Implications of aging research for society

The success, until now, of the human species in controlling the resources of this planet for its own benefit is based on two features unique to man: a brain capable of assimilating experience in memory, and a sufficiently long life-span to make the human brain useful.

Abstract

The success, until now, of the human species in controlling the resources of this planet for its own benefit is based on two features unique to man. The first of these is a brain capable of assimilating experience in memory, organizing such experience into abstract categories, making predictions based on regularities in nature, inventing structures (machines and societies) that have modified nature in man's interest, and finally the communication of subjective experience between members of the species symbolically through written and spoken languages. The second uniquely human feature is a sufficiently long life-span to make the above-mentioned qualities of the human brain useful. We are the longest lived of the highly evolved animals.