At the crossroads of artistic insight and intellectual curiosity we find the edge of reason

dive into the heart of artistic inspiration rooted in Enlightenment thinking and discover how contemporary creators are holding a mirror up to society to reflect who we are, where we've been, and where we're headed.

Join me, Jeff Chang, at the Edge of Reason, a new limited podcast from Atlantic

Rethink, the branded content studio at the Atlantic, and Howzer and Worth.

My oldest daughter, her name is Madeline and she's a very attentive young girl.

She's always been fairly skeptical about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and she said,

Daddy, are you going to be around forever and I said

The truth is no and it was a it was a real shock

David Sinclair is a scientist at Harvard in the Department of Genetics and the founder of the company Metro Biotech.

He's also a father.

She said, does that mean our pets will die, our dog? Yes. The fish, yes.

And then you could see that she was, you know, realizing perhaps even she one day would die.

When we grow up, we learn to accept death. We say it's what gives life meaning, what makes it precious.

It's a child who asks, why does life have to end?

I thought it was a very good question.

I'm a scientist.

She is scientifically minded, and I thought

it was a good question to ask.

Like so many childish questions, it's both naive and profound.

And David Sinclair has devoted his career and his lab at Harvard to answering it.

We know how we age, we know what goes wrong,

but then the big question is why do we age?

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