Immortality: Do you really want to live forever?
The dream of immortality inspires our imagination like few other topics. The search for the miracle cure for eternal life is as old as mankind itself. Hollywood films regularly deal with immortal heroes — Highlander also shows us the downsides when we cannot die. Today some scientists are convinced that in the foreseeable future we will be able to jump death off the shovel. Inform you!
Early concepts and sagas
From the Old Testament to the Epic of Gilgamesh to the religion of the ancient Egyptians: immortality or eternal life has preoccupied people for as long as they can think — not least to find meaning in life (1).
Gilgamesh: Eternal life in memory
Historians refer to the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh as the earliest documented hunt for immortality (2). The king of Uruk probably lived around 3000 years before Christ. The epic was written in cuneiform on clay tablets, the oldest tablets being notched around 2000 BC. Gilgamesh finds the herb of eternal life, but loses it again. Finally, the king realizes that he can only go on living in people’s memory.
Egypt: the immortality of the soul
Around the same time as the Gilgamesh epic in Mesopotamia, the culture of the pharaohs and the associated religion developed in Egypt. For them, death is the beginning of eternal existence: The two souls Ba and Ka leave the body and reunite with it when it has been mummified and the deceased had survived the judgment of Osiris well (3).
Taoism in China
Taoism or Daoism in China appears a little later on the scene (4). The existence of this worldview in the 4th century BC has been proven. Different currents of Taoism deal with the subject of immortality. Some believe that by developing into a xian (saint), a person could give his body eternal life. Chinese alchemists, on the other hand, relied more on an elixir.
What is immortality?
The different conceptions of immortality lead us to the question: What does immortality actually mean? When we speak of eternal life today, this expression can refer to the immortality of the soul or the actual immortality of the body. Eternal life in another dimension — whether we want to call it soul, spirit or consciousness — plays an important role in practically every religion.
Immortal gods, almost immortal heroes
In ancient Greece, in Rome, but also in northern regions, the gods differed from humans primarily through their immortality. Otherwise, they behaved only too humanly — just think of the god father Zeus, his extramarital affairs and the jealousy of his wife Hera.
When divine beings mated with mortals, their descendants often became almost immortal. The nymph Thetis dips her son Achilles into the Styx, the river of the underworld. That should ensure eternal life for him (5). But she held her offspring by the heel and made him so vulnerable. In the Nibelungen saga, Siegfried bathes in dragon’s blood for the purpose of immortality, but a falling leaf leaves a vulnerable spot (6).
Immortality as an eternal punishment
In general, immortality was considered a desirable quality. But there are also examples in which eternal existence became a curse — for example for Sisyphus, who had to constantly roll a boulder up a mountain as a punishment, or for Prometheus, who — chained to a rock — forever by an eagle is dealt with (7-8).
From the fountain of youth to the conceivable possibility
In the so-called Alexanderroman, novel-like biographies of Alexander the Great, it is reported that the conqueror was looking for the source of eternal youth in the fourth century BC. From this originates the legend of the fountain of youth, which some people believed to be real. The painting of the same name by Lucas Cranach the Elder from 1546 is famous (9). In the late 12th century, the Arthurian legend develops with the Holy Grail, which promises eternal youth, happiness and infinite abundance (10).
Heretical Thoughts in the Renaissance
Up until the Renaissance, people largely agreed that the soul was immortal. For the Christian Church, eternal life began with the return of Jesus Christ, who is to raise the dead. That changed the Italian humanist Pietro Pomponazzi, professor of philosophy at the University of Padua (11). In his book De Immortalitatae Animae he rejected the immortality of the soul. With this he snubbed Pope Leo X, who a few years earlier had declared the soul to be immortal. For the Christian church, the immortal soul was primarily a question of power: the threat of eternal torments in hell served to keep the believers in line.
Immortality: Illogical or Conceivable?
Even in modern times, the question of immortality preoccupied many philosophers. The representative of the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant (12), emphasized that the immortality of the soul cannot be proven logically. Karl Popper (13), one of the most important philosophers of the present, considers eternal life at least conceivable.
Immortality in film and on Youtube
The topic of immortality remains a box-office magnet for the screen. From Dracula to Highlander to India Jones, there is plenty of material for entertainment and adventure. X-Men, Jason Vorhees and Lord Voldemort: Eternal life, death and rebirth fuel our imaginations and scientific research alike. Anyone looking for the term immortality on YouTube will find well over 200,000 different videos offered. All deal with different scientific approaches to making eternal life a reality.
Will we all soon be immortal?
Overcoming death sounds like a dream of the future to you? Some futurologists are convinced that people can live forever in the not too distant future. One of them is Ray Kurzweil, an American inventor. As a ‘Director of Engineering’ for Google, he is involved in the Google Calico project. This name stands for California Life Company. This company deals with methods to fight human aging.
SENS: negligible senescence?
The English scientist Aubrey de Gray sees himself as one of the leaders of the numerous institutes, foundations and companies that have increasingly dealt with the topic of immortality worldwide in recent years. He is co-founder of the SENS Foundation. These letters stand for Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence.
Behind this somewhat bulky title hides a new approach to research. The foundation aims to prevent disease by influencing the biochemical processes of aging and thus preventing damage at the cellular level. Like other scientists, Gray criticizes the fact that studies are usually not financed independently. Accordingly, there is a lack of collaboration between researchers from different fields in order to fully understand the subject of aging.
The Methuselah mouse
That is why Gray is in charge of the Methuselah Foundation. Her slogan: ‘Making 90 the new 50 by 2030’ (90 will be the new 50 in 2030) (14). It awards the Methuselah Mouse Prize for researchers working on life extension. The aim is to use mice to gain knowledge that can be transferred to humans. In 2013, a US research group managed to extend the average lifespan of three years in mice by a full five years (15).
In addition to Gray and Kurzweil, other leading personalities also deal with the topic of immortality. Jeff Bezos from Amazon and Peter Thiel from PayPal fund Unity Biotechnology. Oracle founder Larry Ellison is behind the Lawrence Ellison Foundation, which supports research projects for life extension.
Different approaches to immortality
The efforts towards immortality are currently focused on four different areas:
• biotechnology
• cyborgology
• cryonics
• Mind uploading
Biotechnology: Nanobots in the blood?
Gene therapy, cell renewal and nanotechnology: Medicine is making rapid advances that can extend our lives. Nanobots already exist that can deliver drugs through the bloodstream (16). It is conceivable that they will be able to remove pollutants and carry out repairs in the near future.
Cyborgology: organs from the 3D printer
Artificial implants can help to replace damaged organs. The so-called cyborgology goes far beyond the simple insertion of organs. This also includes the use of neuro-implants to improve cognitive skills (17). Scientists are currently working flat out to produce organs with 3D printers (18).
Cryonics: waiting for science
At extremely low temperatures, the deterioration of the tissue can theoretically be stopped indefinitely. Some people today use cryonics to freeze their body or brain. The aim is to wait for the scientific advancement and then to benefit from life-prolonging measures.
Mind uploading: your ego in the cloud?
So far, mind uploading is just a theoretical concept and to a lot of people it sounds like science fiction. In fact, there are projects that deal with this directly and indirectly. The US government’s Brain Activity Map Project is currently trying to map the activities of all human nerve cells (19). The European Commission funds the Humain Brain Project (20). It is supposed to capture all of the knowledge about the human brain and then simulate it with the aid of a computer. Ray Kurzweil assumes that computers will reach the capacity of human brains by 2023.
Transhumanism: Committed to Progress
With transhumanism there is now also a philosophical foundation for the unlimited expansion of human possibilities. Followers of transhumanism see their roots in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. They see our existence as humans as a commitment to progress. The limits of human possibilities should therefore be exceeded through the use of technologies.
Conclusion: immortality — dream or nightmare?
The dream of eternal life has preoccupied people for thousands of years. Myths, religions and sayings are entwined with magical elixirs with which we can overcome death.
Rapid advances in various fields of science make physical immortality seem likely. Some researchers believe that we can achieve immortality in just a few decades. Instead of: ‘Can we live forever?’ The logical question now seems to be: ‘When will we become immortal?’
But is it really worth striving not to die? Just think about it: When you exist in the infinite loop, everything repeats itself infinitely. When we are trapped endlessly on this planet everything looks pale — what value is love then? Can we still wonder or really experience something when everything comes back anyway? Does this make life a horror without end?
Sources:
(2) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesch-Epos
(3) https://www.selket.de/mumien-und-totenkult/
(4) https://dao-verein.de/daoismus/
(5) http://www.mythentor.de/griechen/troja8.htm
(6) https://www.germanen-plakat.de/das-nibelungenlied/
(7) http://www.griechische-sagen.de/Sisyphos.html
(8) https://www.die-goetter.de/gott-prometheus
(11) http://www.philosophenlexikon.de/pietro-pomponazzi/
(12) http://www.philosophenlexikon.de/pietro-pomponazzi/
(13) https://www.spektrum.de/lexikon/biologie/popper-sir-karl-raimund/53118
(14) https://www.mfoundation.org/
(15) Bartke A, Brown-Borg H. Life extension in the dwarf mouse. Curr Top Dev Biol. 2004;63:189–225. Review. PubMed PMID: 15536017. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15536017)
(16) Saadeh Y, Vyas D. Nanorobotic Applications in Medicine: Current Proposals and Designs. Am J Robot Surg. 2014 Jun;1(1):4–11. doi: 10.1166/ajrs.2014.1010. PMID: 26361635; PMCID: PMC4562685. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4562685/)
(18) Murphy, Sean & Atala, Anthony. (2014). 3D Bioprinting of Tissues and Organs. Nature biotechnology. 32. 10.1038/nbt.2958. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264500820_3D_Bioprinting_of_Tissues_and_Organs)
(19) Alivisatos AP, Chun M, Church GM, Greenspan RJ, Roukes ML, Yuste R. The brain activity map project and the challenge of functional connectomics. Neuron. 2012 Jun 21;74(6):970–4. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.06.006. PMID: 22726828; PMCID: PMC3597383. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3597383/)
