The author argues that the cure for aging will not come in the form of a physical item like an elixir or injection, but rather through evolutionary adaptation as humans become more integrated into technological networks. The author believes biotechnology alone will not solve aging due to psychological, anatomical, biological and evolutionary reasons why physical therapies do not work. Instead, aging will be eliminated as nature finds it more economical to maintain existing, useful humans who are well-embedded in social networks rather than creating new individuals.

1. Alchemy vs Networks
By Marios Kyriazis
The cure for ageing will come - but it will not be something physical

2. Since ancient times
people have been
searching for the secret
of immortality.
Their quest has always been,
without exception, about a
physical item: a fountain, an
elixir, an Alchemist’s remedy,
a chalice, a pill, an injection of
stem cells or a vial containing
gene-repairing material. It has
never been about an abstract
concept.

3. Our inability to find
a physical cure for ageing is explained
by a simple fact: It does not exist!
Those who believe that someday some guy is going
to discover a remedy and give it to people so that
we will all live forever are deluded.

4. In a paper I published in the journal Rejuvenation
Research I outline some of the reasons why I think
biotechnology will not solve the ageing problem.
• I criticise projects such as SENS as being essentially useless against
ageing.
• There are insurmountable psychological, anatomical, biological and
evolutionary reasons why physical therapies against ageing will not
work and will be unusable by the general public.

5. Ageing will be eliminated through fundamental evolutionary
and adaptation mechanisms, and this process will take place
independently of whether we want it or not

6. We now age and die
because
we become unable to repair
random background damage
to our tissues. Resources
necessary for this have been
allocated by the evolutionary
process to our germ cell DNA
(in order to assure the
survival of the species) and
have been taken away from
our bodily cells.

7. However, this is now changing
• Our environment is becoming increasingly more secure and
protective
• We become increasingly embedded into the network of a global
techno-cultural society which depends upon our intelligence in order
to survive.
• It would be more economical for nature to maintain an existing, well-embedded
human, rather than allow it to die and create a new one
who would then need more resources in order to re-engage with the
techno-cultural network.

8. The message is clear:
You have more chances of defying
ageing if, instead of waiting for
someone to discover a pill to make
you live longer, you become a useful
part of a wider network, and
engage with a technological society.
The evolutionary process will then
ensure that you live longer-as long
as you are useful to the whole.

9. Marios Kyriazis
drmarios@live.it
Further reading
The Myth of the Longevity Elixir. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/kyriazis20121031
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/04/the-life-extension-hubris-why-biotechnology-is-unlikely-to-be-the-answer-
to-ageing
The impracticality of biomedical rejuvenation therapies
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25072550