10 replies to this topic

[Bruce Klein]

Immortalist Philosophy

Defined:
The immortalist philosophy is based upon the idea that humans only have one life and one chance to live. There are no alternative states to the current state other than oblivion. Thus, what we experience now and the life we have now is the only alternative.

Many people may look at the prospect of immortality with a large degree of skepticism. There is a pervasive feeling in society today that humans should not tamper with the cycle of life or that physical immortality is impossible, to boring, or just plain silly.

Why Should We Live Forever?
One should not be intimidated or put off by the idea of physical immortality. This has nothing to do with a religious or spiritual immortality and more to do with a sustainable form of life that is never-ending and attainable in the physical world we live in now. Most would argue it can't be done. But this is usually a reflex response brought on by conditioning by the influence of religion and society.

Things, however are starting to change. Advancements in science and technology are opening up new possibilities in the field of life extension. We are on the threshold of great breakthroughs in nanotechnology, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence.

The columniation of this research and experimentation will give way to actual methods that will enabling us to heal and replenish our bodies in a perpetual state of youthfulness. At some point in the future, a realization will crystallize within the consciousness of humankind that "death in not inevitable."

Throughout history, the questions surrounding death have stumped humankind. Ever since humans evolved the ability to contemplate our existence, we've asked the question "what will happen to me after I die," yet we have yet to have the chance to ask the question, "what happens if I could live forever."

The Only Alternative Is Life
An Immortalist does not want to find out what happens after death. There are more than a few good examples in nature of what happens. All humans, until now, have had a beginning, middle and then die. An immortalist would suggest that "life" is the answer to the question that has perplexed humankind for so long. Simply stated:

Nothing Happens After Death
We only die - no afterlife, no second chances, no reincarnation. Thus, this only leave us with one simple option - embrace life.

At the onset of death, consciousness is obliterated by hypoxia. Neuronal connections built up over a lifetime are destroyed by the lack of oxygen. The essence of what makes us who we are is destroyed by this process. Cryonics, if implemented quickly enough may save this identity, however the prospects of cryonics are still unknown and tenuous. Therefore, it's much preferred not to die altogether, and only rely upon Cryonics as a sort of safety net or 'life' insurance.

Thus, staying alive is exceedingly important thing. There are no second chances after death, baring the success of Cryonics. One way of looking at death is to try and remember a time before birth... this is what one should expect after death, a void never to be filled again.

[John Schloendorn]

On your assumtion that “Nothing happens after death”:

To be a subjective mind percieving my very own personal universe feels so amazing and so odd that all possibilities seem open.

Immortalist philosophy might thus be based on the weaker assumtion that we simply do not know wether death is the end. I like the before-birth-analogy, but what happens after death has not been tested, so a nit-pick empiric scientist would have to put it like this anyway. Anyone who has experienced massive loss of neural connections might agree that mind fades along with them, but it might also be just the link to this world that is fading.

I will briefly attempt to derive some immortalist ethics from this point of view.

(a) If our ‘souls’ should be immortal in principle, then earthly life extension activities will do no overriding harm. They just deal with what kind of environment we chose to surround ourselves.

(b) If our ‘souls’ die with the bodies, then we can attain a lot.

Not knowing which possibility holds, the course of action should be clear... Well, that was deliberately naive. There are some other possibilities that may deserve a look.

© Our personal identity may be an illusion. We may be day-persons (Nagel, T.), second-persons or planck-time persons. The computers that we call our brains might run programs that act as if there was more to it. They aim to maintain a personal identity that is unmaintainable in principle.
Well, in this case we might just let them do and count © similar to (a), with (a) being the best-case scenario and © the worst-case scenario.

(d) Our souls will die after the traditional human life-time no matter what we do to our bodies. This possibility sounds a bit artificial to a non-theistic person. It might imply that earthly immortalists waste their time and should seek a maximum of joy instead.

(e) Being bound to a body is healthy for the immortal soul only as long as the natural human life span goes. After that the soul takes damage or dies due to too much earthly stress. Even more artificial. It is the only option I can think of that rendered immortalism counterproductive. Given (e)’s rather complicated setup and the simplicity (a) and (B), we might use Ockham’s Razor to neglect it. After all we are to chose now with our present level of information and act accordingly.


Greetings, John.

[John Schloendorn]

hehe how can I keep this thing from turning my brackets into smiles ?

[Bruce Klein]

John,

To turn off smilies, place the "code" wrap around the text: [code.] TEXT [/code.]
without the .

Thanks for your ideas on ethics. We'll talk more about this in the chat this Sunday, (Sept 22, 2002)... { Chat archives are posted after each sundays' chat to the forum }

[Chip]

I find the article decent though I think John's attempt to consider it in light of possible assumptions of the nature of life and all to be a valuable addition. Seems to me he is approaching the understanding that would help me if I were to rephrase the main article using my own view point. Seems probable that death is only discernible from an objective standpoint. I suspect that death can not be a subjective reality. You can see more on this in early posts I made in the Free Will forum. I come to the same conclusions as John, a, b and c are the most likely. Might as well seek to live forever and, as in a), work to make our environment more of our choosing.

[caliban]

A good forum post and a decent introductory text. I do assume however that BJ submitted this more to "get people going" for the competition.

In terms of preaching, you create some nice openings for opponents to pierce into. If I only take one passage from the middle, sentence by sentence:

An Immortalist does not want to find out what happens after death.

So immotalists are cowards and not curious at all?

There are more than a few good examples in nature of what happens

No there are not! You cannot disprove the existence of an afterlife. Therefore no observation of nature can give you ultimate scientific certainty.

All humans, until now, have had a beginning, middle and then die.

There was a human called Jesus who came back just to contradict that. Its well-documented too- by at least four diligent researchers in a collection of papers called the Bible.

An immortalist would suggest that "life" is the answer to the question that has perplexed humankind for so long.

Big deal - “Carpe diem” ! Go ahead an LIVE your life already! As you said, its the only answer and certainly better than constantly squabbling about an inevitable closure - Life is what gives death meaning!

And so on...

Why am I being so mean today? Sorry. [blush] I’m just in a good mood. Well, while I am at it just briefly at John:
“Pascales wager” is just as much an ethical fallacy for believing in god as it is for cryonics of life extension. If you have an ethical choice, you cannot play safe, because as you are making that choice - you are devoting time and resources to a potential folly.
Plus some theories like Hinduism would regard it as detrimental indeed for the soul to be trapped in a body after its natural death. The soul would then not be able to reincarnate. ] [/font][/size]

BJ - It is hard to make a good case for what you have abbreviated DOA (or DEO - but that’s the German abbreviation for deodorant)
You are to be commended for trying and trying so well. It will be interesting to see if we can ever come up with truly convincing statement - or at least how close we can get to that.

A good place to start.

Best wishes
caliban

[Lazarus Long]

Perhaps this is a good time for story telling.

I don't know where to begin or with which of the comments made so I will address the central theme and you the reader can sort on which side of the fence my virtual feet are planted.

My father was a clinical pathologist as well as a general practitioner. He was also a Talmudic Scholar. I preface what I am about to relate by way of describing his life's work, not just explaining his background.

In the days and weeks before his death we talked of many things. My father kept his wits always. WE talked of politics, history, psychology, technology, we talked of any and every subject except one, people.

Oh, I should distinguish this carefully, we did talk about humans but we never once mentioned the people. You know, individuals, that is except historical personages (they don't quite count). People like family, friends, foes. You know the ones, they are who you know.

Now my Dad was a true healer. He fought against death all his life. But to say that he was fascinated by it would be an understatement. His life work was individually dedicated to deciphering methods of tissue preservation such that the biological value of the specimen was preserved at room temperature in vitro condition. In his concentrated study he brought me along to learn at his knee so to speak, of many of the methods chosen around the world for mummification. But he also daily kept all those real people in our lives, the ones he wouldn't talk of, alive, friends, family, and community. I have studied forensics and archeology, anthropology and biochemistry at his side and on my own.

There are times that the Cryo Option astounds me as to fundamental synchronicity of logic for "why" take the approach of preserving the body for restart. Nevertheless while methodology is different one cannot deny the expertise and successful result. If one were to clone an ancient human, the first best place to look for a DNA sample would be the mummies around the world. From Ötzi to Tutankhaman and Cuzco too.

I have been brought up to understand the arcane arts of embalming and the modern state of the art forms as well. That's what Dad did for his personal study preserve human organs. I still have the displays. His earliest work is over fifty years old. They are genetically sound. They are preserved at room temperature not cryogenically, they require very little to maintain except dry conditions and not too much direct Sunlight. Like fine wine and cheese I believe that for very prolonged periods to preserve DNA structure it would be necessary to keep the samples cooled but not necessarily frozen.

His life was dedicated to the study of preserving the normal the Tissue State of flesh as well as keeping his patients and community alive. So to say that his was an informed and expert opinion is reasonable. Perhaps then his last request to me was not bizarre or irrational no matter how some of you might receive it. He told me in no uncertain terms that he wanted to be alert when he died. He wanted to face it awake in order to learn what it was because for all his life it had held mystery to him. On one level his sworn enemy and on another his necessary nemesis. It was his personal quest, his "joi d' vivre." (Excuse my French).

His request of me then in those days and weeks leading to his death was for me to make sure he was awake to die. I held him as he died and I am witness to fact that his wish was fulfilled so now I wonder what he learned?

We here are debating much the same question: Is there a lesson in death?

I say to him as I say to you the lesson is in the living. How we die is only the end the act, and when the action ends the player leaves the stage. Is there an afterlife? Let us line up the witnesses and the usual suspects. Then let us cross-examine them and their Devil's Advocate for a moment.

Death offers no alternative and at best all religious doctrine is a form of spin doctoring that reality into a promise of a new life. It is a bet no one has come to collect on if they were correct that there is an afterlife. What needs to matter is the perceptible present rather than a hypothetical future of indeterminate promise. So ask yourselves why is it perceived as cheating if we were to beat this devil at his own game?

What is the promise of the afterlife in a pragmatic sense? First that your personal contribution to the common welfare will survive your individuality in the form of the species. Second that once you've outlived your usefulness to this meme (social paradigm) of progressive evolution you die and get the hell out of the way of progress. Not your individual progress (hell no, individuals have generally been expendable), the progress of the species, the collective welfare of humanity and life as a whole. The impediment to social as well as physiological adaptation and predictive advancement is inherent in the continued presence of an elder class, or living ancestors. But it doesn't have to be this way.

This isn't a universal meme of man, many cultures have practiced a form of ancestor worship. Ironically many of the same ones that practice one form or another form of Human Sacrifice, from extricating still beating hearts to abortion, from Capitol Punishment to Ritual Combat. Chronos ate all the competition until a woman changed his ways.

Mythology is the first science fiction and the meme of godliness is not just a coincidence. We can be demonstrably seen to have been practicing eugenics upon ourselves for at least 10K years so ask your selves Why? Who? and How? But don't for a moment make the mistake of some of our colleagues in this world who think that the many people(s) of our past have not conspired (effectively) to determine many of our choices and options today. If this observation is true then the vested interests of this debate become more apparent. Church and State are in a power struggle with Individuality. Now there is a (un)Holy Trinity, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

In God We Trust?

Our Father who art in Heaven, Nation be my name and We the People are fair game. Raise a temple and bring the faithful to vote and supplicate themselves before the promise of one ever after, paying taxes for this entire life. Well I digress. But the image is still a fair one.

Why is it so hard for some to see death as the enemy?

It isn't necessary to fear it to see it so. It is just a foe, one that is a cause for perpetual struggle. The ultimate price for peace is death, the cost for life is struggle. Take it for granted for even a moment and you become more vulnerable but forget how to live it and you will lose it.

So how do we celebrate life not just live it fighting death?

We learn to create and create new things to learn.

Death is what happens if we fail but oh how glorious and beautiful can be the battle. Life isn't just any state it is the State of Being, the only one ultimately worth dying for and one that all too many are irrationally willing to kill for.

[Bruce Klein]

Laz,

Thank you for sharing your story. I found it moving and a little saddening. You've managed to say what I feel, no small task, as I'm always impressed with your ability to evoke the emotional side while staying firmly planted in the intellect.

BJK

[Lazarus Long]

Thank you for your support BJ as well as the kind wishes. What will stay with me as forever ironic and personally tragic, was that I buried him on my birthday a year ago.

Again thank you for the kind words.
laz/ken

[chestnut]

I have always thought your writing style is non-confrontational, straight to the point and inviting. Your thoughts are easy to follow and your piece is a wonderful introduction to your views and reasoning behind the need (and your personal quest) for immortality. You are not affraid to allow others into your thoughts and views and that takes courage.


(Disclaimer: In any event you know I'm biased because I love you )

[Bruce Klein]

Thank You Chestnut,

Disclaimer: In any event you know I'm biased because I love you

With such excellent competition, one has to pull out all the stops!