Immortality

Immortality refers to the condition of potentially infinite or indeterminate lifespan. "Non-mortals" conceptually, would be immune to many or all current aspects of mortality; fragile form, poor health, and diseases.

Jacques Cousteau, in the preface to his book The Ocean World, expressed his meditations on physical immortality, as a part of life and its adaptive processes: 'Death', says Cousteau,'is a fundamental aspect of evolution', and similarly, 'evolution is fundamental to survival'. He thus reasons that 'immortality does not present itself, in biological terms, as a possible means to avoid death': "Mortal or immortal, [an organism] must die."

Spiritual Immortality, on the other hand, is a belief that is expressed in nearly every religious tradition. In Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, the monotheistic concept of God reigns over a dimension of spirit, from which living beings borrow for mortal lengths of time. After death, the Spirit returns to the heavens where it came from. Though, depending on the tradition, this may be conditional; as related to mortal acts of sin, and redemption.

In Buddhism, Hinduism, and other Eastern religious traditions, the Spirit is a permeating energy, in many ways, very similar to the Western concept. The difference being the concept of God: In the monotheistic West, God is a single personification of the all-trancending Spirit. In the East, many Gods serve to represent only aspect of this all-transending Spirit, which is visible - conceivable - to man.

Ideas of immortality

Considerations of immortality usually bring to mind the idea of unending existence, a freedom from the concerns of annihilation and death. Often times, talk of the immortality of the soul arises in conjunction with talk of immortality.

I. Unending existence is too simple a condition for immortality. As a thought experiment, suppose a doctor relates to his patient that a strange new serum has been discovered. Upon taking this serum, all of the standard biological processes which lead to aging are cured: (1) the effects of reaching the end of a finite turnover of cells are no longer noted in the patient, (2) chromosomal aberrations cease, thus eliminating copying errors when cells duplicate, and (3) the accumulation of metabolic, inadvertently destructive or post-translational errors from cell division (along with waste products) no longer occur. The only side effect, unfortunately, is that it uses the full gamut of sodium, potassium, and calcium ions in your brain to jump-start the serum process; the brain is destroyed instantly.

Would this strange new serum be good news? Not at all, since unending biological functioning is not what is at issue in immortality. Ultimately, one desires is some sort of permanent preservation of personal identity, not just unceasing metabolic integrity.

II. Neither is a freedom from the concerns of annihilation and death sufficient to capture what is desired. Essential to many of the world’s religions is a doctrine of an eternal afterlife. But well known narratives from Christianity and Islam show why freedom from annihilation and death could (in principle) not be good news:

"The rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence." (Luke 16:22-26 King James Bible Translation)

"Those who are wretched shall be in the Fire: There will be for them therein (nothing but) the heaving of sighs and sobs: They will dwell therein for all the time that the heavens and the earth endure, except as thy Lord willeth: for thy Lord is the (sure) accomplisher of what He planneth. And those who are blessed shall be in the Garden: They will dwell therein for all the time that the heavens and the earth endure, except as thy Lord willeth: a gift without break. (The Noble Quran, 11:106-108)"

Instances from other religions could be adduced. Mere perpetual existence is not enough. Ultimately, one desires that this existence be of a desirable quality.

III. When talk of a "soul" arises, immediately concerns of psychology and metaphysics become relevant. Suppose, as yet another thought experiment, an engineer produces a wondrous new nano-technology machine. At two key moments during life, he might eagerly announce, a human would step into this device. At the first trip into the device, a full molecular scan of all 10^27 atoms (or so) in the body is recorded. At the second trip into the device, ideally many years later, the molecular structure is instantly dissimilated. Furthermore during this second trip, a reference is taken of the earlier scan, and an appropriate amount of organic goo is added or subtracted to precisely match the configuration of materials original to the 10^27 atoms as configured at the first scan. As an application – Jones at 30 walks in; Jones at 30 walks out. Years later, Jones at 80 walks in; Jones (allegedly) at 30 walks out. Has the engineer done Jones a favor?

The engineer has not Jones a favor, even if Jones could, as it were, "wash, rinse, and repeat" this whole cycle indefinitely. First off, it is anything but clear that the human exiting the machine at the second trip is Jones. Perhaps he is better labeled, Jones*. Presuming that memory is a physiological structure encoded by neural pathways, Jones* would not preserve the memory of Jones, since Jones* would not have the encoded neural pathways of an 80-year-old, but only of a 30-year-old. Hence, all that Jones was as the collection of memory experiences upon second entry into the device is lost; thus, Jones is effectively dead. Immortality would offer little if the best results obtainable were a recurring coda of temporal duplicates.

Second, even if the eager engineer were to modify his machine (due to popular demand) so as to configure all the neural pathways of Jones* to match Jones, this would still present problems. Jones does not want a perfect duplicate to exit the machine at the second trip, but Jones himself wants to exit the machine. Granted, if all were done discretely, Jones’ wife, Jones’ mistress, and Jones’ poker buddies would think that Jones* was Jones, and even Jones* himself might think he was Jones, but thinking that such-n-such is true is hardly a guarantee that such-n-such really is true, as any jilted lover can attest.

Third, the Jones/Jones* problem is at issue in religious accounts of resurrection. Since humans share substantial quanta of their atoms with others who have preceded them in history (i.e., coffins leak, eventually, and nature cycles the organic material back through the biosphere), any resurrection cannot use all the original atomic collection for each individual to be resurrected. New material would be required; thus, worries about a duplicate thinking that s/he was the original person arise for the pious as well as for the pagan.

Apparently, on any account where immortality requires a remanufacture of a body in order to maintain character identity, seemingly insurmountable difficulties present themselves. Some views of quantum immortality approach the general issue of immortality differently.