“Nothing is certain but death and taxes”, so the saying goes, and while much has been written about taxes, death, or the lack of death, the latter is my topic under consideration. The question I pose is, can technology deliver on what religion promises, but probably can’t deliver on - that is to say, the promise of life eternal.
Assuming that there is no actual afterlife, or reincarnation, then perhaps one can try for (near to actual) immortality, or at least as much immortality as the ultimate fate of the Universe allows for, and cheat death. I believe Woody Allen is quoted as saying something along the lines of, ‘I don’t want to achieve immortality through my films; I want to achieve immortality by not dying’! How can immortality by not dying be accomplished, if indeed it can be accomplished?
Some cautionary notes first of all, and that is physical immortality could be as downbeat as any afterlife. While nearly everyone wishes for immortality, whether they realize it or not, this is a case of be wary of what you wish for, least you get it. Immortality (which doesn’t preclude death by accident or design – just natural [aging] death), if achieved, would be a very boring existence as you’d end up spending trillions of years in a dark, intensely cold, lifeless (heat death) Universe. Looking at current observational evidence, our Universe will keep on expanding, and expanding at an ever accelerating rate at that, continues to ever cool as stars and galaxies ultimately die as their energy supply becomes exhausted and what energy there is becomes diluted throughout an ever increasing expanding volume. Such is the predicted fate of our cosmos.
Even if the fate of the Universe is a Big Crunch, that is, our Universe slows down the expansion rate, halts, and starts contracting again under the collective gravity the Universe’s mass has, that alone would terminate your immortality quick-smart!
I should note that it’s the fate of the Universe that’s important here vis-à-vis becoming, and more importantly, staying immortal. The demise of Planet Earth is of no consequence. If you achieve immortality, then by the time Earth goes kaput, you will have had ample time to have packed your bags and left. You’ve fled and escaped elsewhere in the Universe to a location that hasn’t yet gone kaput. But when the entire cosmos goes kaput (in either direction – Heat Death or Big Crunch), then it’s ultimately curtains for you too! It’s hard living the comfortable life when the temperature of the Universe is just a tiny fraction above absolute zero; in the Big Crunch, down a Black Hole you go!
Oh, the other cautionary note is that if you achieve, in your organic body, immortality, you had better have achieved eternal youth as well. There’s no point in living to a ripe old age of several million years if your aging process doesn’t stop! Unlike some of the mythological gods, Norse I believe in particular, there is no endless supply of golden apples to keep you eternally youthful. Apart from that, the mythological gods are given as immortal, or as close to immortal as makes no odds, so if you should come across Zeus or equivalent, you can always ask them what the secret is!
Anyway, for starters, there’s no way (currently known) that, assuming you possess an organic multi-cellular body, that you can stop, far less reverse, the aging (and ultimately the death) process. There is, alas, no combination of vitamins; no health club membership; no fountain of youth; no “Picture of Dorian Gray”; no magic witch’s brew that can, or will accomplish that objective. And while you can eat fruit, nuts and vegetables till you’re blue in the face, they alone won’t see you into the 23rd Century, far less the 123rd Century!
A unicellular organism (like an amoeba) can (in theory) achieve a sort of immortality via reproduction – dividing in two (mitosis). Where there was one, now there is two, and since there’s been no recombination of genetic material, both are clones. Continued reproductive mitotic division over the days, weeks, years, centuries, millennia, would see an organism in 2000 AD identical to its ancestor from 2000 BC. Well, you, as a complex multi-cellular critter, can’t divide in two like an amoeba, so that fast track to immortality is out.
Cloning is also out because while that might produce an identical physical body, it wouldn’t replicate the inner you (your brain, your grey matter or your mind) that inhabits that body. A cloned you can’t ever duplicate that inner you. A cloned brain would be a virgin brain – a blank slate. It wouldn’t have your memories, personality, and other facets which are largely environmentally imprinted.
Anyway, casting those above methods aside, how could you (actually that inner you – your mind) achieve if not infinite immortality, at least near quasi-immortality? The first catch is that what actually needs to be preserved is that inner you. That’s the inner you that’s part of your physical body you – your emotions, memories, personality, awareness, likes, dislikes, habits (good and bad), etc. Survival for all eternity of your big toe or your wisdom teeth is fairly irrelevant in this context. For that matter, so is your blood, muscles, skin and bone, liver, etc. What needs to survive forever and ever (amen) is the seat of the real you – the inner you. That of course is your brain or your mind. Of course your brain, being organic, and subject to the aging process, can’t survive forever and ever (amen). Even if it could, after millions upon millions of years of living, its carrying capacity for memories, knowledge, etc. would have become exhausted – our brains have trouble in the here and now coping with sensory and information overload. Brain volume doesn’t expand to meet needs above and beyond that of our roughly three score and ten lifespan expectancy. It certainly can’t cope with three million score and ten! However, there’s no point in being immortal without having ongoing sensory inputs, at least sight and sound (you could probably do if necessary without the rest), although all input could be direct and electronic, like how a computer receives data.
And therein we come to the technological fix.
To be continued…
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