Biochemist and author Barbara Ehrenreich has been trying to get more humans to raise their consciousness regarding death for some time now. But it appears humans, determined to reach for "immortality", are tin-eared to her messages. For example, 2 years ago she wrote (The Nation, 'The Great Equalizer', October, 2018, p. 32):
"No matter how much effort we expend, not everything is potentially within our control, not even our own bodies and minds. In death we will once again be equals - and so an egalitarian politics also means accepting this outcome.
You can think of death bitterly or with resignation, as a tragic interruption of your life, and take every possible means to postpone it. Or, more realistically, you can think of life as an interruption of an eternity of personal nonexistence, and seize it as a brief opportunity to observe and interact with the living, ever surprising world around us."
Of course, most Americans are squeamish in terms of death - even discussing it, tending toward euphemisms ("he just passed") - and more likely to buy into the codswallop of the longevity researchers, e.g.
But now an even more cockeyed immortality denizen has entered the picture, called the "transhumanist" (WSJ, June 20, 'Looking Forward to the End Of Humanity') This lot don't merely expect to conquer old age but to surmount the entire spectrum of biological fragility, to end up with a kind of "transhuman future". Thus (ibid.):
"With our biological fragility more obvious than ever, many people will be ready to embrace the message of the Transhuman Declaration, an eight-point program first issued in 1988", e.g.
While it sounds innocuous enough, the author of the WSJ piece peels back the baloney to reveal what they are actually about, (Ibid.):
"People have always feared death and dreamed of escaping it. But until now, that hope has been formulated in religious terms. Transhumanism promises that death can be conquered physically, not just spiritually, and the movement has the support of people with the financial resources to make it happen."
And what, pray tell, are we looking at here? Well, among the "avenues to immortality" discussed are:
- Creation of nanorobots which could be programmed to live inside our cells and constantly repair any damage, halting aging in its tracks.
- Genetic engineering could eliminate the mechanism that causes us to age in the first place. (And could also deliver genetic 'mistakes' such as hybridomas, or else humans with serious genetic defects.)
- Transferring consciousness to special computers - where it "can survive indefinitely". In the words of one specialist associated with the Human Connectome Project: "We can put the connectome on a laser beam and shoot it to the Moon! In one second our consciousness is on the Moon. In 20 minutes we're on Mars."
Yeah, that sounds cool. But WHO is controlling it, the connectome? The people behind it, behind the 'curtain'? And say they have a grudge against you for some reason, and hit the 'delete' button, what happens to your consciousness? Or what if the system is hacked by bad actors bent on deleting all those humans foolish enough to have allowed their consciousness to be uploaded? (Maybe they're outraged at what they see as the latest manifestation of gross inequality.)
Well, for now at least, it appears the transhumanists haven't considered all the unintended consequences of their projects. For example, what if the nano-robots mentioned above somehow have their programming go haywire and begin ripping apart cells instead of repairing them?
According to the author (Adam Kirsch) "the internet has already made it largely unnecessary to physically visit places like banks, post offices and movie theaters."
Well, true, but while doing all those things on my computer I am still in possession of my consciousness. It remains localized to the physical site of my brain, it hasn't been "shot" off to the Moon or Mars via a connectome. Hence, while doing online banking or using the post, I remain in control of the process, not some AI entity that promises me immortality.
Which elicits the question: What exactly is wrong with having a finite life? Did it ever occur to these transhumanists - as well as their radical life extension cousins- that evolution designed humans to be temporary? Not to be around forever, or even a long time? In her own take, Barbara Ehrenreich observes that contemporary society is:
"so deeply invested in the idea of an individual conscious self that it becomes both logically and emotionally impossible to think of a world without it."
Hence, the core problem with the transhumanist aspiration: the total belief and investment in an individual conscious self. Thus, the notion it can be "uploaded" to a special computer to be preserved. But what if the technological act of detaching the consciousness from the brain's neurons results in an entity no longer human, or with recognizable human traits? What if our humanity in the end is contingent on the neuronal (biological) basis in 'meat'?
Now, to me what is more defensible in terms of resources is the goal of preserving the human species - say from an asteroid strike, This is evidently the main goal of two think tanks, Humanity Plus and the Entropy Institute. Thus there is a rational need for 'technological species protection" - which is also argued for by Tom Chivers - a science writer quoted in the WSJ piece. As he puts it:
"Coronavirus isn't the thing that kills us all but it's a bloody good illustration of how something could."
But the point is we do not need to resort to the cockeyed techno fixes noted earlier (e.g. nanorobots) to protect against an asteroid strike or nuclear war. What we need is to do the hard work, say for designing a system to deflect an asteroid projected to strike the Earth. Or in the case of the nuclear threat, work in tandem with other nations to devise treaties to limit their spread. And then, finally, to destroy them - before they destroy us. It is possible, but it takes will and the vision of capable leaders- not bombastic buffoons or narcissistic autocrats on ego trips.
These then are the goals we ought to be striving for, as opposed to "living to 500" (the claim of Bill Maris of Google Ventures) or "people now in middle age never dying" (according to Aubrey de Grey).
The trick, as with isolating fake news from the genuine article, is to separate the hubristic bunkum from the real and achievable goals with a human (and humane) aspect.
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