![]() ![]() He notes that in the last century, humans have in fact doubled average human life expectancy. In the Staying Alive narrative Cave opens with the quest of the First Emperor of China to find the elixir of life but lands us soon the 21st century where transhumanists aim to use modern science to finally achieve the goal of perpetual youthful life. "At its core, a civilization is a collection of life extension technologies: agriculture to ensure food in steady supply, clothing to stave off cold, architecture to provide shelter and safety, better weapons for hunting and defense, and medicine to combat injury and disease," he writes. Cave gracefully marches through his four immortality narratives citing examples from history, psychology, and religion up to the modern day. This is what I will call the Mortality Paradox, and its resolution is what gives shape to the immortality narratives, and therefore to civilization."Ĭave identifies four immortality narratives that drive civilizations over time which he calls (1) Staying Alive, (2) Resurrection, (3) Soul, and (4) Legacy. ![]() Death therefore presents itself as both inevitable and impossible. Simultaneously, Cave asserts, "The one thing that these minds cannot imagine is that very state of nonexistence it is literally inconceivable. He argues that our sophisticated minds inexorably recognize that, like all other living things, we will one day die. Would you take it? Metaphysician and former British diplomat Stephen Cave thinks accepting such an offer would be a bad idea.Ĭave's fascinating new book, Immortality, posits that civilization is a major side effect of humanity's attempts to live forever. There is one more stipulation: You could never decide later to die. Let's further stipulate that the offer includes perpetual youthful health and the ability to upgrade to any cognitive and physical technologies that become available in the future. is literate, it is fun, it is meaningful, and perhaps most important, it pushes the boundaries of the form outward.Imagine you are offered a trustworthy opportunity for immortality in which your mind (perhaps also your body) will persist eternally. is literate, it is fun, it is meaningful, and perhaps most important, it pushes the boundaries of the form outward.” Salman Rushdie’s celebrated debut novel remains as powerful and as haunting as when it was first published more than thirty years ago. Through a series of thrilling quests and encounters, Flapping Eagle comes face-to-face with the island’s creator and unwinds the mysteries of his own humanity. There he meets other immortals obsessed with their own stasis and sets out to scale the island’s peak, from which the mysterious and corrosive Grimus Effect emits. Eventually, weary of the sameness of life, he journeys to the mountainous Calf Island to regain his mortality. Thunderous and touching.”Īfter drinking an elixir that bestows immortality upon him, a young Indian named Flapping Eagle spends the next seven hundred years sailing the seas with the blessing–and ultimately the burden–of living forever. “A mixture of science fiction and folktale, past and future, primitive and present-day.
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