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Thursday, December 12, 2019

David Brin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brin
 
David Brin
David Brin at ACM CFP 2005dsc278c.jpg
Brin at an Association of Computing Machinery conference in 2005
Born
Glen David Brin

October 6, 1950 (age 69)
NationalityAmerican
EducationUniversity of California, San Diego (1981), Ph.D.
University of California, San Diego (1978), M.S.
California Institute of Technology (1973), B.S.
OccupationNovelist, NASA consultant
Writing career
GenreScience fiction
Notable worksUplift series, The Postman, Earth, "The Transparent Society"


Scientific career
ThesisEvolution of cometary nuclei as influenced by a dust component (1981)
Doctoral advisorD. Asoka Mendis

Websitedavidbrin.com
Signature
David Brin signature (cropped).jpg

Glen David Brin (born October 6, 1950) is an American scientist and author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell, and Nebula Awards. His novel The Postman was adapted as a feature film and starred Kevin Costner in 1997. Brin's nonfiction book The Transparent Society won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association and the McGannon Communication Award.

Early life and education

Brin was born in Glendale, California in 1950 to a Jewish family. He graduated from the California Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in astronomy, in 1973. At the University of California, San Diego, he earned a Master of Science in applied physics in 1978 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in space science in 1981. From 1983 to 1986 he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the California Space Institute, of the University of California, at the San Diego campus in La Jolla.

Career

Brin is a 2010 fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He helped establish the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination (UCSD). He serves on the advisory board of NASA's Innovative and Advanced Concepts group and frequently does futurist consulting for corporations and government agencies. 

Brin consults and speaks for a wide variety of groups interested in the future, ranging from Defense Department agencies and the CIA to Procter & Gamble, SAP, Google and other major corporations. He has also been a participant in discussions at the Philanthropy Roundtable and other groups seeking innovative problem solving approaches.

Brin has a very active side career in public speaking and consultation. He appears frequently on science or future related television shows such as The Universe, Life After People, Alien Encounters, Worlds of Tomorrow, and many others. He briefly was a regular on the challenge design show The Architechs in which "five geniuses" were challenged to solve a major problem (e.g. new ways in and out of burning buildings) in 48 hours. 

He also serves on the Board of Advisors for the Museum of Science Fiction.

Bibliography

Fiction

Brin's works, when taken as a whole, is normally categorized as hard science fiction, in that most (not all) works apply some degree of plausible scientific or technological change as partial plot drivers. Exceptions include the graphic novel The Life Eaters, in which Norse gods assist the Nazis. 

The Uplift stories

About half of Brin's works are in his Uplift Universe. These have twice won the international Science Fiction Achievement Award (Hugo Award) in the Best Novel category.
The Uplift novels are:
Additionally, Brin wrote two short stories set in the Uplift universe, "Temptation" and "Aficionado". "Temptation" appeared in Robert Silverberg's anthology Far Horizons: All New Tales from the Greatest Worlds of Science Fiction and is set after the events in the Infinity's Shore. "Aficionado" was published in the limited-edition collection Tomorrow Happens, and is a short-story prequel to the novels. This story was originally published as "Life in the Extreme" in Popular Science Magazine Special Edition (August 1998). Both stories are also freely available on Brin's website. Brin has stated that he intends to return to the Uplift universe at some point, but is not currently working on anything. A segment of his novel Existence deals with the origins of dolphin Uplift and hence might be considered linked to the Uplift Universe.

Brin co-wrote with Kevin Lenagh Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide to David Brin's Uplift Universe

Other fiction

Brin has written a number of stand-alone novels:
Graphic novels:
His short fiction has been collected in:
Other works by Brin include his addition to Asimov's Foundation Universe:
and his addition to Eric Flint's 1632-verse:
Brin designed the game Tribes, published in 1998 by Steve Jackson Games. Brin wrote the storyline for the 2000 Dreamcast video game Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future.

Concerns and themes of his work

Many of Brin's works not set into preexisting series or universes focus on the impact on human society of technology humankind develops for itself, a theme which commonly appears in contemporary North American science-fiction. This is most noticeable in The Practice Effect, Glory Season and Kiln People.

Brin's Jewish heritage is the source of two other strong themes in his works. Tikkun Olam ("repairing the world", i.e. people have a duty to make the world a better place) is originally a religious concept, but Brin, like many non-orthodox Jews, has adapted this into a secular notion of working to improve the human condition, to increase knowledge, and to prevent long-term evils. Brin has confirmed that this notion in part underscores the notion of humans as "caretakers" of sentient-species-yet-to-be, as he explains in a concluding note at the end of Startide Rising; and it plays a key role in The Uplift War, where the Thennanin are converted from enemies to allies of the Terragens (humans and other sapients that originated on Earth) when they realize that making the world a better place and being good care-takers are core values of both civilizations. Many of Brin's novels emphasize another element of Jewish tradition, the importance of laws and legality, whether intergalactic law in the Uplift series or that of near-future California in Kiln People but, on the other hand, Brin has stated that "Truly mature citizens ought not to need an intricate wrapping of laws and regulations, in order to do what common sense dictates as good for all".

Nonfiction

Personal life

Brin currently lives in San Diego, California with his wife and children. He has Polish Jewish ancestry, from the area around Konin. His grandfather was drafted into the Russian army and fought in the Russian-Japanese War of 1905.

American Cryonics Society

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Cryonics_Society
 
American Cryonics Society
FoundedDecember 10, 1969
FounderDr. M. Coleman Harris, Edgar Swank, Dr. Grace Talbot, Jerome B. White
94-2398719
Registration no.C0587199
Focuscryonics
Location
Coordinates37°22′17.1048″N 122°2′8.718″W
Websiteamericancryonics.org
cryonics.ws
Formerly called
Bay Area Cryonics Society

The American Cryonics Society (ACS), also known as the Cryonics Society of America, is a member-run, California-based, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization that supports and promotes research and education into cryonics and cryobiology. Cryonics is the preservation through cold storage, usually with liquid nitrogen, of humans (and sometimes non-human animals) after legal death. This procedure is done in the hopes of eventual "reanimation." Any such reanimation depends upon future technological advances that are hoped for, but by no means assured or promised.

The American Cryonics Society is the oldest cryonics organization still in existence. Since 1972 ACS has offered a program where members who enroll, are placed into cryonic suspension upon their deaths and then maintained in liquid nitrogen. This program provides for continuous funding so that the relatives of the subject are not required to pay for the initial freezing, yearly maintenance in liquid nitrogen, or eventual reanimation (should the latter prove possible). Members often provide such funding through the purchase of a life insurance policy.

History

The American Cryonics Society was first incorporated in 1969 in San Francisco as the Bay Area Cryonics Society (BACS); its name was changed to the American Cryonics Society in 1985. The founding of the company followed over two years of organizational meetings by cryonics activists. Signers of the founding charter included two well-known Bay Area physicians, Dr. M. Coleman Harris, and Dr. Grace Talbot. The 1969 incorporation date makes it the oldest cryonics society still in existence. The Immortalist Society (IS), with which the American Cryonics Society works closely, is a successor to the Cryonics Society of Michigan whose founding predates that of the American Cryonics Society. Since its beginning, the American Cryonics Society has made valuable contributions to research and methodology of freezing and cold storage of organs and organism. The first suspensions of humans under the ACS program were in 1974 through Trans Time, a company founded in 1972 by activist members of the American Cryonics Society (then BACS). This was followed by a succession of additional suspensions and ongoing research into methods of preservation and procedures for maintaining tissue, organs, and organisms at liquid nitrogen temperature.

Starting in 1974 ACS-sponsored research into establishing suspension procedures included development of "blood substitutes" and flushes to replace the blood in cryonic patients with a solution which had cryoprotective properties. Dr. Paul Segall was the chief researcher, and following a technological report that the international press viewed as significant, Dr. Segall, Dr. Richard Marsh, and Avi Ben-Abraham, MD, appeared on Good Morning America, The Phil Donahue Show, The Sally Jessy Raphael Show, and made many other popular media appearances.

In 1987 Dr. Avi Ben-Abraham was elected as Chairman, President and Governor of the American Cryonics Society and led the society for over a decade. A prominent physician and scientist, Dr. Ben-Abraham brought a high degree of respectability and public attention to ACS. During Dr. Ben-Abraham's tenure, cryonics research received a major boost, and the scientific progress made by ACS's scientists, was featured in the New York Times, The Saturday Evening Post and on the cover of Leaders magazine among others.Dr. Ben-Abraham was featured on several prestigious television programs in the US and overseas, including CBS's 48 Hours and 60 Minutes, The Joan Rivers Show, CNBC Live and on a special BBC television documentary.

American Cryonics Society researchers would later develop commercial organ preservation solutions, based in part on ACS-sponsored research.

In May 1988, ACS researchers , Paul Segal, Hal Sternberg, Harry Weitz and Avi Ben-Abraham, authored a scientific paper, "Interventive Gerentology, Cloning, and Cryonics: Relevance to Life Extension," that was published in Biomedical Advances in Aging and edited by Allan L. Goldstein. The team presented this paper at a symposium held at George Washington University. The inclusion of this paper in a publication of serious academic inquiry properly identifies cryonics as scientific discipline.

Concurrent with biological research, the American Cryonics Society established financial and managerial policy to better safeguard the funds of members in suspension. This included funding through life insurance and conservative estimates of suspension and maintenance costs to ensure adequate funding. In 1981, the American Cryonics Society employed attorney Jim Bianchi to develop model trust and model will documents for people who wished suspension. Mr. Bianchi also researched the legal basis for cryonics, and developed a set of related documents.

In 1978, the Cryonics Society of America researchers collaborated with Jerry Leaf of Cryovita Laboratories in experiments that would apply the methodology to cryonic suspensions that were then in use as surgical procedures to treat patients with heart disease. Thus a team led by a thoracic surgeon and a perfusionist would use cardio-pulmonary resuscitation equipment and blood-pumps to quickly cool a patient, and replace his blood with a blood substitute containing cryoprotectants. For several years thereafter, Cryovita Laboratories led by Jerry Leaf and Mike Darwin, were responsible for the initial cryonic suspension of patients of the American Cryonics Society, which were then perfused, transported, and kept in cryogenic storage by Trans Time. This method of making use of contract companies as a means of risk management was unique to the American Cryonics Society and has been followed to the present day.

In 1992, the American Cryonics Society signed contracts with the newly formed CryoSpan Corporation and transferred a number of patients to that Southern California facility, as well as making use of CryoSpan services for a number of new patients. At about this same time it contracted with BioPreservation Inc., operated by Mike Darwin, to perform the standby and initial suspension of the Cryonics Society of America members. The American Cryonics Society also purchased suspension and “first response” equipment from Darwin and other suppliers to enable the American Cryonics Society to freeze its own members, to supplement its employment of contract companies.

In 2002 when CryoSpan opted to close down its long-term cryogenic storage operations, 10 ACS patients and a number of pets were transferred to the Cryonics Institute (CI) facility in Michigan. The American Cryonics Society had contracted with CI for the long-term cryogenic storage of a number of other members prior to the 2002 patient transfer. The ACS inspects CI yearly to ensure ACS quality standards are met. The extra funds charged to ACS members beyond CI minimums could be used for moving the patients in the future if necessary, or other uses.

In 2004, the American Cryonics Society signed a contract with Suspended Animation, a Florida based company, and in the same year Suspended Animation performed a stand-by and suspension on an ACS member living in Florida at the time of his death. The patient was then transported to the CI Facility in Michigan for long-term cryogenic storage. When circumstances warrant, neural vitrification technology may also be applied to ACS subjects by CI personnel prior to long-term cryogenic storage. 

Policies

The American Cryonics Society is managed by a seven-person Board of Governors. Governors must themselves be full members, and are expected to have made suspension arrangements. Funds are managed by professional funds managers. As a further safeguard, a sponsor is designated for each person in suspension, to review financial records and cold-storage procedures.

The Cryonics Society of America works cooperatively with the Cryonics Institute and supports the research program of that organization. Most ACS (frozen) members are in suspension at the CI facility. The agreement with CI calls for the American Cryonics Society to have inspection authority, and to have the right to remove ACS subjects from that facility should the American Cryonics Society warrant that such removal is warranted and beneficial. Such subject would then be transferred to another facility. All ACS subjects are fully funded to CI’s specification, and in addition, funds to benefit the subjects are maintained by the American Cryonics Society. This funding plan provides a double safety net against the possible financial insolvency of either CI or ACS.

The American Cryonics Society encourages members and the public in general to subscribe to the Immortalist Magazine. This bi-monthly magazine is devoted to discussion of cryonics activities, especially those of the Cryonics Institute where most patients of the American Cryonics Society are in long term cryogenic storage. 

Scope

The American Cryonics Society welcomes members from any country, however the level of service that a member can expect in most countries outside the US and Canada is limited, and in many cases the member himself, sometimes working with other cryonics advocates, must work to make local arrangements. Even then, given so much uncertainty, the American Cryonics Society can make no guarantees. 

Perspective

The cryonics movement, which started with the publication of Robert Ettinger’s book The Prospect of Immortality in 1964, is still treated as a curiosity by most people, though cryonics continues to gain in acceptance by both the general public, and the scientific community. Given the small number of people in suspension, and the incidents of patients lost to carelessness or accident in the past, the risk management approach to cryonics followed by the American Cryonics Society is warranted. That said, the extant cryonics organizations appear to have stability not always present in the past, and there have been no recent incidents of lost patients.

There are (perhaps) 1,800 people with pre-need cryonics arrangements in place; however many of these people are young and not apt to need services for many years. As of the end of 2010, there are about 220 bodies now frozen. These numbers include members and frozen bodies from all organizations, in all countries. Almost half of them are at the Alcor facility, and half at the CI facility (which includes the patients of the American Cryonics Society). A couple of subjects are at Trans Time and KrioRus, and we will include in our count the dry ice storage of Mr. Bredo Morstoel, in Nederland, Colorado, though many cryonicists argue that because of the warmer storage temperature of Mr. Morstoel, he should not be counted as a "patient." Since the patients at the CI facility are almost all whole body patients (as opposed to head only), the volume of biological material at the CI facility is far greater than at the other facilities.

From 1974 to present, only one American Cryonics Society body has had to be transferred out of long-term cold storage. In that case the transfer was following a request made by the patient’s family, apparently for financial reasons. The patient was then preserved by chemical means. However, there have been several patients "converted" from whole-body to "neuro" because of funding concerns. The American Cryonics Society members either pre-approve or opt out of such arrangements as part of their contract. There have been no incidents in ACS history of embezzlement or loss of any patient funds.

Alcor Life Extension Foundation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
Founded1972
FounderFred & Linda Chamberlain
23-7154039
Registration no.F-0715896-5
FocusCryonics
Location
Coordinates33°37′2.52″N 111°54′39.36″W
Area served
Global
MethodApplication and further development of cryonics. Education of the public about cryonics.
Key people
President & CEO Max More
Revenue
Membership fees and donations; The Alcor Patient Care Trust
Employees
8
Websitealcor.org
Formerly called
Alcor Society for Solid State Hypothermia

This "bigfoot" Dewar is custom-designed to contain four full bodies and six brains immersed in liquid nitrogen at −196 degrees Celsius.
 
The Alcor Life Extension Foundation, most often referred to as Alcor, is an American nonprofit organization based in Scottsdale, Arizona, United States. Alcor advocates for, researches, and performs cryonics, the freezing of human corpses and brains in liquid nitrogen after legal death, with hopes of resurrecting and restoring them to full health in the unlikely event some new technology can be developed in the future. Cryonics is a pseudoscience. It is regarded with skepticism within the mainstream scientific community and has been characterized as quackery.

As of November 30, 2018, Alcor had 1,678 members, including 290 associate members and 164 who have died and whose corpses have been subject to cryonic processes. 96 bodies had only their head preserved.. Alcor also applies its cryonic process to the bodies of pets. As of February 13, 2009, there were 33 animal bodies preserved.

History

The organization was established as a nonprofit organization by Fred and Linda Chamberlain in California in 1972 as the Alcor Society for Solid State Hypothermia (ALCOR). Alcor was named after a faint star in the Big Dipper. The name was changed to Alcor Life Extension Foundation in 1977. The organization was conceived as a rational, technology-oriented cryonics organization that would be managed on a fiscally conservative basis. Alcor advertised in direct mailings and offered seminars in order to attract members and bring attention to the cryonics movement. The first of these seminars attracted 30 people. 

On July 16, 1976, Alcor performed its first human cryopreservation on Fred Chamberlain's father. That same year, research in cryonics began with initial funding provided by the Manrise Corporation. At that time, Alcor’s office consisted of a mobile surgical unit in a large van. Trans Time, Inc., a cryonics organization in the San Francisco Bay area, provided initial preservation procedures and long-term storage until Alcor began doing its own storage in 1982. 

In 1977, articles of incorporation were filed in Indianapolis by the Institute for Advanced Biological Studies (IABS) and Soma, Inc. IABS was a nonprofit research startup led by a young cryonics enthusiast named Steve Bridge, while Soma was intended as a for-profit organization to provide cryopreservation and human storage services. Its president, Mike Darwin, subsequently became a president of Alcor. Bridge filled the same position many years later. IABS and Soma relocated to California in 1981. Soma was disbanded, while IABS merged with Alcor in 1982.

Alcor grew slowly in its early years. In 1984, it merged with the Cryonics Society of South Florida. Alcor counted only 50 members in 1985, which was the year it cryopreserved its third patient. However, during this time researchers associated with Alcor contributed some of the most important techniques related to cryopreservation, eventually leading to today's method of vitrification.

Increasing growth in membership during this period is partially attributed to the 1986 publication of Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation, which debuted the idea of nanotechnology and contained a chapter on cryonics. In 1986, a group of Alcor members formed Symbex, a small investment company which funded a building in Riverside, California, for lease by Alcor. Alcor moved from Fullerton, California, to the new building in Riverside in 1987; Timothy Leary appeared at the grand opening. Alcor cryopreserved a member’s companion animal in 1986, and two people in 1987. Three human cases were handled in 1988, including the first whole body patient of Alcor's, and one in 1989. At that time, Alcor owned 20% interest in Symbex, with a goal of 51% ownership. In September 1988, Leary announced that he had signed up with Alcor, becoming the first celebrity to become an Alcor member. Leary later switched to a different cryonics organization, CryoCare, and then changed his mind altogether. Alcor's Vice-President, Director, head of suspension team and chief surgeon, Jerry Leaf, died suddenly of a heart attack in 1991. 

By 1990, Alcor had grown to 300 members and outgrown its California headquarters, which was the largest cryonics facility in the world. The organization wanted to remain in Riverside County, but in response to concerns that the California facility was also vulnerable to earthquake risk, the organization purchased a building in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1993 and moved its stored bodies to it in 1994.

Canadian businessman, Robert Miller, founder of Future Electronics, has provided research funding to Alcor prior to 2007.

Policies and procedures

Most Alcor members fund cryonic preservation through life insurance policies which name Alcor as the beneficiary. Members who have signed up wear medical alert bracelets informing hospitals and doctors to notify Alcor in case of any emergency; in the case of a person who is known to be near death, Alcor can send a team for remote standby.

In some states, members can sign certificates stating that they wish to decline an autopsy. The cutting of the body organs (especially the brain) and blood vessels required for an autopsy makes it difficult to either preserve the body, especially the brain, without damage or perfuse the body with glycerol. The optimum preservation procedure begins less than one hour after death. Members can specify whether they wish Alcor to attempt to preserve even if an autopsy occurs, or whether they wish to be buried or cremated if an autopsy renders little hope for preservation.

In cases with remote standby, cardiopulmonary support is begun as soon as a patient is declared legally dead. Some patients were not able to receive cardiopulmonary support immediately, but their bodies have been preserved as well as possible. Alcor has a network of paramedics nationwide and seven surgeons, located in different regions, who are on call 24 hours a day. If an Alcor patient is met by a standby team (usually at a hospital, hospice, or home), the team will perform CPR to maintain blood flow to the brain and organs while simultaneously pumping an organ preservation solution through the veins.

Patients are transported as quickly as possible to Alcor headquarters in Scottsdale, where they undergo final preparations in Alcor's cardiopulmonary bypass lab. In the Patient Care Bay they are monitored by computer sensors while kept in liquid nitrogen in dewars. Liquid nitrogen is refilled on a weekly basis. Riverside County, California deputy coroner Dan Cupido said that Alcor had better equipment than some medical facilities.

Membership dues cover one-third of Alcor's yearly budget, with donations and case income from cryopreservations covering the rest. Alcor receives $50,000 each year from television royalties donated by sitcom writer and producer Richard C. Jones who is in suspension. In 1997, after a substantial effort led by then-president Steve Bridge, Alcor formed the Patient Care Trust as an entirely separate entity to manage and protect the funding for storage, including owning the building. Alcor remains the only cryonics organization to segregate and protect funding in this way; the 2% annual growth of the Trust is enough for upkeep of the patients. At least $115,000 of the money received for each full body goes into this trust for future storage, $25,000 for a brain. Some members have already taken steps to do this on their own. Possessions can also be stored, via a third party. 

Stored corpses

Stored corpses include those of Dick Clair, an Emmy Award-winning television sitcom writer and producer, Hall of Fame baseball legend Ted Williams and his son John Henry Williams, and futurist FM-2030.

Corpse storage has grown at a rate of about eight percent a year since Alcor's inception, tripling between 1987 and 1990. The oldest stored body (by age at decease) is a 101-year-old woman, and the youngest is a 2-year-old girl. Alcor has had customers from Australia. One in four of its customers reside in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Cases and Controversies


Dora Kent

Before the company moved to Arizona from Riverside, California, in 1994, it became a center of controversy when a county coroner ruled that Alcor client Dora Kent (Alcor board member Saul Kent's mother) was murdered with barbiturates before her head was removed for preservation by the company's staff. Alcor contended that the drug was administered after her death. No charges were ever filed; former Riverside County deputy coroner Alan Kunzman later claimed that this was due to mistakes and poor decision-making by others in his office.

A judge ruled that Kent was already deceased at the time of preservation, and no foul play was involved. Alcor sued the county for false arrest and illegal seizure and won both suits. The incident is credited with spurring a growth in membership for Alcor due to the resultant publicity.

Ted Williams

In 2002, Alcor drew considerable attention when baseball star Ted Williams was placed in cryonic suspension; although Alcor maintains privacy of its patients if they wish and did not disclose that Williams was at the Scottsdale facility, the situation came to light in court documents that grew out of an extended family dispute over Williams' wishes for his remains. While Williams' children Claudia and John Henry contended that Williams wished to be preserved at Alcor, their half-sister and oldest Williams child Bobby-Jo Ferrell contested that her father wished to be cremated. Williams' attorney produced a note signed by Williams, John Henry, and Claudia saying: "JHW, Claudia and Dad all agree to be put into biostasis after we die. This is what we want, to be able to be together in the future, even if it is only a chance." John Henry later said, "He was very into science and believed in new technology and human advancement and was a pioneer. Even though things seemed impossible at times, he always knew there was always a chance to catch a fish -- only if you had your fly in the water."

In 2003, Sports Illustrated published allegations by former Alcor COO Larry Johnson that the company had mishandled Williams' head by drilling holes and accidentally cracking it. Johnson also claimed that some of Williams' DNA was missing; the article alleges that Williams' son, John Henry Williams, desired to sell some of his father's DNA, a charge John Henry denied. Williams' attorney called the DNA allegations an "absurd proposition" and accused Johnson of trying to grab headlines.[31] Alcor denied the allegations of missing DNA.

John Henry Williams subsequently died of leukemia, and his remains are also stored at Alcor. After John Henry's death, Ferrell again filed a lawsuit, but representatives of Williams' estate repeated that he wished to be at Alcor.

1992 death

In addition to his Williams allegations, Johnson handed over to the police a taped conversation in which he claims Alcor facilities engineer Hugh Hixon stated that an Alcor employee deliberately hastened the imminent 1992 death of a terminally ill AIDS patient, with an injection of Metubine, a paralytic drug. In 2009, Carlos Mondragon, Alcor's CEO at the time of the incident, told ABC News he had been made aware of the allegations at the time of the case, and as a result, had severed Alcor's ties with the employee who allegedly hastened the patient's death.

Alcor Life Extension Foundation v. Richardson

In Alcor Life Extension Foundation v. Richardson, the Iowa Court of Appeals ordered the disinterment of Orville Richardson for cryopreservation after he had been buried against his wishes.

Immortality Part 2

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

Religious views

As late as 1952, the editorial staff of the Syntopicon found in their compilation of the Great Books of the Western World, that "The philosophical issue concerning immortality cannot be separated from issues concerning the existence and nature of man's soul." Thus, the vast majority of speculation regarding immortality before the 21st century was regarding the nature of the afterlife.

Ancient Greek religion

Immortality in ancient Greek religion originally always included an eternal union of body and soul as can be seen in Homer, Hesiod, and various other ancient texts. The soul was considered to have an eternal existence in Hades, but without the body the soul was considered dead. Although almost everybody had nothing to look forward to but an eternal existence as a disembodied dead soul, a number of men and women were considered to have gained physical immortality and been brought to live forever in either Elysium, the Islands of the Blessed, heaven, the ocean or literally right under the ground. Among these were Amphiaraus, Ganymede, Ino, Iphigenia, Menelaus, Peleus, and a great part of those who fought in the Trojan and Theban wars. Some were considered to have died and been resurrected before they achieved physical immortality. Asclepius was killed by Zeus only to be resurrected and transformed into a major deity. In some versions of the Trojan War myth, Achilles, after being killed, was snatched from his funeral pyre by his divine mother Thetis, resurrected, and brought to an immortal existence in either Leuce, the Elysian plains, or the Islands of the Blessed. Memnon, who was killed by Achilles, seems to have received a similar fate. Alcmene, Castor, Heracles, and Melicertes were also among the figures sometimes considered to have been resurrected to physical immortality. According to Herodotus' Histories, the 7th century BC sage Aristeas of Proconnesus was first found dead, after which his body disappeared from a locked room. Later he was found not only to have been resurrected but to have gained immortality. 

The philosophical idea of an immortal soul was a belief first appearing with either Pherecydes or the Orphics, and most importantly advocated by Plato and his followers. This, however, never became the general norm in Hellenistic thought. As may be witnessed even into the Christian era, not least by the complaints of various philosophers over popular beliefs, many or perhaps most traditional Greeks maintained the conviction that certain individuals were resurrected from the dead and made physically immortal and that others could only look forward to an existence as disembodied and dead, though everlasting, souls. The parallel between these traditional beliefs and the later resurrection of Jesus was not lost on the early Christians, as Justin Martyr argued: "when we say ... Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propose nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you consider sons of Zeus." (1 Apol. 21). 

Buddhism

According to one Tibetan Buddhist teaching, Dzogchen, individuals can transform the physical body into an immortal body of light called the rainbow body.

Christianity

Adam and Eve condemned to mortality. Hans Holbein the Younger, Danse Macabre, 16th century
 
Christian theology holds that Adam and Eve lost physical immortality for themselves and all their descendants in the Fall of man, although this initial "imperishability of the bodily frame of man" was "a preternatural condition". Christians who profess the Nicene Creed believe that every dead person (whether they believed in Christ or not) will be resurrected from the dead at the Second Coming, and this belief is known as Universal resurrection.

N.T. Wright, a theologian and former Bishop of Durham, has said many people forget the physical aspect of what Jesus promised. He told Time: "Jesus' resurrection marks the beginning of a restoration that he will complete upon his return. Part of this will be the resurrection of all the dead, who will 'awake', be embodied and participate in the renewal. Wright says John Polkinghorne, a physicist and a priest, has put it this way: 'God will download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves.' That gets to two things nicely: that the period after death (the Intermediate state) is a period when we are in God's presence but not active in our own bodies, and also that the more important transformation will be when we are again embodied and administering Christ's kingdom." This kingdom will consist of Heaven and Earth "joined together in a new creation", he said. 

Hinduism

Representation of a soul undergoing punarjanma. Illustration from Hinduism Today, 2004
 
Hindus believe in an immortal soul which is reincarnated after death. According to Hinduism, people repeat a process of life, death, and rebirth in a cycle called samsara. If they live their life well, their karma improves and their station in the next life will be higher, and conversely lower if they live their life poorly. After many life times of perfecting its karma, the soul is freed from the cycle and lives in perpetual bliss. There is no place of eternal torment in Hinduism, although if a soul consistently lives very evil lives, it could work its way down to the very bottom of the cycle.

There are explicit renderings in the Upanishads alluding to a physically immortal state brought about by purification, and sublimation of the 5 elements that make up the body. For example, in the Shvetashvatara Upanishad (Chapter 2, Verse 12), it is stated "When earth, water, fire, air and sky arise, that is to say, when the five attributes of the elements, mentioned in the books on yoga, become manifest then the yogi's body becomes purified by the fire of yoga and he is free from illness, old age and death."

Another view of immortality is traced to the Vedic tradition by the interpretation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi:
That man indeed whom these (contacts)
do not disturb, who is even-minded in
pleasure and pain, steadfast, he is fit
for immortality, O best of men.
To Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the verse means, "Once a man has become established in the understanding of the permanent reality of life, his mind rises above the influence of pleasure and pain. Such an unshakable man passes beyond the influence of death and in the permanent phase of life: he attains eternal life ... A man established in the understanding of the unlimited abundance of absolute existence is naturally free from existence of the relative order. This is what gives him the status of immortal life."

An Indian Tamil saint known as Vallalar claimed to have achieved immortality before disappearing forever from a locked room in 1874.

Judaism

The traditional concept of an immaterial and immortal soul distinct from the body was not found in Judaism before the Babylonian Exile, but developed as a result of interaction with Persian and Hellenistic philosophies. Accordingly, the Hebrew word nephesh, although translated as "soul" in some older English Bibles, actually has a meaning closer to "living being". Nephesh was rendered in the Septuagint as ψυχή (psūchê), the Greek word for soul.

The only Hebrew word traditionally translated "soul" (nephesh) in English language Bibles refers to a living, breathing conscious body, rather than to an immortal soul. In the New Testament, the Greek word traditionally translated "soul" (ψυχή) has substantially the same meaning as the Hebrew, without reference to an immortal soul. ‘Soul’ may refer to the whole person, the self: ‘three thousand souls’ were converted in Acts 2:41 (see Acts 3:23).

The Hebrew Bible speaks about Sheol (שאול), originally a synonym of the grave-the repository of the dead or the cessation of existence until the resurrection of the dead. This doctrine of resurrection is mentioned explicitly only in Daniel 12:1–4 although it may be implied in several other texts. New theories arose concerning Sheol during the intertestamental period.

The views about immortality in Judaism is perhaps best exemplified by the various references to this in Second Temple Period. The concept of resurrection of the physical body is found in 2 Maccabees, according to which it will happen through recreation of the flesh. Resurrection of the dead also appears in detail in the extra-canonical books of Enoch, and in Apocalypse of Baruch. According to the British scholar in ancient Judaism Philip R. Davies, there is “little or no clear reference … either to immortality or to resurrection from the dead” in the Dead Sea scrolls texts. Both Josephus and the New Testament record that the Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife, but the sources vary on the beliefs of the Pharisees. The New Testament claims that the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, but does not specify whether this included the flesh or not. According to Josephus, who himself was a Pharisee, the Pharisees held that only the soul was immortal and the souls of good people will be reincarnated and “pass into other bodies,” while “the souls of the wicked will suffer eternal punishment.”  Jubilees seems to refer to the resurrection of the soul only, or to a more general idea of an immortal soul.

Rabbinic Judaism claims that the righteous dead will be resurrected in the Messianic Age with the coming of the messiah. They will then be granted immortality in a perfect world. The wicked dead, on the other hand, will not be resurrected at all. This is not the only Jewish belief about the afterlife. The Tanakh is not specific about the afterlife, so there are wide differences in views and explanations among believers.

Taoism

It is repeatedly stated in the Lüshi Chunqiu that death is unavoidable. Henri Maspero noted that many scholarly works frame Taoism as a school of thought focused on the quest for immortality. Isabelle Robinet asserts that Taoism is better understood as a way of life than as a religion, and that its adherents do not approach or view Taoism the way non-Taoist historians have done. In the Tractate of Actions and their Retributions, a traditional teaching, spiritual immortality can be rewarded to people who do a certain amount of good deeds and live a simple, pure life. A list of good deeds and sins are tallied to determine whether or not a mortal is worthy. Spiritual immortality in this definition allows the soul to leave the earthly realms of afterlife and go to pure realms in the Taoist cosmology.

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrians believe that on the fourth day after death, the human soul leaves the body and the body remains as an empty shell. Souls would go to either heaven or hell; these concepts of the afterlife in Zoroastrianism may have influenced Abrahamic religions. The Persian word for "immortal" is associated with the month "Amurdad", meaning "deathless" in Persian, in the Iranian calendar (near the end of July). The month of Amurdad or Ameretat is celebrated in Persian culture as ancient Persians believed the "Angel of Immortality" won over the "Angel of Death" in this month.

Philosophical arguments for the immortality of the soul


Alcmaeon of Croton

Alcmaeon of Croton argued that the soul is continuously and ceaselessly in motion. The exact form of his argument is unclear, but it appears to have influenced Plato, Aristotle, and other later writers.

Plato

Plato's Phaedo advances four arguments for the soul's immortality:
  • The Cyclical Argument, or Opposites Argument explains that Forms are eternal and unchanging, and as the soul always brings life, then it must not die, and is necessarily "imperishable". As the body is mortal and is subject to physical death, the soul must be its indestructible opposite. Plato then suggests the analogy of fire and cold. If the form of cold is imperishable, and fire, its opposite, was within close proximity, it would have to withdraw intact as does the soul during death. This could be likened to the idea of the opposite charges of magnets.
  • The Theory of Recollection explains that we possess some non-empirical knowledge (e.g. The Form of Equality) at birth, implying the soul existed before birth to carry that knowledge. Another account of the theory is found in Plato's Meno, although in that case Socrates implies anamnesis (previous knowledge of everything) whereas he is not so bold in Phaedo.
  • The Affinity Argument, explains that invisible, immortal, and incorporeal things are different from visible, mortal, and corporeal things. Our soul is of the former, while our body is of the latter, so when our bodies die and decay, our soul will continue to live.
  • The Argument from Form of Life, or The Final Argument explains that the Forms, incorporeal and static entities, are the cause of all things in the world, and all things participate in Forms. For example, beautiful things participate in the Form of Beauty; the number four participates in the Form of the Even, etc. The soul, by its very nature, participates in the Form of Life, which means the soul can never die.

Plotinus

Plotinus offers a version of the argument that Kant calls "The Achilles of Rationalist Psychology". Plotinus first argues that the soul is simple, then notes that a simple being cannot decompose. Many subsequent philosophers have argued both that the soul is simple and that it must be immortal. The tradition arguably culminates with Moses Mendelssohn's Phaedon.

Metochites

Theodore Metochites argues that part of the soul's nature is to move itself, but that a given movement will cease only if what causes the movement is separated from the thing moved – an impossibility if they are one and the same.

Avicenna

Avicenna argued for the distinctness of the soul and the body, and the incorruptibility of the former.

Aquinas

The full argument for the immortality of the soul and Thomas Aquinas' elaboration of Aristotelian theory is found in Question 75 of the First Part of the Summa Theologica.

Descartes

René Descartes endorses the claim that the soul is simple, and also that this entails that it cannot decompose. Descartes does not address the possibility that the soul might suddenly disappear.

Leibniz

In early work, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz endorses a version of the argument from the simplicity of the soul to its immortality, but like his predecessors, he does not address the possibility that the soul might suddenly disappear. In his monadology he advances a sophisticated novel argument for the immortality of monads.

Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn's Phaedon is a defense of the simplicity and immortality of the soul. It is a series of three dialogues, revisiting the Platonic dialogue Phaedo, in which Socrates argues for the immortality of the soul, in preparation for his own death. Many philosophers, including Plotinus, Descartes, and Leibniz, argue that the soul is simple, and that because simples cannot decompose they must be immortal. In the Phaedon, Mendelssohn addresses gaps in earlier versions of this argument (an argument that Kant calls the Achilles of Rationalist Psychology). The Phaedon contains an original argument for the simplicity of the soul, and also an original argument that simples cannot suddenly disappear. It contains further original arguments that the soul must retain its rational capacities as long as it exists.

Ethics

The possibility of clinical immortality raises a host of medical, philosophical, and religious issues and ethical questions. These include persistent vegetative states, the nature of personality over time, technology to mimic or copy the mind or its processes, social and economic disparities created by longevity, and survival of the heat death of the universe

Undesirability

Physical immortality has also been imagined as a form of eternal torment, as in Mary Shelley's short story "The Mortal Immortal", the protagonist of which witnesses everyone he cares about dying around him. Jorge Luis Borges explored the idea that life gets its meaning from death in the short story "The Immortal"; an entire society having achieved immortality, they found time becoming infinite, and so found no motivation for any action. In his book Thursday's Fictions, and the stage and film adaptations of it, Richard James Allen tells the story of a woman named Thursday who tries to cheat the cycle of reincarnation to get a form of eternal life. At the end of this fantastical tale, her son, Wednesday, who has witnessed the havoc his mother's quest has caused, forgoes the opportunity for immortality when it is offered to him. Likewise, the novel Tuck Everlasting depicts immortality as "falling off the wheel of life" and is viewed as a curse as opposed to a blessing. In the anime Casshern Sins humanity achieves immortality due to advances in medical technology; however, the inability of the human race to die causes Luna, a Messianic figure, to come forth and offer normal lifespans because she believed that without death, humans could not live. Ultimately, Casshern takes up the cause of death for humanity when Luna begins to restore humanity's immortality. In Anne Rice's book series The Vampire Chronicles, vampires are portrayed as immortal and ageless, but their inability to cope with the changes in the world around them means that few vampires live for much more than a century, and those who do often view their changeless form as a curse.

In his book Death, Yale philosopher Shelly Kagan argues that any form of human immortality would be undesirable. Kagan's argument takes the form of a dilemma. Either our characters remain essentially the same in an immortal afterlife, or they do not. If our characters remain basically the same—that is, if we retain more or less the desires, interests, and goals that we have now—then eventually, over an infinite stretch of time, we will get bored and find eternal life unbearably tedious. If, on the other hand, our characters are radically changed—e.g., by God periodically erasing our memories or giving us rat-like brains that never tire of certain simple pleasures—then such a person would be too different from our current self for us to care much what happens to them. Either way, Kagan argues, immortality is unattractive. The best outcome, Kagan argues, would be for humans to live as long as they desired and then to accept death gratefully as rescuing us from the unbearable tedium of immortality.

Sociology

If human beings were to achieve immortality, there would most likely be a change in the worlds' social structures. Sociologists argue that human beings' awareness of their own mortality shapes their behavior. With the advancements in medical technology in extending human life, there may need to be serious considerations made about future social structures. The world is already experiencing a global demographic shift of increasingly ageing populations with lower replacement rates. The social changes that are made to accommodate this new population shift may be able to offer insight on the possibility of an immortal society. 

Politics

Although some scientists state that radical life extension, delaying and stopping aging are achievable, there are no international or national programs focused on stopping aging or on radical life extension. In 2012 in Russia, and then in the United States, Israel and the Netherlands, pro-immortality political parties were launched. They aimed to provide political support to anti-aging and radical life extension research and technologies and at the same time transition to the next step, radical life extension, life without aging, and finally, immortality and aim to make possible access to such technologies to most currently living people.

Symbols

The ankh
 
There are numerous symbols representing immortality. The ankh is an Egyptian symbol of life that holds connotations of immortality when depicted in the hands of the gods and pharaohs, who were seen as having control over the journey of life. The Möbius strip in the shape of a trefoil knot is another symbol of immortality. Most symbolic representations of infinity or the life cycle are often used to represent immortality depending on the context they are placed in. Other examples include the Ouroboros, the Chinese fungus of longevity, the ten kanji, the phoenix, the peacock in Christianity, and the colors amaranth (in Western culture) and peach (in Chinese culture). 

Fiction

Immortality is a popular subject in fiction, as it explores humanity's deep-seated fears and comprehension of its own mortality. Immortal beings and species abound in fiction, especially fantasy fiction, and the meaning of "immortal" tends to vary. The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the first literary works, is primarily a quest of a hero seeking to become immortal.

Some fictional beings are completely immortal (or very nearly so) in that they are immune to death by injury, disease and age. Sometimes such powerful immortals can only be killed by each other, as is the case with the Q from the Star Trek series. Even if something can't be killed, a common plot device involves putting an immortal being into a slumber or limbo, as is done with Morgoth in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and the Dreaming God of Pathways Into Darkness. Storytellers often make it a point to give weaknesses to even the most indestructible of beings. For instance, Superman is supposed to be invulnerable, yet his enemies were able to exploit his now-infamous weakness: Kryptonite.

Many fictitious species are said to be immortal if they cannot die of old age, even though they can be killed through other means, such as injury. Modern fantasy elves often exhibit this form of immortality. Other creatures, such as vampires and the immortals in the film Highlander, can only die from beheading. The classic and stereotypical vampire is typically slain by one of several very specific means, including a silver bullet (or piercing with other silver weapons), a stake through the heart (perhaps made of consecrated wood), or by exposing them to sunlight.

The 2018 science fiction TV series Ad vitam explored the social impact of biological immortality.

Gene

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene Chromosome ...