According to texts recently deciphered by Chinese experts, China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, ordered his administration to find and bring him the elixir of immortality. He escaped a series of assassinations, and his predecessors only reigned for a year, so the temptation of immortality was great.

Qin Shi Huang’s meeting with Xu Fu

The texts were discovered in 2002 at the bottom of a well in Hunan province, in central China, and are still partially deciphered.

Experts have deciphered the decree ordering an empire-wide search for the elixir of eternal life, as well as some of the rather bewildered responses of local authorities, terrified that they would be unable to satisfy the dreaded monarch. He himself escaped a series of murders, and his predecessors did not exceed a year of reign. He unified China (the name Qin is pronounced “Chin”) and became the most powerful man of that time. How not to become immortal?

Qin was undoubtedly a social and economic reformer, but he had his “shadows”. Suddenly in 213 BC he announced that all books opposing his new system should be burned.

The annals of the past have been destroyed; the story will begin again. Only documents believed to help prolong life were saved from burning. More precisely, divination and medicine. The rest were prohibited, and their possession was considered a criminal offense.

One day he met a sage named Xu Fu who claimed to know the secret of immortality. In addition, the secret lies in one of the 3 mountains in the Yellow Sea.

Very excited, the First Emperor assigned Xu Fu to lead an expedition to find this elixir. The magician set off with three thousand virgin young men and women – only the righteous can receive the magical drink.

A few years later, Xu Fu returned without alcohol, but with far fewer virgins and a huge bill. He was executed by the emperor. Qin died after repeatedly consuming mercury, a substance he believed to prolong life. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

Other famous characters and means in the quest for immortality

Diana de Poitiers, who was considered the most beautiful woman of her time, was the mistress of King Henry II. She was convinced that gold was associated with immortality, so she rubbed a shower of gold down her throat every day. It didn’t help them much.

Then began the search for the philosopher’s stone, which turns everything into gold and gives eternal life. This story is also the basis of the legend that inspired the first volume of the Harry Potter series.

Another means that would make you immortal was the blood of the younger ones. In 1492, the dying Pope Innocent VIII was injected with the blood of children, putting into practice Marsilio Ficino’s recommendation that the old suck the blood of the young “like leeches” to turn back the biological clock. (Ficino recommended mixing the blood with hot water and sugar.) That didn’t last, either.

About 200 years later, a prominent neurologist came up with another idea: if you implant testicles in a dog, you will be 30 years younger. Another enterprising surgeon said that not canines, but apes (see the treatise “Life; An Inquiry into the Means of Restoring Vital Energy and Prolonging Life”).

In the midst of World War II, Heinrich Himmler set out in search of the Holy Grail.

The quest for immortality extended into the darkest period of the 20th century. At the height of World War II, Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler set out in search of the Holy Grail. The SS chief was convinced that the Grail would grant him superhuman powers, including eternal life. Himmler never found the Grail; died in 1945 after swallowing a cyanide pill after being captured by the British.

But forget about medieval fairy tales. More recently, they began to talk about cellular programming or “bio-hacking”, not to mention cryogenics.

Somewhere in Silicon Valley, a person wakes up early with the sunrise. After a two-hour meditation, he leaves to spend thousands of dollars on his latest indulgence: stem cell injections. The practitioner at the clinic assures him that removing the stem cells from the bone marrow and injecting them into other tissues will reduce their fatigue and even rejuvenate him. He trusts the doctor’s word, just as he trusts that the nicotine spray in his mouth will give him the joy of a real cigarette without the negative side effects.

When he retires at night, with melatonin pills and blue light-blocking glasses to keep from disrupting his sleep cycle, he is satisfied with the day’s accomplishments. He took another small step towards his goal.

Modern science has discovered many new ways to improve our lives, and the super rich are implementing new technologies in an effort to extend their lives. But what’s not often talked about is that modern science has also discovered a darker side to extending longevity: physiological trade-offs.

2003 saw the completion of the Human Genome Project, which was believed to hold the answers to many age-related diseases by identifying the key genes that caused them. However, the answer to how to avoid the deterioration that comes with age remains elusive.

On the border between science fiction and pioneering science lie interesting technological ideas.

Technology can already help us detect age-related flaws, but it has the potential to be even better: What if we could bypass biological trade-offs entirely?

Brain-machine interfaces are already in use in the form of implants that can restore our weakened senses. There are also brain implants that allow people with disabilities to remotely control computers. Neuralink aims to go even further by connecting us to electronic devices, the Internet, and even other people. Essentially, we would all have encyclopedic information at our fingertips and be able to communicate telepathically with each other.

To make this remarkable improvement possible, a brain-machine interface will be injected into our bloodstream and travel to the brain. There it would self-assemble into a mesh structure outside the cerebral cortex, weaving the technology into the core of our intelligence and senses.

Despite the invasive nature of Neuralink implants, there are already many healthy people seeking such artificial enhancement. Some even went so far as to undergo surgery just to have the gadget installed. And this could be just the beginning.

Cryogenic madness

There are also wealthy individuals, such as entrepreneur Dmytro Itskov, devoted to the idea of ​​merging with a computer. Itskov sees brain-machine interfaces as just the first step, culminating in an artificial brain inhabited by a human personality controlling an avatar.

In January 1967, James Bedford became the first person to undergo a cryogenic procedure in the United States.

In the world, only three companies commercialize cryogenics: two American – Alcor and Cryonics Institute – and the third Russian: KryoRus. Depending on the selected options, only the head is preserved (for those who bet that the medicine of the future will be able to give them a completely new body) or the whole body. .

The difficulty with all of these endeavors is that they are examples of science that may be driven not so much by a desire to better understand the universe or improve humanity, but by personal profit and individual gain.

Whether we will ever find a way to overcome the physiological trade-offs that prevent immortality, or whether we can truly reproduce human consciousness in a computer, are questions that are too difficult to answer yet.

Used sources:

Books: A. G. Long – Death and Immortality in Ancient Philosophy; T. Ryan Byerly (Editor) – Death, Immortality and Eternal Life; Peter Ward – The Price of Immortality

Articles from: the Conversation, Medium.com, Livescience.com, Qz.com