[extropy-chat] Roy Walford, A Tribute

[Max More]

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Roy L. Walford, M.D.
A Tribute by Max More


With the passing of Roy Walford, the bright glow of our species flickered 
and dimmed. Roy was one of many thousands of human beings whose lives 
terminated on April 27, 2004. But he was not *just* one of the many; Roy 
was a true individual, a character, and a champion of values we hold dear.

Roy was an expert practitioner of Nietzsche’s “great and rare art” of 
“giving style to one’s character”. No one would describe him as a 
loud-mouth or show-off, yet his distinctive way of living and looking at 
the world made an impression on others. When you think of Roy, you might 
think of his academic research, or his pioneering and unrelenting advocacy 
of extending the human lifespan. Or you might think of the impressive 
mustache he sports on some book jackets.

If you had the good fortune to know Roy more personally, quite different 
impressions might come to mind: Perhaps you think of Roy the frequent 
global traveler and natural anthropologist, or as a gentle but powerful 
magnet that drew attractive, younger women into his orbit. You might wonder 
how someone could be a widely respected scientist and simultaneously 
display in his bathroom a poster that broadcast its message in such a 
painfully pointed way. You might puzzle over Roy’s capacity for welcoming 
and enjoying the hedonic aspects of life *and* advocating rigorous caloric 
restriction.

In describing (or eulogizing) the great and rare art, Nietzsche made 
explicit the conditions of giving style to your character, of shaping all 
your strengths and weaknesses into an “an artistic plan until everything 
appears as art and reason”. Those who succeeded “enjoyed their finest 
gaiety in such compulsion, in such constraint and perfection under a law of 
their own”. Most of us aren’t good at living under a law of our own, 
walking the line between tyrannical discipline and reckless or 
irresponsible dereliction. Roy *was* a law of his own, in the demanding and 
complete sense intended by the German who philosophized with a hammer.

Not only was Roy a paragon of self-definition, he exemplified agelessness. 
I have long thought that if there were an award for Most Ageless Man, I 
would vote for Roy Walford. Around five years ago, as I was thinking that 
very thought, the degenerative process of ALS was not yet evident. Roy had 
been increasingly bothered by back pain, but attributed it to damage 
sustained during his two years in Biosphere 2. Even as the disease began to 
advance on the cellular battle field at a monstrous pace, Roy lived life as 
if age was an illusion to be dispelled through living.

At that time (the late 1990s) Roy, in his seventies, had recently told me 
about a interview he had done. A TV crew wanted to film him in an 
eye-drawing location while picking his brain as one of the world’s foremost 
experts on aging. There he was working out at World Gym in Venice, 
California surrounded by massive hulks of both sexes­hypermuscular monsters 
here in the Mecca of bodybuilding, a gym frequented by Arnold 
Schwarzenegger. “What the hell is this!” said their expressions as the 
camera crew focused on the fit but only human-sized septuagenarian. “Take a 
look at me! Look at my biceps. Check out my delts!” silently they seemed to 
scream. But the cameras in this home of hypertrophy -- this veritable 
palace of protein -- had eyes only for Roy.

Roy Walford seemed to me to foreshadow the ageless posthumans we expect to 
develop out of the human condition. He defied age-related stereotypes, just 
as he defied convention throughout his life. During several decades 
involved in the forefront of aging research at his UCLA laboratory, Roy 
never stopped adventuring. In his seventh decade he entered the sealed 
environment of Biosphere 2 for two years, serving as the team’s medic and 
nutrition specialist. He mentioned to me at some point, that he liked to do 
something really unusual and memorable every ten years or so. These 
experiences acted almost like chapter beginnings, marking the episodes of a 
long life.

After Biosphere 2, Roy gradually shifted his focus from aging research to 
an entirely different field: video art. In his eighth decade, when most 
people still expected to be retired, Roy was tirelessly mastering Photoshop 
and Director and exhibiting his videos in art galleries, on top of working 
on at least two books. He continued traveling for as long as the 
progressive deterioration allowed. If the ALS had not happened, he would 
have been off to Africa for a couple of months. He also wanted to run for 
the US presidency on a platform constructed of wry, penetrating, satire – 
satirical political performance art, best compared to Swift’s “A Modest 
Proposal”. From what he told me, I expect that a few years from now, he 
would have changed fields again, this time to become a mathematician.

For most people, we might dismiss this plan for the future as whimsy. But 
not for him. (Unless we can talk of “serious whimsy”.) Roy stayed flexible, 
inventive, and life affirming. He played havoc with age stereotypes. I will 
always remember Roy’s character as just the kind we need if we are to 
thrive as we extend life spans over the centuries. We know that many people 
fear the uncertainties and open horizons of an unlimited human life span. 
They cannot imagine how to live a life that has not been stamped with an 
expiration date. If they only knew a man like Roy Walford, they would have 
an answer.

I want to scream in rage when I think about the way nature robbed this 
ageless man of his physical vitality (but could never touch his ageless 
spirit). I want to scream in rage when I think of those, like Leon Kass and 
Francis Fukuyama, who act as apologists for the barbarous, lethal aspects 
of nature. Let us honor the memory of Roy Walford by redoubling our efforts 
to master human biology and to eradicate disease, degeneration, and 
involuntary death. As Miguel Unamuno wrote in The Tragic Sense of Life, 
“Nor should we forget that the supreme sloth consists in failing to long 
madly for immortality.”




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Max More, Ph.D.
max at maxmore.com or max at extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
Strategic Philosopher
Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org
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