Tag Archives: immortality

Entombment: Into the Light

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Much of our semester has been conducted around the very illusive word ‘embodiment,’ whether in context with N.Katherine Hayles and her temporal debate on when does a person become machine or vice versa? or in relation to the spirit’s manifestation within the body as something entirely alien and foreign to earthly bound rules, there has always been argument to spare concerning this term. Exactly when I thought harmony was lost to the perfection of technology and the preservation of a species, I was rewarded with a return to the earth in the most dismal of methods. Finally enlightened, this week’s readings of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kemp guided my critical eye to focus on a different phrase, entombment. Continue reading →

Kurzweil on the approaching singularity

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In her response essay, “After shocks: Posthuman ambivalence,” Hayles points out the restrictive components of the theory; characteristic of many models of the post-human future, singularity may only be survived by those with the means to keep up. MIT-graduate and award-winning inventor Ray Kurzweil has even founded a university for those deemed capable of surviving the transition.  His school aims to spread and encourage the acceptance of the next stage of humanity.  Kurzweil’s main concern, he says, is staying alive until the problem of immortality is solved.  Continue reading →

Conscious

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A lot of what futuristic depictions of man seem to be concerned with is the idea of the mobile or transferable conscious. In Battlestar Galactica we see it in the Cylons who are unable to die because they are theoretically “transferred” or “downloaded” back to a new body. in Dark City we saw a twist on this in that the individual thoughts/memories/conceptions could be extracted from one individual human and inserted into another individuals brain. These similarities brought to my mind various other versions of the future human’s brain being a separate and moldable entity from the body. Continue reading →

Equal Exchange: What Price Do We Pay For Immortality?

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Immortality has been seen in myth in many forms, as an eternal elixir, a golden fruit from the tree of life, and as the philosopher’s stone. This divine power has been a speculation of pure fantasy until very recently. Langdon Winner’s article, “Are Humans Obsolete?”, discusses the very real possibilities of obtaining the divine status of mythological legacy with the help of advanced technology. Continue reading →

Being Without Death

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In his book Being and Time, the german philosopher Martin Heidegger gives an account of human existence in the world as Dasein (translated as ‘being-there’). In his account of dasein, Heidegger explains that our existence is character by a thrown-ness; we are cast, in the beginning of our lives, into a certain temporal and cultural context, and though that context may change throughout our lives, we are destined throughout to live in one or another kind of kind, within our own time. He also explains that humans are beings-towards-death, and that our inevitable projection towards death gives our temporal, contextual existence that much more meaning. It is precisely because we can’t live in every context, and every time, that we are temporal, contextual beings. Continue reading →