This is a recent WTA newsgroup email... Nick makes a strong case for Immortalism.. He's adding this to the WTA's FAQ section... I believe this is a rough draft. - BJK
Isn't death part of the natural order of things?
Nick Bostrom
Transhumanists insist that whether something is natural or not is
irrelevant to whether it is good or desirable [see also "Isn't
transhumanism tampering with nature?", "Won't extended life worsen
overpopulation problems?", and "Why do transhumanists want to live longer?"].
Average human life span hovered between 20 and 30 years for most of our
species' history. Most people today are thus living highly unnaturally long
lives. Because of the high incidence of infectious disease, accidents,
starvation, and violent death among our ancestors, very few of them lived
much beyond sixty or seventy. There was therefore little selection pressure
to evolve the intensive forms of cellular repair mechanisms that would be
required to keep us going beyond our meager three scores and ten. As a
result of these unfortunate circumstances in the distant past, we now
suffer the inevitable decline of old age: damage accumulates at a faster
pace than it can be repaired; tissues and organs begin to malfunction; and
then we fall over and die.
The quest for immortality is one of the most ancient and deep-rooted of
human aspirations. It has been an important theme in human literature from
the very earliest preserved written story, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and in
innumerable narratives and myths ever since. It underlies the teachings of
the world religions about spiritual immortality and the hope of an
afterlife. If death is part of the natural order, so too is the human
desire to overcome death.
Before transhumanism, the only hope of evading death was through
reincarnation or otherworldly resurrection. Those who saw viewed such
religious doctrines as figments of the our own imagination had no
alternative but to accept death as an inevitable fact of our existence.
Secular worldviews, including traditional humanism, would typically include
some sort of explanation of why death was not such a bad thing after all.
Some existentialists even went so far as to maintain that death was
necessary to give live meaning!
That people should make excuses for death is understandable. Until recently
there was absolutely nothing anybody could do about it, and it made some
degree of sense then to create comforting philosophies according to which
dying of old age is a fine thing ("deathism"). If such beliefs were once
relatively harmless, and perhaps even provided some therapeutic benefit,
they have now outlived their purpose. Today, we can foresee the possibility
of eventually abolishing aging and we have the option of taking active
measures to stay alive until then, through life extension techniques and
cryonics. This makes the illusions of deathist philosophies dangerous,
indeed mortal, since they teach helplessness and encourage passivity.
Espousing a deathist viewpoint tends to go with a certain element of
hypocrisy. It is to be hoped and expected that a good many of death's
apologists, if they are one day presented the concrete choice between (A)
getting sick, old, and die, and (B) be given a new shot of life to stay
healthy, vigorous and remain in the company of friends and loved ones to
participate in the unfolding of the future, would, when put push came to
shove, choose this latter alternative.
If a few people would still choose death, that's a choice that is of course
to be regretted, but nevertheless respected. The transhumanist position the
ethics of death is crystal clear: death should be voluntary. This means
that everybody should be free to extend their life and to arrange for
cryonic suspension of their deanimated bodies. It also means that voluntary
euthanasia, under conditions of informed consent, is a basic human right.
It may turn out to be impossible to live strictly speaking forever, even
for those who are lucky enough to survive to such a time when technology
has been perfected, and even under ideal conditions. The amount of matter
and energy that our civilization can lay its hands on before they recede
forever beyond our reach (due to the universe's expansion) is finite in the
currently most favored cosmological models. The heat death of the universe
is thus a matter of some personal concern to optimistic transhumanists!
It is too early to tell whether our days are necessarily numbered.
Cosmology and fundamental physics are still incomplete and in theoretical
flux; theoretical possibilities for infinite information processing (which
might enable an upload to be immortal) seem to open and close every few
years. We have to live with this uncertainty, along with the much greater
uncertainty about whether any of us will manage to avoid dying prematurely,
before technology has become mature.
Nick Bostrom
Department of Philosophy, Yale University
New Haven, CT 06520 | Phone: (203) 500-0021 | Fax: (203) 432-7950
Homepage: http://www.nickbostrom.com
