A reader writes:
My following question stems from an article on CNN.com about a futurist who is trying keep healthy so that he can live long enough for science to be able to provide immortality:
Hah! As if! Sorry. Ain’t gonna happen.
I know you’re a sci-fi lover so I figured you may have though about how this might rest with the Faith. Would it be sinful to try to achieve immortality? I get the feeling that the answer is "yes" because God intends us to eventually join him in Heaven but I’m guessing there is a lot of grey area.
I would disagree, at least with the grounds stated. Dying is not a necessary precondition for joining God in heaven. St. Paul writes that at the last day, when Christ returns, those who are still alive will be transformed in the twinkling of an eye and be united with Jesus (at which point heaven and earth will become one, Revelation tells us). So if someone (in a state of grace) extended his own life indefinitely then he’d still be here when Jesus comes back and be untied with God.
One could argue that death is a punishment God means us to have and that it would be wrong to throw off the yoke of this punishment, but God doesn’t seem to mind us working to undo other effects of the Fall (e.g., striving against our fallen natures by his grace), so I don’t think that one could prove that it would be wrong to indefinitely extend one’s life by those means. We already know it’s kosher for physicians to help us extend our lives (Sirach is explicit on this point). At that point, it’s hard to see how any "you must not let your life go beyond this point or it’s a sin" command could be derived from the deposit of faith or natural law.
For instance, the nanites, stem cells (non-embryonic, of course), and other medical treatments could be used just to fight disease and not repair cell aging. In this way, you might live 2 or 3 times as long as you normally would. Would it be wrong if you used the technology to keep you alive for an extra 10, 50 or even 100 years and then stop using it? Would that be immoral? If not, how do you draw the line?
From what I can see, it would not be immoral. It also would not be immortal. "Immortal" means "exempt from death" (lit., "not mortal," with "mortal" meaning "subject to death"). If all you’re doing is upping the human lifespan, but not exempting a person from ultimate death, it ain’t immortality, just a longer mortality.
I don’t know if this makes a difference but this "immortality", would only protect against natural death.
Yeah, like Lorien on B5, who wouldn’t die on his own but could die from illness or accident.
No matter how many nanites you have pumping through your body, if you fall into an incinerator you’ll die.
Yes, though you might survive if you fall into a lava pit during a light saber battle. You might then need life-sustaining technology. In fact, you might end up more machine than man.
I hope this isn’t too frivolous a question; I’m sure you have a many more pragmatic questions thrown at you every day. I just find the topic of technology and morality interesting in this day and age.
Not too frivolous at all! As I often say, "There are no bad questions, only bad answers."
That being said, I’m quite dubious about this guy’s plan to live on indefinitely. There are a number of problems with it:
- There is a very good chance that humans have a "death gene" that causes us to die. Evidence for this is found in the fact that, while the medicine of the 20th century has somewhat (not as much as people think) increased the average human lifespan, it hasn’t done anything to change the maximum human lifespan. Something seems to be impeding that, and that thing may be a gene. When you get to a certain age, the death gene reaches out its tiny microscopic hands to your brain’s lifeular lobe and does a Vulcan death grip on it, and that’s it. If we can find and turn off the death gene then we may get significantly more life out of life, but it still won’t go on forever, because . . .
- Even if there is no death gene, the body will simply wear out over time (i.e., as soon as it gets out from under the service warranty you bought when you first acquired it), and I’d doubtful that combinations of nanites and stem cells could be applied in such a way to forestall this indefinitely.
- Even if the body could be kept going indefinitely, the odds of getting into a fatal accident (e.g., on the freeway) or contracting an incurable, fatal illness go up as life gets longer. Eventually, something’s gonna get each of us.
There is absolutely no harm in trying to stave that off for as long as possible, though. After all, God built a survival instinct into us. So I say: Let’s go with our instincts! Bring on the (morally-developed) high tech!
Personally, I’m waiting for the Cellular Regeneration and Entertainment Chamber.
Oh yeah, and scientific immortality is one of those projects that has "Danger: May Cause Confusion of Tongues!" written on the box it comes in.
