LEVITY

• #25 What exactly is so bad about death?

  We think that death is bad, but why exactly is it bad? We cannot suffer when we do not exist, so why would it be bad?In this episode we have a long, deep conversation with Professor Travis Timmerman, whose philosophical work delves deeply into the nature and ethics of death. An Associate Professor at Seton Hall University, Professor Timmerman has become a prominent voice in contemporary discussions about whether death is bad for us, how we should understand the harm of dying, and what moral obligations we might have surrounding death and dying. His work engages both timeless questions and urgent contemporary debates—offering fresh insight into topics like the timing of death’s harms, the ethics of procreation, and our attitudes toward mortality.What you'll learn in this episode:✅ Why death is bad✅ How it can bad to not have been born earlier✅ What the ancient Mirror Argument gets wrong✅ How it can be bad for a 95-year-old to die✅ Whether we should wait to have children✅ How an analytical philosopher thinks about death🚀 Special offer for our LEVITY audience: Join Vitalism today and receive a 30% discount on your membership using the code LEVITY at checkout. https://www.vitalism.io/membership🚀 Show notes for this episode will be available soon after this airs. Sign up for the LEVITY newsletter to get them straight to your inbox: reachlevity.com--CHAPTERS--00:00 introduction00:50 Why is death bad? The Deprivation account15:30 Lucretius18:10 A reason to live is a reason to see death as bad20:20 James Stacey Taylor vs Travis Timmerman26:20 Deprivation account and mercy killing29:20 Counter intuitive implications of the Deprivation Account - overdetermination of death37:20 What would have happened if I had not died? Possible worlds and the badness of death40:40 The badness of a 95-year-old to die47:00 Thomas Nagel - death and normalcy51:49 Reasons and the good and the bad53:40 The Timmerman style of analytic philosophy01:00:49 Philosophers and prolongevity in history01:08:28 Philosophy as therapy01:09:40 Time and intrinsic good - what matters most?01:14:36 Is health overrated?01:16:27 The eternal philosophical dialogue01:17:56 If longevity were impossible, how would that change philosophy of death?01:21:35 The Mirror Argument01:26:55 Could I have been born earlier?01:39:22 When should we have children?01:42:47 Better never to have been?01:48:09 A world without consciousness01:52:27 Can we wish for the impossible?02:02:07 Meta-philosophy and ironing out the wrinkles of the Deprivation account02:03:00 What Travis is working on02:08:02 What what we should read Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• #24 Dr. Valter Longo - The BIG 2025 interview

  There were two reasons why Dr. Valter Longo was featured so prominently in my longevity book Evigt Ung (2022).First, if you had to name a single scientific thread running through the history of longevity research, calorie restriction is hard to beat. And few have done more to modernize and translate that insight into real-world practice than Longo.Second, I hold Valter Longo in the highest regard. I've tried his Fasting-Mimicking Diet (FMD), I’ve followed his work on The Longevity Diet, and I find his scientific contributions both rigorous and unusually translational. He doesn’t just publish papers - he builds systems, tests interventions in clinical trials, and tries to implement science into healthcare.In this conversation, we cover the science, history, and application of fasting, nutrition, and longevity - including new work on cancer, metabolism, and organ regeneration. We also discuss the philosophical and political obstacles that stand in the way of real change.What you'll learn in this episode:✅ The story of Longo’s early music career - and why he left it to study aging.✅ How calorie restriction shaped modern longevity science.✅ Why Biosphere 2 and Roy Walford's work was both inspiring and cautionary.✅ The origins and mechanisms of the Fasting-Mimicking Diet.✅ What Longo learned about autophagy, stem cells, and organ regeneration.✅ Why protein intake before and after age 65 should be treated differently.✅ What the media and doctors get wrong about obesity, food, and metabolism.✅ The dangers of high-protein and ketogenic diets.✅ Why Longo is deeply skeptical of TRT, growth hormone, and biohacking shortcuts.✅ How fasting can enhance cancer treatment - and why Longo wrote his new book Fasting Cancer.✅ Why we need a new kind of “digital school” for lifestyle medicine.🚀 Special offer for our LEVITY audience: Join Vitalism today and receive a 30% discount on your membership using the code LEVITY at checkout. https://www.vitalism.io/membership🚀 Show notes for this episode will be available soon after this airs. Sign up for the LEVITY newsletter to get them straight to your inbox: reachlevity.com--CHAPTERS--00:00 Introduction to Dr. Valter Longo02:44 From Music to Aging Biology06:40 The Supposed Longevity Zones of Italy09:04 Personal Experiences Shaping Research12:04 The Path to Aging Biology13:15 Calorie Restriction and Roy Walford26:25 Transitioning to Fasting Mimicking Diet Research34:56 The Eureka Moment39:51 The Rationale For the 5-Day FMD52:54 The Un-conspired Conspiracy01:01:18 Conflicts of Interest01:04:52 Protein Intake: Balancing Muscle Health and Longevity01:14:30 Autophagy: The Body's Self-Repair Mechanism01:21:12 The Power of Genetic Variants in Longevity01:27:18 The Debate on Growth Hormone and Aging01:36:18 Insights from Laron Syndrome and Longevity01:40:10 Fasting Mimicking Diet: A Path to Health01:46:06 Valter's New Book, Fasting Cancer Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• #23 Hilarious, brilliant and deadly serious: José Cordeiro's quest to defeat death

  This is our first — and probably our last — episode where the guest has brought with him an actual punch card and proceeds to explain why it is, in fact, caca (which is Spanish for 💩, by the way).Welcome to the wild world of José Cordeiro. Stick around and you might hear anecdotes about Robert Kennedy Jr. in Memphis 🎸, late-night karaoke sessions 🎤, and a man shouting “immortality!” to anyone and everyone. But behind the eccentric props and the shameless self-promotion (José didn’t just bring punch cards — he also brought his books 📚, his merch 👔, and his signature Death of Death tie — to the point where we had to clarify we’re not actually sponsored), there’s a deadly serious mission: José wants to end aging and defeat death.A futurist, MIT-trained engineer, and bestselling author, José Cordeiro argues that humanity is on the brink of longevity escape velocity 🚀 — the moment when medical advances will start adding more years to our lives than time takes away. In this episode, we explore his bold predictions, from reversing aging by 2045 to launching a global “war on aging.” We cover the science 🔬, the politics 🏛️, the money 💰, and the wild optimism driving the longevity movement — with cryonics ❄️, Martians 👽, and €10 immortality claims all making appearances.This might be our strangest — and most fascinating — conversation yet. Buckle up.-- IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN ABOUT --✅ Why longevity escape velocity may be closer than we think✅ How AI will aid longevity✅ Why technological optimism is rational✅ How the Covid pandemic was a relatively minor pandemic✅ How the concept of work will change✅ What the future of energy may be✅ A personal history of Marvin Minsky, Ray Kurzweil and José Cordeiro✅ Where to meet Cordeiro and demonstrate against aging✅ Why immortality is probable by 2045🚀 Special offer for our LEVITY audience: Join Vitalism today and receive a 30% discount on your membership using the code LEVITY at checkout. https://www.vitalism.io/membership🚀 Show notes for this episode will be available soon after this airs. Sign up for the LEVITY newsletter to get them straight to your inbox: reachlevity.com-- CHAPTERS --00:00 Introduction05:33 Cordeiro's struggle to end aging12:28 Traveling the world to spread the word of The Death of Death18:36 The small Covid Pandemic vs the huge aging pandemic26:00 Scientific optimism29:37 "Next time we meet we will be younger."32:28 The concept of work through history35:50 Exponentiality of progress - a personal history of computers43:30 Kurzweil and Cordeiro mentored by Marvin Minsky50:26 The future of energy57:56 When will we reach LEV and what happens 2045?01:03:00 Madrid as a Blue Zone01:06:30 AI coming and helping with science01:17:00 The amazing point of the human timeline we are on - biology can be immortal01:19:50 We are mostly water - immortality for 10 Euros per year01:22:40 Advanced bio engineering and disruption from outside01:24:30 Zuckerberg to cure all diseases in this generation - billionaires to the rescue01:28:40 Elon Musk will change his mind01:29:34 Trump administration and visiting Elvis with RFK01:36:40 The importance of campaigning for life - we need action now01:47:22 Cryonics01:51:56 Sing karaoke 01:53:00 What to read Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• #22 Aging will be cured within 20 years — here's why | Prof. Derya Unutmaz

  Lately, there's been growing pushback against the idea that AI will transform geroscience in the short term.When Nobel laureate Demis Hassabis told 60 Minutes that AI could help cure every disease within 5–10 years, many in the longevity and biotech communities scoffed. Leading aging biologists called it wishful thinking - or outright fantasy.They argue that we still lack crucial biological data to train AI models, and that experiments and clinical trials move too slowly to change the timeline.Our guest in this episode, Professor Derya Unutmaz, knows these objections well. But he’s firmly on Team Hassabis.In fact, Unutmaz goes even further. He says we won’t just cure diseases - we'll solve aging itself within the next 20 years.And best of all, he offers a surprisingly detailed, concrete explanation of how it will happen:building virtual cells, modeling entire biological systems *in silico*, and dramatically accelerating drug discovery — powered by next-generation AI reasoning engines.🧬 In this wide-ranging conversation, we also cover:✅ Why biological complexity is no longer an unsolvable barrier.✅ How digital twins could revolutionize diagnosis and treatment.✅ Why clinical trials as we know them may soon collapse.✅ The accelerating timeline toward longevity escape velocity.✅ How reasoning AIs (like GPT-4o, o1, DeepSeek) are changing scientific research.✅ Whether AI creativity challenges the idea that only biological minds can create.✅ Why AI will force a new culture of leisure, curiosity, and human flourishing.✅ The existential stress that will come as AI outperforms human expertise.✅ Why “Don’t die” is no longer a joke — it's real advice.🎙️ Hosted - as always - by Peter Ottsjö (tech journalist and author of Evigt Ung) and Dr. Patrick Linden (philosopher and author of The Case Against Death).🚀 Special offer for our LEVITY audience: Join Vitalism today and receive a 30% discount on your membership using the code LEVITY at checkout. https://www.vitalism.io/membership🚀 Show notes for this episode will be available soon after this airs. Sign up for the LEVITY newsletter to get them straight to your inbox: reachlevity.com-- CHAPTERS --00:00 Introduction to Derya Unutmaz05:22 Derya’s work at Jackson Laboratory09:37 The impact of AI on research15:04 AI as a collaborative partner20:50 The nature of creativity in AI30:21 Predictions for the future of AI and humanity37:46 The future of AI in medicine44:35 The impact of AI on professional identity47:45 Education in the age of AI01:01:32 The ethics of AI development01:14:46 Longevity and AI's role in accelerating science01:20:55 Virtual cells and digital twins01:29:02 Can we do it in silico all the way?01:33:08 Derya and Patrick will both talk at Vitalist Bay Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• #21 A Physicist's Controversial Take on Why Age Reversal Will Never Work | Peter Fedichev

  Peter Fedichev is a visionary scientist, biotech entrepreneur, and physicist at the forefront of longevity research. With a background in theoretical physics, he has seamlessly merged cutting-edge science with real-world applications, making groundbreaking contributions to the fields of aging, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence in healthcare. As the co-founder and CEO of Gero, a pioneering biotech company, Fedichev is revolutionizing our understanding of biological aging, using AI-driven approaches to uncover ways to extend human lifespan and combat age-related diseases. His work has been featured in leading scientific journals, and his insights are shaping the future of personalized medicine and longevity science. Driven by a relentless curiosity and a passion for pushing the boundaries of human potential, Fedichev is not just studying aging - he’s working to redefine it.🚀 Special offer for our LEVITY audience: Join Vitalism today and receive a 30% discount on your membership using the code LEVITY at checkout. https://www.vitalism.io/membership🚀 Show notes for this episode is available here: https://reachlevity.com/p/age-reversal-will-never-work-a-controversial-take-from-a-physicist-5935af91034fd123-- EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS --✅ The founding of Gero✅ The physics of aging✅ Why age reversal will not work✅ What SENS gets right✅ What SENS gets wrong✅ AI and the longevity industry Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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