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Immortality?

Started by Kurzyk, March 21, 2010, 01:28:06 AM

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Kurzyk

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/guest_bloggers/26/the-world-s-only-immortal-animal.html

This is really intriguing not only in terms of the transdifferentiation process, but also in terms of population growth. It's scary.

Sabby

First, an immortal jellyfish... next, Adam slugs! Evolve Today!

Trieste

And it's about the size of your pinky nail. :)

Quote from: Wikipedia
The medusa of Turritopsis nutricula is bell-shaped, with a maximum diameter of about 4-5 millimetres (−0.039 in) and is about as tall as it is wide.

Jude

Researchers have actually found a gene in humans that, when disabled, allows human beings to regenerate completely like salamanders.  ...problem is that gene, if turned off, also leads to insanely high chances of your cells turning cancerous!  Funny, the tradeoffs we make as complicated organisms.

jouzinka

Well, when you can regenerate like salamanders, why care? You just regenerate that part, no? ;D
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Trieste

Well, the more you divide and change cells around, the higher your chance of cancer. UV rays interfere with DNA duplication, as do things like cigarette smoke and chewing tobacco. Cancer seems to be essentially a disease of the genes... you mess with them, you pretty much invite cancer.

Then again, gene therapy has helped so many people that the cancer risk has been deemed worth it, I believe.

Samael

Quote from: Sabby on March 21, 2010, 02:54:27 AM
First, an immortal jellyfish... next, Adam slugs! Evolve Today!

Would you kindly pass the immortality?
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DarklingAlice

Quote from: Trieste on March 21, 2010, 11:09:16 AM
Well, the more you divide and change cells around, the higher your chance of cancer. UV rays interfere with DNA duplication, as do things like cigarette smoke and chewing tobacco. Cancer seems to be essentially a disease of the genes... you mess with them, you pretty much invite cancer.

This. There was selective pressure to disable that process precisely because of the risk of becoming cancerous (and particularly horribly cancerous at that). Cancer is always just a series of mutations away, and for every roadblock we remove on the way to cancer you increase the odds substantially. And it is especially true when you mess with transdifferentiation. I considered posting a link here to pictures of teratomas...but then I realized that no one should have to see that. Inducing pluripotency in cells can have horrible consequences.



Also, concerning the jellyfish, it is an odd form of immortality. For a creature like that it doesn't necessarily matter, but imagine a human who could do that. I mean, if you hit a limit and then revert to a fetus and re-develop, can it really be said to be the same life? Would that person retain a single consciousness? And if it you think it would be the  same life, then how would cloning be any different? Are parthenogenic creatures one life spread through many bodies? It seems almost phoenix-like. Almost like the reversion is a death that brings about a new life that shares the same initial body but will develop differently.
For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong.


BlisteredBlood

But even if this does work, I think this would be like opening Pandora's Box. The entire concept of humanity and the cycle of life itself would come to a dead stop, if you pardon the pun. And besides, who would want to live forever? I think it would be a pretty boring existence, if you ask me. Not to mention lonely.
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Trieste

I believe Neil Gaiman already essentially wrote this story.  ^-^

Inkidu

Quote from: BlisteredBlood on March 29, 2010, 01:09:25 AM
But even if this does work, I think this would be like opening Pandora's Box. The entire concept of humanity and the cycle of life itself would come to a dead stop, if you pardon the pun. And besides, who would want to live forever? I think it would be a pretty boring existence, if you ask me. Not to mention lonely.
I wrote a short story on that concept. I never had it published for I feared it had already been done. Plus the post-modernistic fetish with the novel doesn't lend itself well to short fiction.

It was called "The Life Penalty" Capital punishment was immortal confinement in a nine by five cell with padded walls.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Sabby

Quote from: Inkidu on March 29, 2010, 11:34:12 AM
It was called "The Life Penalty" Capital punishment was immortal confinement in a nine by five cell with padded walls.

Excuse my Irish, but fuck me x.X *huddles in a corner*

Crovonovin

Quote from: BlisteredBlood on March 29, 2010, 01:09:25 AM
But even if this does work, I think this would be like opening Pandora's Box. The entire concept of humanity and the cycle of life itself would come to a dead stop, if you pardon the pun. And besides, who would want to live forever? I think it would be a pretty boring existence, if you ask me. Not to mention lonely.

See, I've never quite been able to grasp the hesitation or outright fear of immortality.  The most common excuses I've heard are the very ones that you stated: that everything would become old hat, and that all the people you know will eventually die.

But the thing is, the world is constantly changing!  So long as the human race continues to progress, there will always be new things to do!  New books to read, new shows to watch, new sports to take part in, new technologies to utilize!  Hell, even assuming the world suddenly became totally stagnant, it would easily take you hundreds of years to read every novel, view every piece of cinema, travel the globe and see everything there is to see.  And, barring some horrific cataclysm, there's always limitless expanse of space yawning out before us!

As for the fleeting nature of the relationships you would form...  At first it would be jarring, even depressing to watch all the people you've known and loved grow old and die, only to realize that you won't be able to experience the same.  But like experiences, there will always be new people to meet.  New friends, new mentors, new pupils, new lovers; an immortal person would eventually choose to focus on the fact that they will be able to meet thousands upon thousands of truly wonderful people over the course of their limitless existence.  When they hit the lowest of the low, there will always be the knowledge that they will live to see the day when things get better again.  One of the early Sandman comics deals with this idea to great effect.

Sabby

Quote from: Shihong on March 29, 2010, 02:30:06 PM
But the thing is, the world is constantly changing!  So long as the human race continues to progress, there will always be new things to do!  New books to read, new shows to watch, new sports to take part in, new technologies to utilize!  Hell, even assuming the world suddenly became totally stagnant, it would easily take you hundreds of years to read every novel, view every piece of cinema, travel the globe and see everything there is to see.  And, barring some horrific cataclysm, there's always limitless expanse of space yawning out before us!

That just sounds to me like entertaining yourself simply to stave off mind crushing insanity... a madness that a bullet to the temple isn't guna halt.

Crovonovin

That, to me, is far too negative a mindset for me to comprehend.  The fact of the matter is, we have no idea what it is like to live for one million years, let alone one thousand or even two hundred.  It's staggering, it's an unknown, and it's scary; at least, from the outset.  A mind that has lived for that long will think and experience the passage of time in a very different way from any one of us. 

Hell, if you think of our normal mortal lives as a whole, it can be pretty boggling!  Imagine for a moment that, hypothetically, you are going to live for 100 years, as you are now.  As medical technology becomes more and more advanced in your lifetime, let's say that number eventually reaches something in the ballpark of 150.  Now imagine that you are exactly 20 years old at this very moment.  Even thinking about the next 80-130 years would be enough to give most people a heart attack!  So why bother?  Why do we "entertain" ourselves at all?  Why do we "busy" ourselves with work and play and relationships?  To stave off madness?  Is that really all that a life is?  A few decades trying to keep insanity at bay with futile efforts?

Personally, I like to look at immortality as a gift, not a curse.  Humans are some of the most adaptable creatures on the face of the planet.  We can get used to nearly any conditions, whether they be physical or mental.  I have no doubt that we will be able to adapt to prolonged or even indefinite life-spans in the future of our species.

Xanatos

Shihong has it right. To put it a bit clearer, Humanity fears what it does not understand. Yet at the same time, somehow, Humanity is like a curious cat always exploring, seeking to understand the unknown. Immortality is just another frontier Humanity might day conquer and move on to something different.

Inkidu

Quote from: Xanatos on March 29, 2010, 04:36:18 PM
Shihong has it right. To put it a bit clearer, Humanity fears what it does not understand. Yet at the same time, somehow, Humanity is like a curious cat always exploring, seeking to understand the unknown. Immortality is just another frontier Humanity might day conquer and move on to something different.
The day humans get immortality is the day we die.
The driving factor of human curiosity, engineering, art, conflict is our short number of years. We strive desperately to be a bottle rocket in a sea of candles.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Xanatos

Age does not necessarily affect curiosity. That is a trait some never lose, while some never really have it. I would agree most of Humanity as a whole possesses it, but to say immortality kills this, is simply pessimistic and showing a lack of future sight. To assume humanity loses curiosity or drive is simple wrong. We just now live forever, that does not imply we lose our base nature. That's similar to saying a trained Tiger no longer has its base nature, which is obviously wrong. Tigers are still very dangerous even when trained because the very nature which makes them them is still present, its only been suppressed by the training. For Humanity, our curious nature I do not believe would be suppressed at all. It would only expand and balloon our curiosity. Because now brilliant minds could remain brilliant forever and continue to expand their knowledge and understanding. People could live to do more, achieve more.

Life would probably get boring for many, but as most creatures do and certainly Humanity, they would adapt to the new way of living and find a coping mechanism. Death would still be an option for those who found no purpose anymore, or felt they had completed their journey and now wished to go away quietly.

Certainly any belief to the contrary is near sighted and ignoring very fundamental aspects of Human nature.

Silk

It depends on the conditions of the imortality, just outright unable to die in all things, including starvation decaptiation and such. Or if still required to eat but not dieing because of it.

Never naturally dieing but still being able to be killed will be quite happy with. Once I have enough I can choose to end it.

BlisteredBlood

Quote from: Shihong on March 29, 2010, 02:30:06 PM
See, I've never quite been able to grasp the hesitation or outright fear of immortality.  The most common excuses I've heard are the very ones that you stated: that everything would become old hat, and that all the people you know will eventually die.

But the thing is, the world is constantly changing!  So long as the human race continues to progress, there will always be new things to do!  New books to read, new shows to watch, new sports to take part in, new technologies to utilize!  Hell, even assuming the world suddenly became totally stagnant, it would easily take you hundreds of years to read every novel, view every piece of cinema, travel the globe and see everything there is to see.  And, barring some horrific cataclysm, there's always limitless expanse of space yawning out before us!

As for the fleeting nature of the relationships you would form...  At first it would be jarring, even depressing to watch all the people you've known and loved grow old and die, only to realize that you won't be able to experience the same.  But like experiences, there will always be new people to meet.  New friends, new mentors, new pupils, new lovers; an immortal person would eventually choose to focus on the fact that they will be able to meet thousands upon thousands of truly wonderful people over the course of their limitless existence.  When they hit the lowest of the low, there will always be the knowledge that they will live to see the day when things get better again.  One of the early Sandman comics deals with this idea to great effect.

Thing is, I'm not scared by the idea. I'm just wondering who in their right mind would want to be an immortal being. Sure, you can do all this fantastic stuff like transcend the myriads of time itself and read all sorts of books, watch all kinds of movies, TV, read millions upon millions of articles on the internet - assuming we're all gonna be around for when it does hit the fan - but what then?

Let's take into account that this sort of thing has been tested and proven in the past, what with the tragic villain, Zasalamel from Soul Calibur 3. According to his bio (as read here), it states that he was technically an immortal being due to a spell that was woven over him by his own doing. As a result, it prevented him from finding his own death. Or even if he did in fact die - whether it was by his own hand or not - he was only reborn into another body with the same memories and physical features of his last life. Pretty much a human phoenix, if you will.

But that's crossing hairs.

I eluded to the question of "what then". Assume you could be that immortal being, you do all do this, write an on going series of books to catalog all of the world's events for all eternity, but again. What then? What does a person do like that after all is said and done? However, I will give you an out on the progression of humanity, that as long as it continues to exist in this time frame, humanity will continue. But assuming there is nothing to humanity left except for that one immortal person, what would he or she do? Surely, they can't meet their own end, because no matter what they do, they cannot die naturally nor can they kill themselves.

The truth of the matter - as I stated previously - is not only would it be immensely boring and nothing would be new to you not to mention lonely because everyone you knew in life died but not you, but there was also something I forgot to mention. Your own temperament would eventually sour into something leaning towards apathy or possibly even misanthropy. So then, the only solution would be to hide away for thousands of years never to be heard from ever again so no one would be able to discover how you became that way.
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Crovonovin

Well the obvious solution by that point would be to travel all of existence and insult every living being in the universe, alphabetically.

DarklingAlice

Three problems:

#1 Population
#2 Resources

and if you manage to solve those, good luck with #3:
For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong.


BlisteredBlood

Quote from: Shihong on May 05, 2010, 07:43:53 AM
Well the obvious solution by that point would be to travel all of existence and insult every living being in the universe, alphabetically.

That would be a immense laundry list of things to insult, if'n ya ask me. On top of humans - which the population is about six billion plus - there's also animals of all shapes and sizes, which I honestly don't think one's vocal chords can withstand that much talking. *snicker*

But all jokes aside, I can understand your point. Humanity can and will continue to exist, with or even without searching for the fountain of youth. Besides, with so much to do and so much that's going on, there's really no doubt in my mind that it it will continue well on into the next century or so.
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Touch

It all depends on mindset. Many people go through this life repeating the same actions (work, sleep, play) over and over again until they die, and they're content with that. Other people want to see the world, join the Peace Corps, or what-have-you. Sure, there would be a lot of people who would be bored to death being immortal, but still others would settle into a comfortable lifestyle and be happy with that.

Yin

If immortality is such a problem, can't we just legalize suicide?

It seems to be that biological immortality is just another choice. It's not like you're forced to have a never-ending existence, you can self-terminate whenever you want in fairly painless ways nowadays.


Altogether, this fear of Immortalism reminds me of the history of anti-vaccination movements. It got pretty ridiculous: as wikipedia puts it...

Religious arguments against inoculation  were advanced even before the work of Edward Jenner; for example, in a 1772 sermon entitled "The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation" the English theologian Rev. Edward Massey argued that diseases are sent by God to punish sin and that any attempt to prevent smallpox via inoculation is a "diabolical operation".

People tend to have knee-jerk responses to various facets of life that are... basically rationalizations of their suffering. They want reasons, and so there's a reason we all die, there's a reason our children die of polio etc. etc. "Fixing it" feels like it would destroy that poetic beauty.


Eh, I'm rambling. I suppose the best I can offer is the 5-year-old heuristic. If you ask a 5 year old his opinion on something, and he says it is totally kickass, then give it some thought. They're too young to have built up any cynicism and cache any thought patterns, and so they actually  do say stuff like "I wish no-one would ever die".

Braioch

I'm with Shihong on this one guys.

If given the chance, I would take immortality.

I mean worst comes to worst, and you were the only person left, I suppose the best thing is to hope you become insane and completely just lose it....or better yet, you can still die I'm sure, just chuck yourself into an active volcano, can't exactly live if you're nothing but dust o_0

With immortality I guess your death would have to be a bit overdramatic xD
I'm also on Discord (like, all the time), so feel free to ask about that if you want

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Wolfy

You wouldn't be the only one left until the end of the world, though...

You'd have the Immortal Jellyfish to keep you company. :D

See, They don't "Die" They just revert back into their baby stage and re-grow up.

While still breeding.


Which means they are multiplying by a f*ck ton. O-o

Host of Seraphim

My English teacher last year was pretty interested in the idea of humans achieving immortality. In particular, he was interested in this man, Aubrey de Grey, who thinks we can beat death by treating aging like a disease. If we can cure aging, we can cure death. (Keep in mind, that was just paraphrasing from lil ole unscientific me.  ;))

He gave my friend an article which was then passed on to me. I thought I'd include it just to share. The article in its physical form was called Mr. Immortality, but here it seems to be called The Invincible Man-- it's the same article, however.

Here's a video, too. In it he discusses some topics brought up in this thread such as overpopulation, what you would do to keep yourself occupied if you actually lived that long, etc.

What do I think of all of this? Hell if I know. I can't even decide on what I want for a snack right now.   ???
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Caela

The problem with immortality wouldn't be one person being immortal, but multiple people being so. If they could still procreate this could have a huge impact on finite resources because instead of the living replacing the dead, there would be no dead. We already multiply more quickly than we die off and now you would add people that just won't die to the mix and it's likely to stress the whole system to the breaking point eventually.

If it were going to just be one person...heck I'd take it!

Vekseid

To some degree it opens up the question on the morality of reproduction in the first place. The question is not really something we need to worry about from our own perspective - if I feed on sunlight in orbit around Earth while projecting my consciousness in the form of various avatars about the Solar System - well, there's enough sunlight and raw material for quite a lot of that.

Yin

Hmmm, the finite resources thing is certainly a possible problem.

Still, I don't see if being that big a problem. Look at how quickly our population was booming in the last century; if you simply prevent people from dying of old age, it doesn't really increase the growth rate by an order of magnitude.

Caela

Quote from: Yin on June 15, 2010, 09:15:44 PM
Hmmm, the finite resources thing is certainly a possible problem.

Still, I don't see if being that big a problem. Look at how quickly our population was booming in the last century; if you simply prevent people from dying of old age, it doesn't really increase the growth rate by an order of magnitude.

Maybe not immediately but eventually it could do just that.

To keep the numbers simple say you have 10 immortals (5 couples) and each couple has a kid...now you have 15 (assuming that immortailty is an inherited trait of course). Well after a hundred years there's no reason not to have another if you want so they each have another, and now you have 20 and by now the first batch of kids is ready to procreate. Nobody's dying and there's no reason not to have more kids every hundred years or so (or more often depending on how your biological clock ticks) and then your kids have kids...it wouldn't take long for the population to grow by an order of magnitude.

You mentioned the growth rate of the population in the last century...can you imagine that same rate of growth, without the easement on resources of people dying as well? We already can't/don't feed and care for the people we have living on the planet, can you imagine how much harder it would be if all the people that had died in the last century...hadn't?

Will

Maybe the crisis of overpopulation would spur us towards more sustainable practices and set our focus on scientific advancement.  You'd still have to hope that technology outpaced population, but maybe.
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Yin

Actually, I kinda can.

For one thing, we may not actually require our biosphere in the future. We could conceivably manufacture our own foodstuffs using advanced biotechs. Finally, I expect we may end up supplementing our population with a lot of individuals who won't really take up any resources at all (whole-brain uploads, robots, etc.).

Why yes, I'm a raging transhumanist. '^^

Hunter

Quote from: jouzinka on March 21, 2010, 11:05:51 AM
Well, when you can regenerate like salamanders, why care? You just regenerate that part, no? ;D

From my understanding, the body completely replaces it's sells roughly every three years.  So...if you abstain from all the bad stuff and eat only healthy, your body will eventually repair itself.

Caela

Quote from: Will on June 15, 2010, 09:43:06 PM
Maybe the crisis of overpopulation would spur us towards more sustainable practices and set our focus on scientific advancement.  You'd still have to hope that technology outpaced population, but maybe.

Quite possible. It would be nice to think that will people running around, living so long that some of the brightest minds in science would do just that. If science couldn't keep up though it would open up a whole can of worms about the morality and ethics of procreation in a world where people don't die.

Arion

While by the time immortality could become wide-spread, should research be taken in that direction, the big problem at the moment is food supply.

In short, within the next 100 years we will reach a critical mass where our population with surpass our planet's food production.

We're closing in on it now.  There's only so much arable land available.  There's some hope for using GM (genetically modified) crops to alleviate some of the problem, but consider...

Do you like hamburgers?  I do.  And yet beef is hugely wasteful given the input-output of foodstuffs.  One acre of soy produces as much food as 18 acres used to raise cattle (Modern Marvels, gotta love History channel).  In addition soy doesn't require that we feed it with edible foodstuffs that we could be consuming ourselves (though it would be a lower quality of product, it's still food).  Raising cattle does.

How about the push for bio-diesel engines?  The amount of corn required to produce enough bio-diesel to fill one gas tank is equivalent to that required to feed a person for one year. 

We have issues with food supply now, never mind if/when they start granting immortality.  If our explosive population growth is left unchecked... (and I know that thinking along those lines has horrifying implications)


Now, with that said, onto the immortality.

I've mixed feelings about it.  Would I like to live forever?  At the moment, sure.  In 4 million years, probably not so much.  I feel that at some point ennui would set it.  Crushing boredom from the 'been there, done that' mentality that comes when you do the same thing, over and over and over.  For a time there would be plenty to do.  But eventually you'll have done/read/experienced everything.  And even exploring space, which could well be something that takes eternity, wouldn't be the answer; unless they also perfect cryogenics (or something with the same effect) you'd be awake for the entire trip.  Hundreds of thousands of year, stuck in a small space...

Then again, immortality would allow us the chance for some real long-term planning.  Projects that take centuries to complete, overseen by the same group.  One mind having the time to fully explore every aspect of something.  The ability to watch the far-reaching repercussions of our actions.

Then again, the possibility of tyrannical regimes spanning millenia.  Thousand-year Reiches under the same dictator.  Million-year-old televangelists...

"It [death] is the most profound experience of any creature."  -Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune pg 239
"The flesh surrenders itself.  Eternity takes back its own.  Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time.  What can we say of this?  I occurred.  I am not... yet, I occurred."     -Frank Herbert

"I've rambled with the worst of them, fell in love with a harlequin, saw the darkest hearts of men, and I saw my self staring back again, and I saw my self staring back again."    -Bartholomew, The Silent Comedy; If you do not think that this is one of the greatest songs ever written... You.  Are.  Wrong.

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Leo

Quote from: jouzinka on March 21, 2010, 11:05:51 AM
Well, when you can regenerate like salamanders, why care? You just regenerate that part, no? ;D

The thing is, since cancer is a mutation of cells and spreads through the natural process of your cells multiplying, you'd be regenerating your body parts with 100% cancerous cell population, if that makes sense. But I guess you could always chop off, say, your leg above the cancerous region and hope you regenerate it back without the cancer.

Then again, cancer has a habit of appearing in lungs, liver etc... vital organs... chopping them off would kill the body before it can regenerate, I think :D
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kimbersee

Shihong wrote it really well. There will always be new things to explore as the world advances.

I also add that humans are living longer and longer. Our life span just a few hundred of years ago was around 40 years old. People now live up to 100 years old so relatively speaking we already achieved an immortality of sorts. It is hard to imagine living for million of years but I would not be surprised that with advancements in technology humans will live longer and longer. It will be incremental increases but one day we might reach a 200 year life span. What will people then think when they look back at today's 100 year old lifespan? Just something to think about how time can be relative.

Leo

I think, if humanity does not destroy the world and/or itself before then, breakthroughs in genetics would unlock the secret of immortality.

However, from a partially philosophical standpoint, wouldn't biological perfection eliminate the possibility of a cultural one? Perhaps we don't want to be immortal, after all.
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Paladin

I see imortality as a gift and a curse. Highlander hit it on the head ina  way. You livewhile those you love die. You get to watch them grow old and die countless times over. Would I take it? I dont really know.

Lyll

Well, being able to regenerate our bodyparts like salamanders (or jellyfishes mentioned) is not equal to be immortal. It means only to have the possibility to reproduce organs or bodyparts what got injured or lost (but while the process the risk of the cancer is still too large). As I know, what doesn't mean this is the newest information, there are at least two process in a human body leading to the death: 1.) is the general "fatigue" of the cells what compose (constitute?) it, I mean at the structure of the bones, for example 2.) and the work of the "lethal gene", what switch on between some circumstances, and slowly stops the work of the all organ system. I'm sure I read something about the process of aging too, what is also controlled by some genes. So for becoming immortal, we would need more than only following suit salamanders' or jellyfishes' self-healing body-part-reproducing system.

But if we whenever succeed to gain immortality, we will have to worry about our ressources, because we won't have enough ressources for surviving. So we would have to find new ressources or stop the reproduction of population. Honestly, I wouldn't imagine willingly a world where people live eternal, but don't have anymore children. Too see always the same faces towards an eternity seems rather scary than tempting.
"There was a man. He walked, stopped, looked around,
And he said: 'I'm the pear-tree.'
And the floor got his roots, the height his trunk,
The sky his crown
And the pears got eaten by the beetles
The birds and the hungry stars."
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fallen paradise

SMBC had a recent take on just this subject (or one related to it):


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