions are better, it can become jellyfish again. She is potentially immortal.
Some transhumanists believe that the man who will live 1000 years has already been born. What does medicine think about it?
Medicine, of course, does not agree. We are starting to decipher many mechanisms, but we do not know how everything is linked. Genetic factors, free radicals, oxidants, which destroys our DNA molecules ... We manage to decipher many factors. Telomeres, for example, at the end of chromosomes, allow the cell to renew itself. Nature has made an enzyme, telomerase, which allows chromosomes to regenerate their ends. After a while, these telomerase stores are depleted and the cell can no longer divide. She is condemned to die. This is one of the reasons why we die. We have already identified these mechanisms in human biology, this is progress. We tried to give telomerases as a dietary supplement, but it is much less effective than we thought. It was believed that telomerase was going to be the elixir of youth and we realized that it is in abundance in cancer cells. They have a lot of telomerase and therefore they multiply. We are groping but we are moving anyway. It seems dizzying to push the limits of death, but it doesn't seem impossible to me.
At what age can we expect to die?
Today, we admit that human nature cannot exceed 115 years. Jeanne Calment holds the world record at 122, but there are no other examples. Today, there are quite a few centenarians around the world. I think we could trivialize this phenomenon with all the progress. Preventive medicine is developing rapidly. With prevention, genetic treatments, genetic engineering [the set of tools for modifying the genetic makeup of an organism by deleting, introducing or replacing DNA] which could limit certain hereditary diseases, specific drugs that could slow down the mechanisms of programmed cell death, I think it's not impossible. When I started as a hematologist, some 30 years ago, certain diseases of the blood were inevitably fatal. Now we heal them. Why can't we achieve things in twenty years that seem impossible to us today? We must remain modest. But immortality, honestly, no.
Raymond Kurzweil announced the digital singularity for 2045. What do you think of the big announcements in Silicon Valley?
I am a little skeptical, especially about the announcements by Raymond Kurzweil. He is a high-level scientist, a pioneer, he knows his subject perfectly. He is someone who is intellectually reliable. Suddenly, it is as if he was going crazy. Technological singularity is the moment when all NBICs (nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, computer and cognitive sciences) converge, where artificial intelligence exceeds human intelligence. In this hypothesis, if the human brain is not interfaced with a machine, it will be completely overwhelmed, and therefore the robots will dominate the world. It looks like science fiction. The only problem is that it worries extremely serious people, indisputable scientists like Stephen Hawking, [who has since died], Bill Gates or Elon Musk. They signed a letter to warn world opinion against the possible dangers of artificial intelligence.
Have you been surprised by a technical advance over the past few years?
Regarding aging, not much. The most common today are creams - it never really worked - and surgery. What struck me most was that diseases that were considered fatal in the short term can be cured today. This shows endless perspectives on possible evolution. A person who had a particular type of leukemia, who was condemned, twenty years later, he is cured with a pill to be taken for three months. It is fabulous. I think a lot is possible. We must remain modest and at the same time confident in human intelligence.
Find the section Future (s) here
If you use your imagination, what seems closest to you?
Interfacing the brain with artificial intelligence and having a digital, virtual brain is a nightmare but not a tangible reality. What seems to me the most achievable is medical progress. Not immortality but the decline in death, alleviating the inconvenience and dilapidation of old age. Besides, that was originally transhumanism. It was medical goals, to cure, to avoid diseases, to avoid cancer.
Culture
Newton Howard's reason for being with his brain implant
Culture
Transhumanism: Why is it so difficult to come out transhumanist in France?
- Old age
- What the future?
- Future (s)