Methuselarity in 25 Years, or the Unknown

Face to face, I asked Aubrey de Grey the most important question,

"When will the Methuselarity come?"

He answered quickly, "Twenty-five years from now, the Methuselarity has a fifty-fifty chance of occuring."

I was intrigued by what he meant by "50/50", "What do you mean by fifty-fifty? Do you mean that the Methuselarity may, or may not come at all?"

"Yes," he nodded "Methuselarity may or may not arrive in 25 years. Beyond that, I do not know.."

A cryptic answer i thought at first, but the "I don't know" part was a dead give-away: it's either a Singularitarian's escape or prophetic augury. It's both safe, and sound. Clever.

Twenty five years from now, if the Methuselarity doesn't come then no one can say that he was wrong. And yet, if it indeed arrives, then he might be hailed as a demigod of Immortality.

I've heard Kurzweil say exactly the same number. Twenty five years. The Singularity.

Is Methuselarity the other face of Singularity? Or the Unknown?

Links:
The End of Aging

The Kildren and An Enemy That Always Wins

Image by [puamelia] via Flickr

The Kildren are products of a genetic experiment. They are the main characters in the movie The Sky Crawlers. The Kildren never grow old. They live until they are killed in battle.
I just had to write about this. Because i'm watching it right now, and because the movie mentions something about an enemy that must always win. The Teacher.
The Teacher always kills the Kildren.
In some way, I think that this "Teacher" is Entropy itself.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is built into this universe. Things break down. Our bodies break down. Life ends.
Perhaps the Methuselarity is something to set hope upon. But then again, it might just be like the hope of eternal life that religion dangles at our face.
Why does everyone want to live forever? Is there truly an enemy that must always win?

Methuselarity, Singularity, Hilarity

Nope. This is not a fan blog of Aubrey de Grey. And though i admit that i do like to grow a beard as long as Aubrey's, but again no--I am not a fan of Aubrey. In fact, I am curious, even rather skeptical of his ideas--as i am of Kurzweil's. They seem to be crackpots, methinks. However, their ideas seem interesting. And i'd like to learn about them some more. Thus i decided to chronicle my foray into this exciting field of Methuselarity and The Singularity. It might just turn out to be hilarity in the end, but oh well--it could be worth the ride.

Hello Methuselah

And so it begins....