"I think there is a good chance you can live for several centuries. I think a life span of two centuries is not unrealistic, and perhaps well beyond that," he adds.
But wait, I say: A life devoid of my beloved pasta carbonara isn't worth living! "Let's prioritize," he replies. "How often do you need to eat your pasta? Can you eat it once a month? I can live with that. Can you have it once a week? That's too much."
photos by mark manger
Dr. Terry Grossman and his wife, Karen Kurtak, are more than young at heart.
mark manger
Robin and Lani credit Dr. Grossman's practice for their improved health.
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And besides, he adds, not all of his recommendations are hard to follow. For example, he discovered I'm a "hot reactor," which means my blood pressure goes dangerously through the roof when I'm stressed — a state I'm in way too often. To calm myself down, Grossman recommends simple meditation techniques, regular massages, more vacations — and lots of sex. He even writes me an official prescription to give to my wife: "For hot reactor status, needs frequent marital relations."
Sign me up for the singularity.
The secret to immortality is a life full of perfect days.
That's Grossman's approach. Have a perfect health day, and then do it again tomorrow. For him, it's a challenging hobby, carving healthful order out of the chaotic temptations of daily life. His day today, he's happy to report, has been essentially perfect. He woke up and ate a bowl of granola with unsweetened soy milk. He worked at home, organizing his office, a thoroughly therapeutic way to prepare for all the future books he plans to write.
For lunch, he had a green salad and grilled chicken, not to mention a portion of the 23 pills he takes each day (four multivitamins; two fish-oil capsules; two vitamin C tablets; two magnesium pills; two grapeseed extracts and two of grape skin; one dose each of diindolylmethane, OncoPLEX, ubiquinol, vinpocetina and an antioxidant formula of his own concoction; and six dosages of a Chinese herb to keep his blood pressure low).
In the afternoon, he went Rollerblading, since it's too late in the season to go snowboarding. He didn't partake in his one unhealthy weakness, his one personal threat to longevity: riding his Harley. And now, sitting in the dining room of his comfortably sized home in a nice east Denver neighborhood, we're enjoying a sumptuous yet healthy dinner: Israeli salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, onion and sprouts paired with Japanese green tea salmon miso soup.
"Every choice you make every day, you make yourself get older or you make yourself get younger," he says to me as he slices himself a sliver of well-aged cheese from a serving platter. "Eat a meal like this, you make yourself get younger. We are doing everything just about right tonight. We are anti-aging."
And to that he raises his glass of very good pinot noir — of which he recommends at most two glasses a day — and toasts with me and his wife, Karen Kurtak. She's 35, though admits she's healthy enough to pass for someone in her twenties. Her age difference with Grossman, who has two children and two grandchildren from a previous marriage, has made them unwelcome at the social functions of at least one well-off client of the Grossman Wellness Center, where Kurtak, a licensed acupuncturist, works as an expert in nutrition and Chinese medicine. Not that the two mind. Her mother set them up ten years ago; Grossman was a family friend while she was growing up in Grand County. On their first date, breakfast, they both ordered scrambled tofu, brown rice and green tea. On their second, they attended a biochemistry conference. It was obvious they were meant to be together.
They agree on the singularity — more or less. "I don't see much of a difference between our bodies living forever and our souls living forever," says Kurtak, who's studied Buddhist beliefs such as reincarnation. "When you start studying some of Ray's theories like singularity, it actually kind of parallels a lot of religious beliefs."
But like even the most fervent believer, Grossman has his doubts, and they're not that eternal life will lead to massive global overcrowding, increased environmental degradation, debilitating energy shortages and catastrophic food shortages. He believes that by the time technology cracks the secret of death, it will have surely solved these comparatively paltry predicaments — common qualms leveled at the theory of singularity.
Grossman's foreboding is about whether technological singularity leads to society's self-destruction rather than human omnipotence. With atomic energy came the atomic bomb. Antibiotics gave rise to superbugs. The Internet led to computer viruses. When progress reaches a point where computers enter human bodies and nanoscale robots can build essentially anything, the prospect of technological blowback can be terrifying.
And even if humans do make it through the singularity, what would post-humanity be like? Grossman and Kurzweil believe it's possible that computers will become so robust that they will allow people to download their consciousness onto mainframes, letting them live forever in a real-life version of the Matrix. Would such an existence even be enjoyable?
Grossman isn't sure, but he wants to be around to find out.
