Martin Rees is Professor of Astronomy and Cosmology and (from 2004) Master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He holds the honorary title of Astronomer Royal and also Visiting Professor at Imperial College London and at Leicester University. After studying at the University of Cambridge, he held post-doctoral positions in the UK and the USA, before becoming a professor at Sussex University. In 1973, he became a fellow of King's College and Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge (continuing in the latter post until 1991) and served for ten years as director of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy. From 1992 to 2003 he was a Royal Society Research Professor.
http://www.ast.cam.a.../IoA/staff/mjr/
Martin Rees was kind enough to grant ImmInst the following interview:
Bruce Klein: I'd be quite happy to publicize your book. This is a very important issue to ImmInst as we have created a Threats To Life Council to focus attention on how to overcome such risks going forward.
Perhaps, I could ask you two questions concerning your ideas about the possibility of human physical immortality and then feature this interview and book to the homepage of ImmInst?
Martin Rees: Fine
Questions 1:
Evidence for an afterlife has yet to be substantiated. Do you worry that if your life were to end tomorrow, your consciousness/existence would be obliterated and why?
Martin Rees: I'm reconciled to extinction -- losing all consciousness as well as rotting away physically. Indeed, I think we should welcome the transience of our lives. Individual immortality would be deleterious for life's further development unless we could transform ourselves, mentally and physically, into something so different from our present state that the transformed entities wouldn't really still be 'us'.
We should see ourselves -- and, indeed, all humans -- as just a phase (perhaps even a rather early one) in the gradual emergence of life and consciousness in the cosmos. We should -- contrary to Woody Allen's preferences -- be satisfied if we can survive through our works, rather than by not dying.
PS I'd rather my body ended up in an English churchyard than in a Californian refrigerator!
PPS Woody Allen also reminded us that 'eternity is very long, especially towards the end'!
Bruce Klein: You kill me
Questions 2:
You've reconciled your extinction. Fair enough. And I suspect that if you were to die tomorrow, your good works would suffice handily as a substitute for physical immortality.
However, let me pose a hypothetical. Similar to how ‘you’ have stayed ‘you’ from birth until now, I will guarantee you that this ‘you’ will remain intact forever. Would this guarantee in anyway change your mind about the prospect of physical immortality?
Martin Rees: I'd be ambivalent about a lifespan of even a few centuries if I couldn't transcend present mental (and even physical) limitations. Regrets and frustrations would just pile up intolerably.
If technology allowed me to transcend these limitations, I'd only be the same person in the sense that I would retain some memories of early life. But even over present life-spans it's not clear how much continuity of personality is really preserved. Each of us is a 'bundle of sensations' somehow woven together as a continuous thread or 'worldline'.
But I still wonder whether it's fair (for instance) to hold old people responsible for what they did when young, so different have they become. And this problem of 'continuity' would be aggravated by a far longer lifespan and more malleable brains and bodies.
You ask me: "Do I want to be immortal?" -- my answer (selfishly) is "maybe, but I'm not sure"
But if you asked me about an inevitable consequence (unless I'm to be uniquely privileged): "Would I then want everyone else to be immortal, leaving no space for a bright confident younger generation?" my answer would be "No" -- absolutely, and unequivocally.
That's why I can't support your aim -- unless the 'ancients' can be dispersed to 'twilight homes' far away in space.
End
Be sure to check out Martin's newest book:
Our Final Hour
Britian's Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees warns that there is a high likelihood of a major world catastrophe emerging at almost any time in the near future. More...
You can purchase 'Our Final Hour' from Amazon