How long can a person live? There are two answers to this question - scientific and non-scientific

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

An unscientific, absolutely unsubstantiated and completely unsubstantiated answer sounds like this - well, a hundred years.

As for the scientific approach, modern science gives an absolutely clear, unambiguous and concrete answer to the question of the possible duration of human life.

It sounds like this: SCIENCE DOES NOT KNOW IT.

Science came to this answer through bitter experience.

Over the past two centuries, scientists have come to a consensus several times about how long a person can live. And each time people, as if on purpose in spite of scientists, immediately took and lived longer than they were supposed to according to scientific forecasts.

In 1928, for example, the famous demographic scientist Lewis Dublin calculated the limit of human life. Dublin wrote that his calculations were made "in the light of modern knowledge, and do not take into account fantastic hypotheses such as a cardinal evolutionary change in human biology."

The age limit for life, according to Dublin's calculations, was 64.75 years. Dublin's forecast was outdated the moment he publicly announced it. New Zealand reported that their women were already living longer.

In the 30s of the last century, a special study commissioned by American insurance companies, unequivocally proved that women cannot live longer than 69, 93 years.

The women did not obey and crossed the border established by scientists within five years after the completion of the study.

In the early 2000s, a group of researchers, after a long scientific work, announced that 115 years for the biological species homo sapiens is the limit of possible life.

It turned out very inconvenient. As soon as the research was completed, the malevolent homo sapiens immediately began to cross the border of the centenary in droves. The number of inhabitants of the planet at the age of 100+ is now more than half a million people. And almost 50 of them are over 115 years old.

In reality, our ideas about the possible maximum life expectancy are not based on anything, except for the well-established stereotypes. History is full of examples of over-long lifespan, which we deny because they do not correspond to these stereotypes.

Start over. Adam lived for 930 years. However, no, this is not the beginning.

The first evidence of lifetimes does not come from the Bible, but from the more ancient Sumerian chronicles.

The life expectancy of the average Sumerian king was 30 thousand years.

King Alulim, for example, ruled for 28,000 years.

King Allalgar - 36,000 years

King of En-Menluanna - 43,200 years

King En-Mengalanna - 28,800 years old.

It is extremely curious, by the way, that the pre-deluge duration of human life was much higher than the post-deluge one.

After the flood, the Sumerian kings began to live no longer than 1200 years. And the last of them - the king of Kish Ur-Zababa - died as a teenager, at the age of 400 years.

And exactly the same, by a strange coincidence, is confirmed by the Bible. They lived much longer before the flood.

The son of Adam, Sif Adamovich, lived for 912 years. Adam's grandson Inof Sifovich - 905 years old.

Cainan - 910 years old Maleleil - 895, Jared - 962, Enoch - 365, Methuselah - 969, Lamech - 777.

Finally, Noah, the survivor of the flood, lived for 950 years.

But after the flood, life expectancy begins to plummet. Bible prophets already lived significantly less. Abraham lived only 175 years old, his wife Sarah died young - at 127 years old.

And Joseph the Beautiful and Joshua both died prematurely and suddenly, at a young age. Both were only 110.

Do you think the Bible ends such examples? Nothing like this.

Nestor, the legendary hero of the Trojan War, solemnly celebrated his 300th anniversary during the siege of the city.

Epimenides, a priest and famous poet from the island of Crete, according to Aristotle, lived for about 300 years.

The famous Chinese sage Lao Tzu, the creator of the famous Taoist "Book of the Way and Grace" (Tao Te Ching), lived to be 300 years old.

The legendary Chinese chef Peng Zu lived for 767 years.

Three sages of the three kingdoms period: Gan Shi, Zuo Tsi and Xi Jian lived for more than 300 years each.

The sage Guang Chengzi achieved extraordinary longevity by avoiding any action or anxiety. Lived for over 1200 years.

Want more recent characters? Please. V. Vostokov's book "Treasures of Tibetan Monasteries" describes such a case of longevity.

“In 1675, at the invitation of the first minister, one of the oldest inhabitants of Japan, the peasant Mamie, arrived in Edo (the old name of Tokyo). He was 193 years old. To the minister's question - what is the secret of his longevity, he answered: I learned the art of cauterization from my ancestors and have been using it all my life. My wife is now 173 years old, my son is 155, my grandson is 105 years old. The old man was presented with rice, money and was escorted home with honor. But after 48 years, Mamie came to Edo again. This year he turned 241, his wife 221, his son 203, his grandson 153, his grandson's wife 133, and none of them looked old or sick."

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in his memoirs tells about a meeting with a 160-year-old Cossack in the steppes of the Orenburg region. The Cossack remembered well the uprising of Stepan Razin (1667-1671), in which he took an active part.

In Colombia, a special postage stamp was issued in honor of the long-liver Javier Pereira, who lived for 169 years. No, this did not happen after Pereira's death. And during the celebrations of his 167th birthday, in 1956.

Colombian statesmen came to congratulate Javier. At the request of the hero of the day, the words "I drink a lot of coffee and smoke cigars" were added in the lower corner of the stamp with his portrait.

In the USSR, 152-year-old long-liver Mahmud Bagir oglu Eyvazov (1808-1960) lived the most. A postage stamp was also issued in his honor.

Long-liver Zoltan Petrazh lived in Hungary for 186 years (he died in 1724).

Scottish fisherman Henry Jenkins (1501-1670) lived 169 years and died in Yorkshire. It is known from English court documents that in 1665 he was a witness at a trial in a 140-year-old case. One of his sons lived to be 109 years old, the other to 113.

The "Eternal Yogi" Devraha Baba lived for over 150 years. He died in 1990.

The founder of the abbey in Glasgow, Kentigern, known as St. Mungo, lived for 185 years. He died on January 5, 600.

Chinese martial artist Li Lingyuan lived over 256 years. Li had 23 wives and 180 offspring. Lee died on May 6, 1933, leaving behind his 24th wife as a widow.

Thomas Parr lived 152 years as a peasant working life. At the age of 120, he married a second time. Parr survived 9 English kings and died after a hearty dinner and excessive libations at the royal table, where he was invited as a curiosity. Doctor William Harvey, who opened his corpse, did not find any senile changes in his body.

Shirali Muslimov, an Azerbaijani shepherd, lived for 168 years. According to his passport, Shirali was born on March 26, 1805, and died on September 2, 1973, thus having lived for 168 years. The long-liver was so cheerful and cheerful that at the age of 136 he married for the third time, taking the young beauty Khatum-khanum as his wife. Khatum was only 57 years old. She lived to be 104 years old.

Tapaswiji, another Indian yogi, lived for 186 years (1770 - 1956). At the age of 50, he, being a Raja in Patiala, decided to retire to the Himalayas in order to become "on the other side of human sorrows." Apparently it was good.

Henry Jenkins, butler to the Lord of Hornby Castle, lived for 169 years. Born in 1501 and died on December 6, 1670.

Do you think they don't live so much? And completely in vain.

Today's officially registered and confirmed life expectancy record belongs to the Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment and is 122 years and 164 days.

This is only two years less than the biblical life span of Moses.

If you can live 122 years, why not 160 or 180?

Of course, there is no dispute, historical evidence that does not correspond to our ideas about the timing of life can easily be attributed to errors, discrepancies or differences in the methods of chronology.

Or, more precisely, it WOULD be so, if it were not for one striking circumstance.

Ready? Sit down just in case. We cannot seriously judge how long a person can live because …

in reality, modern science does not know why a person is aging in general.

I'm completely serious. The mechanisms and the aging process themselves are very well understood. But what initiates this process, for what reason and when exactly these mechanisms begin to operate, is unknown today.

The human body is certainly capable of compensating for current wear and tear through regeneration. However, at some point, for some reason, he stops doing this, and this moment for each person comes at a different time.

Without knowing the reasons for aging, we cannot judge the rules. Without knowing the rules, we cannot evaluate exceptions. And, accordingly, we cannot deny historical examples of such exceptions, no matter how much they differ from our usual ideas.

The situation with aging today is very similar to the situation with plague or cholera in the Middle Ages, when the symptoms of these diseases were known and studied, but their causes are not known. Scientists and doctors did not know about the existence of viruses and bacteria and therefore could not answer the question of why some people get sick and others do not. Or why do some people get sick earlier and others later?

The reasons for our aging remain a mystery.