Come on you apes, do you want to live forever?
The above appears in the preface of Starship Troopers, attributed to an “unknown platoon sergeant”.
A conversation with Jamie made me think about immortality.
As a species, we seem plenty hung up on something that no-one has ever actually attained. To borrow an old line “despite recent medical advances, death rate remains a constant 100%”.
Lots of philosophers from Plato on have theorized about an immortal soul. Plato’s dialog the Phaedo, which recounts the last hours of Socrates’ life, contains some of his most beautiful writing. In it, we find Socrates in jail, awaiting the time when he is to drink the hemlock. His friends have gathered, and he tries to cheer them up by arguing that the soul is immortal. His friend Simmias listens to Socrates’ arguments in silence for a while and thinks of an objection, but is afraid to offer it for fear of upsetting his friend in his final times. He finally admits his this to Socrates, who replies:
Really, Simmias, it would be hard for me to persuade other people that I do not consider my present fate a misfortune if I cannot persuade you, and you are afraid that it is more difficult to deal with me than before. You seem to think me inferior to the swans in prophecy. They sing before too, but when they realize that they must die they sing most beautifully, as they rejoice that they are about to depart to join the god whose servants they are. But men, because of their own fear of death, tell lies about the swans and say that they lament their death and sing in sorrow. They do not reflect that no bird sings when it is hungry or cold or suffers in any other way, neither the nightingale nor the swallow nor the hoopoe, though they do say that these sing laments when in pain. Nor do the swans, but I believe that as they belong to Apollo, they are prophetic, have knowledge of the future and sing of the blessings of the underworld, sing and rejoice of that day beyond what they did before. As I believe myself to be a fellow servant with the swans and dedicated to the same god, and have received from my master a gift of prophecy not inferior to theirs, I am no more despondent on leaving life. Therefore, you must speak and ask whatever you want as long as the authorities allow it.
(G.M.A Grube translation)
This portrait of the philosopher’s supreme confidence facing death is undercut at the end of the dialog when Socrates’ last words are to ask his friend Crito to make a sacrifice to the god of healing on his behalf.
Most religions promise some form of eternal life, be it the eternal paradise (or damnation) offered to christians, or the reincarnation of the buddhists. I have often wondered if the Christian promise of eternal life was (at least in the middle ages) a bit of a trick to keep the dispossessed from questioning their lots. Suffer and toil in this life, be rewarded in the next. It’s a bit like the American dream in certain respects (suffer and toil in this life, be rewarded in this life – except that only pans out in a few lucky cases).
Sci Fi stories abound with ideas on how to achieve immortality without divine intervention. Some have to do with life-extending gene therapy, others involve replacing our aging bodies with robotic parts (you could live forever AND get Darth Vader’s cool helmet!). My favorite sci-fi immortality scenario is “uploading your consciousness into a computer”. I figure that if I did that, I wouldn’t much care, as the copy of me in the computer would get to live on forever, while I died of old age. I think Bruce Sterling wrote a novel about this.
Incidentally, If you expected to lived 80,000 years instead of 80, you would behave very differently. You would never cross the street, for example. The odds of getting hit by a car and significantly shortening your life would be just too great.
I myself am pretty sure I’ve only got one life to live (and you might quite legitimately ask why I am spending it writing blog postings instead of doing something productive…), but I am curious as to the origins of this nearly universal human desire for immortality. The most obvious answer is that it comes from our fear of death. However, not everyone is afraid to die, yet most people would rather avoid it, all things being equal. So what else?
Jamie thinks it is not unreasonable to want a good thing (our existence) to go on forever. He could well have a point.
Lately I’ve been wondering if it’s a manifestation of our biology. We have a biological imperative that simply says “survive!” it doesn’t specify for how long.
Taking the biological view, our desire for immortality makes us look like spoiled children who want both a doll house and a pony for Christmas. We should instead be amazed and thankful that we managed to even get born at all, considering the staggering odds against us.
Speaking of biology: this guy was an expert witness in PA today. Go team Evolution!
dig out that old song “one life to live.” don’t remember who wrote it, but i know anne sofie von otter recorded a version of it.
speaking of personality-in-a-computer, reminds me of the Marathon sequence, where the A.I. Durandal decided he’d live forever by either (a) removing mass from our universe so that it reaches a steady state, instead of infinite expansion outwards (and thus thinning) or eventually colapsing inwards or (b) creating a pocket universe which would be steady-state, so he could live forever, god of his own universe. strange feller.
reminds me of the weird idea i’d had as the basis for a game set in marathon-world. a derivative of the same basic A.I. system which durandal and the other “human” A.I.s came from has in his spare time become a strange buddhist, and resolves to either stop a war, or save a plannet or something by employing a cyborg (you) to dismantle the militaristic capabilities of both pfhor and humans in some corner of the galaxy… why buddhism and other eastern philosophy? because there are so many cool quotations to be used by the AI. reading what Durandal says to you is 25% of the fun of the original Marathon series.