[extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality (terminology)

[Mark Walker]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Damien Broderick"
>
> > I like 'ageless'. It is descriptive and doesn't look like an attempt to
> hide
> > behind jargon.
>
> It's good by itself, better than, say, `antiagathic' (James Blish's
50-year
> old term). But it leads to the horrid eye- and mouthful of `agelessness',
> compared to the nifty `emortal' => `emortality'.
>
> We have the same trouble with `deathless' (`deathlessness') , unless the
> general condition is `deathlessanity'. :)
>
> Harvey mentioned his dislike of made-up words, but it didn't seem to stand
> in the way of laser, television, telephone, car, xerox, google...
>
> (True, most of these items already existed and were on the market, so it
was
> convenient to embrace the term.)
>
> I know this seems trivial, but selling the message crisply is often as
> important as having the right message.
>
> Besides, when it happens the common word will emerge over the top of our
> heads. It'll probably be something like `zombies' or `ghouls' or
`snakes'...
>

I agree that it is worthwhile to think about how to sell the message right.
For myself I may use both 'emortal' and 'ageless'. It is nice to have
synonyms and the slightly different connation of these terms may appeal to
different "market segments".

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org