If superpowers were real: Immortality - Joy Lin

5,321,823 views ・ 2013-06-27

TED-Ed


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Immortality.
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In movies, kings are always searching for the secret to immortality.
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But is immortality really a good thing?
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To a ten-year-old boy, one year is the same as 10% of his life.
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To his forty-year-old mother, one year is merely 2.5% of her life.
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The same year, 365 days,
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can feel differently to different people.
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If we live until we're 82,
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that's about 30,000 days.
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If this boy lives for 30,000 years, a year to him could feel like a day.
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And if this boy's emotions sustain
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through the potential boredom of living for millions of years,
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he might become extremely lonely and sad,
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knowing he has and always will outlive everyone he has ever loved.
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But what if everyone were immortal?
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Well, first off, Earth is only so big.
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So, where would we all live?
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(Grunts)
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"Excuse me!" "That's my face!"
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"Stop it!" "Pardon me."
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"Tight in here!"
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Do you remember what you did last year or when you were five?
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How much of your past have you forgotten?
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If you have trouble remembering what you did when you were five,
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how will you remember what happened if you were alive a thousand years ago?
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A million years ago?
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We don't remember every single detail of our past
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because our brains have a limited capacity
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and we replace useless memories,
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like middle school locker combinations,
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with relevant information.
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If this immortal boy finds a companion
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to fall in love with once every hundred years,
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he would have ten thousand girlfriends in a million years.
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And how many of those ten thousand girls' names
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will he be able to remember?
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This changes what a meaningful relationship means, doesn't it?
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Another tricky thing about immortality:
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Human beings have not always looked the same.
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This can be explained by Darwin's theory of evolution.
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For instance, if women find taller men more attractive,
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then more tall men would mate and have children,
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putting more tall genes in the gene pool.
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That means, in the next generation,
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more children will have the genes to be taller.
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Repeat that process for a million years
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and the average height will be a lot taller
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than the average height today,
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assuming there's no natural disaster that wipes out all the tall people.
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Our ancestors were short, hairy apes.
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We still have body hair, but we don't look like apes any more.
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If you're the only person who is immortal,
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while everyone else keeps evolving,
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generation after generation,
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you will eventually look quite different than the people who surround you.
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"Hi, how you doing?"
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If one of our ancestors, apes, is still alive today,
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how many people will make friends with it
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instead of calling the Museum of Natural History?
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And one more physical consideration for immortality:
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Scars.
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After all, immortality doesn't automatically translate to invincibility,
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it just means you cannot die.
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But it doesn't guarantee what condition you'll be alive in.
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Look at your body and count how many scars you have.
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If you have made this many permanent scars
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within your life,
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imagine how much damage you would have if you were one thousand years old!
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Now, there are approximately
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185,000 amputation-related hospital discharges
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every year in the U.S.
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These injuries are due to accidents or illnesses.
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Certainly the percentage is low comparing to the total population
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if you only live for a hundred years.
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However, if you've been alive for over one million years,
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the odds of still having all your limbs are pretty slim.
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What about little accessories,
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like your eyes, your nose, your ears,
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fingers or toes?
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What about your teeth?
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What are the odds of you keeping your dental health
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for a hundred years?
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A thousand years?
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One million years?
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You might end up looking like a horribly scuffed-up Mr. Potato Head
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with missing pieces and dentures.
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So, are you sure you want to live forever?
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Now, which superpower physics lesson will you explore next?
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Shifting body size and content,
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super speed,
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flight,
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super strength,
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immortality,
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and --
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invisibility.
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