[ExI] immortality can become an unhealthy obsession in some

[Lee Corbin]

Natasha writes

> Lee condescends:

Did not!  :-)

> 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 apologize for the apparent condescension; in truth, I swear, I had
some uncertainty. But after I found the same error still describing
the same writer, I should have rephrased. But hell, people are into
all sorts of things I never heard of, especially in niche movements
like ours. (Furthermore, I had not heard of "No Exit". Please don't
jump to the assumptions of condescension or arrogance.)

>> 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.

Thanks! I like learning other ways of thinking---it amounts
to having one's ideas criticized.

>> 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)

Yes, I can see why we would want such a dissociation.

> 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

That I understood from your previous message---and probably most
of us have had an intuition that this was the purpose of stressing
"life extension" and related phrases over the years. Even Ettinger
ought to have titled his book differently.

> 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.

Yes. Good.

> Misnomer means "unsuitable" or "misleading"

or just *wrong*. I ought to have read the former meanings instead of
taking the latter---but you will still find that many people who aspire
to exactly the same kind of life extension we do consider it to be a
form of immortality, and will continue to do so.

> 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.

You'll *never* get away with it. No one ever succeeds in being able
to direct the meaning that words have, or take on (I stand to be
corrected). Best to avoid the term.

> Or, let alone to live in its historical meaning.

That can work. We can try avoiding the term most of the time.
However, sometimes it's such a time/word saver that it's
going to be very difficult to stop using it entirely.

> > Not all transhumanists prefer any particular kind of terminology.
> 
> This may or may not be true.

Few sentences that employ the word "all" hold up to literal
examination. I noticed 20 years ago or so that I had adopted
the habit of hedging my sentences, merely by avoiding
"all" and "every", usually in favor of "most" or "almost all".

 > 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.

Yes.

Lee

>> 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.