Sleeper

Robert Ettinger's legacy, so far. (Aubrey de Grey and Ray Kurzweil are still working on it.) Eat your organic rice and hope for the best... and be glad you weren't frozen in 1973.

"God will be written in C++"

Rebecca Goldstein identifies and critiques 36 arguments for the existence of God, one of which I note in today's dawn post. But a student's new blog announces #37... call it the Argument from Transhumanism? Hmmm...

practical immortality

Magnificent debut last night for Ken Burns' latest tour de force, The National Parks. Loved the Muir look-alike historian's closing quote: "This," immersion in, identification with the natural world, "is true freedom. A good, practical sort of immortality." Looking for something larger than yourself to connect with? You could do lots worse than Nature. Episode 2 is on right now. That's reality TV.

Meanwhile, on another practical immortality front it's reported that longevity science is gaining new credibility. "Low-calorie diets and drugs that mimic their effects were all the rage at a Harvard Medical School conference on aging..." Did they find Democritus' secret?

I still think Muir's version is more promising. Paige's, too.

best kind of immortality

"How do you determine a student's grade?"

"Well, I add up the grades for the essays, quizzes, the midterm and final. I average them out. Then I consult my stomach."

That's what the late Fred Stocking, Williams College Shakespearian scholar, told his student (now NPR reporter) Barbara Bradley Hagerty. And it's my new stock answer to the perennial question.

Haggerty's radio tribute to her teacher is sweet. Old Shakespearians really are a breed apart. Aren't they, Dean?

And what a farewell:

"It's been a privilege knowing you," he said, and I burst into tears. Fred patted my hand. "I'll live on in your memory," he said. "It's the best kind of immortality."

A deathbed non-conversion

"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking...the world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides...Five thousand people prayed for me at an Easter service at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the largest church in Christendom. A Hindu priest described a large prayer vigil for me held on banks of the Ganges. The Imam of North America told me about his prayers for my recovery. Many Christians and Jews wrote me to tell about theirs. While I do not think that, if there is a god, his plan for me will be altered by prayer, I'm more grateful than I can say to those, including so many whom I've never met, who have pulled for me during my illness. Many of them have asked me how it is possible to face death without the certainty of an afterlife. I can only say that it hasn't been a problem. With reservations about feeble souls, I share the view of a hero of mine, Albert Einstein: I cannot conceive of a god who rewards and punishes his creatures or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I, nor would I want to, conceive of an individual that survives his physical death. Let feeble souls, from fear for absurd egotism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoting striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature." Carl Sagan

Dawkins and Dennett on Darwin and spirituality

"Can we be spiritual but not religious?" Jesus and Mo say no, I say yes... and I have strong ("bright") allies in Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennett.

If by "spiritual" you mean something like, "outside of space and time, and continuous with the same conscious memories and experiences forever," they agree: No, we can't.

But, if by "spiritual" you mean something more like "alive to our actual place in an evolving cosmos, unblinking in the face of personal mortality but fully open to the possibility of some naturalized sort of transcendence or other," they agree emphatically: Yes, we can.

(But be forewarned: the video techs intrude themselves regrettably into this uncut post, and really disrupt the flow of a very engaging conversation, about ten minutes before the end; but stick with it, or "ff" thru it... the end is well worth suffering the annoyance. Dawkins' reading from his Unweaving the Rainbow definitely belongs in an anthology of humanist "hymns" that will certainly include Carl Sagan, John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, and all my other favorite philosophers. But, somebody please slap those techs for me!)

Oh, by the way: Dan Dennett, like Jackie Robinson and William James and many others on whose shoulders we humanists proudly stand, is another pragmatic meliorist in the rich American tradition: there's plenty of goodness is the world, but it needs more. Let's make some.

Soul

Do humans possess an immortal soul? The corporate board depicted in Monty Python's Meaning of Life discussed this: "...soul does not exist ab initio as orthodox Christianity teaches; it has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved owing to man's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia."

I say: we should enjoy our distractions, should also attend to spiritual matters (which on my view may often coincide with those distractions), and -- as we learn from the pitiable Mr. Creosote -- should resist gluttony.