Re: The Immortalists.
Originally Posted by
eyes_of_a_painter
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My thinking is that there is a vital life force that resides throughout the human body.. This same force is what causes the heart to beat, allows us to breath in and out and gives intelligence to our cells, an intelligence that directs our cells to protect our bodies from invading viruses.
You beat me to it Rudolpho ! No surprise there
I put the Horizon programme on expecting to hear about a rich man looking to create the Philosopher's Stone so it was a big let down for me.
I am in total agreement that what makes me, Me, is the quintessence, the vital life force that exists within every living thing and without which there is no life. Our memories and experiences in part shape who we are and how we behave, but they are not the totality of what we are.
Take a look a Alzheimer or dementure patients whom you know and tell me what you see.
I'm mindful of the great Prunella Scales who was Cybil in the fantastic Fawlty Towers series. When you look at how feisty and loud she was in that series and then contrast that with the gentle and much simpler woman she has now become you can start to ask the question . . . "Is she the same woman?"
If she is still that same Prunella Scales, then we must concede that memories and experiences are not "us". If not then we must say that she is now a totally new woman, a different human being.
This is really an old philosophical chestnut. The conundrum usually runs thus:
Two men lie on adjacent operating tables and we are in a point in time where a total brain transplant has become a reality. If the brain from Man A is transplanted into the head of Man B, does Man B suddenly become Man A?
And if the brain from Man B is put into Man A does Man A then become Man B?
It is a dilemma.
At the end of the day, I tend to think that if you were to take a living adult, and totally wipe their brain clean of all past memories and experiences so that they had to start all over, they would still be the same person, the same human, though they would no longer act as they did before.
The quest for immortality is in my opinion a worthy one. The nature of Nature appears to be that living things go through various stages of growth and/or metamorphosis. It seems quite possible to me that were a human allowed to live for say 500 years that they would experience a further stage in human growth. All we know of at present are the stages of Baby, Child, Teenager and Adult. I think there could be more.