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This website is being renovated throughout 2008. Pages and the content of pages will continue to change until the end of the year and there may be some inconsistencies and missing links. Please do not quote from or link to specific pages (apart from the home page) without contacting the webmaster first. I want to live forever (not) Immortality beckons By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 798 words Publication date: June 25, 2006 It is a pity that those who favor criminalised abortion have thrown their ignorance behind the desire to prevent stem-cell research. Their inability to distinguish between a complex and conscious living human being and a few dozen non-conscious cells may prevent many people from overcoming life-threatening diseases and seriously hamper America’s ability to remain at the forefront of scientific research Meanwhile, other nations are rapidly uncovering the secrets that stem-cells may hold, including – perhaps – the ability to rejuvenate all human tissue and postpone aging indefinitely. Nothing is certain. And even if the optimists are right, there are many years of painstaking experiments ahead before the mechanism for reversing the ravages of time is fully understood. So what can you and I do to ensure our presence at the party to greet the fourth millennium? The only option on the table appears to be cryonics, a means of preserving the body after death. The expectation is that the corpse will be revived at some point in the future when medical technology can cure the disease from which it died and can repair the damage of every day wear and tear. In that glorious future, science will have developed so far that once you have been resuscitated there will be no risk of dying from natural causes. We can only hope that human society will also have evolved to the extent that the planet will be able to bear an increasing population of near-immortals, or that we have overcome considerable obstacles to settle elsewhere in the solar system. And those of us who are “frozen” will have to hope that they are not among the first to be revived in a procedure that will have not yet been tested on human beings. But let’s leave these practical questions for a future generation and look a little more closely at the idea of limitless life. When I first looked into this subject I assumed that any attempt to prolong the natural lifespan would seem to be the province of atheists. Surely no theist would choose to stay on this polluted, violent planet when offered eternity in paradise? Foolish me. It takes little effort to find articles on the web where believers tie themselves into tight intellectual knots in the vain effort to prove that delaying entry into God’s kingdom is something that God Himself would approve of. The reality is that most people, irrespective of faith do not want to die. But does that mean that immortality, in this life or the next is a Good Thing? The older I get, the longer I want to live. I have passed my first half-century but feel mentally and physically twenty years younger. The more I understand the world, the more I want to do and see and learn. I feel I am at the beginning, not the end, of my life. Which means I do not look forward to decaying health and intellect. I fully intend to remain vigorous and active until my 110th birthday and have planned a suitable spectacular exit for that day. If my good health holds another 20 years, that scenario may be less absurd than it seems. But to live 200, 500, 1,000 years or more? I’m having fun now, but I suspect, that even if my health were perfect, I would want to check out long before my sixth century. We are our minds, not our bodies. Even if we can prevent our bodies from decaying, I suspect that our minds will not rejuvenate so easily. Consciousness depends on the passing of time and the processing of new information. While we are young, that process is fascinating. Life is full of mystery and excitement. But as we get older and our knowledge increases, the mystery fades. The first love affair overwhelms us; the sixth or seventh becomes routine. Or does increasing knowledge compensate for the loss of mystery? The more we learn, the more we should understand the world and empathise with those around us. Unfortunately not. As we age, most of us become confirmed in our prejudices. Consider the middle-aged and elderly people whom we elect or refer to as our political and “spiritual” leaders. Few of them demonstrate wisdom. A world populated by immortals is likely to be in no better shape than the one we inhabit today. Ultimately, the fervor with which we seek eternal life is a reflection of our ego. Those who believe that their individuality must be preserved at all cost will make every effort to stay alive. I am not sure I would want such people as companions on my journey down the millennia on an overpopulated, homogenized planet. So let us enjoy the life we have and celebrate, not mourn, the fact that eventually it comes to an end.
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If God existed, he would... admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create recognize that eternity is meaningless deny both heaven and hell disown all men and women who speak in his name denounce the harm caused by religious "morality" help the human race to thrive without him If God existed, he would be an atheist. |