Immortality and Enlightenment

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. – Ludwig Wittgenstein

This quote was paraphrased by Ken Wilber in a talk with Andrew Cohen on Immortality and Enlightenment. In the talk they both acknowledge that immortality (or at least radical life-extension) is on the horizon. Instead of getting into the details of biotechnology and nanotechnology they discuss the existential and spiritual implications of this development. Excellent discussion, which was transcribed earlier and appeared in WIE (see it here). They also have a developmental criticism of Kurzweil and friends, which I think are right on…

immortality, enlightenment, ken wilber, andrew cohen

6 Responses to “Immortality and Enlightenment”

  1. coolmel #

    thanks dawg! i still haven’t heard the audio because as of this writing, the IN download is not working. good thing you posted the transcription so i’ll head out there and read it. i think have more to say about this later…

    February 27, 2006 at 11:13 am
  2. coolmel #

    ok dawg, here’s what i have to say about the dialogue. i hope i didn’t sound like a dorky a-hole.

    February 27, 2006 at 4:53 pm
  3. Zataod #

    I think discussions of life extension ignore the fact that we’ve over-extended ourselves on this planet. We live out of balance within this ecosystem, and if anything we should be talking about life contraction.

    Sorry to sound so cynical.

    February 28, 2006 at 8:17 am
  4. Vince #

    Ha Ha Ha… Thanks Zataod for comment. I think the question of what it means to live out of equilibrium (which is the definition for a living system) within the ecosystem is an important one. And yes, imagining all of the same stuff happening now, but just on a longer time-scale would be pretty scary. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I don’t see our collective center of gravity and the evolution of our technology (which is what makes radical life extension possible) as entirely disconnected. It seems that if we are to survive long enough to take advantage of radical life-extension we’ll also have the opportunity to shift the values that have led to the current mess we find ourselves in. Which isn’t to say we won’t create a whole new set of fucked up circumstances for ourselves. But life isn’t clean is it?

    February 28, 2006 at 4:24 pm
  5. Armstrong #

    Manual Trackback. This post is cited in Blogmandu, Roundup for Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2006.

    March 4, 2006 at 10:51 am

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    Cyborg Face Originally uploaded by litmuse. There’s a cool roundup on various Buddhist-flavored topics over at Blogmandu. (see Roundup for Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2006). My recent post, Immortality, Enlightenment, Singularity got a trackback and was aggregate…