Thiel wants biotech to tackle declines in the brain

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 57:18

   and also investing in is health, longevity. Why is that apart from a good investment case? I mean, I'm also having a high degree of interest because I'm hypochondriac. I don't know what your motivation is. Is it only the business rationale or is there also a kind of personal motivation of something that we all have more or less, a fear of death? Yeah, fear of death, fear of getting old. All these things, you know, I always push back on, it's odd to me that this is not more widely shared and that this isn't, you know, can't be articulated more widely.

2. 58:07

   And this was the, you know, I don't know, the optimism of early modernity, 17th, 18th century, was that, you know, science would relieve man's estate. Hobbes said, you know, in the state of nature, life was nasty, brutish, and short. And we were supposed to make it longer and maybe, you know, maybe indefinitely longer. And I don't know, people like Condorcet or Francis Bacon, Benjamin Franklin, they thought you could cure death, you can cure all diseases. And it's just this shocking social decline that we've given up on that.

3. 58:47

   you know people don't even think we can cure Alzheimer's why can't we why can't we at least try to do that for me the discussion about progress has always two sides almost every progress in technology or wherever has a flip side and a downside in the case of health I just don't see it I think it is for me the only area where progress is only positive for centuries scientific progress progress in medicine has improved not only the lifespan but the quality of our life enjoyment of our life, everything. So, in that spirit, could you share with me the most optimistic, the most visionary case about longevity? What can be achieved? Eternal life? 150 years?

4. 59:51

   um it's it's not it's not clear why it shouldn't be you know it's not clear that there are any natural limits we still have not you know there are there are all sorts of reasons people have become more pessimistic because you know it's it's certain things have been very hard to cure Nixon declared war on cancer in 71, said it would be cured in five years. It's now 55 years later. And there's been some progress, but it's very far from cured.

5. 1:00:21

   The AI is accelerating it now big times. But then there's always a question. I don't know. It's badly simplifying things. But If you think of biological processes as sort of irreversible and information computational processes as fundamentally reversible, if you could understand biology as an information science, then in theory you could find a way to traverse all these processes. And then that's, you know, like, you know, computers can live forever.

6. 1:01:08

   But is it then more in this physical sense that we really reverse the process of aging of our body and with that achieve a longer lifespan or even eternal life? Or is it rather in the sense that we at a certain point are able to download our brain and our consciousness? Well, again, I'm… And live in a different body or in a different form. I have a very physical, maybe Christian-informed view where I wouldn't find it acceptable to be uploaded in a computer program that simulated me.

7. 1:01:42

   I don't think it would be me. So I tend to think our identity is very wrapped up in our physical selves. Um, and then, but yeah, no, I think the, I don't know, the full Christian vision of this was of course that you were going to have an eternal body and, um, and it would also, you know, it would also be that your soul would be transformed. Um, you know, it was, uh, one of my, one of my, um, uh, one of my friends is this 80 year old mathematician and, uh, uh, he once joked to me, you know, he didn't know whether there was an afterlife, but he hoped that there wouldn't be because he didn't want to run to his ex-wife.

8. 1:02:19

   And so I do think that, you know, in some ways, yeah, eternal life is very desirable, and then Christianity always aimed for even more. But the problem with transhumanism and Christianity is, you know, it's not that transhumanism is too weird and too extreme. From a real Christian point of view, it's that it didn't go far enough. But let's assume that we would achieve eternal life. Is it really desirable, or would we be extremely bored?

9. 1:02:48

   Because everything is unlimited, why being ambitious? I think the answer to all those things is it's better than the alternative. Okay. I don't think I would be bored. Good. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. So what is then the concrete thing, the concrete innovation, invention, or investment that you have seen over the kind of last month or years? With regard to longevity, that makes you most optimistic. Can you share the craziest thing with us?

10. 1:03:23

    I keep... I keep investing in these biotech areas. It is surprisingly difficult. There are all sorts of reasons. There are challenges. But if I wanted to focus on a single one, it would be really trying to do something about dementia, about finding a way to slow or reverse declines in people's brains. and that's the one that