Longevity bestseller asserts: ‘Death will be optional by 2045’
José Luis Cordeiro and David Wood’s bestselling book claims that “death will be optional by 2045 – or even earlier” if more public and private funds are invested in rejuvenation technologies – and it is coming to a bookshop near you.
Originally released in Spanish as La muerte de la muerte, The Death of Death has been translated into German, Bulgarian, Korean, Turkish, French, Russian, Portuguese and Chinese, with Japanese, Arabic, Italian and Persian versions coming soon. Now an English version has been published by Springer Nature and is available on Amazon.
When it comes to endorsements, The Death of Death‘s runs from A to Z – quite literally, as it features a prologue by Aubrey de Grey and an epilogue by Alex Zhavoronkov. It also boasts testimonials from George Church, Ray Kurzweil, Michio Kaku and a certain Phil Newman of this parish.
Longevity.Technology: The authors of The Death of Death are both experienced speakers and writers, with a considerable knowledge of the longevity field. Cordeiro is an engineer, economist, futurist and transhumanist, who has worked in different fields including economic development, international relations and is an international member of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences. Wood is the creator of the world’s first operating system for smartphones is on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.
Wood and Cordeiro see immortality as ‘the final frontier’ – a frontier that science and technology are preparing to tear down with the result that death will no longer be an absolute certainty.
Photograph: Youandigraphics/Envato
Aubrey de Grey, founder of LEV (Longevity Escape Velocity) Foundation and co-author of Ending Aging, says: “The Death of Death is a truly revolutionary book. This is a visionary book that confronts us with the terrible reality of aging, and its authors are friends and connoisseurs of the subject. I believe that the authoritative and exhaustive description of this crusade that José and David make in this excellent book will accelerate this process. Forward!”
Alex Zhavoronkov, founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, says: “The Death of Death presents the many moral and economic arguments to eliminate death as we know it and analyzes recent trends in science that can bring us closer to this goal. Read this book and join the revolution against aging: the true emperor of all diseases.”
The Death of Death aims to provide insight into recent exponential advances in AI, tissue regeneration, stem cell treatment, organ printing, cryopreservation and genetic therapies that, say the authors, offer a realistic chance to solve the problem of the aging of the human body for the first time in human history. Cordeiro and Wood use the book to present the major developments, initiatives and ideas for eternal life and also to consider arguments for seeing death as the last undefeated disease.
For the authors, the proof that biological immortality is possible is that it already exists. “Some multicellular organisms like Hydras and some species of Jellyfish do not seem to undergo any senescence and, as such, can potentially be considered to be biologically immortal, as long as they are not eaten or killed.
Planarian flatworms appear to regenerate indefinitely and seem to have an apparently limitless telomere regenerative capacity fuelled by highly proliferative adult stem cells. Therefore, not just unicellular bacteria and gametes but also some multicellular organisms have a lot to teach about indefinite longevity. They are the living proof that senescence is not a compulsory by-product of being alive.”
It comes down to a mental block, Cordeiro explains. “No-one likes to think about death, let alone their own death; we have a death mindset, but longevity research is breaking that dogma by repairing aging damage and slowing aging and even reversing it.
“Our book seeks to change the public perception of aging, to disrupt the paradigm of accepting aging and death as inevitable consequences of life, to bring about the death of death itself.”
