Is T'Pol still around ?

[Csalem]

I cant remember where (it could have been in Crossover) but Bones details some of the work he's had done - organ replacement etc. Theoretically, if you keep sorting out the things that may kill you, you could just keep on living.

Something similar happens in Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars trilogy, but they find new problems with diseases occurring that have never been known before, specific to the super-old.

There will probably always be some form of body failure to deal with.

I think that was in The Return. I think Bones himself commented that there was very little of the original him left.

 

[Deks]

But not the kind of life expectancy you're implying. Improving standards of living increases average life expectancy closer toward the maximum that the organism is physically capable of, because it eliminates a lot of the things that tend to kill people earlier. But that doesn't mean the theoretical maximum is being increased by a comparable amount. It's important not to take averages too literally. There were cultures in the past where the average life expectancy was in the 30s or 40s, but that doesn't mean nobody ever lived to see 60. It means that a high percentage of babies died in infancy, but that those who survived their childhood often lived to a ripe old age. Reducing the rate of early death increases the average life expectancy even if the maximum lifespan remains unchanged.

I understand what you are trying to say but that's not specifically what I had in mind.
Read on.

And this is where you're wrong. Realistically, it makes perfect sense, for the reasons I explained above. Simply removing factors that kill people early will not automatically raise the maximum lifespan that the organism is capable of. Let's say you have a class of 30 people that has 1 A student, 5 B students, 9 C students, and 15 D students. It's got a really low grade point average, a C-minus. Say you get a really good teacher who inspires the students and helps them improve so that you end up with 6 A students, 16 B students, 5 C students, and 3 D students. That pushes up the average to nearly a B. But the maximum hasn't budged at all -- it's still A. You're not increasing the maximum, just increasing the number of people in the sample who get close to it.

I am aware of what the maximum life expectancy implies, but my point is that we simply don't know if 120 or even 150 is the theoretical maximum for Humans to begin with.

The maximum life expectancy was never originally 'set' at 120 or higher.
Humans in their 50-ies at one time exhibited all the same signs of ageing as people in their 100's today, and it was commonly thought that maximum life expectancy back in the day was actually 50 (which for many it was - no one actually lived past that).
What I think is possible that we managed to do is actually DELAY the onset of ageing, therefore effectively almost doubling the life span of some people (depending on the environment and stress factors).

There's also 'biological' and 'chronological' age... namely, a person can be mistaken to be in their 40-ies, while they are actually 60 years old (or older) for example (this seems to be a more common occurrence these days).

So evidently, while you are accurate that improvements in living standards correlate with a larger average life expectancy, I also think it might be possible we could be affecting the so-called 'maximum life expectancy'.

Maybe there is a way to increase maximum life expectancy, say, through genetic engineering or nanotech. But that's an entirely different problem to tackle than the one you're talking about. Improving standards of living doesn't extend the maximum, it just allows more people to approach it.

You're forgetting stem-cells (doesn't need genetic engineering which the Federation apparently banned) or nanotechnology (though we've seen the Federation in the 24th century use nanites in medicine, but stem-cells are never really mentioned).

 

[Idran]

Humans in their 50-ies at one time exhibited all the same signs of ageing as people in their 100's today

Wait a minute, do you have a citation for this? Because so far as I understand human senescence, this is most definitively not the case. There have been people living into their 70s and 80s over most recorded history, just very few compared to today because medical treatment was less effective and there were more things that could kill you on the way to that age so you had to have a measure of luck. It wasn't that humans aged faster, but rather that their lives were fraught with more hazards or illnesses that couldn't be treated. I mean, Socrates was 70 when he died in around 400 BC, and was still quite healthy, for the most prominent example to come to mind. And none of his contemporaries thought he was some medical marvel for being that age.

So far as I'm aware, biologically humans today are essentially indistinguishable from the first branch of h. sapiens, including our progression of aging.

Edit: In the Ptolemaic Period of Ancient Egypt, the average life expectancy was mid-to-high 50s even when you include infant mortality, for another example. And Bekenkhons, high priest of Amun under Ramesses II, was active into his late 70s or early 80s.

 

[Silvercrest]

Wait, what do you mean by the average life expectancy of an individual? "Average" is only a meaningful term when applied to a group.

Maybe across parallel timelines? Or reincarnations?

Or clones, I suppose.

Then the average life expectancy of some of these characters is pretty low — considering how often they, or their counterparts, have been killed.

 

[Christopher]

Humans in their 50-ies at one time exhibited all the same signs of ageing as people in their 100's today, and it was commonly thought that maximum life expectancy back in the day was actually 50 (which for many it was - no one actually lived past that).

That is just incredibly, blatantly wrong, and I can't imagine where you got such a preposterous idea. I refer you to Psalm 90:10 in the Bible:

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

So that means that at the time of the Psalms, written over 2500 years ago, it was assumed that a typical person might live 70 years barring accident or illness, while a particularly robust person might make it to 80.

Socrates, who lived about 2400 years ago, died at age 70 -- and he was poisoned. Archimedes was murdered at 75. Plato lived to 80; Democritus made it to around 90.

In fact, while the average human lifespan has increased over time, the maximum has remained pretty steady for the past 2000 years or more. Your problem is the same one that a lot of people have when it comes to this subject, the one I tried to explain to you before: you're mistaking an average for a maximum.

Maybe there is a way to increase maximum life expectancy, say, through genetic engineering or nanotech. But that's an entirely different problem to tackle than the one you're talking about. Improving standards of living doesn't extend the maximum, it just allows more people to approach it.

You're forgetting stem-cells (doesn't need genetic engineering which the Federation apparently banned) or nanotechnology (though we've seen the Federation in the 24th century use nanites in medicine, but stem-cells are never really mentioned).

I'm forgetting what now?

 

[Idran]

That is just incredibly, blatantly wrong, and I can't imagine where you got such a preposterous idea. I refer you to Psalm 90:10 in the Bible:

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

So that means that at the time of the Psalms, written over 2500 years ago, it was assumed that a typical person might live 70 years barring accident or illness, while a particularly robust person might make it to 80.

And not to speak for Christopher, but just to stave off the counterargument I can already imagine being drafted: Christopher cites this not because "it's in the Bible so it must be true", but rather "it was considered a reasonable claim at the time it was written, and thus it is likely to have been common knowledge at the time by its intended audience". That is, no one at the time took the statement about their own contemporary lifespans as questionable, and thus it can be considered an accurate presentation of the day. Biblical historiography rather than Biblical literalism.

(And to further stave off the counter-counter argument, this wouldn't also be applicable to the ludicrously long lifespans ascribed to early Biblical humans and thus able to be discarded as an absurd argument because that was an example of them speaking of things in their past where it wasn't directly observable rather than things in their present where it was.)

 

[Christopher]

^Yes, exactly. It shows that the idea of a 70- to 80-year human lifespan existed in literature from the first millennium BCE. The Bible is simply one of the best-known texts from that time, and the "threescore years and ten" line is quite famous and oft-quoted, which is how I know of it.

 

[Stevil2001]

There will probably always be some form of body failure to deal with.

Because your cells will always get bored to death! The cells in your body have been doing the same job, the same dull monotonous routine, every day since you were conceived. Metabolise, divide, metabolise, divide. Wouldn't you get bored? Of course you would. So at some point, the cells just say, 'that's it', and you, the unwary victim of cellular ennui, are quite literally bored to death.

 

[The Wormhole]

There will probably always be some form of body failure to deal with.

Because your cells will always get bored to death! The cells in your body have been doing the same job, the same dull monotonous routine, every day since you were conceived. Metabolise, divide, metabolise, divide. Wouldn't you get bored? Of course you would. So at some point, the cells just say, 'that's it', and you, the unwary victim of cellular ennui, are quite literally bored to death.

Now, now. You know the soulless minions of orthodoxy won't appreciate the theory.

 

[Stevil2001]

There will probably always be some form of body failure to deal with.

Because your cells will always get bored to death! The cells in your body have been doing the same job, the same dull monotonous routine, every day since you were conceived. Metabolise, divide, metabolise, divide. Wouldn't you get bored? Of course you would. So at some point, the cells just say, 'that's it', and you, the unwary victim of cellular ennui, are quite literally bored to death.

Now, now. You know the soulless minions of orthodoxy won't appreciate the theory.

I haven't broken any laws...
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...except perhaps the laws of nature.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I admit I would like to see T'Pol appear in the TOS era (and possibly onscreen, in an Abramsverse film!) but, and I hate to sound harsh, nobody lives forever.

There seems to be a reluctance in Treklit to actually kill off a (former) series regular - IIRC, Kirk is the only one from TOS who is confirmed dead, even in the 24th century!

 

[JD]

I wouldn't be totally against an older T'Pol appearing in a TOS story, but I would probably cut it off at the TOS movie era. If somebody really wants to see her in the 24th Century.... well, that's what time travel stories are for.

 

[Ronald Held]

Maybe time travel is a better way for her to appear in 23d and 24th century stories.

 

[Long Syntax]

Chiming in somewhat late on this thread, but I'd agree with JD here, the last opportunity would really be the TOS era. Time travel would serve a story set in the 24th century.

 

[Relayer1]

IIRC, Kirk is the only one from TOS who is confirmed dead

...at the moment.