An interesting conversation about preserving our consciousness has made me reflect on this subject. Should we try to live forever? Would it be worth it?
This is a topic as old as humans itself and first of all it should noted that Silicon Valley is already working on this. You might have read stories about people like famous venture capitalist Peter Thiel injecting themselves with young blood to keep themselves fit as they age. That is one approach to solving the problem of death, slow down aging so we can live longer and longer.
Then there are those who are expecting the singularity, when man merges with machine. Here we do age and die, but before we kick the bucket we download our consciousness into the machine so it can be placed into a new human body. Sounds like a good plan but where would this new body come from? Would it be that of a baby or an adult? What about its own consciousness? That all is not so clear in this setup.
Regardless, if we could do any of these would we want to? What are the pros and cons for us ? Since this is in the realm of science fiction the proper way to approach this topic is to review the art that has been made about it. What do our movies and fiction say about this? Let’s take a look!
If we could live forever would we be out there having the time of our lives every day? That’s a safe assumption. Or is it? In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels our hero Gulliver does encounter a hall of immortal people, all young and good looking…and finds them to be bored to tears! Oh dear. That is unfortunately one possible outcome of having an immortal body. At some point you will have done everything you could possibly want to do. Then what? Only eternal boredom awaits.
Indeed one of my Zen teachers, when asked why he had taken up zen practice to (mostly) just sit all day on the cushion and meditate, replied, it was pretty much the only thing left to do! He had done everything else he wanted to with his life.
On the other hand I have a friend who insists he will never be bored even if he lived till 200, because there will always be something new to learn. So how we respond to a longer life might depend on the individual. (BTW Ted Danson and Jack Black have taken their turn playing Gulliver in different remakes, both are worth watching.)
Boredom also hits Phill O’Conner, Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day. He is trapped in the loop of repeating the same day and so, in a sense, is immortal. Even if he kills himself he still comes back to repeat the day. Sounds awful but this is an opportunity too as there are no consequences, he can do whatever he wants. However after indulging himself for a while, he gets into a bad funk.
The movie has an optimistic message, he can get out of his funk if he focusses on helping others, but then he becomes mortal again. The Age of Adaline gives us a different twist to the story. Adaline Bowman, played ably by Blake Lively, gets hit by lightning and stops aging. The world around her however, continues to age. So every few years, before it becomes too obvious to those around her that she isn’t getting older, she has to move and take up a new identity.
Oh dear again. Can you imagine how exhausting and tragic that would be? To have to pack up and leave all that you love? Or, if you were to share your secret of not-aging with those you care about, watch them get old while you remain young?
Man from Earth has a similar theme. A professor is moving after 10 years at his job. At his going away party he decides to reveal that he is indeed immortal. He has lived through all time as his body is able to perfectly repair itself (a theoretically real possibility, but as likely as throwing a ball against a wall and having it go through, also theoretically possible as per quantum physics).
His fellow profs who have come to see him off have a hard time believing him but he makes a compelling case. There are a few twist and turns (spoiler ahead), including one where an older prof at the party realizes that this young immortal guy is his father. Much sorrow and tragedy unfold from this revelation.
In Darren Arnofsky’s The Fountain, Hugh Jackman’s character is tormented by the loss of his beloved wife to cancer. She dies just before his team is able to find the cure. This cure comes from material extracted from the (literal) tree of life. Injesting it keeps us young and disease free forever. However having discovered this treatment a bit too late, in this highly symbolic film, our hero seems to spend the rest of eternity mourning the loss of his beloved. Again, oh dear.
Clearly if we are going to be immortal, sci-fi seems to suggest that what our friends and family do is going to have a big impact on our experience as immortals. We are social creatures after all and our happiness is a function of our social relations. Will our friends and family be joining us as immortals? Will we enjoy having them with us or get sick of them? The choices of others are going to be important, or maybe not, as per noted misanthrope Michel Houellebecq, whose novel The Possibility of an Island presents the possibility that we will be able to live forever and not need others.
That is how Houellebecq sees technology evolving to support the human need to be free of disappointing relations. In his story humans have figured out how to pass on consciousness to a new body(and ‘create’ fully grown bodies for this purpose, thereby bypassing the messy business of childhood). Humans have also learned to not need one another, thus being able to live immortal lives of presumably blissful aloneness.
That is Houellebecq’s utopia, his happy ending, which chances are would not be so happy for most everyone else. Is there any other happy ending that might be more palatable? Perhaps an immortal life where we live happily ever after for all eternity, are forever in love, never experience loss, disappointment or boredom? What would such a setup entail? How would it all work? Hey we are talking science fiction here, if this is your utopia, go forth and make the art to express it!
Just do also note that sci-fi has historically missed a lot. Which sci-fi predicted the rise of twitter and tik tok? Can you name one? And yet, these are tools human beings considered important enough to build and use with high frequency! So dig deep when you create your art - what is it that we human beings truly want?
And that is a fabulous viewing and reading list, so what are you waiting for? Get busy reading and watching.