Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever Kindle Edition

After reading Ray Kurzweil's previous book, "The Age of Spiritual Machines", I decided he is possibly the smartest person I know of, because, unlike in any similar sweeping and bold book on the future, I didn't find any major argument I could refute because of some error in his facts, science, logic, induction, unreasonable extrapolation, or because he had ignored some major event or trend which would belie some of his conclusions, despite many of these conclusions being extremely imaginative, and postulating a world astoundingly different from anything in the past or present.In Fantastic Voyage - Live Long Enuf to Live Forever, he and coauthor Terry Grossman, M.D., focus on my favorite topic - How to stay alive and healthy indefinitely. He not only covers everything important we know about health and aging in an easy-to-understand manner, but all the things we can do to maintain our health and slow aging. Altho our means to slow aging are still extremely limited, the good news is that over the next 20-30 years there will be exponential improvement in this area. So if one can make it thru the next two or three decades in decent condition, there will be good prospects of actually reversing aging and surviving indefinitely, with actually increasingly greater mental and physical abilities than we have ever had. This will be mainly due to accelerating advances in genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. The scientific and technical advances discussed are heavily documented in the back of the book by notes & references to the appropriate literature.About the only quibble I have is I would like to see included more illustrations of the molecular structures, and more detailed diagrams of the biochemical reactions and pathways discussed. But maybe the rule of popular science books about each math equation included cutting sales in half applies to biochemistry too. Maybe they could be discretely put in appendices. Most of these details can be found in other books, such as. "Molecular Biology of the Cell", 4th ed, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0815332181/ref=pd_bxgy_text_b/103-0610455-3770261?%5Fencoding=UTF8: , et al., or in the noted references.One can keep up to date in the topics discussed via the associated website: [...]And by these free e-newsletters, which gives brief descriptions of and links to new breakthroughs in science and technology that may turn out to be important. [...] [...]Ray & Terry sell a line of supplemental nutrients that include many that the book and their ongoing research show as likely to be most beneficial:[...]Their healthy chocolate shake mix is so good I need to ration myself.Eric hand

I have to admit I started skimming through most of the book when the authors started to go into sparse detail many of the principles (i.e. explaining what RNA is; the history of DNA; etc.). Although some may be looking for this history I was looking for the action items based on their research. Very actionable information did emerge but if would have been better with more "if you are like X you need to do Y" kind of information rather than referring the reader to a plerethora of medical tests. Overall a very informative read and it seems it laid the groundwork for Dave Asprey's Bulletproof Diet .I thought that I would have appreciated the near-term and future predictions for each topics discussed (referred to as Bridge 2 and Bridge 3 by the authors) but it seemed distracting from what we can do now, today to better ourselves. This book did come from about 10,000 emails back and forth between the authors so its only fair to say that the structure had to take into account that massive dialog. I also would have like further detail on how the environment affects your genes (i.e. nurture's effect on nature) since contempraries like Bruce Lipton's "The Biology of Belief" where an argument was made that the easiest way to alter your health and even lengthen your life is via your attitude about what you can and cannot do if life. Dr. Lipton went into immense detail on telomeres (region of repetitive nucleotide sequences at each end of a chromatid, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration or from fusion with neighbouring chromosomes) whereas Kurzweil and Grossman only hinted at its significance in extending the human life. Again this book is 10 years old so I give four stars for the cutting-age research of that "era".

This book is extraordinary because Ray Kurzweil is extraordinary. How often can you say that somebody is the real thing, but that's exactly what Kurzweil represents? This man operates on the outer edge of human knowledge. I am reminded years ago of a science fiction writer named Lester Del Rey, a mind so gifted that MIT hooked up a microphone to his neck. Everything he verbalized was recorded because it was felt that he was a hundred years ahead of his time.People like Kurzweil come along only rarely, and when they do, we are the lucky ones who find out about their existence and can learn from them. This is not to say that Kurzweil is right about everything he says, and thinks. He's not John von Newman, the Hungarian mathematician and advisor to the Manhattan Project during World War II. It was said about von Newman that once he thought about something, and gave an opinion there was no need to think about the subject anymore. He was that thorough in his thought processes.Forgive my digression, but it's a story you will tell your friends. While von Newman was lecturing one day on mathematics at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton, Einstein asked if he could sit in on the lecture. During the lecture, Einstein looks at von Newman and says in German, "Johnny, slow down, I can't keep up with you." Now there's a brain.What Kurzweil and von Newman have in common is their ability to convey their thinking to the rest of us. Richard Feynmann the physicist was also like this. It is a rare gift among any group of advanced intellectuals when they can take topics, and break them down into language that the layman can deal with. It is a trait that is also vitally necessary if they are to have influence, and in Kurzweil's case, he does have influence.Kurzweil was given the National Medal of Technology, and is a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Being an entrepreneur, he doesn't want for money, those needs were taken care of by the sale of his inventions, ideas, and companies that he started.The premise of this book is that our technology is exploding at such a rate that the authors believe that in the next several decades we will have the knowledge via nanotechnology and others that will allow us to live for hundreds of years. His personal objective is to bridge the gap (his words) in time from now, until this new technology becomes available. Kurzweil wants to live FOREVER, don't we all? What about sex though, will we have sex when we are 200 years old, or will we have to be satisfied reading Plato.When you consider the amount of energy that each of us has that's put into anxiety concerning our future deaths, Kurzweil is really talking about the ultimate revolution, and the freedom from death. It's nice work if you can get it, and certainly will drive classically trained psychoanalysts up a wall, if they have to give up their anxiety in this yet unrealized future.As for me, I love the book for other reasons. This fabulous author is able to condense the contents of hundreds of books, thousands of articles, and who knows how many scientific relationships. He then takes the sum total of this knowledge bank, and distills it down into a highly readable book considering the material, of almost 400 pages.If you want to know about your health, and what you can and should be doing about it, than this is the book for you. Kurzweil goes through the vitamins, and the supplements. He tells you the real deal. In my own world of stock investments, and managing billions of dollars for international entities and families, I get to research and study just about anything I want. Kurzweil has followed a parallel track. Where we cross paths, I can see that he really has mastered a wide assortment of topics.You just aren't going to find this information anywhere else, unless you can make a full-time commitment to do the research yourself, and who can do that. I go to nanotechnology conferences in California, Kurzweil shows up. I go to Futurology conferences in Washington DC, Kurzweil shows up. I attend seminars at the Media Lab at MIT, and sure enough, there's Kurzweil. Does the man sleep; has he already crossed himself with nanotechnology, and the robotics that he swears is coming? All I know is that he's probably living at a rate of three times the rest of us.Let's look at just a few chapters and you will see how important this book is:Chapter 9 on "The Problem with sugar and Insulin" is vital if you want to have an understanding of Diabetes which Kurzweil was diagnosed with at a young age, and now states that he has completely eradicated from his body. Half of the American population is pre-diabetic, and you need to have this information to help yourself, and your loved ones.Chapter 10 is Kurzweil's personal program. His father had a massive heart attack when he was 51, so the author has a direct interest in heart disease. He's had his genes tested, and he goes into remarkable detail as to what exactly he is doing for himself to bridge the distance in time between now, and when these remarkable life-sustaining technologies are going to come into existence. What's beautiful about the book is that you can read it on many levels. You don't have to strive to understand the whole thing. Take what YOU NEED out of this book, and forget the rest. For those that have an interest however, he takes you to depths that you can't imagine going to in any other way.Chapter 12 on "Inflammation - The Latest Smoking Gun" is once again a gem of a chapter. Half the people who get heart attacks in this country are walking around with normal Cholesterol levels and normal LDL (bad) Cholesterol levels as well. If Cholesterol is so bad, how can this be? Kurzweil takes you through the latest research on Inflammation, where much of the answer may reside. This is complex stuff the man is tackling, and he makes it a JOY TO READ.Chapter 15 on the "Real Cause of Heart Disease and How to Prevent It" is worth its weight in gold. He tells you in detail exactly where cutting edge medical technology is today and I know from my own work that maybe 2% of the doctors out there are practicing what Kurzweil already knows to be true.He covers cancer, the power of your brain, hormones and aging. His chapter on exercise is a grand slam homerun. Perhaps only 1% of the books and literature out there ever talks about what evolutionary biology has to teach us about our bodies. Kurzweil covers the topic better than anyone, and it's worth talking about here.Our ancestors take us back maybe 5 million years. Human beings broke off from other chains several times during that period. Everything we are however has been shaped over that very long biological period of time through random mutations. Now think about it, for five million years, we have basically been hunter-gatherers, necessitating severe body movement. We probably walked, ran 10 miles a day, maybe more. We are in trouble now because our heritage is 10 miles a day of movement, and we are currently fighting each other to get to a parking space closest to the store we want to go to at the mall. This is a SURE-FIRE RECIPE for the breakdown of our bodies. Kurzweil is right; we need to GET MOVING AGAIN.Read the book; learn from a true genius what you could be doing, what you should be doing to maximize this beautiful gift that nature gave us, our bodies and our minds. Don't hesitate, click the box to order this book, and get excited in anticipation of taking yourself on a journey that may lead to immortality. If it doesn't, at the very least, you will begin to take control of your body. You will be in the driver's seat. You will take back control of your world from a culture that has led us to obesity, and Diabetes. You NEED to read this book.Richard Stoyeck

A book all must read if they are interested in leading a healthy life.

Excellent

Kurzweil and Grossman have really done their studies on the products they talk about. They also use the supplements they recommend to others. I take most of the recommended supplements and my body notices when I have missed a few days.

ho apprezzato l'impostazione rigorosamente scientifica del libro ma anche la facilita' di letturae la comprensione del testo.E' bravo l'autore quando smitizza alcuni luoghi comuni sulle abitudini alimentari!

I now have all of his series which is essentially on how to live forever.Personally, I'm less interested in living forever than I am in staying healthy (getting weight, cholesterol and blood pressure down, etc.) until I die.This book feels a bit rougher than TRANSCEND, but is probably more useful than "The 10% Solution", which was written in the `90s.There is a lot of duplication between the three books but always at least some new material each.If you are interested in this book, you should also take a look at Kurzweil's most recent book, TRANSCEND, and the books from Dr. Ornish.Kurweil's dietary suggestions are quite similar to those of Dr. Ornish. The main difference is the emphasis that Kurzweil places on supplements of all kinds. They say he takes 250 capsules each day.A person could be forgiven for being a bit skeptical about some of his claims or suggestions but, since Kurzweil has a long track record of being right and ahead of his time, it would probably not be wise to bet on his being totally wrong this time either.