Modelling is an interesting thing. Our math is such an elegant language that it can describe such amazingly rich abstractions. On one hand, we have category theorists and computer scientists working on the more familiar modelling of computational patterns. On the other, we have physicists coming up with all kinds of equally curious patterns in particle fields. It seems many of the patterns are just abstract nonsense but there are too many coincidences to ignore. To me this hints of some underlying structure that we are completely blind to still. Oh, how i wish to study math from the future.
Seriously. Real increases in lifespan (I'm thinking about Louis Gridley Wu celebrating his 200 birthday) would have to involve (at least occassionally) revitalizing stem cells to renew the body at rates that would seem normal in a very young person. This would have to include nerve cells. Presumably, this would lead to a reversal of specialization. That implies memory loss ("memory" in all neurological senses: how to write software, but also how to speak English, how to control defecation, how to control urination. Really renewing one's central nervous system would rewind a person back to the unspecialized nervous system they were born with.)
Why would you think that? Information is stored in the configuration of neurons, not in the neurons themselves. Neurons are constantly being replaced, and you don't wake up one morning not knowing how to bike because your "bicycle neuron" died.
Are they ? As far as I know, neurons last more or less from before birth to death. There is neurogenesis in the hippocampus but it doesn't replace existing neurons, and the new cells themselves last until death.
I sometimes wonder if there is a way to automate the generation of mathematical abstractions and reporting the ones that have physical relevance. I guess one of the big problems then (besides tractability) is how to feed it with experimental data. Even if it is not feasible, then it would still be interesting to read how mathematical physicists would theoretically approach this problem (and even how they would define it).
