I wish nothing more than people living long, healthy, happy and productive lives so I'm excited about the extraordinary medical and technological advances we are seeing.
Joel Garreau, the author of Radical Evolution, showed me how how we are riding on a curve of exponential change in genetics, robotics, information and nano (GRIN) technologies that is unprecedented in human nature.
Much as being made of Ray Kurzweil's, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology which I haven't read. But when it comes to radical life extension advocates, I get the creeps. Why does living to 140 or 350 years sound so unappealing? I couldn't put my finger on it until I read an interview of Bioethicist William Hurlburt on the dangers of radical life extension.
It's like stretching out a symphony, playing it at half speed so it goes on longer–it wouldn't have the same beauty or meaning. We get a taste of each relational category–being a child, a parent, and a grandparent. And our direct family lineage is connected by both genetics and personal experience, not so attenuated by time that relatives feel unrelated. If people lived to be 140, as some scientists suggest we will through technological intervention, a child could have 64 great-great-great-great-grandparents whose names he or she could never remember. In our natural lifespan, there is a harmony of proportion between the cycles of birth, ascendancy, and decline–phases of generation, nurture, and dependency that give a sense of meaningful connection within the journey of our lives.
For the most part, I'm not afraid of dying because Life Will Always Continue. If you see yourself as inter-connected to all life, then dying is far more of a natural process, part of a Great Harmony.
My greatest concern is not how long we can live, but the rapidity of technological advances that is not being matched by similar advances in our wisdom or our ethics.
Posted by Jill Fallon at October 29, 2005 4:06 PM | Permalink