Immortal Mind
How immortality will transform our minds
By Paul Kieniewicz
Today's search for the elixir of immortality focuses on medical and AI research, including nanotechnology or DNA manipulation, to transform our mortal cells into immortal ones.
However, that change may come about without external intervention, in the course of human evolution and: an idea discussed ninety years ago by Bernard Shaw in his cycle, Back to Methuselah. Shaw's spokesman, Conrad Barnabas proposes that immortality is an evolutionary inevitability.
"My good sir: I have no powder, no bottle, no tabloid. I am not a quack: I am a biologist. This is a thing that's going to happen."
Franklin Barnabas, Conrad's brother suggests, "We can put it into men's heads that there is nothing to prevent its happening but their own will to die before their work is done, and their own ignorance of the splendid work there is for them to do."
Why would immortality be a biological necessity? The present system of a short life has many advantages.
1. We pass the torch to a younger generation that doesn't have brand loyalty --- the consumers that keep our economy ticking.
2. Older people have a finite time for interfering with younger people's dating habits, and standing in the way of new ideas.
3. Better action movies and rock music, produced by and appealing primarily to young people.
4. Short lives are easier to dispense with in a war, suicide bombings, or revolution. This also makes war a viable option for defending ourselves against nasty people.
5. Short lives are easier for politicians to handle. They're comfortably dead before their lies or scandals come to light.
6. Sex --- lots of it.
Evolution, whereby our species developed to its present stage, is a real and verifiable process. We possess our present bodies, and brains, because they contain survival traits that competing species did not have.
However, the present human race is poorly equipped to handle many problems we face in the twenty first century that pertain to our survival as a species. We are unable to come to grips with global warming, pollution, and other environmental issues. The world contains various stashes of nuclear weapons that threaten to destroy us, and people who are ready to use them.
Our short-term minds appear inadequate to deal with social and political issues as simple as reforming the Social Security system, or complex as ending a war that has lasted hundreds of years. We guard our national interests though those interests are mostly short-term --- not extending past the next election, and prevent us from addressing global concerns. All significant decisions are put off for future generations to deal with. We are happiest when the year's balance sheet shows a profit, and less concerned with how the world will look fifty years from now. Or if it will even be there. We are more interested in sweeping problems under the rug than in confronting them --- figuring that we won't be there when the problems come to light.
We cannot dismiss those social problems as being 'out there', and having nothing to do with us while we dream of the coming Singularity or the promises of nanotechnology. Our scientific research is rooted in our present society with all its problems, and only continues as long as that society supports and tolerates us. We cannot separate ourselves with duct tape or a beefed up Homeland Security Department, from the human animal with its murderous tendencies.
The prospect of immortality will affect our behavior. Consider a political or military leader who spent fifty years fighting neighbors, in a war that has gone on for hundreds of years. At age eighty he sees the absurdity of the struggle and realizes that the war must end. Too late --- it's time for him to check out. He cannot pass on his insight to anyone. No one listens to old fogies anyway. If that politician had another two hundred years of life, he'd be able to end the conflict. He'd also really have a strong incentive to do it, unless he wanted to endure another two hundred years of hell.
For the present human psyche, more time means more conflict, suffering, angst and boredom. Look at any elderly person and you will in most cases see people stuck in their ways and unable to change, reading the same sorts of books, listening to the same recordings, vacationing in the same spots, and playing the familiar eighteen hole course.
Many people I interview do not want a long life, even if they were in perfect health. Life has given them many tough knocks, and the thought of even thirty more years of angst is more than they want. This is not a consequence of the aging of brain cells, but of living longer and accumulating experiences and memories. More time. The short-term psyche that we now possess, prone to suffering, cravings and boredom and easily stuck in its ways is not designed for endless years.
No amount of entertainment or travel will stave off the impending boredom of been there done that,' resulting from the accumulation of memories. For such a psyche, endless years means endless hell, best cut short by suicide. Those and other reasons for the advantages of a short life are summarized by Leon Kass in his article on 'Ageless Bodies'.
What Kass does not address is that immortality will result in profound changes in the human psyche. You cannot take the present human being, with a mind obsessed by short-term thinking, plunk him or her into an immortal body, and not expect the human mind to change. That is, if the immortal human being is to survive. Our present psyche is conditioned by time and a limited lifespan. An immortal body will make new demands on the mind. As in any evolutionary process, those minds that are not capable of withstanding the changes will most likely disappear, via suicide or insanity. The immortal mind that will survive is likely to be very different from the present day mind, and will have very different concerns.
Will such a mind be passionate, concerned and interesting to us? I've described one scenario in my science fiction novel, "Immortality Machine." I believe that the immortal mind would be socially responsible because it would have a long-term view of life. No more quick fixes or sweeping problems under the rug. Immortal people would have to live with every consequence of their actions and would be motivated strongly to solve problems. I doubt that the military would have many recruits. People would be less inclined than now to toss their lives away in a senseless conflict, and would be more motivated to ensure that such conflicts never arise.
Living for endless years would require considerable psychic strength. Immortality --- far from being the endless vacation will require daily discipline, strength and attentiveness to remain alive, interested and creative. No more waiting for the younger generation to come up with new ideas or contentment with old beliefs and tastes. Unless the brain gets its daily exercise and remains young, it is as likely to get stuck, or atrophy. The sense of urgency that drives many of us now, because our lives have a limited span, will have to be maintained by a constant effort of the will. We'll be in the position of Goethe's Faust --- immortal until he said to the passing moment, 'linger awhile thou art so fair.' These words, expressing his contentment and the end of his striving for truth, brought about his death.
The burdens and vicissitudes that we face in our short-term life are likely to multiply with each additional year, creating constant demands on the psyche to find ways to handle them. According to Buddhists, suffering originates in our attachments to situations, feelings, desires, or people. Living a long life we might quickly decide that, unless we have masochistic tendencies, we can't afford too many attachments,. We'll have plenty of time to learn how to deal with suffering, and more motivation than now. An endless life of suffering will not be worth living.
If this model for the immortal mind is correct, the immortal human would be stronger than the short-lived human, and more capable of surviving the current social and technological impasse.
Immortality may come about, not as a result of a technological breakthrough --- the much talked about Singularity, but a result of evolutionary forces. The immortal psyche, that does not involve psychological time, will be stronger than the present mind, and capable of the long-term perspective required if our race is to avoid self-annihilation.
If a biological necessity arises for our lives to be longer, nature may ensure that this happens. Many paleontologists suggest that major changes in the appearance of the human species took place not by the introduction of gradual modifications, but by large changes that happened within two or three generations. One day a Neanderthal gave birth to a different sort of child resembling our modern species. The mother didn't have any say in the matter; nor did she desire to produce a new species. Evolution, through an unknown mechanism, kicked in and produced the new species.
Our evolutionary journey suggests that nature doesn't have a particularly altruistic agenda. As long as the immortal race has biological advantages over the short-lived race, it will emerge and survive. Those advantages are less likely to lie in the physical body than in the immortal mind that drives it.
Additional reading on the psychological implications of immortality:
Bernard Shaw --- 'Back to Methuselah'
Aldous Huxley --- 'After many a summer dies the swan'
J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm --- 'The Ending of Time'
About the author:
Paul Kieniewicz holds Masters Degrees in Astronomy and in Geophysics. A renaissance man, he has lectured on astronomy, comparative religions, mythology and history. When not prospecting for oil and gas, he writes science fiction, plays with a recorder ensemble, carves in wood, and studies the properties of numbers. He speaks several languages and has traveled the world. He has published short stories in small press magazines. His debut novel, 'Immortality Machine' is now available. Visit his website at http://www.PlanetErda.com.
Edited by BJKlein, 19 May 2003 - 02:37 PM.
