VISHEV, Igor Vladimirovich (born 5.05.1933, Volsk, Saratov region), doctor of Philosophy, professor, member of the Humanities Academy, expert on philosophical anthropology and religion. In 1947 as a result of an accident (strong chemical burn of the face and the eyes with metallic potassium) he completely lost his eyesight. In 1958 he graduated from Faculty of philosophy of Moscow State University and went to work at the Chelyabinsk Polytechnical Institute. He worked as an assistant, a senior teacher (1964), a senior lecturer (1968) a professor of the Chair of philosophy (1989). In 1964 he protected his candidate dissertation entitled «Social and Moral Sense of the Ten Biblical Commandments», in 1990 on the basis of the collection of his scientific works he protected his doctor's dissertation in the form of a scientific report entitled «The Problem of Death and Immortality of Man: Formation, Evolution, Prospects of Solving». Dr Vishev's main scientific interest is the development of the concept of practical immortality of man, whose basic idea is the necessity and the possibility of achieving biological and social conditionality not limited by any species limit of individual life under an indispensable condition of preservation of optimum parameters of corporal and spiritual ability to live, i.e. solving the triple task of strengthening the person's health, preservation of his youth and achieving practical immortality. Dr Vishev traced the evolution of "mortality" materialism which acknowledged the inevitability of death, into immortality materialism which proved the reachability of real personal immortality, and the prospect of transition from mortality model of progress based on indispensable change of generations, to immortality model of progress which presupposes the elimination of the mechanism of generation changes as an indispensable factor bio-and sociogenesis and at the same time the continuing growth of mankind. He introduced the concept of "immortology" (science of immortality) as well as "homo immortalis" (man immortal) into scientific use. He published more than 200 scientific and methodical works, including 12 books and 5 publications in foreign languages. He took part in the 9th International Congress of Gerontologists(Kiev, 1972) and the XIX World Philosophical Congress (Moscow, 1993).
Dr Vishev is married with two children, three grandchildren, he is fond of skiing and skating, swimming, playing chess and many other games, solving crossword puzzles, gardening, the car driven by his son, works on a computer.
His basic works: Radical Prolongation of People's Lives. Sverdlovsk, 1988; The Problem of Personal Immortality. Novosibirsk, 1990; Immortality of Man. Is it reachable? Minsk, 1990; Problems of Immortality: Book 1: The Problem of Individual Immortality in the history of Russian Philosophical Thinking of XIX-XX Centuries. - Chelyabinsk, 1993; Homo Immortalis - Man Immortal. Chelyabinsk, 1999; The Problem of Immortality Man in Russian Philosophy: Persons and Ideas: Manual. In 2 parts. Chelyabinsk, 1999, 2000; On the Way to Practical Immortality. Ì., 2002.
Basic publications about I.V. Vishev: Yurchenko I. Is the Circle of Youth Closed? // Sovietskaya Russia, 1981, September, 30; Golovanov L. The Glove Has Been Thrown// Book review, 1990, November, 9; Fonotov M. Invitation to Immortality // The Chelyabinsk Worker, 1991, July, 6; Zhuravloyva S. Igor Vishev - a Bolshevik Who Believes in Immortality // The Chelyabinsk Worker, 1995, February, 25; Chistoserdova N. A Legend about Love // Vecherniy Chelyabinsk, 1999, April, 13; Korotkaya T. Immortality is Possible // Komsomolskaya Pravda, 2000, April, 21; Popov L. Can Man Live Forever? // the Urals Courier, 2001, March, 14; Popov L. Man Can and Must Become Free from Death // Aloye Pole, 2001, November (#8).
Dear the colleague Брюс Кляйн!
I dispatch you the article for your accumulator cell. I hope, you will find
Possible(probable) her(it) to publish.
Health and successes!
Yours faithfully Игорь In. Вишев
viv@susu.ac.ru
----
Dear Bruce,
Dr. Vishev has sent you his article for the ImmInst Book Project. The
English translation is made by the computer, so it is not quite
readable. I am ready to help with it, but please tell me if there's
still time and if it is really worth while working at it.
greetings,
Alexander Svyatov
svyatov@miass.ru
---
Alexander,
The article is well worth the effort.. if not for this first book, we will
create more books going, because of great response.
The ultimate cutoff for the first book is Feb 15.
I'll forward the current draft to the editing team.. and let
them know of your desire to edit the draft to correct the
English more.
Thanks,
Bruce
Also Attached..
I.V. Vishev ,
Doctor of Philosophy,
Professor of Chair of Philosophy
South-Ural State University (Chelyabinsk, Russia),
A member (academician) of the Academy of the humanities
THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN PRACTICAL IMMORTALITY
AT THE XXI ALL-WORLD FORUM OF PHILOSOPHERS IM ISTANBUL
(impressions of a Russian participant of the Istanbul congress)
The problem of actual achievement of human practical immortality, his(her) personal, individual immortality, strengthens itself more and more in modern world outlook, though it is necessary to overcome many difficulties on this way, including first of all a strong influence of destructive forces of traditions and inertia of thinking in this field of conceptions. Particularly, the evidence of that is the work of the XXI All-World Philosophical Congress in Istanbul (Turkey), at which this problem was paid separate attention to and given separate place and time for the first time in the history of such philosophical forums. In this respect the Istanbul congress has become indeed an event of significant historical value. At the same time the discussion of the subject «Life, Death, Immortality» also revealed the main contradictions and pluralism of opinions, which one can't but take into consideration today. They are to be thought over with seriousness and responsibility, justifying reasons and counter evidence for the benefit of a positive solution of the problem of human immortality. At the same time the context of the Congress in which the problem was raised and considered is of a certain interest. Here is a live impression of a participant of the philosophical forum awoken by the circumstances of preparation and realization of the round-table discussion «Life, Death, Immortality» at the XXI All-World Forum of Philosophers.
The Istanbul Congress
The XXI All-World Philosophical Congress is farther and farther in the past. It was held in Istanbul from August, 10 till August, 17, 2003. I and my wife had an opportunity to take an active part in it as members of the Russian delegation. As this event becomes more and more distant, the feelings it has aroused become deeper, the thoughts become more considered, but the event itself seems more and more impressive and significant. This event indeed has become what we call «a fact of the biography» - both personally and that of the Russian and the world philosophy. For the Russian delegation it was especially significant, because it happened in the context of the scientific and cultural-historical event - «The Philosophical Steamship» (in fact it was the passenger steamship «Mariya Yermolova»). The name of this event was an allusion to the events in Russia in 1922, when a number of well-known Russian philosophers, such as N. Berdyaev, I. Ilyin, F. Stepun, F. Franc and others, who were in opposition to the new power, were compelled to leave Russia. Now «The Philosophical Steamship» is to symbolize not so much the departure of Russian philosophers from the country, but, unlike that old times, their return to their Fatherland. But, apart from this symbolism, the arrival of a whole delegation with the ship, which became both their hotel and a place to conduct various philosophical events, drew general attention and was highly estimated, specially by foreign participants of the Congress who visited the ship. This can become quite exemplary for other national associations of philosophers.
All-world philosophical forums have a long and rich history. The first one was held in 1900 in Paris. After the Second World War, starting from the X Congress (Amsterdam, 1948), all the subsequent ones were held exactly every five years. The XXI All-World Philosophical Congress has become the first in XXI century, the first in the Third Millennium.
Hitherto, world forums of philosophers were held only in Europe, testifying thereby about their primary orientation to European philosophical culture. The present congress, for the first time held in Istanbul, i.e. in Asia, has marked the address to philosophical doctrines of the East as well. Although Turkey is considered to be a European country, as it were, in fact its largest part is in Asia, and it represents Moslem civilization first of all.
This time the All-World Philosophical Congress was dedicated to the subject «Philosophy face to face with global problems». There were about 2000 participants from 100 countries. The largest was the American delegation (more than 200 people), the second-largest was the Russian one, the Turkish was the third-largest, in spite of the fact that they were the hosts of the Congress. The American philosophers made about 350 reports and lectures, the Russian made about half of that number. Besides, at plenary sessions there were 3 American reports and no Russian ones. To continue this comparison, it is has to be pointed out, that the Turkish made 130 reports; the German made 75, the Chinese made 57, representatives of many other countries, even leading countries (France, England etc.) made even fewer reports. However, it is necessary to note, that the majority of these and other similar numerical data are to be considered as only approximate, because the basis for the calculation can be different.
It was professor Ioanna Kuruchadi, President of Philosophical Society of Turkey and XXI All-World Philosophical Congress who opened the Istanbul Congress with her address. President of Turkey Ahmed Sezer also addressed the participants of the Congress at the opening. He was quite right to point out, that "Societies which underestimate the importance of philosophy can not properly develop". Then he also emphasized: «Only those who realize the usefulness of philosophical knowledge can become the strongest societies». Other authorities also spoke: the ministers of government, the mayor of Istanbul, representatives of UNESCO. To all appearances, the hosts of the All-World Philosophical Congress have treated this event with due attention and respect, the evidence of which is the fact, that the education minister of Turkey, speaking at the closing of the world forum of philosophers, declared that the decision has been made, under the influence of the Congress, to make philosophy part of the school curriculum. This is indeed exemplary!
But the closing of the Istanbul Congress was also marked with a noisy incident, when protesting Kurds (as we found out later) rushed into the conference hall with their transparencies. The television reporters were at once eager to film this demonstrating. There were loud cries, and a hustle began. However the policemen appeared at once, who took the demonstrators away in handcuffs. All this happened very quickly, but nevertheless, one must say, brought about unpleasant feelings and memories.
Round-table discussion «Life, Death, Immortality»
The round-table discussion «Life, Death, Immortality» was first included in the Program of XXI All-World Philosophical Congress in Istanbul on my initiative, and then it was organized and conducted by me. It was my main concern, care and agitation at the Congress. It turned out to be quite difficult to have this round-table discussion included in the Program of the Congress. It was found out, for example, that an application from representatives of three countries is necessary for this purpose. At that time I didn't have the necessary candidatures yet. However, I managed eventually to compile the required application, and by the recommendation of a representative of Russian Philosophical Society Presidium, included the names of its two foreign members into this application. But, unfortunately, it was done, so to speak, by default, without their consent, as there were neither their electronic addresses, nor time. Therefore, almost up to the beginning of the Congress I did not know, whether the application to hold this round-table discussion was accepted, whether it was included in its Program or not, because in the latest issue of the "Bulletin of the Russian Philosophical Society" which had informed about the preparation of the Istanbul Congress, nothing was said about that, and the organizing Committee of the Congress did not find it necessary to inform me about the positive solution of the problem.
I would have remained uninformed about it, if by that time I didn't have creative communications with Immortality Institute organized in 2002 in Alabama (USA). The Director of the Institute, Bruce J. Klein searched in the Internet for "Doctor Vishev" and found the Program of the Istanbul Congress. As it turned out, the round-table discussion «Life, Death, Immortality» and I as its chief were already on the Program [1, p.50]. Mr. Klein informed me about it. So finally I was warned, although practically at the last moment, so to some extent I was prepared for my mission. Otherwise everything would be, certainly more difficult. Naturally, I am deeply and sincerely grateful for that.
In connection with conducting the round-table discussion I was primarily concerned about two problems - the translation into English and the participants. The first problem was solved in the best way - a participant of the Russian delegation N. Biryukov, a senior lecturer of Moscow State Institute of International Relations, a remarkable person whose English is brilliant, to whom I am also deeply and sincerely grateful, agreed to help. To solve the second problem, it was necessary to advertise this round-table discussion, to draw attention, to it, to find participants, because there were many other philosophical meetings at the congress at the same time. So on many different occasions I had to address the participants with the invitation to take part in the round-table discussion «Life, Death, Immortality» and I had to remind about the time and place it was to be held. Immediately before the meeting, which, according to the Program, was to be held in the morning, I addressed the participants of the Russian delegation with such an invitation through the ship wireless for the last time. Certainly, in this respect it was necessary for me to do much more to inform the other delegations, but that was very hard to be done. Therefore 30 people, and mainly Russian-speaking took part in the round-table discussion. This must be taken into account later when holding similar events.
Preparing for the round-table discussion in Russia I addressed a number of my colleagues who are interested and engaged in the problem of human immortality, with the proposal to send their materials (greetings, reports and others) to the Organizing Committee of the Istanbul congress. In this respect I was very much encouraged by the Bruce J. Klein's intention to send the Immortality Institute Presentation Package to the Congress. However, to my deepest regret, these and other materials didn't appear to be available for me. It had an extremely negative effect on the quality of the round-table discussion. This must also be taken into account, when similar events are conducted. It is necessary to have such materials open and accessible for the participants of world philosophical forums for them to get them easily and use them in their work.
The memorable round-table discussion «Life, Death, Immortality» was held on August 15, 2003 (9.00 - 10.50) in Istanbul Convention and Exhibition Center in the magnificent hall of Marmara. There was a plate with my surname in English as the chairman at the meeting on the table of the "presidium". As already pointed out, this event and its date can by rights become historical. There's every reason to hope, that this fact marks the decisive recognition of such a world outlook problem as the problem of human life, death and immortality as one of global problems, the necessity of its substantial and accountable philosophical research, because until now, however strange it may be, it actually remained beyond philosophers' special consideration at their global level forums. Meanwhile, being one of the most fundamental and really system-building, this problem undoubtedly deserves the closest attention of researchers, speculation and discussion, for it has to do with the innermost feelings and dreams of humans.
Opening the round-table discussion «Life, Death, Immortality», in the very beginning I cordially greeted the participants of this historical and significant event, expressing my deep satisfaction, that it was in the program of Istanbul All-World Philosophical Congress that its subject was finally included. After that I named a number of pleasant events in this area, which took place only during the past year. To these belong the creation of Immortality Institute in Alabama (USA), which was already mentioned.
Another important event I pointed out to was the publication of my two materials - «Immortology» (science about immortality) [2, p. 362-363] and «Juvenology» (science about ways of preservation and returning youth) [3, p.1286] in the Encyclopedia «Globalistics», which was created by 445 scientists from 28 countries. It was really, a very significant step forward. However, unfortunately, it happened not to be sufficiently consistent - these materials were not included in the condensed English version of the Encyclopedia, although these concepts were developed and introduced by Russian scientists and they are not very well known to foreign colleagues. I expressed such a critical remark and quite a justified hope for the correction of this omission in the future at the presentation of the Encyclopedia «Globalistics», which, according to the Program of the congress, was held in the evening of August 13 and also was a significant event. But, anyway, the indicated novelties are really of an extremely positive significance.
As usual, I started the presentation of the main provisions of the report «Modern mankind facing the global problem of human life, death and immortality» with the main thing - the explanation of the meaning of the concept «human practical immortality». And really, it is this concept that is as a rule misunderstood and spontaneously rejected, together with the whole conception. The point is that in this combination the word «immortality» is wrongly emphasized, and this word is given the absolute meaning, that is eliminating any possibility of death, similar to immortality of the soul, the idea of which some adherents of religion, for example Witnesses of Jehovah, consider even to be «the devil's invention», because in this case god can not destroy it, which is inadmissible both from the point of view of belief and piety. As absolute immortality is knowingly impossible, the concept «practical immortality» is also rejected in the very beginning. Meanwhile the latter concept, practical immortality, has an essentially different meaning.
«Practical immortality» of a human being means such a principally accessible duration of his(her) personal life on the peak of optimum parameters of bodily and spiritual vital functions determined by the indispensable social and biological factors, when all specific boundaries of human life are removed, and it is possible to assert - he(she) has become practically immortal. In other words, the actual possibility of finding ways for a human being to live with no limit long is recognized. But at the same time it is important to point out, that such a condition does not mean the absolute impossibility of death. Basically, death can happen, but only owing to some external causes (trauma, unknown disease, space catastrophe etc.), so people will always have to find ways and means of preventing such hazards. The main thing is that the now existing fatality of death caused by the spontaneous character of the natural and social evolution will be removed, humans will be able to put into practice their old dream to live unrestrictedly and indefinitely long, remaining able-bodied and young, i.e. on the level of maturity of all biotic parameters. The ultimate goal is: humans must become free in front of aging and youth, death and life for the benefit of practical immortality.
This idea, being, as it was said, system-building, is developed in many aspects: in philosophical and social, natural-science, technical, moral-humanistic, value and other aspects. I did not dwell upon them in detail, because the main conceptions in this respect are already set forth in my different publications, including first of all the books «Homo Immortalis - Human Immortal» [4] and «On the Way to Practical Immortality» [5]. I needed only to remind of the basic achievements in all these fields of research, which open a really mighty and optimistic prospect of the struggle against human death for practical immortality.
Such a daring purpose seems to be more and more realistic thanks first of all to such discoveries of the latest time, as cloning of mammals, including humans; telomere therapy which eliminates the limit of cell division; regeneration of stem cells granting new possibilities of obtaining «spare parts» of an organism; the decryption of the human genome, which will allow to constructively rebuild the genetic mechanism of vital functions; in the area of nanotechnology and many others. They also make more and more realistic not only the possibility of preventing death, but also the resurrection of a person in case death happened. However, such tragic cases (indeed - unfortunate) should become more and more rare. The presence of various unsolved problems which causes not unfounded doubts, especially concerning the recovery of the personal characteristics by means of so-called «loading» (on the computer), must not be the basis for hopeless skepticism, especially of militant nihilism. There are much more premises for optimisms. The main pathos of scientific search in this area of research must be finding new possibilities in difficulties, but not looking for difficulties in the possibilities, that is not pessimism, but genuine optimism.
The most interesting for our subject at the plenary meetings of the Istanbul Congress of Philosophers was the report by Аnnie Fagu-Largo (France) devoted to the most acute problems of bioethics, particularly to research in the field of the use of stem cells and embryo tissue to treat many diseases, to the contradictoriness and ambiguity of scientific research in this direction. So, she reported, that two children participating in such experiments unfortunately proved to have cancer and some researches had to be suspended. At the same time, Аnnie Fagu-Largo, pointing out, that the attitude to embryos in different countries is different, was quite right to express the opinion that religious conceptions of this problem should not limit the freedom of research in this area. She expressed irony towards those far-fetched «moral» problems, when, for example to throw away such tissues is considered ethical and right, and to use them for treatment, for the benefit of people, is considered an inadmissible violation of moral standards. The unambiguous conclusion that can be drawn from her report was that philosophers must not hinder such researches, but, on the contrary, must support and promote their realization. And it is impossible to disagree with her in this respect.
The non-conventional approach to the solution of a problem, naturally, generates new, also non-conventional, ideas. In this respect I think it appropriate to express the following reasons and proposals. It is well-known, that there are so-called cryonics clubs. However, putting a human being into a deep antibioses is an expensive technology with rather doubtful positive consequences. In the light of cloning, as a matter of fact, the same effect can be achieved by freezing separate cells of the organism. But today such technology, although it is more accessible, requires considerable costs and a special service, which does not exist yet. Furthermore, the method of cloning of a human being is not yet properly developed by now. It is a matter of the future, we shall hope, not far. For this purpose the cells of the organism must be kept and remain suitable for cloning. Meanwhile, the buried body and also the components of its cells are quickly destroyed.
In this connection I suggest, firstly, developing technologies of different degrees of an embalming, some kind of mummification of the deceased person, whose body can be preserved for a much longer time than usually; secondly, patenting this idea and technology; thirdly, organizing a firm of funereal services, whose incomes could become an additional source of financing the research on the problem of personal immortality. For me it would be easier to meet death, knowing, that my body will be preserved, and it will remain suitable for cloning, i.e. for resurrection when appropriate techniques are properly developed. Such practical suggestions and their implementation could increase the interest and confidence to the scientifically optimistic search for a solution of the problem of human immortality.
Modern mankind facing the global problem of human life, death and immortality
(Report prepared for the XXI All-World Philosophical Congress)
In the circle of problems requiring philosophical speculation and research, an exclusive place is taken by the general world view problem of human life, death and immortality, an essentially global problem. Since long ago it was in the centre of people's attention and by all means stirred them, causing thrill and horror in some people, which was brought about by the belief in their deep-rooted sinfulness and the inevitability of postmortem punishment for it; in other cases it was the hope to avoid such terrible fate through belief in salvation in this or that form, for the third category it was the realization of natural boundedness of life, the generality of death as its indispensable outcome and either the unconditional denying of the possibility of achievement of actual human immortality, or the conviction in the principled solvability of this problem.
During almost all the many thousand-year-old history of mythological consciousness people lived with a dominating conviction that only gods are immortal, but not the people themselves. By the conceptions of those times, people were created by the gods in the image and likeness of themselves, so that they could fulfill definite divine functions, transmitted to them. But thus the people were often deprived of the property of immortality (either by the gods, or they deprived themselves of it because of their own imprudence etc.), so that they could not in case of complaint rebel against their creators. Thus, concerning the problem of humans becoming immortal, a pessimistic mentality became characteristic for mythological consciousness (with some rare exceptions).
The growing nonsense of human life induced first of all by the aggravation of antagonisms of interpersonal and social relations caused the appearance of large masses of people, «depressed by life», for whom untimely death started more and more to seem the desired way to get rid of hopeless distresses, travails, breach of justice, violence and other faults of society (to this testifies, for example, the ancient Egyptian papyrus "The conversation of the disappointed with his spirit»). World religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Islam), since the middle of the 1st millennium BC and later, interpreted the wanton and hopeless situation as the preparation for the postmortem existence of the people, granting them thereby, though only through belief, the prospect of escaping it. Thereby, concerning the problem of the possibility of personal immortality it became outwardly characteristic for religious consciousness to be optimistic. The actual death of each person was thus recognized as an immutable and irremovable fact as the punishment for the original sin etc. Thus, such kinds of beliefs appeared to be essentially not immortalistic, but postmortalistic. Therefore, the problem of considerable prolongation of life, the removal of fatality of death from human life and the achievement their of personal immortality in this world remained unsolved.
In the philosophical consciousness there appeared two main approaches and directions concerning the solution of the problem of life, death and personal immortality, in both cases appealing to human reason . One of them can also be described as optimistic, because it essentially appears to be similar to the religious conceptions on this problem. This direction is represented by Socrates and many other thinkers. However in this case life is also considered fatally limited by death, and immortality, in fact, turns out to be "postmortality". The other approach, which sought to rest upon scientific knowledge (i.e. authentic knowledge, checked and rechecked), but not on belief or only on logic, was first only pessimistic. Aging and natural human death caused by it were presented as the result of the force of immutable eternal laws of nature which do not have any exceptions, and consequently not considered to be evil unlike untimely death (Ian Zhu, Epicur, P. Golbach, L. Feuerbach, K. Marx, F. Engels etc.). So from this point of view too, human life was presented as necessarily crowned by death as by an unremovable phenomenon of human life, and the immortality, at the best, was expounded allegorically - in sense of prolongation of existence of the person in the results of the person's deeds, in his descendants and their memory.
However it appeared to be impossible to be endlessly satisfied only with the faith in transcendental postmortem existence or in consistent denying of the possibility of actual personal immortality. And in XIX century there appears the «active - evolutional approach» (S. G. Semyonova) to the solution of the problem of human life, death and immortality. It is shaped first of all in the context of Russian cosmism (A.V. Sukhovo-Kobylin etc.).
The central figure for this period is N.F. Fedorov, the creator of philosophy of common cause. He was convinced, that, on the one hand, there is a total disagreement among people due to the difference of their interests, but, on the other hand - as all people are mortal, they have a general concern - to remove death from human life and to achieve the actual personal immortality. This thinker, like no one else, put the problem in the most radical way - to overcome death not only in the present and future, but also in the past, i.e. the death that has already happened. He put forward the idea about the sons’ duty to resurrect their fathers by means of the regulation of natural processes, whose spontaneous course generated death. Such regulation, according to him, is possible if we introduce consciousness and the will of people supported by the achievements of scientific knowledge (especially in the future) into the natural course of world development. He did not have doubts that death was not a human attribute, without which humans will cease to be what they are and what they should become. Fedorov made a radical turn from mortalistic paradigm to immortalistic one. It meant also the transition from mortalistic model of progress, which presupposes digenesis and therefore the necessity of death, to immortalistic model, according to which all people will live unrestrictedly long, growing in the number indispensable for the successful solution of the earth and space tasks. The religious philosophy component of Fedorov's project of common cause is essentially and eventually, only «auxiliary», which can be painlessly omitted without detriment to the conception.
A courageous attempt to give materialistic philosophy optimism, which was earlier alien for it, concerning the solution of the problem of life, death and immortality, was undertaken by K.E. Tsiolkovsky, the creator of space philosophy and founder of rocket dynamics. On the assumption of the unjustifiable (as it has been found out by now), identification of matter and Universe (he considered the latter to be eternal), conceptions of pan-psychism and non-uniqueness of the Earth mind, he came to the conclusion that «there is no death subjectively», because death is not perceived, and everything merges in a continuous biotic flow, but not in the personal form. At the same time, according to him there must be immortal beings in the space concluded in a transparent shell and living with solar energy, but for humans physical immortality is inaccessible, though they can prolong their lives by thousand years, when even distant space travels will not seem terrible to them. Thus, in Tsiolkovsky's space philosophy the problem of personal immortality, eventually, did not find a consistent and sufficient solution.
In fact, the modern formulation of the problem of human life, death and immortality was «the new philosophy» of biocosmists in the end of the 10-th - beginning of the 20-th of the ХХ century. Making their purpose the extension of human freedom, they considered it necessary to eliminate the localism of time and space in human life. It must be embodied first of all in the achievement of human immortality (immortalism) and conquering the space (interplaneterism). The advantage of the biocosmists was their tendency to justify the possibility of setting and solving these problems by the achievements of scientific, technical and social progress. The same basic ideas were shared by А.М. Gorki, though he made his own way to them. Attempting theoretically and practically to realize the first one of them, he initiated the creation of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine (1932.), which one was invoked to solve problems of this kind - to overcome death in order to achieve the actual personal immortality.
Two World wars of the ХХ century, and the dramatic, even tragic events that followed them, the events undermining the authority of human mind, at the same time created conditions, extremely unfavorable for a positive solution of the problem of human life, death and immortality, each time hindering advance in this area of researches, so that quantitative accumulations could not develop into qualitative changes. The new promising stage in investigating this given problem was in the third part of the past century and especially for the latest years, inspiring new hopes for its successful solution in the starting century, at least in the direction of basically important breakthroughs.
The whole of the ХХ century become, alongside with the development of many other branches of technological knowledge, the century of genetics, presenting the world on the verge of millenniums with such fundamental and perspective discoveries, as cloning, the telomeraze enzyme, telomere therapy, the decryption of the human genome, nanotechnology etc. Naturalist and engineers more and more often declare the possible ways and means of achievement of actual human immortality (V.Wright, М. Minski etc.). Philosophers have no right to overlook the modern situation in the given area of research expressing many acute debatable problems.
The most developed today is the conception of human practical immortality (V. Kuprevich, L. Komarov, P. Rebinder, L.Balashov, G. Berdyshev, I. Vishev, M. Solovyov etc.). Its main idea is the principle accessibility of bioethical and social and cultural conditionality of personal life not limited by any specific limit of duration (not excluding the possibility of death due to an external cause) with the indispensable condition of preservation of stable health and other optimum parameters of bodily and spiritual vital activity. Life, death and immortality must not limit human freedom, but on the contrary, directly promote the extension of its sphere.
The modern mankind is invoked to realize the command of time - to positively and globally solve the triune problem of life, death and personal immortality.
Speeches of the participants of the controversy of the
round-table discussion «Life, Death, Immortality»
As the time to conduct the Round-table discussion was limited (it started at 9 o'clock and at 11 the plenary meeting was to be held), I could not afford a longer speech and to read the whole of my report. Therefore, limiting it to the presentation of a number of basic theses, I left more time for those who wished to speak in the controversy.
H. Lenk, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor (Karlsruhe, Germany), pointed out particularly, that death can be considered not only negatively - as the termination of human existence (even though after 5 billion years together with the Sun), but also positively - as condition of evolution and as the price to pay for it. Referring to works of classic existentialist philosophy, he reminded, according to those thinkers it is the realization of the finiteness of one's existence that distinguishes a human being from an animal, that it gave an impulse to the development of human intellect (though, apparently, for example chimpanzee, is in a definite measure capable to guess too). At the same time, Lenk stressed, we are not obliged to share the tragical attitude of the great existentialists of the past. On the one hand, a human being as a moral creature transcends his own finiteness and participates in divine life (I. Kant), on the other hand, mortality rather moves us to live better. To conclude, Professor Lenk stressed the important aspect, that we can and should make the very process of dying easier.
N.M. Solodukho, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, Chairman of Philosophy Chair of KGTY-KAI (Kazan), rightly stressing the exciting nature of the considered triad, then pointed out: «The solution of the problem "life - death - immortality" depends on the ontological comprehension of the world, in the structure of which the human being is. In my monograph «Philosophy of non-being» I proceed from the concept of the world presenting interdependent spheres of being and non-being. Being is understood as the reality of existence, and non-being as the reality of non-existence (absence). According to this concept, every something is subject to the law of a one-multiplicity of being. It concerns humans too, who are finite, they are basically limited by the non-being before the birth and after the death. The effect of illusion of immortality of a concrete person is achieved at the expense of his preservation in the ideal form only in a subjective reality - the consciousness of other people. A different aspect of immortality is connected with the eternal stay of the deceased in the reality of non-being, which possesses all the absolutes».
F.T. Valishin (Kazan), stressing the unacceptability of the religious approach to the solution of problems, and also the necessity of development of a scientific ontology, then asked the question: «How is the considered problematic highlighted in the strategy of dynamism, developed in Kazan?», then he pointed out: «In the strategy of dynamism each Natural Unit is an Absolute and represents the contingency of the Eternal and the Final. The Source of Life is the presence of the Eternal and the contact with all the set of the Final world. The life is prolonged through new birth, through updating of each Natural Unit - the Life is the prolongation of the Rhythm. Development, modernization bears Death. The Source of world system crisis is the strategy of steady development ».
I.S. Утробин, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, the Dean of Philosophical and Social Faculty of Perm State University, stressing the inclusion of the person in being, stated the following point of view: «Life, death, immortality» is, certainly, a philosophical subject, as the person here obviously attempts to leave the limits of possible experience. Being a social integral creature appearing in the process of infinite development, the unity of the final and the infinite, he is the most composite «subject» of the material world. The death of the person is first of all the termination of his biological existence. In social, chemical, physical and pre-physical aspects he is actually immortal. The biology of the human being is a special biology, which in the boundaries of the social becomes the best biology. It is possible to say, that the first step to «practical» immortality has been made. The person is the most live of all the living creatures. The positive dependence of the biological on the social, the leading role of the social allows, apparently, at least only theoretically, to raise the question about the reality of immortality »
V.A. Kutyrev, Doctor of Philosophy, professor of Nizhniy Novgorod Lobachevski State University, asserted: «If we leave the ground of religion and miracle and support the scientific point of view, the living is not promising for immortality. Death is the reverse side of life, a way of its updating and development. Eliminating death, we eliminate life. Within the framework of life this problem lies in the channel of medicine and gerontology. And no more. Immortality as such acquires sense in connection with the advance in technology opening the capability of the transformation of the natural, living form of mind into the artificial one. So approximately it was with N. Fedorov, K. Tsiolkovsky: autotrophic food, existence outside the Earth, overcoming syngenesis which is defamatory for humans. Now it is clear, that it was an ingenious anticipation of the appearance of robots and systems of artificial intelligence which are getting ready to replace humans now. Dreams about «immortality in the scientific way» is a manifestation of abiotic tendencies of the modern civilization threatening humans with death. The representatives of humanity should hardly hurry to support them».
N.I. Biryukov (Moscow) reminded: «In due course B. Shaw («Back to the Mathusala») asserted, that the human fatalities are, generally, the consequence of the ridiculously short human life. B. Shaw (or, at least, the character of his play) believed, that to solve this problem it is enough to want to live longer, the rest will be done by the spontaneous forces of evolution. Such a hope is hardly realistic, but the scientific knowledge, combined with determination, basically, can result in the increase of duration of human life (and not necessarily in a long-term future), which, in turn, will create new capabilities for further activity in this direction. Certainly, the prolongation of the lifespan and immortality make sense only in the event that we can to make life happier (in this respect J. Leonardi is certainly right), but there is a reason in the initial B. Shaw's thesis: Becoming wiser with time, a man will be able to change the life for the better» [6, с.64-66].
Thus, in the speeches the conventional approach to the consideration of the subject prevailed, in its different modifications, but, in general from the point of view of mortalistic paradigm. And it is no wonder, as the usual conventional conceptions accept the new non-conventional approaches and solutions with a great difficulty. At the same time it is pleasant to state, that the idea of human practical immortality, anyway, finds an increasing response, understanding and recognition with philosophers.
However, with much regret, it has to be stated, that owing to the obvious shortage of time it was not possible to organize a broad controversy, which the subject certainly deserves. And a proposal was expressed to consider it at the next All-World Philosophical Congress, to be held in Seoul (South Korea), on a sectional meeting, that is to raise the status of the subject up to the Section «Life, death, immortality». It would also be fair and justified, if the organizing Committee of the next congress made the decision to give publicity to reports of those philosophers, who for whatever reasons could not personally participate in the congress, at least at the discretion of the chiefs of Sections and round-table discussions. At least, the conducted round-table discussions would benefit from that.
The experience of holding the Round-table discussion «Life, Death, Immortality» at the XXI All-World Philosophical Congress in Istanbul has clearly shown, that such events should be prepared beforehand, better informing the interested parties and with due thoroughness. It is to especially necessary to take it all into consideration if the subject is considered at the Seoul congress at the level of a Section. All the possible efforts should be applied to it.
Literature
1. XXI All-World Philosophical Congress: Facing World problems. Program (August 10-17, 2003. Istanbul Turkey).
2. Vishev I.V. Immortology // Globalistics: the encyclopedia. - M.: OAO Publishing House «Rainbow», 2003.
3. Vishev I.V. Juvenology // Globalistics: the encyclopedia. - M.: ОАО Publishing House «Rainbow», 2003.
4. Vishev I.V. Homo Immiotalis - Human Immortal. - Chelyabinsk: bzd-vo YUrGU, 1999.
5. Vishev I.V. On the way to practical immortality. - M.: a m3-press, 2002.
6. Vishev I.V. For the first time at a All-World Philosophical Congress // the Bulletin of the Russian philosophical society. - 2003. - № 3.
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