Multi-Scale Longevity: Defeating Aging from Cells to Embodied Human Minds, and the Future of the Species

Aging is a fundamental biological process characterized by morphological and functional decline ultimately leading to death. Current research in aging is directed toward extending both healthspan and lifespan by elucidating the molecular and cellular mechanisms that drive aging and by developing interventions capable of delaying, preventing, or reversing age-associated physiological decline and multimorbidity. In this chapter, we take a broader view beyond the healthspan and lifespan of individuals, to consider deep issues impacting the duration and nature of our embodiment, including the nature of change, the meaning of personal persistence, and the future of humanity at multiple scales. If you don’t change, you die out (or become irrelevant); but if you change, are you still present? We argue that aging, like traumatic injury and cancer, is a fundamental challenge to an embodied mind seeking to maintain its distinct nature, differentiated from the environment. Understanding aging thus must take place within the context of a broader story of how biological individuals come to exist, how they continue to exist despite continual challenge, and how their plasticity can be leveraged for transformative change beyond mere persistence. Here, we will present our aging framework grounded in the collective intelligence of cells, then we will discuss the implication for the human- and the species-level aspects of artificial chimerism and its corollary - multiscale (non-Darwinian) evolution. We conclude with some important open questions for humanity with respect to the implications of rejuvenation and longevity technologies.