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Lazarus Revisited

Retroactive Immortality as a New Grand Narrative

“The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today’s risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the “Oh how banal.” To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law” (David Foster Wallace. E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction.)

In Jean Cocteau’s Le Grand Ecart, a young Persian gardener is suddenly confronted with Death. Startled by this confrontation, the young man borrows his master’s fastest horse and escapes to Ispahan. When the master, later on, confronts Death and asks him why he threatened his servant, Death tells him that he did no such thing. He was just ‘surprised’ to see the exact same man he was supposed to take later that day, all the way, in Ispahan. First appearing in the Babylonian Talmud (3rd-5th Century), this story has since been told and retold throughout the centuries. Its main argument is that death is unavoidable. And even though the average human life span continues to grow each year, it still holds true today. Death remains an inexorable end, an insurmountable obstacle. Nonetheless, the human desire for longevity or even immortality remains. Scientific inquiry into the possibility of eternal life, however, is often met with disdain and irony. In part, this can be attributed to the dissemination and vulgarization of the subject in science fiction and fantasy stories. Popular opinion is convinced that eternal life is solely the intellectual property of fiction writers and naïve dreamers and should, therefore, be categorized as folklore or wishful thinking.

This essay will argue that, given the current state of progress, there is reason to believe that immortality and even retroactive immortality could actually be accomplished. The latter implies that even our generation and the generations preceding us will possibly be able to enjoy eternal life as well, despite our certain deaths. This idea is inspired, not only by ongoing scientific research and current knowledge, but also by the vast amount of science fiction literature and film. The essay will try to highlight that it is exactly this creative flexibility that will eventually allow us to discover a way to circumvent death. To this day, there has been no significant breakthrough in the field of longevity research. Though religious immortality exists in the form of an afterlife or rebirth, such immortality cannot be scientifically verified nor can it be falsified. As such, and without further judging its faults or its merits, we have no reason to believe it actually exists outside of the religious mind. In nature, immortality has only been reserved for Turritopsis Dohrnii, a sub-species of jellyfish that has the ability to return to polyp state after having reached sexual maturity. Because it can reproduce this reversion an indefinite amount of time, this jellyfish can actually boast biological immortality.[1] Human beings, however, have not yet discovered a way to halt or even revert the aging process. Scientists are still trying to discover how they might stop our internal clocks from counting down. Some believe that by lengthening and maintaining the telomeres that protect our DNA, they can stave off cellular degradation.[2] Others are trying to minimize or counter oxidative damage, which causes cellular decay and senescence (the loss of a cell’s power to divide and grow). This oxidative damage can be traced back to the formation of reactive oxygen species in the mitochondria.[3] By controlling or regulating the accumulation of these reactive oxygen species, scientists might have found another way to expand human life.

Given the progress of our scientific knowledge, it becomes more and more likely that we will eventually discover a cure for death. To illustrate the speed of this progress, but also our human need to innovate, we can look at the impact of Star Trek, a staple of popular science fiction. First aired in the Sixties, it has become a well-known brand, not only due to its futuristic feel and setting, but also because it presents a noble, more evolved and successful image of mankind’s future. Today, we look back upon those first episodes and cannot help but feel that they are enormously outdated. The special effects in these early episodes seem rather primitive and pale in comparison with current CGI standards. More importantly, however, the majority of gadgets and futuristic equipment shown in the 1960s series are no longer science fiction. We now actually have crude food replicators in the form of organic 3D food printers. Present day tablets are equivalent to Star Trek pads. Smartphone applications with matching earpieces are being invented to serve as universal translators. VR goggles are miniaturized personal holodecks.[4] Our technological progress has enabled us to turn science fiction into reality. Vice versa (science) fiction continues to act as an inspiration for science and technology. If we can think it, eventually, we seem to be able to make it. And because the speed with which progress is happening, especially in the digital era, is constantly increasing, it seems likely that we will be able to achieve even more in ever smaller amounts of time. The close connection between creativity and fiction on the one hand and technological and digital progress on the other might serve as proof that thinking beyond our limitations can be crucial in actually making these limitations disappear in the future, mortality being one of them.

A cure for age-related deterioration seems imminent, maybe not in a hundred years, but taking into account the progress of genetic research, quite possibly within a thousand. Why should we be excited about this? It will have no effect on our lives, nor on the lives of our loved ones. And if we cannot reap the benefits, why should we even care or actively involve ourselves in this uncertain quest for eternal life. Why should we bother with the future if, instead, we, can enjoy the present? Besides pure altruism, there has not been a satisfying answer to this question. The notion of retroactive immortality, however, directly addresses it, by serving as sufficient motivation to reorganize the present in order to improve the future. To highlight its validity, we will have to flex our imagination, our faith and our patience well into the realm of science fiction.

Picture ourselves an indefinite amount of years in the future. Mankind is still present in the galaxy. It has found a way to stop the aging process. The human body remains healthy and young forever. Science has eradicated the deadliest of diseases. Then, a new idea arises: would it be possible to bring back our loved ones so that they might enjoy eternal life as well? What would technologically be needed to turn this idea into reality? A first major obstacle to overcome, would be time itself. In order to reach their deceased loved ones, our future descendants will need to be able to travel to the past. Time is often referred to as the fourth dimension and, as such, exists alongside the three dimensions we know. Unlike our ability to freely choose our path in these spatial dimensions, time only seems to drag us along, forcing us in one specific direction.

Einstein’s theory of relativity tells us that we need to travel faster than light in order to travel back in time. At present, this is deemed impossible. It requires an amount of energy we do not yet possess. Our future descendants will therefore need to find viable means to freely produce, maintain and handle enormous amounts of energy. Science fiction has already offered us various ideas on how to solve this problem in the form of matter anti-matter annihilation chambers, dark matter convertors, cold fusion generators, Dyson spheres that harness the power of suns and pulsars or even a Dyson Sphere hybrid drawing energy from a black hole. Who knows what will happen when reality finally catches up with these fictional examples.[5] If human civilization actually reaches a stage in which it can master and traverse time, it will, however, still not be able to actively intervene in history or alter anything due to what connoisseurs of the science fiction genre recognize as the grandfather paradox.[6] It argues that any change in the past, no matter how infinitesimally small, can have large apocalyptic repercussions on the future. Displacing anything, from a simple rock to the seed of a dandelion might disturb the natural flow of progress.

A commonly shared idea among time-travel enthusiasts is that you can find out if time travel will be invented and made available in your lifetime by promising yourself to travel back to the exact time of that promise. To this day, no one has ever reported seeing his or her future self, which is logical because the grandfather paradox prevents this from happening. Meeting your future self would imply that you still exist in the future. All of a sudden, you are assured of your survival up until that future time. This knowledge will influence your decisions, especially in dangerous situations. Encountering your future self might very well lead to a more careless continuation of your life, something you would have otherwise not done. People often say: “if I knew then, what I know now, I would have done things differently”. But that would also imply that you would not do the things that led you to that knowledge, and, as a result, you are unable to know then what you know now. A paradox will be born, causing reality to be ripped apart.

So even if we get to a point where future humans are able to master time and freely travel back and forth, they still cannot interfere or change anything, let alone abduct their loved ones to the future and grant them eternal life. The grandfather paradox prohibits any active physical intervention or tampering with the natural flow of time and evolution. There is, however, a way to circumvent this paradox. Right before a person passes away, when he or she does no longer physically react to the world, and, as such, can have no impact on the flow of time anymore, consciousness could theoretically be transferred to the future, without violating the grandfather paradox. The body will remain behind for the surviving relatives to mourn over and since the deceased person will no longer interact with the world, the transferal of his or her consciousness has no effect on the natural flow of time.

Our future descendants must, therefore, not only find a way to travel through time, they also have to be able to transfer and store or implant human consciousness in a new vessel in the far future. This entails an exhaustive understanding of what exactly consciousness is. What does the “Self” consist of? Is it the whole of electrical pulses, memories and neural pathways, or is it even more? Current research in the field of neurology and neurobiology is discovering more and more about the wonders of human consciousness.[7] Once we are able to isolate and safely transfer this consciousness, retroactive immortality becomes a reality. It is important to stress that transferal of the mind does not entail copying or cloning it. Though the copy or clone will never know the difference, the original will still be lost. Ideally, the dying individual wakes up again, in a new body in the future, without a clear rupture between the past and future self.

According to Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, mankind will become digitally immortal by 2045.[8] It is a tantalizing idea which he bases on Moore’s law[9], emphasizing the inevitability of our exponential acceleration toward a digitally assured longevity. For now, however, we must assume that the ability to intentionally implant consciousness in a virtual environment is something we haven’t mastered yet. And, despite the allure of an eternal life in virtual surroundings, and the accompanying exciting new possibilities such a existence would entail (e.g. no more gravitational limits), we might want to hold out until our minds can be transferred to another autonomous body, be it an organic three dimensional print or even a cybernetic vessel.

Having discovered time travel and mind transfer, mankind does possess all the technological necessities to start retroactively bringing people back to life. This, however, will require sufficient space to live. For that, the human race will have to turn to the stars and colonize other planets. At present, we are in the process of charting the vast distances of the universe, discovering thousands of new extrasolar planets, merely by extrapolating planetary transits from the distinct light curves this causes. Though man has already set foot on the moon and built satellites with which it visited all the other planets in our solar system, the true exploration of the galaxy is currently happening on earth. Planet hunters all over the world are analyzing data from the Keppler telescope, finding more and more potentially habitable worlds that might suit our human needs. Even very pessimistic calculations still reveal the likely presence of billions of potentially habitable worlds. In the meanwhile, scientists at NASA, ESA, CNSA and ROSCOSMOS continue to work on plans for space stations. And though all of this might take thousands or even millions of years, we must not forget that, for the dead, eons will pass in the blink of an eye.

There should be no doubt that human beings will colonize space. Already earth is proving to be too small for its human population and even smaller for the aspirations of all its inhabitants. Fortunately, we are a curious species, always on the look for what lies just beyond our grasp. The desire to wander and explore has been hardwired in our genetic code. And as our science and technology rapidly evolve, we will find newer and better ways to scout the galaxy for new opportunities, new resources, new knowledge and other earths. Already plans are being made to send out miniaturized space probes, using laser propulsion. Funded by Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner and backed by, among others, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, a program called Breakthrough Starshot wants to launch a thousand probes equipped with light sails and bombard them with photons using a laser array on earth to accelerate them to twenty percent of light speed. With that relativistic speed they will be able to reach Alpha Centauri, our nearest star, in a mere twenty years.[10]

Considering the fact that only fifty-five years ago we launched the first man into space and already we have arrived at a point where we can send probes to the nearest star system in under twenty years, the chances of mankind colonizing space are improving at a steady rate. This desire to reach the stars at ever increasing speeds is also a necessary first step in our quest to discover time travel. By pushing the maximum speed limits continuously, we are edging closer to actually breaking the speed of light. And if natural acceleration proves to be impossible, we might circumvent the idea of special relativity altogether by creating distortions in space-time, so that vessels can make use of space-time ripples to exceed relativistic speeds (e.g. the Alcubierre drive[11]). The quest for ever-increasing speeds will not only help us reach the stars. It will, eventually, take us back in time. In light of that, the consoling words often spoken when our loved ones have past away, that “they are among the stars now,” carry a great deal of significance.

For evolution to run its course, however, and retroactive immortality to become a reality, mankind needs to be fortunate enough to survive. We will need the earth to remain habitable for at least the next thousands of years, until we can safely venture off to other planets. Progress will come with both positive and negative consequences and we cannot stay blind for the fact that, at present, we are still a very volatile species, prone to carelessness and often irresponsible in our actions. New inventions can, therefore, bring us wonderful new possibilities, but might, just as well, herald in our own extinction. Even today, we can plainly see that the combustion engine, though an important step in our evolution, also contributes to the detrimental degradation and pollution of our atmosphere. Though we are working on cleaner and more reliable alternatives, conservative powers are willingly remaining blind for the destructive consequences of burning fossil fuels. Unfortunately, they favor their personal financial gain over the long-term survival of the planet. Similarly, plastics have brought us many improvements, but also threaten our aquatic wildlife. So even though our survival depends on our curiosity, our desire to innovate and our willingness to venture out into unknown territory, we must remain aware that each step we take must be scrutinized. Progress is necessary, but responsibility even more so, if we want to avert the downfall of human civilization.

The likelihood of an intelligent race’s self-destruction is an important explanation for SETI’s[12] failed attempts to find any radiographic evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence. For more than fifty years, SETI has been listening to the stars. And even though the Drake equation[13] points out that intelligent, extraterrestrial life is highly likely, the silence from space has been deafening. This simple contradiction has resulted in the Fermi paradox, which juxtaposes the large statistical probability of extraterrestrial intelligence with the current lack of proof for such intelligence. Robin Hanson argues that our failure to find extraterrestrial civilizations implies that something is wrong with one or several of the arguments that also inform the Drake equation. His observation is conceptualized in the “Great Filter”: a threshold that acts as a barrier to the evolution of intelligent life.[14] This barrier can be in the form of a natural catastrophe, like the impact of an asteroid, or the absence of specific conditions that stimulate the development of organic or even intelligent life. Hanson argues that the notion of the “Great Filter” also has to include the likelihood of intelligent life destroying itself. The end of the world could be triggered by a nuclear war or, less instantly, by complete depletion and destruction of our natural resources causing starvation and pandemic diseases. As such, mankind is in constant danger of causing its own end, simply because we are unable or unwilling to deal with the consequences of our actions and our innovations.

Ensuring our own survival must therefore be inextricably linked to a combination of (technological) progress and a continuous awareness of how that progress impacts our environment. Finding a healthy balance between a constantly increasing population with the protection and improvement of the ecosphere that feeds and maintains us, will probably be our greatest challenge. Without the earth we stand no chance against death. Mankind has to strive toward a future in which our children’s children still live in optimal circumstances so that they might continue to safely progress, edging closer and closer to the discovery of all the prerequisites for eternal life. Such a future also implies a political, economical and social stability built upon the knowledge that only a thriving stable civilization will improve mankind’s chances to discover retroactive immortality.

At present, we must acknowledge that personal gain directly undermines any long-term hope for such political, economical and social stability. It is the root cause of segregation and conflict. Up until now, the idea of personal gain could be rationalized by the fact that the individual only had a limited amount of years to live and, therefore, did not really have to care about the consequences his or her self-involvement had on the future. And granted, the notion of personal gain has had its merits. It has sparked competition and stimulated progress. But now that we find ourselves in a position that we can actually start to believe in a future beyond the limits of our current life, personal gain should no longer be a guiding principle, because it cannot be beneficial on the long run. The stakes have become too high to solely rely on individual progress and the merits of competition. Already, it has led to a very skewed distribution of wealth and resources, resulting in an irresponsible squandering of intellect. The next Einstein or Hawking might have already been born somewhere in a remote place on earth, with no chance of living up to his or her potential. Shouldn’t we try to garner every little bit of intellect in order to help us think up a better future? Is it so unthinkable that the next Madame Curie is of Aboriginal descent? A Hutu? A Tutsi? Or maybe she is trying to survive in a bombed out building in Holms? How wasteful have we been with life, up until now? If we do not start cherishing every form of life on this planet, treat it with respect and try to reach a healthy all-encompassing equilibrium, what chance do we have that our children and our children’s children learn by example? Instead of competition, we need to start thinking in terms of cooperation. With the disappearance of the grand narratives[15], we have become individuals who are now only interested in their own personal stories, solely invested in their own self-interest. This essay does not prohibit anyone from acting or thinking in their own self-interest. On the contrary, it actually argues that it is in our own self-interest to work together and build a better future for our children. Such altruistic egoism or egoistic altruism will not only safeguard a cleaner and safer future for our descendants, it will also bring us much closer to retroactive immortality and therefore benefit ourselves as well.

Now, why would anyone want to be immortal? Isn’t life magnificent because it eventually ends? Would life lose its meaning without death? Or has the notion that death makes life worth living only arisen as some sort of rationalized consolation in order to deal with the inevitability of life’s end? We cannot know, simply because the opportunity of an eternal life has never presented itself. A life, devoid of death, however, will undoubtedly alter our perception of existence. Even more so than now, we will feel the need to keep our planet healthy and safe. We will be affected by every decision we make. Pollution and discord will always come back to us. Death no longer absolves us. At the same time, our eternal life will grant us the possibility to start dreaming about actually exploring the whole of existence, travelling through galaxies, finding new worlds, stumbling upon new life forms and trying to understand why it all exists.

But, why would anyone want to return to life, especially if he or she has struggled through it the first time around? So many have lived in physical or mental pain, in underdeveloped regions or in war-torn countries. Life has traumatized these people and for them, death has been a blessing. A future, however, in which immortality becomes a reality, is also a future in which mental and physical ailments are a thing of the past. Being able to bring someone back to live a healthy and prosperous life will be the perfect answer to all the hardship they had to endure in their first life. Thousands of years in the future, depression, psychosis, cancer and many more have likely disappeared, unable to affect us anymore. And, if we start working on a future in which we would love to live forever ourselves, a world built on equality, freedom, abundance, respect, peace and prosperity, those who have been so unfortunate to have lived in unstable regions of the world and suffered the ravages of war, can finally enjoy a second chance; a peaceful life devoid of aggression, oppression and terror. Death has been an excuse for many to do as they please, without thinking of the consequences. It has been used as a bargaining tool, a threat and as a morbid solution. With death out of the way, we can finally start to focus on life and how it should be lived.

So, will future generations be interested in bringing us back? Wouldn’t it be in their own interest to keep the universe for themselves? From our current perspective, we would likely agree. Our planet is already struggling to maintain its present population, let alone deal with the ecological impact this population has on it. Pessimism with regard to the future is, therefore, taking root these days. In addition, the ever-growing distance between rich and poor, between races, colors, countries, beliefs and individuals is creating a volatile atmosphere in which fear and aggression are thriving. The human race seems to be lost, mostly because there is no clear goal to strive toward anymore. In such an unstable world, we would have no place for our predecessors, for we are hardly hanging on for ourselves. In a future without political, economical and social inequality and an abundance of space caused by the colonization of numerous other planets, the possibility of welcoming past generations is much likelier.

A future generation possessing the key to eternal life might very well feel the need to try and perfect their immortal life by bringing back the people they miss. They would be willing to move heaven and earth to spend more time with family, friends or lovers that have sadly past away. Sons and daughters will want to bring back their parents who, in turn will want to bring back their own loved ones, and so forth. If we are able to create the harmony, stability, peace and global prosperity needed for the human race to thrive and evolve toward a future in which retroactive immortality becomes a possibility, we will be the actual instigators of this ideal future in which we ourselves might possibly even return.

To bring about this possibility, we will have to focus on protecting and preserving our world; the place that harbors the potential (technological) progress that can bring about our eventual salvation. This focus can be translated into a shared drive toward retroactive immortality. As we have seen, this essay is built upon the actual verifiable fact of human advancement. It does not refer to anything supernatural, simply because, to this day, there is no tangible evidence for a God or for an afterlife. The choice to build our arguments not on mere feelings or beliefs but on what we can currently observe and what we have learned from the last thousands of years, however, does not intend to take anything away from the good that former (religious) narratives have accomplished. In addition, they have offered us beautiful advice and guidelines to live by: “Love thine neighbor like thineself” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. These are valuable principles, fundamental to any society, from the smallest tribes in the jungle to a global or even galactic society. And yet, these former (religious) metanarratives are all gradually disintegrating. We are unwilling to believe in them anymore. Moreover, we distrust them, because they seem to have caused more grief and conflict than good. If we look more closely to our history, however, we will see that most tragedies attributed to religious beliefs or certain grand narratives have actually been caused, not by the principles underlying these beliefs or narratives, but by the interpretations less scrupulous individuals have introduced, infused by underlying motives, originating from frustration and anger.

It would be unwise, however, to completely dismiss the validity of grand narratives. Without them to inspire and guide us, we will all eventually find ourselves trapped in individualism, living rather superficial lives, with no hope of ever escaping our own limits and the fears that accompany them. All our former grand narratives and our religious beliefs have lost their validity. Some were untenable because they were built on ideas that lacked any factual evidence. There were no proven miracles, no verified afterlife, no logged appearances of deities, only assumptions. Other narratives failed because they were too exclusive and only served a very specific group. Without the support of the entire human civilization, no ideology will stand the test of time. The narrative proposed in this essay is built upon the simple verifiable notion that the whole of mankind evolves, biologically, technologically and digitally. It argues that our attempt to create an optimal environment for mankind to thrive and develop might potentially lead to a future in which the notion of retroactive immortality becomes reality. It acknowledges that this requires a lot of “if’s”. However, the mere fact that we are here today already is the culmination of innumerable “if’s” without any human intervention. The future proposed in this essay, emphasizes the importance of positive human intervention to steer these “if’s” toward a harmonious future for each and every one.

[1] Nathaniel Rich (November 28, 2012). "Can a jellyfish unlock the secret of immortality?". The New York Times Magazine.

[2] Krista Conger. “Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds.” https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2015/01/telomere-extension-turns-back-aging-clock-in-cultured-cells.html. Retrieved July 1, 2016.

[3] Amancio Carnero e.a. “Disruptive chemicals, senescence and immortality.” Carcinogenesis (2015) 36 (Suppl 1): 19-37.

[4] John Brandon. “12 Star Trek Gadgets That Now Exist.” http://mentalfloss.com/article/31876/12-star-trek-gadgets-now-exist. Retrieved July 1, 2016.

[5] Though scientists at the University of West Scotland have confirmed the existence of asymmetrical atomic nuclei, and argued that this might completely undermine the idea of time travel, they have added that their conclusions are still very speculative. And even if they turn out to be proven, they will herald in a new era of theoretical physics based on asymmetry, in which new discoveries might lead to alternative ways of time travel.

[6] “The age-old argument of preventing your birth by killing your grandparents.” Nahin, Paul J.. Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction. American Institute of Physics. 1999: 254-255.

[7] Enzo Tagliazucchi. “Large-scale signatures of unconsciousness are consistent with a departure from critical dynamics.” Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Vol. 13:114, January 2016.

[8] http://www.digitaltrends.com/health-fitness/ray-kurzweil-immortality/ (March 27, 2016)

[9] Moore’s law states that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit double approximately every two years.

[10] https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/News/4

[11] http://www.andersoninstitute.com/alcubierre-warp-drive.html

[12] Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

[13] Frank Drake and Dava Sobel. Is Anyone Out There? The Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Delta (June 1, 1994).

[14] Robin Hanson. The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (sept. 15, 1998). http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/greatfilter.html

[15] Jean-François Lyotard. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

#immortality #futurism #future #grand narrative #time travel #mind transfer #space #space colonization #eternal life #great filter #ideology #religion

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