All language subtitles for through.the.wormhole.s02e09.dvdrip.xvid-ingot

Freeman:
The end of life.

It's a reality that terrifies
us and motivates us.

Now cutting-edge science
embarks on a bold mission

to extend human life.

Some think the answer
lies in biology.

Some believe it might
be in our brains.

And others claim that
immortality would mean

the end of humanity.

Will death remain inevitable?

Or can we live forever?

Freeman:
Space, time, life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos
lie Through the Wormhole.

The sands of time run swiftly,

a reminder
that life is fleeting;

death is a humbling reality.

But what if life had no end?

In just the past 200 years,

the average life-span
has doubled

from about 40
to almost 80 years.

Breakthroughs
in biology and physics

could soon bring immortality
within our grasp.

For better or worse, many of you
watching me right now

may live to see the day

when aging and death itself
are relics of a distant past.

I remember rummaging through
my grandmother's trunk once,

happening upon objects that
had been stored away for years.

Everything was
faded, curled, rusted.

I couldn't help but wonder,

when would the same
decay happen to me?

Michio Kaku,

a theoretical physicist
at City College of New York,

is fascinated with
the big questions in science,

like whether the laws of physics

require that
all living things die.

One of the iron laws of physics

is the Second Law
of Thermodynamics,

which says that
everything rusts,

everything decays, falls apart.

We're all made out of atoms,
and these atoms, in turn,

obey the Second Law
of Thermodynamics.

Freeman: Anything and
everything in the Universe

has the tendency to go
from order to disorder.

And once the damage is done,

it's extremely difficult to
reverse things and un-mix them.

It's a process known as entropy.

If I mix coffee,

I realize that when I put cream
into coffee, I increase entropy.

I increase disorder.

In fact, to see this milk jump
out and reform in this cup

is such a preposterous event

that you would
have to wait longer

than the lifetime of
the Universe to see it happen.

Freeman: The Second Law of
Thermodynamics is an unremitting force.

Nothing is immune
to the power of entropy,

not even the cells in our body.

Kaku:
And that's why we age.

In fact, that's why we die.

But it turns out that there is a
loophole to the law of entropy.

There is a way to restore
order from disorder.

Kaku: Imagine that each one
represents an atom.

Now, if I apply the Second Law
of Thermodynamics,

it means that entropy increases.
It mixes. Chaos reigns.

Watch this.

Freeman: The candy on the tray
starts off organized and color-coded.

But if the tray
begins to vibrate,

the Second Law takes over.

Kaku: Even though
this is entropy in action,

I can reverse entropy by adding
energy from the outside.

But the price is, I have to
constantly be on alert,

constantly add
energy from the outside.

I mean, this is hard work.

Freeman:
With energy and concentration,

Michio can step in
and stop the chaos.

But reversing entropy
in a tray of vibrating candy

is far less complicated than
reversing entropy in our bodies.

Where would we even begin?

Valter Longo is searching
for the answer.

He is a professor of gerontology

at the University
of Southern California.

He knows that many things
live fast and die young,

and he believes the road
to reversing entropy in the body

starts where things get
the hottest - in the engine.

Longo: In the engine,
the gasoline gets oxidized,

and that's a combustion process,

and this provides
energy to the car.

But because of the combustion,

the engine itself
can become damaged,

and eventually, you
have to rebuild the engine.

Freeman:
Every cell in our bodies

have tiny engines
called mitochondria.

Mitochondria are
double-membraned structures

whose job is to provide energy.

But when these powerhouses
wear down,

our body begins
to decay and age.

And so, you can imagine
in the cells, instead,

you have hundreds
of these mitochondria,

these little engines.

And these hundreds of engines
provide the energy locally

to every single cell
in our body.

Freeman: But Valter
has found a way

to reverse this
deterioration process

and rejuvenate mitochondria
in one tiny organism.

He has extended the life
of baker's yeast -

the kind you use to make bread
and beer - to 10 weeks.

That's 10 times the yeast's
normal life-span of 6 days.

It may not sound
like a long time,

but it's equivalent
to 800 human years.

The yeast's longevity occurred

when two genes,
R.A.S.2 and S.C.H.9,

were removed from its DNA.

Longo: So these pathways
that we've identified in yeast,

in addition to promoting aging,
they also promote DNA damage

and the damage

of a variety of different
systems within the cells.

Freeman: Valter wondered if
this fountain of youth for yeast

might apply to more
complex life-forms.

And so he began looking
for the equivalent genes

in a much larger organism -

mice.

When he knocked out
those two genes,

these mice doubled
their life expectancy.

Longo:
This is very encouraging

because if you look
at the similarities

between a mouse and a human,

we are over 90% identical
in many ways.

A mouse lives for 2 years,
and people live for 100 years.

So, you can see,

with just a small
modification of the genome,

you can go from 2
years to 100 years.

There's no law of physics

that prevents us from finding
the secret of longevity,

the secret, perhaps,
even of immortality.

If you take, for example, the
genome of millions of old people

and the genome of millions
of young people -

which we will do in the coming
years - and subtract,

you will then find the genes
where aging is concentrated.

Already,
we've identified over 60 genes

involved in the aging process.

Longo:
Now, the question is,

how do you reprogram a human
that lives 100 years

to be now a 2,000 -
or 3,000-year-old person?

Freeman: Valter's mission to
keep our engines running forever

has just begun, and he's in it
for the long haul.

Suppose we do find a way

to keep our engines running
for hundreds of years or more.

We would all be very old
for a very long time.

But this scientist

is digging for ways to keep us
not just eternally alive...

but eternally young.

Take our current life-span

and stretch it 5 or
even 10 times longer.

The joys of our youth would
endure like an endless summer.

But imagine suffering decade
after decade with fragile bones,

failing eyesight,
and an ever-more-feeble mind.

If we want to become immortal,
we can't just extend life.

We need to discover how to keep
our bodies eternally youthful.

Aubrey De Grey thinks of himself
as a modern-day Methuselah.

He has dedicated his career
to fighting aging.

Aubrey believes that
many people who are born today

could live to be 1,000 years old

and remain physically young
for most of that time.

The key is a matter of good
biological housekeeping -

taking the trash out
of ourselves.

So, what happens, indeed,

is that certain types
of material in the body

just accumulate junk.

Certain types of junk accumulate
inside cells and between cells

and stuff that we would not
think of as junk, like DNA,

accumulates randomness,
which is a type of junk.

Freeman:
Cells have the important job

of constantly
breaking down waste,

and they're mostly
pretty good at it.

But sometimes a cell

comes across things
that are so weird...

none of this degradation
machinery works on them.

That's when the junk
gets re-routed

to what's called the lysosome,

a vessel that houses

the most powerful degradation
machinery in the cell.

And if the garbage
can't be broken down,

it stays there forever.

Aubrey believes that
the accumulation of garbage

in the lysosomal storage unit
is what causes aging.

And he wants to free our bodies
of these buildups.

He realized the most logical way

was to take a close look
at waste itself.

And he wondered, "In nature,
what likes to eat junk?"

Longo:
We're working on an idea

that we might be able
to find other species,

especially bacteria,
that are able to break down

the substances that accumulate
in the human body.

Freeman: Aubrey's hunt
for the fountain of youth

led him to a final
resting place - graveyards.

Since graveyards are riddled

with the waste
of decomposing bodies,

he suspected
he might find microbes

who live to feast on death.

De Grey: And if we can find the
genes and enzymes that they are using

to actually perform
that function,

then we might be able to put
those genes and enzymes

into our own cells

so that our own cells
can break stuff down

that they could not
naturally break down.

Freeman: The secret to longevity
might be 6 feet under.

Aubrey and his team are still
digging for the right microbe

that will work
in mammalian cells.

And when they find it,

he believes we will all live
like 25-year-olds forever.

De Grey: I think that we have
maybe a 50/50 chance

in the next 25 years or so

of developing what I think of
as the first generation

of bona fide rejuvenation
biotechnology.

In other words,

technologies that are
sufficiently comprehensive

that we can give them
to middle-aged people,

people 60 or 70 or so,
and fix them up well enough

that they don't become
biologically 60 or 70 again

until 30 years later
or something like that.

Freeman: Aubrey is looking for the
magic bullet that will fight aging,

but synthetic biologist
Chris Voigt

is looking to build
an entire army

out of various parts
from all over nature.

Voigt: All right.
Let's give this a shot.

One of the things
we're often trying to do

in synthetic biology
is create new functions

out of parts that already exist
in nature for other reasons.

So we're often having to go out
and grab those components

from different organisms
and put them together.

Freeman: Chris searches
for microorganisms

throughout biology
to find the right parts.

And they end up at his lab

at the University of California,
San Francisco,

where biology meets mechanics.

Voigt: When you look
at being able to fight disease,

whether it's identifying
malignant cells

and killing them,

we're trying to go through the
garbage of all the functions

that are out
in the natural world

and identify those
that are useful to us

in trying to be able to identify

a correct disease
state in the body.

Freeman: To build a bio robot
that can detect its surroundings,

Chris and his team needed to
find an organism with a sensor.

And they found it...
in pond scum...

where they discovered that algae
are equipped with light sensors.

Voigt: We took a bacterium that
normally lives in your gut -

so it's not used
to the Sun shining -

and we put in a light
sensor out of an algae.

Freeman: Inside Chris'
bacterial darkroom,

colonies of bacteria

that are now implanted
with algae light sensors

are able to take photographs
of slide-projected images.

Freeman: It might look
like bacterial art,

but this is the first big step

toward creating programmable
biological robots

that will keep our bodies
healthy forever.

Voigt: There are bacteria
all throughout our bodies,

and we can reprogram
those bacteria

in order to be able to
implement therapeutic effects

for just about any disease
that you can imagine.

The possibilities are limitless.

Freeman:
Chris' photographic bacteria

are able to turn
themselves on and off

like the flip of a switch.

But the question is,

can Chris figure out how to
program and control that switch?

We'd like to see
the programming of cells

be the same as
programming a computer

or designing an electronic chip,

where, as programmers,
we would write out

the exact function
that we'd want the cells to do.

And then that would be
automatically compiled

into a DNA sequence

in the same way
that a computer program

gets compiled, ultimately,
into ones and zeroes.

That's the dream.

Freeman: Bio robots may one day
roam our blood streams,

police our organs, and respond
to our internal 911 calls,

keeping us free from
the threat of disease.

Chris Voigt's and Aubrey
De Grey's research

to keep our bodies
healthy for eternity

is still in the
beginning stages.

But what does this mean
for us mere mortals

who will never live
to see the day

when immortality
is within reach?

There is one
chilling possibility

that will give us all a chance
to hang on, even after we die.

We're all genetically programmed

to lust for life
and to flee from death.

Eventually, we will discover
the secret of immortality,

but we're not there yet.

To cheat death right now,
we need to put aging on ice

and be ready to
grasp eternal life

long after life abandons us.

Greg Fahy is a cryobiologist.

The goal of his team at Biotech
Outfit 21st Century Medicine

is to freeze human
organs and tissues

so that they can be revived,
undamaged, centuries from now.

Fahy: Cryopreservation is the
preservation of living systems

at very low temperatures.

We usually are referring to
temperatures that are low enough

that you can store the system
as long as you wish

before you use it again.

Cryopreservation is essential

to get a cell or a tissue,
an organ,

from one place in time
to another place in time

without allowing that system
to change in the process.

Freeman:
Scientists have been trying

to preserve whole
organs for decades.

But it's a lot harder than
throwing food in the freezer.

When biological material
freezes, ice crystals form,

which push the cells out
of their normal position.

When you thaw the organ, it may
look okay from the outside,

but on the inside,
it's damaged beyond repair.

The biggest problem, we think,
is really mechanical.

It's the formation of ice
between cells.

If the cells are dislodged
from their normal locations,

then you can destroy

the function of that
structure as a whole

even if the cells survive.

Freeman: Greg and his team
decided to focus their efforts

on preventing bodily fluids
from freezing

and eventually
developed a way

to turn those fluids into
a form of biological glass -

a technique he calls
vitrification.

Fahy: Vitrification
is the formation of a glass.

So if you take water and you mix
it with various chemicals

in high-enough concentrations
of chemical

and then cool it down
to low temperatures,

the system will never freeze
no matter how low you go.

Freeman:
To test whether

vitrification actually preserves
the function of whole organs,

Greg's team vitrified
a rabbit kidney.

Fahy: This is
the kidney profusion lab.

What John is doing
in the background

is delivering... through the
vascular system of the kidney

so the kidney becomes
unfreezable.

The kidney is sitting
in a special chamber.

The chamber
is temperature-conditioned

to minimize toxicity.

And at the end of the process,

the kidney's taken out
and is transplanted.

Freeman: This kidney,

even though it has been stored
at minus-22 degrees Celsius,

works just as well
as a normal kidney.

It's proof

that Greg's vitrification
technique actually works

and might be the key

to preserving human organs
far into the future.

So if you cool to below that
glass-transition temperature,

our calculations indicate
you can store a system

for tens of thousands of years.

Freeman: Imagine being able
to put your body on ice

and then being revived
10,000 years from now.

You could wake up
and find yourself

in an age when science
has made immortality possible.

Greg Fahy may be
just a few years

from giving a few select
people a shot at eternal life.

But that can only happen

if cryopreservation works
on an entire human body,

not just simple organs
like the kidney or the bladder,

but on the most complex organ
of all - the brain.

Fahy: This is the brain-slice
vitrification lab.

The setup shows
a hippocampal slice -

the part of the brain that's
associated with learning and memory -

in a little dish, essentially.

On the right side, we have a
stimulating electrode coming in,

piercing the slice.

On the left side,
we have a recording electrode.

Freeman: This brain slice
has been vitrified.

If it's still functional,

when a pulse of electricity
is fired into it,

it should fire a signal back.

To Greg and his team's
surprise, it does.

Electrical activity actually
sparks up in this brain tissue.

And the electrical response

is every bit as strong as it was
in its original state -

the recovery of the
brain slice complete.

Preserving a slice of the brain

is a crucial first step toward
preserving the whole thing.

It's an ambitious project
that Greg is already working on.

We have found that it's fairly
easy to vitrify the brain,

that all of the structure
seems to be preserved.

But I have to say that so far,

our techniques
are not up to the level

that we would like for that
kind of speculative idea.

But I couldn't say
that you couldn't make up

for whatever deficiencies

that we have in our
preservation technique today

using some unknown
future technology.

I can't rule that out
as a possibility.

One day, centuries after we say
goodbye to our loved ones,

our frozen bodies
could be reanimated,

and we'll walk the Earth again.

But there could be
a better route to immortality,

one that would change

the very nature of what
it means to be human.

Imagine if no one ever died.

Where would we all live?

Our planet is already
crowded enough.

But maybe there
is a way to live forever

without all this excess baggage.

Poets say the essence
of us is here,

but I know what really
makes me me is all up here.

So if I want to endure
for eternity,

perhaps that's
all I need to hang on to.

What if we could find a way
to upload our brains,

to digitize the very
essence of ourselves?

Our minds could go on living
long after our flesh has died.

But to make that happen,

we need to understand
the brain's architecture

and figure out what truly
makes us who we are.

Olaf Sporns is a neuroscientist
at Indiana University.

He is attempting to unscramble
the brain's tangled web.

Sporns:
The brain is like a big city.

Cities are examples
of complex systems -

thousands of inhabitants
and their social interactions,

their flow of materials.

The brain is like that -
millions of neurons,

interactions
between these neurons.

In a sense, your brain
is like a city of the mind.

Freeman:
The human brain

is one of the most complex
systems in the Universe.

If you stretched out
all of its electrical wiring,

it would extend from
the Earth to the Moon.

Figuring out how we get
from cells and wires

to thoughts and memories

is one of the greatest
challenges known to science.

Even though we've been studying
the human brain,

really, for decades,
perhaps centuries,

we still don't have a complete
map of how it's connected.

Freeman: But Olaf
is taking on this challenge.

His goal is to chart every
single neuron and synapse

and create a complete map of the
brain, called the connectome.

Sporns: It's a comprehensive
set of connections

that will allow us
for the first time

to understand in more detail

how brain regions are connected
to each other.

Freeman:
Olaf is creating the connectome

using a leading-edge technique
called diffusion imaging.

It reveals the brain's
long-distance connections

by tracking water molecules
along the neural highways.

And what emerges
is a detailed map

of the central core
of brain-cell connections.

Olaf thinks this is the area
where our personality resides.

Sporns: As we've been
discovering recently,

some brain regions
are more connected than others.

Some are more essential,
perhaps,

for the functioning of
the brain as a whole.

Those regions, we call hubs.

Freeman:
If the brain is like a city...

...hubs are like
major intersections

where a constant flow of
traffic passes through,

getting people from
one place to another.

These intersections
are so essential -

if they become disrupted in any
way, the whole city shuts down.

By their nature, hubs are focal
points of information traffic.

Information converges
on these regions,

and it is that ebb and flow
of information

and the magnitude
of the information flow

that really sets
these hubs apart

from other regions
of the brain.

Freeman:
Olaf is getting closer

to figuring out
where consciousness resides.

Searching for the origins
of consciousness

is the holy grail
of neuroscience.

Only when this mystery is solved
can we replicate the human brain

and take consciousness
from a person

and transfer it to a machine
as a way to live for eternity.

And Olaf believes
he has discovered a hub

that might solve this mystery -
the medial parietal cortex.

It's located between
the brain's two hemispheres.

Olaf suspects it might house
the essence of who we are.

Sporns: A lot of wires from the
brain converge on that region.

There are many lines of evidence

that point
to that part of the brain

being really central
and really important -

perhaps even for awareness
and consciousness.

Freeman: Olaf believes

he may have solved
the secrets of consciousness,

but there is much more work to
be done before he can be sure.

Sporns: I think we're getting
closer to answering this

question.

And as we identify which parts
of the brain are critical

in bringing about
that particular functionality,

that gets us closer
to answering the question,

"What is consciousness?"

And also "Where are the critical
components of the brain

that contribute to it?"

Freeman: Neuroscience
has taken enormous steps

towards mapping the brain

and solving the riddle
of consciousness.

But will we ever
be able to capture

the trillions of synapses,
billions of neurons,

and download ourselves
onto a machine?

Just imagine all the things
that happen in the real world -

the conversation
we are having now,

me producing speech sounds
and gestures,

our brain's interacting
in this embodied manner.

That could not
happen in a computer,

and yet, it is somehow

the essence of what
life is all about.

So I'm skeptical about that.

Freeman: The brain might be
far too complex to immortalize,

but maybe there's a simpler
path to eternal life -

not for you...

but for immortal beings
that we create from scratch.

Life on this planet

has had 4 billion
years to evolve.

We are the latest
in a long line of species.

We hope we can last.

But our quest for immortality
could end in disaster

because the first eternal beings
may not be human.

And they might
just make us extinct.

Complex life began
from a few simple laws.

The same might be true
for artificial life.

If humans discover those laws,
there is a chance

we could create living
things that live forever.

Oxford physicist Vlatko Vedral
is trying to understand

how intelligence might
emerge from a system

that operates on just
a few basic ground rules.

Vedral:
So, this is chess.

It's a very complex game,

and yet it's governed
by a few very simple rules.

You really have only 16 pieces
on each side,

and each piece
can do one of two things.

And you can say the
same thing about life.

Even though you are talking

about one or two
very simple rules,

you still get this multitude

of different possible behaviors
in the Universe.

Freeman: In 1970, a
mathematician named John Conway

ran with this idea

and attempted to create
artificial life-forms

spontaneously using
a computer program.

He called it "The Game of Life."

The game simulates
the growth of artificial life,

using a two-dimensional grid

and simple cells
that are either dead or alive.

Whether the cells live or die is
governed by a few basic rules.

So, we have here in front of us
a large cell block,

and we can see this
one central cell, which is on.

And we can see that it has
only one neighbor to its left.

The cell just switches off,
which means that it dies.

And it dies of loneliness

because it has
too few neighbors.

Well, now we've got
a central cell, which is on,

but it has five neighbors.

It dies because
of overcrowding, overpopulation.

It doesn't like it, either.

In the third example, a cell
with only two neighbors -

the cell just keeps on living.

It can even move around
in this environment,

and it can reproduce.

So this is a good example where
the population is just right

for the cell to keep on living.

Freeman: Given enough time,
increasingly complex patterns

emerge from this
simple set of rules.

Some even take on the
appearance of living organisms.

Vedral: John Conway tried to make
the same point regarding life -

that it looks very complicated
to us.

And, indeed,
it looks like a miracle

that there is life around us,

but, in fact,
he constructed a game

which consists of two or three,
again, very simple rules,

and it gives rise to some
very complicated patterns.

Freeman: How complex
do these patterns need to be

before they become something
alive, intelligent, or immortal?

Vlatko thinks the human brain
is a good yardstick

and has calculated
its processing power.

Vedral: The brain is currently
still much more powerful

than the existing computers.

So the existing computers
can do something like, you know,

10 to the power of
12 beats per second,

whereas our brain
is still probably something

like a million times
faster than that.

So you need 1 million laptops

to simulate
just a single human brain.

Freeman: Today's computers
are nowhere near powerful enough

to house artificial
intelligent life.

Vlatko believes the
answer might be to use

a completely different type
of computer -

the quantum computer.

Quantum computer

is basically the future
technology of computation.

It's a computer that's
so fast, in principle,

that no current computer
can compete with it.

Freeman:
In place of transistors,

quantum devices compute
with individual atoms.

And instead of sorting piles
of ones and zeroes

to give yes-and-no answers,

the atoms in quantum computers

can be ones, zeroes,
and everything in between,

existing as a
computational maybe.

The quantum computer
really utilizes

the quantum effect
known as the super position,

which means being

in many different
states at the same time.

Freeman: This ability to handle
a multiplicity of states

allows quantum computers

to juggle many overlapping
problems at once,

just the way our brains do.

The analogy would be
if I played a chord for you...

...then you would get

many different modes
played at the same time,

which would really correspond

to many states being
out there simultaneously

all in one location

and the full power
of quantum computation,

which is actually unlimited,
in some sense,

if you start to store

all the values in between
the zero and the one.

So then you really reach a stage
where you can encode much more

and the capacity really has
no limits in that sense.

Freeman:
There might be a time

when humans forego
their own dream of immortality

and create
eternal artificial life.

And if they do,

how would artificial and
biological life get along?

Some people think that very soon

computers will be smarter than
us and they'll put us in zoos.

They'll put us behind bars
and throw peanuts at us

and make us dance behind bars

just like we make bears
dance in zoos today.

But at the present time,

none of these technologies
are ready for prime time.

We simply don't have
an operating quantum computer.

The world's record for a quantum
computer calculation is -

ta-da -

3 times 5 is 15.

We sometimes forget
that computers and robots,

no matter how advanced they are,
are adding machines.

But that doesn't mean

they have creativity,
imagination, initiative.

It doesn't mean
they understand human values.

It doesn't mean that they can
make leaps of logic like we can.

In other words,
we have a long ways to go

before we can begin
to approximate

the real thinking process that
takes place in a human being.

Freeman: We're safe from becoming
slaves to quantum intelligence...

for the time being.

But this physicist envisions
a different fate for mankind,

one where the lines between
artificial and biological life

will blur

and immortality
will become reality,

not just for the living...

but also for the dead.

We're taught to think
of science and religion

as separate truths.

Albert Einstein
didn't believe that.

He said, "Science
without religion is lame.

Religion without
science is blind."

The secret to
achieving immortality

could require the fusion
of humanity and God

into an everlasting
cosmic computer.

Few people think further into
the future than Frank Tipler,

a mathematical physicist

at Tulane University
in New Orleans.

Frank predicts that,
at some point in our evolution,

something truly
remarkable will happen.

Humanity, the Universe,
and God will unite -

a moment he calls
the omega point.

Tipler: The omega point
is the very end of the Universe.

In the process, mankind, or,
more precisely, our descendants,

will expand out from this planet

and ultimately engulf
the entire Universe.

As our descendants are moving
into this final state,

their knowledge and their power
and their computer capacity

is increasing without limit.

The laws of physics

allow a process
that will convert matter -

stones of this graveyard, for
instance - into pure energy.

That will be
the ultimate energy source,

which our descendants will use
and gain control of it.

Freeman: At the omega point,
Frank argues,

our descendants will be capable
of doing anything.

And with infinite power, they
will create a cosmic computer

and reconstruct in a simulation

everything that
has ever happened

in the history of the Universe.

Now, from the point of view
of the beings in the far future,

we will be their alternate
ancestor as rational beings

so they will be interested in
what we were, what we were like.

As a consequence,
every man, woman, and child

will be brought back
into existence.

It will be just like you are
brought back with your body

into a reconstructed Earth
just like we now live on.

It will be different
in one crucial respect.

We will be resurrected,

but we will never have to go
through death again.

Freeman:
Frank claims the laws of physics

not only permit
this type of immortality -

they actually
require it to happen.

Tipler: Second Law
of Thermodynamics says

the complexity of the Universe
at the most fundamental level

is increasing without limit.

I conclude

that the validity of the Second
Law of Thermodynamics,

throughout all of time,

actually requires life

to come into existence
to gain control of the Universe.

Freeman: Whether immortality
comes in billions of years

or whether it
comes this century,

the conquest of death will
transform our civilization -

the way we live, the way
we work, the way we love.

Maybe the question is not
"Can we live forever?"

But "Should we?"

Alexander Rose

is the executive director
of the Long Now Foundation,

an organization whose main focus

is the building
of an unusual timepiece.

It's called the Clock
of the Long Now,

and it's designed to tick
for 10,000 years.

Rose:
We built the 10,000-year clock

to give people
a different perspective

of the really long term.

If you believe that
medical science or other things

are going to increase
human longevity,

then the way that you
would approach the world

would be very,
very differently -

just the same way that if we're
designing a 10,000-year clock

instead of a clock that just
has to last for 10 years,

we have approached this
design problem very differently.

And we have to be responsible
over those next 10,000 years

for our clock.

Freeman:
10,000 years in the past,

we were still living
in the stone age.

Flash forward the same period,

and our civilization
and technology

will be unrecognizable.

We realize in designing
a 10,000-year clock

that the most durable design
is likely the simplest.

Freeman: The Clock of the
Long Now will be all mechanical.

Power in the clock will come
from the force of gravity.

A weight-driven system
will turn a threaded bar.

And the clock will keep time

in both the short term,
with the pendulum,

and in the long term,
through a solar synchronizer.

This device may or may not last
for 10 millennia,

but that's not really
Alexander's point.

He wants to make us imagine
what we will be like

10,000 years from now.

Rose: As soon as you see
that 10,000-year clock

and you visit it, the
conversations that you have

around whether or not
humans will be there,

the shapes of the hands of
the people that might wind it -

"Are they gonna be
the same as ours?"

"Are they gonna be different?"

Those kind of conversations
immediately allow you

to take responsibility
for that kind of time span,

and that's the hope
with this clock.

Freeman: 10,000 years from now,
human beings may be immortal.

Even if they're not,

their life-spans will surely be
vastly longer than ours.

But it won't be just our
bodies that will change.

What it means to be human
will be different.

If you think about
all the human values,

quite a lot of them come

from the fact that we know
that life is finite.

If you think, "How do I feel
towards that person?"

The fact that you know

that the person is not
gonna be there one day

probably makes your emotions
far stronger in some sense

than other ways they would be.

So this could all change,
and maybe some of these things

would even disappear
from the human race

if we simply knew
we could live forever.

Rose: What happens
to marriage and relationships

if our life-spans grow
to 1,000 years or more?

Right now,

half of us get divorced
just in our short lifetimes.

But if we lived for 1,000 years,

who knows how many times
you might get married?

I don't think that I would
be able to live forever.

I think my wife
would kill me first.

Freeman:
Whether we like it or not,

more and more scientists
believe we will one day live

in a world without age,
disease, and death...

that we'll revel in the joys
and wonders of endless life

and that we'll just
have to learn to cope

with the consequences
of living forever.

Mythology says that
the gods envy our mortality.

Our mortality

is what makes life precious
and something to be savored.

Driven by the pressure of time
to achieve greatness,

it may be our mortality
that gives us our humanity.

But as long as we are mortal,

we'll never stop dreaming
of life everlasting.

That, too,
is what makes us human.