[ExI] immortality can become an unhealthy obsession in some

[Natasha Vita-More]

Lee condescends:

Natasha writes

>>The term immortality is a misnomer.  Immortality implies a No Exit 
>>syndrome(i.e. Satre) based on biological life.

>Sorry---did you mean Sartre?  (I only ask because there is indeed a web
page devoted to Jean Paul Satre,
>and they do mean the same French writer who lived 1905-1980.)

Yes, of course, and the well-known play is "No Exit".  (I am now studying
French, so I ought to have written Sartre.)

>I don't follow the logic you're using at all

Then I will gladly take you by the hand and see if I can help you move from
one frame of thinking to a different frame of thinking.

>Literally taken, *immortality* means "failure to die", i.e., to have some
form of continued experience 
>that persists indefinitely over universe clock-time (though see [1]).

My central issue is that for centuries the term immorality has had a deeply
ingrained within the history of  humankind on both personal and cultural
levels.  The fact that within a matter of decades, some people believe that
the continuation of "personal existence(s)" beyond a physical/biological
death is possible warrants a clear disassociation from the historical
meaning of immortality. (see quote below) Just because we transhumanists
believe in continued existence does not mean that the understanding and
meaning, which has endowed the mass majority of humans for centuries, can be
easily ignored.  It seems propitious, to me anyway, to use a different
term/phrasing or to aggressively redefine the word immortality.  This does
not skate away from the belief that we can live indefinitely.  In fact, it
grasps the central issue firmly and strongly and right smack in its face.

<quote> Organisms in which no matter and energy are exchanged cease to exist
in the material world.  Yet throughout the world and throughout time,
religious, spiritual, ritual, and tribal practices observe and experience
death as a passage - a type of redemption from life or triumph over life.
Regardless of the particular religious or secular view, purported universal
beliefs suggest that death is an essential part of the life cycle, as in
Taoism, and its occurrence, whether with or without an afterlife, gives full
meaning to life .  

Despite ambiguity in anthropological recording of beliefs among groups of
people over time, certain traces of similarities between the groups evidence
a continuity in human understanding of death, and ways in which humans have
attempted to cope with questions concerning the possible finality of death.
For example, what is achieved by or realized in death?  In his essay "The
Soul and Death" Carl Jung writes ". the consensus (gun) gentium  has decided
views about death, unmistakably expressed in all the great religions of the
world. . that the majority of these religions are complicated systems of
preparation for death, so much so that life . actually has no significance
except as a preparation for the ultimate goal of death." (Jung 1959, p.9)
And that goal being one "in which the psyche reaches into obscurities far
beyond the scope of our understanding." (p. 14)

Looking over cultural beliefs this research touches briefly on the rituals
of religious, spiritual and tribal practices, some of which views death as a
transition, as stated by Carsten Korfmacher: "[o]ne popular criterion,
associated with Plato, Descartes and a number of world religions, is that
persons are immaterial souls or pure egos. On this view, persons have bodies
only contingently, not necessarily; so they can live after bodily death."
(Korfmacher 2006)

One of the oldest peoples in the world, going back to perhaps 35,000 years,
the San Bushmen of southern Africa , participated in a physically exhausting
practice of transcending time.  Here the Shaman performed a ritual dance,
known as the Great Trance Dance, for the purpose of releasing and
transporting their psyche into the spirit world in an out-of-body
"half-death".  This ritual was a transference of the Shamans' spirits into
the world of the dead to harness spiritual powers a means to crossover into
the spirit world and communicate with the dead, and also those were in the
process of dying.  

In another time and location, approximately 2900 to 1800 BC, the ancient
civilization of Sumerians believed that death was a necessary step and
determined by the Gods.  Not only was death necessary in the eyes of the
Sumerians, it was thought of as a type of beginning which the gods have
preserved for them.  Yet, this beginning was actually the bodily descension
into a dark and dismal hell-like underworld - the netherworld where the dead
became immortal ghost ("Gidim") for eternity. 

This sense of death as a "beginning" is also found in Egyptian religious
practices, as described in The Egyptian Book of the Dead .  After physical
death, the body was mummified and its or life force , continued on to an
afterlife. Eventually the life force would need to be reunited with the
physical body in order to become an immortal spirit.  Because the body could
not travel from the tomb to the afterlife, its personal identity , would
journey from the physical body to the afterlife and join its life force. 
 
The notions of afterlife are also found in the beliefs of Christianity. In
Genesis  III, ur -humans Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and
became mortal beings, bringing death into the world as a result of their
sin.  Yet this mortality is bodily.  According to most interpretations of
the Bible, Christians remain potentially immortal beings who may be
resurrected as a new life in a reality known as heaven.
For the Navajo, the Dine (people), in Arizona, peyote rituals of death and
rebirth rites transform identity where one can begin anew - cleansing the
spirit and developing greater insights in harmony.  This ritual has value
because at death, the Navajo believe the spirit will travel to other worlds
beyond Earth.  Actions in this world will hold deep consequences in the
other worlds. <end quote> (Vita-More 2008, 2-3)

Even though we transhumanists consider immortality to reflect a state of
continued life after physical/biological death in favor of a
synthetic/artificial existence, that does not and cannot currently separate
the term immortality from the external environment of transhumanism and
which has deeply ingrained the notion of immortality as (1) having mystical,
mythic or religious meaning; or (2) being in a perpetual state of stasis (no
way out).

>Indeed, I could understand that for some psychological, polemical, and
political reasons the term is not preferred,
>and not to be stressed. But it is far from being *any* kind of "misnomer"
so far as I can see.

Misnomer means "unsuitable" or "misleading".  In order for it to be more in
keeping with a transhumanist perspective, the word immortality needs to be
aggressively redefined, in my view anyway.  Or, let alone to live in its
historical meaning.

>>Transhumanist prefer using terms like radical life extension or
>>superlongevity, etc. to suggest a continued state of existence beyond
biological parameters.

>Not all transhumanists prefer any particular kind of terminology.

This may or may not be true. Regardless, folks can use whatever terms they
want, even though it may not be helpful when trying to market living longer,
curing disease, bio-synthetic bodies, and artificial bodies, virtual forms,
and whole brain emulation as a viable alternative to death.

>However, I heartily concur that immortality itself frequently becomes an
obsession. One extremely stalwart and
>forward thinking transhumanist, who everyone on this list has heard of,
told me personally at one point many years
>ago that if he knew for absolute certainty that at some future time he
would die, then he would be indifferent to
>continuing to live now.

A forward thinker can also be sad or depressed.

>I will go so far as to agree that we probably ought to avoid use of the
term. 

Natasha