Human longevity.

[ClearlyConfused]

There is no doubt that Modern Medicine has greatly increased the longevity of human life. However; with out the aid of Modern Medicine and Natural Selection being the soul entity in choosing life and death, how long do you think a single Human was meant to live for? I've pondered this question all day and have also noticed that there are many health risks that being to surface once a person reaches the age of 40. Personally, I'd have to say within the 40's, 50's+ being luck of the draw. So, with that, I leave the floor to you.

[Xeyu]

Meant by who? but that is another question.

I mean, personally it's meant to stay as long as it can survive.
finding a cure to aging is a real possibility in the near future.

Had a look at biotechnology and Nanotechnology lately? you would be impressed.

But i get your question, and i've seen people in their 75's doing just really great. They can use their bicycle where ever they please and don't have a hard time doing simple tasks.

that without the help of medicine, they we're born under the right star.

but if i really had to answer your question, i'd say under 80 years old.

[worprz]

My great grandpa is 95, he goes swimming everyday and doctors tell him he looks like he is 70. I'm not really sure how long we were meant to live but I believe if we eat healthy and exercise our whole lives we can enjoy life much more.

[Chirri]

I'm going to go with ~30. Long enough to procreate and get the kids old enough to scamper away from scary stuff. Everything else is icing and for ourselves.

As for how long the human body, without modern medicine, should be able to hold out... Gee, I dunno. I'd look at whatever remains of tribal cultures that don't get a whole lot of assistance from medical doctors.

If we aren't escaping bears or packs of wolves and have our cars, but don't visit our doctors... 60-70. When do we start dropping like flies, and start looking at the ones that hit 80 and 90 with impressed expressions?

[acoolnamehere]

70 or, if we are strong, 80

[Against the Modern World]

120 at least, if you don't self-destruct yourself with typical western lifestyle and diet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burusho_people they don't have the "modern medicine" you speak about. Prevention (like healthy food and exercising) is the best treatment, but many people at first damage their health and then run to the doctors. Those "Game-release maraphon" threads are a nice example.

[Creotor]

High intellect is humans' natural ability and it allowed all these advances. So, all of them are basically natural enhancements of our health/life. The amount of time an average human lives within this century is the natural amount.

[Masark]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burusho_people they don't have the "modern medicine" you speak about. Prevention (like healthy food and exercising) is the best treatment, but many people at first damage their health and then run to the doctors.

The Burusho's exceptional life expectancy is a myth. The actual average life expectancy for them is 53 and 52 for men and women. They experience centenarians at no greater rate than any other non-technological culture, which even with modern medicine is more a factor of lucking out on genetics.

[Adam Jensen]

I think if our life expectence shot up to, say, a thousand years, our society and biology would change to adapt that. Sure, it might lead to overcrowding, but that would ultimately lead to a lower birth rate as society just wouldn't be able to sustain as many live births as we can now. It would be a rocky change, for sure, but I think we'd adapt.

[RenegadeXan]

I would say forever

[Deleted]

We've definitely got a much higher life expectancy than in the past, though unless we are somehow able to reverse the aging process to keep us in our prime...I doubt a long life will be preferable. As much as I'd love to live as long as possible, I'd be pretty limited as to what I could do the moment I entered the 'old age' stage of my life. I'm not saying old people are always unhealthy, mind you. Just that our bodies become a lot more fragile in that period of our lives.

[Gilgemesh]

As species "design" goes, I'd have to say we were meant to live long enough to teach the third generation, anything more than that would be a bonus. Medical advancements have given us the ability to live well into fourth and even fifth generations of procreation. This can greatly increase our learning curve, thus increase our longevity.
If there was world war 3 tomorrow, and we lost 50% of the world population and most of our cities, I would say at least for the first 10 to 20 generations after the lifespan would return to third generation growth. So picture an old man being 60 and having to take up the wife and plow at 16-18, this gives kids around 10 years to learn how to survive and grow from grandparents, and another 30 to learn from parents. Right now, we have twice that, quite the learning curve increase.

[Mizzeeh]

That is an extremely difficult question to answer, seeing as 'modern medicine' is far from the only factor which has increased the life expectancy of the average human being, it's also questionable whether you would consider natural hygiene as a part of 'modern medicine'. Most of the developments humanity has made that have increased the life expectancy have developed alongside medicine, some related and some not, so looking to the past for former life lengths might not apply. As such, whether the average human life expectancy without modern medicine is actually the 'natural' life expectancy is also a question.

For example:
A) Current lifestyles; hygiene, good source of food and shelter for the majority of the population, old herbal remedies(which have remained largely unchanged for over a thousand years) and maybe the occasional chopping of limbs when there's a clear infection. At a guess I'd say life expectancy wouldn't drop by more than maybe 10 years.

B) Personal hygiene never developed due to germs never being discovered, herbal remedies are out, but there's still plenty of housing and food available. Who knows? Maybe 50-60 years, similar to the life expectancy of the upper-class in the middle ages.

C) 'Natural' life expectancy, a.k.a. the life expectancy of a human who lives without any technology. No way of knowing except to study the remains of our ancestors, such as the Neanderthals and first HSS. Maybe >25 years?

[Simulacrum]

Humans weren't "meant" to live any amount of time, since that would require for someone to mean it.

Anyway, little reason to assume that clinical immortality is impossible to achieve, even if what it means to be human may get a little stretched in the process of actually achieving it.

[Deleted]

Biologically speaking a human is only supposed to live for around 30-40 years. Other mammals of a similar size live around 30-40 years and thats the average lifespan for most humans. However due to are higher brain function that allows us to do all the things that reduce demand on our body, medicine, having animals/machines do work for us. All these things have increased are lifespan dramatically so.

[Stir]

I'd say:
Healthy lifestyle: Between seventy and ninety years of age. However, this also implies:
Hunter-gatherer society, with a primal-level care for the elderly, and a reasonable grasp of medicine and, especially, nutrition.

As soon as you add agriculture to the mix: Fifty, maybe sixty if they have enough livestock.
Cities? Forty would be an average old age, but it would be much, much lower because of the enormous number of infant deaths.

Causes: Mainly malnutrition and filth. Most early deaths would not actually be caused by age per sé, but by illness, disease, infection and (food)poisoning. A healthy lifestyle and diet can reduce the impact of much of these things so much that most of them become (nearly or even fully) insignificant.

[Simulacrum]

Biologically speaking a human is only supposed to live for around 30-40 years. Other mammals of a similar size live around 30-40 years and thats the average lifespan for most humans. However due to are higher brain function that allows us to do all the things that reduce demand on our body, medicine, having animals/machines do work for us. All these things have increased are lifespan dramatically so.

People lived well into their 80s thousands of years ago. The early romans considered soldiers of the age 25-40 to be in "the prime of life", and they still kept serving long after 40.

Average life expectancies of the ancient world are as low as they are because of the amount of people that died before reaching adulthood. After you got there you could live to become quite old.

[Mister K]

My great grandpa is 95, he goes swimming everyday and doctors tell him he looks like he is 70. I'm not really sure how long we were meant to live but I believe if we eat healthy and exercise our whole lives we can enjoy life much more.

Very nice age, good luck to him! :P

I guess over the centuries our bodies got used to some viruses, we moved away from chucking waste on street and started to eat alot more healthier.

I guess without medicine and other technology we would still be able to live long, this of course depends on the individual. If subject A eats healthy and exercises it does not mean he will as long as subject B who also does the same.

But I guess between 40 to 70 sounds about right.

[markos82]

My grandfather died at the age of 89 and not due to some disease but he got smoke poison and got into coma. Before that he used to drive bicycle 30km each day, he went skydiving at the age of 85 ( he was skydiver during WW2 ), he used to work in a garden and used to have a good and healthy life. he never smoked, never ate unhealthy food and he grow up on a mountain walking 20km+ each day to school at the age of 7.
As for me, well i would be happy if i reach 50 years, but the way i live my life and the things i eat im not sure how i managed to survive this long....

And regarding your question. I dont think medicine has to do anything to prolong our life to the extent that can be measured. Many people that life in a distant villages and who are eating healthy food ( not massively produced ) can reach the age of 100+. Medicine will prolong life of a human that grow up in a polluted city who had unhealthy life but thats all....

[Masark]

Interesting fact - if you take your actuarial tables and remove all biological causes of death (organ failure, infectious disease, etc.), the average human lifespan in developed countries would be about 6000 years.