Pro-aging trance
{{short description|Sociocultural phenomenon}}
Pro-aging trance, also known as pro-aging edifice,{{cite journal | last = de Grey | first = Aubrey | title = Cracks in Social Gerontology's Pro-Aging Edifice | journal = Rejuvenation Research | volume = 12 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–2 | date = February 2009 | doi = 10.1089/rej.2009.0841 | pmid = 19236163 }} is a term coined by British author and biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey to describe the broadly positive and fatalistic attitude toward aging in society.
Overview
According to de Grey, the pro-aging trance explains why many people gloss over aging through irrational thought patterns.{{Cite web |last=Love |first=Dylan |date=2018-09-19 |title=Aubrey de Grey is working to cure aging whether you like it or not |url=https://thenextweb.com/news/aubrey-de-grey-interview |access-date=2023-10-07 |website=TNW {{!}} Contributors |language=en}}{{Cite web|last=Corbyn|first=Zoë|date=2015-01-11|title=Live forever: Scientists say they'll extend life 'well beyond 120'|url=http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/11/-sp-live-forever-extend-life-calico-google-longevity|access-date=2021-10-28|website=The Guardian|language=en}} The concept says that the thought of one's own body slowly but ceaselessly deteriorating is so burdensome that it seems most sensible from a psychological point of view to try to put it out of one's mind.{{Cite web |date=2007-12-03 |title=Old People Are People Too: Why It Is Our Duty to Fight Aging to the Death |url=https://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/12/03/aubrey-de-grey/old-people-are-people-too-why-it-our-duty-fight-aging-death |access-date=2023-10-07 |website=Cato Unbound |language=en}} Since aging has been present throughout human history, this coping strategy would be deeply rooted in human thinking.{{Cite web|date=2011-07-20|title=America: It's Time to Snap Out of the Pro-Death Trance|url=https://www.technewsworld.com/story/america-its-time-to-snap-out-of-the-pro-death-trance-72907.html|access-date=2022-01-04|website=TechNewsWorld|language=en-US}} It is striking that, in defending their point of view, those affected often commit fallacies which, from experience, would not be expected of them in a different context.{{Cite web|last=Bagalà|first=Nicola|date=2018-10-26|title=Emerging From the Trance {{!}} Lifespan.io|url=https://www.lifespan.io/news/emerging-from-the-trance/|access-date=2021-10-25|website=www.lifespan.io|language=en-US}}
The name, according to de Grey, comes from the similarity of persons affected to hypnotised people, whose subconscious minds in the trance state prefer to resort to illogical explanations rather than abandon a deeply-held belief.{{Cite journal |last=Grey |first=Aubrey D. N. J. de |date=2007-12-21 |title=Life Span Extension Research and Public Debate: Societal Considerations |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.2202/1941-6008.1011/html |journal=Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology |language=en |volume=1 |issue=1 |doi=10.2202/1941-6008.1011 |s2cid=201101995 |issn=1941-6008}}
The pro-aging trance consists both in the belief that the aging process is inevitable and therefore will not be prevented even by future developments, and in the view that any success in the fight against aging would have mainly negative societal effects.{{Cite web |last=Human |first=Inevitable |date=2018-06-27 |title=Google may soon know the day you'll die |url=https://inevitablehuman.com/google-may-soon-know-the-day-youll-die/ |access-date=2023-10-07 |website=Inevitable/Human |language=en-US}} Examples cited include boredom, overpopulation, unresolved problems regarding current pension systems, and dictators living forever,{{Cite web|last=Aubrey|first=de Grey|title=A roadmap to end aging|url=https://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_a_roadmap_to_end_aging|website=TEDGlobal 2005|date=2 October 2006 }} but there is no nuanced and factual discussion of counter-arguments and proposed solutions{{Cite web |title=The implications of increased human longevity {{!}} Lifespan.io |url=https://www.lifespan.io/aging-concerns/ |access-date=2022-07-09 |website=www.lifespan.io |language=en-US}} and no juxtaposition or weighing of these potential disadvantages with the benefits of eliminating aging (such as saving about 100,000 lives per day).{{Cite web|last=de Grey|first=Aubrey|title=Biotechnology will solve the challenges of an aging population|url=https://www.theguardian.com/zurichfuturology/story/0,,1920375,00.html|access-date=2022-01-04|website=The Guardian}}
De Grey assumes that robust mouse rejuvenation will provide a paradigm shift in society in this regard.{{Cite web|date=2018-02-01|title=Aubrey de Grey on Progress and Timescales in Rejuvenation Research|url=https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2018/02/aubrey-de-grey-on-progress-and-timescales-in-rejuvenation-research/|access-date=2021-10-25|website=Fight Aging!|language=en-US}}
Issues
The phenomenon of the pro-aging trance is a hurdle in the rapid development of anti-aging medicine.{{Cite news |date=2023-02-17 |title=LANGLEBIGKEIT: Das Versprechen des ewigen Lebens |language=German |work=Focus MAGAZIN |url=https://www.focus.de/magazin/archiv/langlebigkeit-das-versprechen-des-ewigen-lebens_id_186063644.html |access-date=2023-10-07}} The reason is that it takes time for people to break out of it and the result of lacking public support is low research funding.{{Cite web|last=Wray|first=Britt|title=The ambitious quest to cure ageing like a disease|url=https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180203-the-ambitious-quest-to-cure-ageing-like-a-disease|access-date=2021-10-27|website=www.bbc.com|language=en}}{{Cite web|last=Peikoff|first=Kira|date=2018-01-31|title=Anti-Aging Pioneer Aubrey de Grey: "People in Middle Age Now Have a Fair Chance"|url=https://leaps.org/anti-aging-pioneer-aubrey-de-grey-people-middle-age-now-fair-chance/|access-date=2021-10-25|website=leaps.org|language=en}}
Furthermore, aging is not socially perceived as a disease to be fought, which is why it is more difficult to get support for fighting it than for fighting cancer, Alzheimer's disease, or similar illnesses. De Grey sees the reason for this in the rhetoric of many gerontologists during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, who usually drew a line in public communication between age-related diseases and "aging itself", even though the former were merely late stages of aging and therefore should not be viewed independently of the aging process.{{Cite book|last1=de Grey|first1=Aubrey|title=Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs that Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime|last2=Rae|first2=Michael|publisher=St. Martin's Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-312-36706-0|location=New York|oclc=132583222}} Moreover, he argues that the post-aging world is portrayed predominantly as dystopian in fiction, hence reinforcing people in their assumption that defeating aging is undesirable.{{Citation |title=THNK Creative Leadership Forum Guest: Aubrey de Grey - pro aging trance | date=16 April 2014 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RITCdrOEO9Y |language=en |access-date=2022-03-11}}
Reception
The American philosopher Benjamin Ross criticises de Grey's approach to aging in his dissertation, saying that it is precisely his activism and the associated intention to wake people up from the pro-aging trance that is, whether he realises it or not, first defined by aging. He and other anti-aging activists would build almost their entire lives around the fact of age-related death. By achieving their goal of defeating the pro-aging trance and, by extension, aging, they would therefore also abolish an important aspect of their identity and the very circumstance that currently gives meaning to their lives.{{Cite web |last=Ross |first=Benjamin David |date=May 2019 |title=Transhumanism: An Ontology of the World's Most Dangerous Idea |url=https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1505282/ |access-date=2022-08-26 |website=UNT Digital Library |language=English}} Other works are also critical of the condemnation of the opposition to anti-aging with the term "trance". For example, it is mentioned that this, just like the "deathism" denounced by Nick Bostrom, prevents an evaluation of the discussion beyond the binary view of "death bad, extended life good".{{Cite thesis |title=Motivations for Pursuing Radical Life Extension |url=https://openaccess.wgtn.ac.nz/articles/thesis/Motivations_for_Pursuing_Radical_Life_Extension/17145860/1 |publisher=Open Access Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington |date=2020-01-01 |doi=10.26686/wgtn.17145860.v1 |first=Lucinda April |last=Campbell|doi-access=free }}
The German bioethicist Mark Schweda argues that far-reaching interventions in the aging process must always be carefully weighed up, but that in the meantime no one can invoke the image of aging as a "totally unavailable natural reality", if only because scientific and cultural developments have already made it obsolete. At the same time, however, he criticises the modern "naturalistic" view of aging, which reduces it to physical decay and ignores all other aspects.{{Cite journal |last=Schweda |first=Mark |date=2017-06-01 |title=Zwischen Resignation und Optimierung: Altern im Spiegel medizinischer Möglichkeiten |url=https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/generale/article/view/23648 |journal=Studium Generale |language=de |pages=49–73 |doi=10.17885/heiup.studg.2017.0.23648 |issn=2511-4921}} Another bioethicist, Gregor Wolbring, agreed that longevity researchers reject the rhetoric of ending aging entirely, but contended that ramifications of the proposal raised complications.[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C39&q=%E2%80%9Cpro-aging+trance%E2%80%9D&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1696790667571&u=%23p%3DmRxh60xNd1IJ Should We'Cure'Aging? A Reply to de Grey, Gregor Wolbring, Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology 1 (1), 2007]. Arthur Diamond, author of Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism, embraced the concept as well as something needing to be conquered if death is to be overcome.{{cite web|url=https://insidesources.com/never-say-die/|title=Never Say Die|author=Arthur Diamond|date=December 20, 2019}}
The described pro-aging attitude is compared to the Stockholm syndrome by anti-aging advocates in the context of examining possible reasons for rejecting life-prolonging technologies: just as hostages sympathise with their captors after a certain period of time, people come to terms with the idea that they will age and eventually die.{{Cite web |last=Bagalà |first=Nicola |date=2019-03-21 |title=Life Extension Technology in Science Fiction |url=https://medium.com/lifespan-io/life-extension-technology-in-science-fiction-1ac062e75d25 |access-date=2022-08-29 |website=Lifespan.io |language=en}}{{Citation |last=CGP Grey |title=Why Die? |date=20 October 2017 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C25qzDhGLx8 |language=en |access-date=2022-03-14}}
The Russian computer scientist and biotechnologist Alex Zhavoronkov assumes that the cause of the pro-aging trance lies in the tendency of people not to want to get their hopes up unnecessarily. He also posits that once the possibility of a dramatic extension of the healthy human lifespan is present, it can trigger feelings of guilt that one does nothing to hasten its implementation, which is why it is easier to block it out.{{Cite journal |date=August 2015 |title=Interview with Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD |url=https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/rej.2015.1758 |journal=Rejuvenation Research |language=en |volume=18 |issue=4 |pages=366–370 |doi=10.1089/rej.2015.1758 |pmid=26291242 |issn=1549-1684|last1=Glaser |first1=V. |last2=Zhavoronkov |first2=A. }}
The American social psychologist Tom Pyszczynski, one of the founding psychologists of terror management theory, explains the opposition to life-prolonging therapies with exactly this model. According to him, the cause of that opposition is paradoxically that the critics fear death and actually long for radical life extension. However, since they do not consider it feasible or likely in their remaining lifetime, they try to deal with the terror caused by their own mortality through investing in a cultural worldview in the hope of achieving literal or symbolic immortality. The actual possibility of life extension challenges the beliefs and values that serve them as their protector from death-related thoughts. It thus generates the need to defend them and object to treatments that would actually extend lifespan. This goes hand in hand with the mortality salience hypothesis.{{Citation|title=Understanding the opposition to long-term extension of the human lifespan - Thomas Pyszczynski| date=19 February 2014 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biNF_a5QbwE|language=en|access-date=2022-02-06}}
According to representatives of the anti-aging movement, learned helplessness could also play a role in why many people resign themselves to aging.{{Cite web |title=Learned Helplessness and the Acceptance of Aging {{!}} Lifespan.io |url=https://www.lifespan.io/news/learned-helplessness-and-the-acceptance-of-aging/ |access-date=2022-03-13 |website=www.lifespan.io |language=en-US}} In 1967, the psychologist and behavioural scientist Martin Seligman showed that dogs that are exposed to mild electric shocks and realise that they cannot do anything about it tend to continue to endure the shocks after this phase, even if they have the opportunity to avoid them. Proponents of life extension compare this to the attitude which many people show toward their own aging process: in their opinion, these people have learned that any attempt to fight against aging is in vain and will therefore disregard new possibilities.
See also
- Cognitive bias
- Longevity escape velocity
- The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant — short story referencing the phenomenon
References
Sources
{{Refbegin|2}}
- {{cite book
| editor = Donghi P
| last = de Grey
| first = Aubrey
| chapter = Strategie per un invecchiamento transcurabile ingegnerizzato (Modest and dramatic human life extension: the how and the why; in English, translated from Italian by Bruna Tortorella)
| title = Alterando il destino dell'umanità
| location = Rome
| publisher = Laterza & Figli
| year = 2006
| pages = 49–63
| url = http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/files/sens/Spoleto-PP.pdf
| isbn = 8842080489
| access-date = 2021-10-25
| archive-date = 2007-10-16
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071016214318/http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/files/sens/Spoleto-PP.pdf
| url-status = dead
}}
- {{cite book
| last1 = de Grey
| first1 = Aubrey
| first2 = Michael
| last2 = Rae
| title = Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs that Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime
| publisher = St. Martin's Press
| date = September 2007
| location = New York, NY
| pages = 416
| isbn = 978-0312367060 }}
- {{cite journal
| last = de Grey
| first = Aubrey
| title = Old People Are People Too: Why It Is Our Duty to Fight Aging to the Death
| journal = Cato Unbound
| volume = 12
| date = December 3, 2007
| url = http://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/12/03/aubrey-de-grey/old-people-are-people-too-why-it-is-our-duty-to-fight-aging-to-the-death/
}}
- {{cite journal
| last = de Grey
| first = Aubrey
| title = Life Span Extension Research and Public Debate: Societal Considerations
| journal = Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology
| volume = 1
| issue = 1
| pages = Article 5
| year = 2007
| url = http://www.mfoundation.org/files/sens/ENHANCE-PP.pdf
| doi = 10.2202/1941-6008.1011
| s2cid = 201101995
}}{{Dead link|date=October 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
- {{cite journal
| last = de Grey
| first = Aubrey
| title = Combating the Tithonus Error: What Works?
| journal = Rejuvenation Research
| volume = 11
| issue = 4
| pages = 713–715
| date = August 2008
| doi = 10.1089/rej.2008.0775
| pmid = 18729803 }}
- {{cite journal
| last = de Grey
| first = Aubrey
| title = Cracks in Social Gerontology's Pro-Aging Edifice
| journal = Rejuvenation Research
| volume = 12
| issue = 1
| pages = 1–2
| date = February 2009
| doi = 10.1089/rej.2009.0841
| pmid = 19236163 }}
- {{cite news
| last = Garreau
| first = Joel
| authorlink = Joel Garreau
| title = Can aging be cured?
| work = The Journal Times
| date = December 19, 2007
| url = http://www.journaltimes.com/articles/2007/12/20/life/doc47695d8bbe3de631177336.txt
| accessdate = April 4, 2009
}}
- {{cite news
| author = Miller, Paul; & Wilsdon, James
| title = The man who wants to live forever
| work = OpenDemocracy.net
| date = February 3, 2006
| url = https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/eternal_3237jsp/
| accessdate = April 4, 2009
}}
- {{cite book
| editor = Douglas Lain
| last = de Grey
| first = Aubrey
| chapter = Advocate for an Indefinite Human Lifespan
| title =Advancing Conversations
| year = 2016
| publisher = Zero Books
| isbn = 978-1785353963
}}
- {{cite book
| editor = Prem S. Fry, Corey L. M. Keyes
| last = de Grey
| first = Aubrey
| chapter = Physical resilience and aging: correcting the Tithonus error and the crème brûlée error
| title = New Frontiers in Resilient Aging: Life-Strengths and Well-Being in Late Life
| publisher = Cambridge University Press
| pages = 90–103
| location = Cambridge
| year = 2010
| isbn = 978-1107412491
}}
{{Refend}}