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What separates humans from animals? Most would say that it’s the awareness that we’re going to die someday. This knowledge of our fate – and the motivation to change it – has occupied human thought for millennia.

Death used to be understood by the ancients as punishment from the gods for human transgression or immorality. In Ancient Greece it was believed that our mortality, illness and suffering was Zeus’ retribution for accepting the gift of fire from the titan Prometheus.

Our ancestors devoted a lot of time to trying to cheat this fate.

People in ancient and medieval civilizations were preoccupied with slowing down or even stopping the aging process. For instance, although the practice of alchemy was famously concerned with turning base metals into gold, alchemists were also fixated on immortality and elixirs that would extend our lives.

Yet despite their attempts to transcend death, our ancestors were also aware that becoming immortal might not always be desirable.

A great example of this is found in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Gulliver visits the land of Luggnagg, where a small minority known as “struldbrugs” are born immortal. At first Gulliver delights in this fact, but then slowly realizes that it’s a curse. The struldbrugs enjoy a wonderful youth, but when they age, their health deteriorates as they lose their teeth and hair, and they are unable to speak. They end up embittered and detached from society.

So our ancestors desired immortality, yet dreaded compromising their health as a result. In the next blink we’ll see how modern science is tackling this issue by both preventing aging and keeping us healthier for longer.