In spite of scientific difficulties and widespread criticism, new technological advances and the promise of more path-breaking research may turn man's eternal quest for immortality into a reality, mohan k. tikku writes
Humans have always yearned for immortality.
But each time, they have come up against the wall of death. People then did the next best thing. They sought to keep the memory alive (if not the body) with tombstones and totem-poles, in rituals and prayers and through memorials and mummified bodies. But at the beginning of the 21st century, a crack in the wall has appeared. For the first time in human history, the possibility of driving a hole through the wall of death is beginning to look real.
This is no grandma's tale. It is about science and technology. The shifting frontiers of new knowledge are breaking through the sound barriers of conventional wisdom. Genetic engineering and nanotechnology are moving in a direction so as to make it possible to redesign human bodies, rebuild tissues to specifications and replace worn out organs.
But, first things should come first. Before we get on to immortality, we must deal with extension of life. In fact, scientists are treating life extension as a stepping stone to immortality. In a recent book, leading American computer scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil has shown how this could be done. The title of the book says it all: Fantastic Voyage :Living Long Enough to Live for Ever. In his work, Kurzweil has discussed the role of science behind extension of life.
But there is a caveat. We shall have to change our lifestyles as well. This is important. According to University of Georgia gerontologist Leonard Poon, life span is thirty per cent determined by genes and seventy per cent by environment. Kurzweil, for instance, has detailed how much water one should take to flush out the toxins and other unwanted fats each day and the quality of that water. It is a bit like your car. Whenever an accessory or a car part is worn out or breaks down, you replace it with a new one so long as the body of the car is in good shape. And lifestyle is the key to keep the body in good shape.
And then, it is not just about the body but the mind and the brain as well. At the World Future Society conference in the US about a couple of years ago, I heard Kurzweil talk about the rate at which computers will change our thinking capabilities. In about a decade from now, he said, we shall have computers with the processing power equal to that of the human brain. And in another decade - that is by about 2029 - the computers shall not only exceed the processing power of the human brain, but such computers shall be available for the equivalent of $ 1,000 a piece.
Meanwhile, computer chips will be around and available to be uploaded on our brains adding phenomenally to human intelligence. The decisions we will then take and the lives we shall then live shall be radically different than our lives today. So it is not just about the body, the human thinking capabilities will undergo a radical makeover. The New Man that Karl Marx talked of now lies buried under the debris of the Berlin Wall. The signs of the New Man that the new technologies promise today are already beginning to appear on the horizon.
The seeds of this new thinking can be traced back to around 1927, when biologist Julian Huxley (brother of author Aldous Huxley) coined the term transhumanism. Julian, who also founded the World Wildlife Fund and became the first director general of UNESCO, described transhumanism as something that would make it possible for man to transcend oneself "by realising new possibilities of and for his human nature". Not many people cared about this term till about the sixties and the seventies, when fresh scientific advances started opening new windows on what humans could be. By the eighties and the nineties, it had gathered enough momentum for a movement that calls itself World Transhumanist Association to take shape.
Humans have always yearned for immortality.
But each time, they have come up against the wall of death. People then did the next best thing. They sought to keep the memory alive (if not the body) with tombstones and totem-poles, in rituals and prayers and through memorials and mummified bodies. But at the beginning of the 21st century, a crack in the wall has appeared. For the first time in human history, the possibility of driving a hole through the wall of death is beginning to look real.This is no grandma's tale. It is about science and technology. The shifting frontiers of new knowledge are breaking through the sound barriers of conventional wisdom. Genetic engineering and nanotechnology are moving in a direction so as to make it possible to redesign human bodies, rebuild tissues to specifications and replace worn out organs.
But, first things should come first. Before we get on to immortality, we must deal with extension of life. In fact, scientists are treating life extension as a stepping stone to immortality. In a recent book, leading American computer scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil has shown how this could be done. The title of the book says it all: Fantastic Voyage :Living Long Enough to Live for Ever. In his work, Kurzweil has discussed the role of science behind extension of life.
But there is a caveat. We shall have to change our lifestyles as well. This is important. According to University of Georgia gerontologist Leonard Poon, life span is thirty per cent determined by genes and seventy per cent by environment. Kurzweil, for instance, has detailed how much water one should take to flush out the toxins and other unwanted fats each day and the quality of that water. It is a bit like your car. Whenever an accessory or a car part is worn out or breaks down, you replace it with a new one so long as the body of the car is in good shape. And lifestyle is the key to keep the body in good shape.
And then, it is not just about the body but the mind and the brain as well. At the World Future Society conference in the US about a couple of years ago, I heard Kurzweil talk about the rate at which computers will change our thinking capabilities. In about a decade from now, he said, we shall have computers with the processing power equal to that of the human brain. And in another decade - that is by about 2029 - the computers shall not only exceed the processing power of the human brain, but such computers shall be available for the equivalent of $ 1,000 a piece.
Meanwhile, computer chips will be around and available to be uploaded on our brains adding phenomenally to human intelligence. The decisions we will then take and the lives we shall then live shall be radically different than our lives today. So it is not just about the body, the human thinking capabilities will undergo a radical makeover. The New Man that Karl Marx talked of now lies buried under the debris of the Berlin Wall. The signs of the New Man that the new technologies promise today are already beginning to appear on the horizon.
The seeds of this new thinking can be traced back to around 1927, when biologist Julian Huxley (brother of author Aldous Huxley) coined the term transhumanism. Julian, who also founded the World Wildlife Fund and became the first director general of UNESCO, described transhumanism as something that would make it possible for man to transcend oneself "by realising new possibilities of and for his human nature". Not many people cared about this term till about the sixties and the seventies, when fresh scientific advances started opening new windows on what humans could be. By the eighties and the nineties, it had gathered enough momentum for a movement that calls itself World Transhumanist Association to take shape.
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