A-DICTION ]__[ FEATR - THE SCIENTIFIC CONQUEST OF DEATH ]__[ A-DICTION ]__[ FEATR - THE SCIENTIFIC CONQUEST OF DEATH ]__[ A-DICTION ]__[ FEATR - THE SCIENTIFIC CONQUEST OF DEATH ]__[ A-DICTION ]__[ FEATR

Remaking To Death

Infinite Lifespans

Freedom is Knowledge

The Hook of Fishing

Physical Immortality

Rock & Roll Gets a Power Up

Small Time 'Pro Wrestling'

Free Mohawks

Top 2004 Lists


Deciphering Essays on Infinite Lifespans butchersam + Illustration by Alex Eben Meyer

The Scientific Conquest of Death, Essays on Infinite Lifespans is the first major project of the Immortality Institute. The book is a multidisciplinary effort to consider in realistic and practical terms a topic most people think of (if at all) as the height of blasphemy or science fiction: physical immortality. Divided into sections covering 'Science' and 'Perspectives,' the articles within outline the most promising methods of achieving superlongevity or physical immortality, and tackle some of the philosophical and sociological implications of immortality for everyone.

With contributions from prominent futurists, transhumanists, and scientists in the fields of gerontology, cryonics, artificial intelligence, and robotics, this primer features many names that will be well known to readers interested in the world of tomorrow, including Marvin Minsky, Raymond Kurzweill, Aubrey de Grey, and Max More.

...prominent futurists, transhumanists, and scientists in the fields of gerontology, cryonics, artificial intelligence, and robotics...

The Scientific Conquest of Death is filled with new definitions of concepts that are basic to our experience of the world, including life, death, the body, aging, and immortality. In part, such efforts to introduce or popularize definitions are strategic. In the opening essay, Michael Rose defines aging as "that which occurs when rates of survival and reproduction inexorably decline," exclusive of the influence of all external agents of death. Such a formulation suggests that aging is not a universal characteristic of living things and implies that it is not "against nature" to attempt to quantify and retard aging.

Achieving physical immortality would radically reorganize human society and identity.

Similarly, the correct, legally-recognized definition of 'death' is of the utmost importance to providers of cryonic suspension services who must have access to the bodies of their clients and must maintain the right to sustain those bodies in states of suspended animation. As Brian Wowk puts it, if "life is chemistry," then "death is when the chemistry of life becomes irreversibly damaged." Wowk refers to this as the "Information Theoretic Criterion for Death"--that a person is considered dead only when no form of currently available or theoretical technology can restore the damaged chemistry to working condition. Adopting such a definition of death would allow for effective legislation today that is premised upon the expectation of future medical breakthroughs. However, the intent of redefinition campaigns can go beyond the political and pragmatic. Achieving physical immortality would radically reorganize human society and identity. So what exactly is meant by immortality? Certainly not the incorruptibility of the soul or spiritual continuation in an afterlife, but not necessarily an embodied perpetuation of the self, either. Or, at least, not embodiment as we presently experience it.


Brian Wowk

An assumption shared by nearly all of the book's authors is that humans have transcended evolution by natural selection and our future mutations will be the result of deliberate experiments to refashion ourselves into the new creatures who are to be our descendants and legacy. The scientific considerations presented to this end by the authors of the first section include essays on therapeutic cloning, the search for an elixir vitae, and replacing our bodies piecemeal with mechanical parts, and range further afield into speculation on becoming cyborgs, the convergent evolution of humans and machines, and the eventual shedding of our bodies in favor of life as a mind in the mainframe. Such flights are at times little more than heady conjecture unhindered by the ballast of hard data, but the authors do manage to effectively convey their enthusiastic embrace of the limitless possibilities they perceive in store for us. At their best, as with Brian Wowk's "Medical Time Travel," a summary of the past, present, and potential future of cryopreservation research, the articles in the 'Science' portion of the book provide a cursory account of one aspect of the accelerating and obscurely interconnecting stories of gerontology, genetics, biochemistry, robotics, and information technology. In his step-by-step narrative, Wowk presents what is known about the slowing of biological processes at low temperatures, is honest about the technical challenges and hurdles to success that cryonicists face, and suggests strategies to help the field of cryonics gain wider acceptance as a legitimate practice while avoiding the hyperbole and unsubstantiated assertions that mar many other chapters.


	Robert A. Freitas, Jr.

One word recurs throughout the text with an insistent regularity: nanotechnology. Whether it be reviving bodies in cryonic suspension, creating perfectly constructed identical components, growing materials with properties made to order, or replacing our brains with synthetic processors, the authors nearly uniformly cite nanotech as the means to achieve marvels. Most directly considered in Robert A. Freitas, Jr.'s contribution, "Nanomedicine," nanotechnology is undoubtedly a word that will occur everywhere with increasing frequency over the next few years. Freitas captures the wild optimism associated with nanotech, providing an imaginative and detailed account of possible biological applications of this science of the ultra-tiny, including sketches of theoretical molecular-scale machines, like the 'respirocyte' (an artificial red blood cell) and the 'microbivore' (an artificial white blood cell), that he envisions carrying out our bodily functions for us with improved efficiency and beyond our current operating parameters. Though there is reason to be hopeful, whether or not nanotech will develop beyond an esoteric and unreachable dream sought by engineers must wait to be seen.

This recourse to the unproven realm of nanotech is indicative of a trend present throughout the book. 'Technology,' as a general category, is frequently invoked as a transcendent mechanism capable of solving any problem too murky to penetrate from our current vantage.

Our future mutations will be the result of deliberate experiments.

Rather than investigate the expectations we place on technology and the privileged position it holds in relation to our self-image and our thoughts of the future--our transference onto technology and our joyful submission to it--most authors simply assure us that whatever the sticking point, be it the limitation on the rate at which our brains process information, the scarcity of earthly space and resources, or the unimaginable tedium that living for eons may well entail, the progress of technology will doubtlessly mitigate the matter when the time comes. Of course this is likely to be at least partially accurate, but what does this confidence ignore?

Putting the particulars of the science of immortality to the side, contributors to the 'Perspectives' section offer essays that explore our awareness of time and its relationship to consciousness, quash worries about overpopulation and scarcity on an earth inhabited by immortals, and trace literary and biblical views of physical immortality. Others criticize immortalists who privilege long-range ends over near-term means, defend the desire for physical immortality against charges of hubris and 'unnaturalness,' promote the anticipated joys of multiple bodies (or of a wholly virtual existence), and attempt to develop a pro-immortality theory of morals.

The body is redefined as an organic robot and a lousy one at that.

However, most of these rational arguments are notably missing an account of the desire itself for life. An appreciation for the deep compulsion that forces us out of ourselves, away from our families, and that presumably goads us to crave the eternal continuation of our selves, is never really communicated. Instead we are left with unconvincing syllogisms that prove their givens, essentially stating that 'living is better than dying' so, therefore, more life, up to a limit approaching infinity, is logically best of all. QED. This is hardly surprising given how many contributors eagerly await the day they can be freed of the constraints and ignominy of the human body.


Shannon Vyff

An exception is found in one of the few contributions from a nonspecialist. Shannon Vyff's "Confessions of a Proselytizing Immortalist" is a personal account of how her practice of caloric restriction and desire to raise a healthy family led her to become interested in radical life extension and inspired her to register with the Alcor Life Extension Foundation to be cryonically suspended. Rather than resort to staid logical justifications, Vyff incorporates immortalism into a comprehensive worldview, blending it with her personal faith and her dedication to human rights issues, as well as to universal healthcare and justice.

More representative of the prevailing bias is Mike Treder's viewpoint, expressed in his article "Emancipation from Death": "The part of me that is really me-the part that is my consciousness and my personality--can never have... direct experiences... It is a loathsome and cruel trick that nature takes such an exquisitely wondrous creation as the human brain and imprisons it inside the weak, inefficient, fragile and short-lived structure that is the human body" (emphasis added).


	Mike Treder

The body is here redefined as an organic robot and a lousy one at that. This (too hasty) update of the Cartesian mind/body duality, translated into the contemporary materialist paradigm as a software/hardware split, implies that, once our software (personality, self, ego, identity) is fully understood, it will be no problem to swap the hardware (body) that houses it for something more durable. This desire to flee the body and the confidence that it is possible is derived from the understanding of information as independent of, and in no way determined by, its substrate. In the hands of the theorists, our very beings transubstantiate into data patterns. This works well for digital information, which can be transferred from CD-R to hard drive to iPod and all the while the song remains the same. However, the presented arguments for the portability of the 'information' that is us seem insufficient. I wonder, what eludes our diligent auto-surveillance, 3-D modeling, and genetic archiving? Can we devise a way to quantify and render that as well?


The Scientific Conquest of Death Immortality Institute 296 pp. LibrosEnRed, 2004 $22.00

As the authors busy themselves developing theoretical plans for the design perfection of humanity, they look forward to the day when scientific investigation will settle once and for all the nagging big questions of religion and philosophy. To believe that speculation and reverie will be defeated through empiricism and observation, to confidently aver that nothing will remain beyond the view of our augmented gaze, and that our synthetic environments will wholly replace the inefficient, filthy, and inadequately planned natural world, is to preclude valuable and cherished modes of learning and discovery. What are the hidden costs of such a technological determinism? Is technological progress alone sufficient to provide the answers for all our ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical dilemmas? In our enthusiasm to remake ourselves and our environment, we must be careful not to mistake partial understanding for the whole story and to guard against misinterpretations of results. As has been the case since at least the inception of the industrial revolution, human technical abilities and potential exceed the capacity of our established social and political institutions, as well as our ability to understand the full impact of our actions. When we attempt to refashion the very fabric of our beings, the potential consequences will be too dire to proceed upon false or unexamined assumptions.

The Scientific Conquest of Death works as a bracing and comprehensive, if in places overly optimistic and simplified, introduction to a topic that will become more and more mainstream as partial achievements accrue. Its worth is enhanced with a bibliography that contains both recommendations for further reading and article-specific references.

a-diction.com

The Immortality Institute, a non-profit organization and web-based community founded in 2002 to take up the struggle to "conquer the blight of involuntary death", is currently readying its second book. Intended as a complement to the volume reviewed here, the new book's call for submissions indicates that it will focus primarily on concrete plans to achieve life extension.