What a wasted opportunity
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Significant chunks of this book are astonishingly, infuriatingly bad. The subtitle of the book proclaims "On the New Immortality". And some of the better parts of the book are vignettes of Appleyard's meetings with various life extensionists, transhumanists, and immortalists. However, much of what Appleyard says is tired or unimaginative extensions of dreary OLD arguments about issues of life extension and life expansion. If only Appleyard had spent more time listening to what the "new immortalists" actually say - people like Nick Bostrom, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Max More, Audrey de Grey, and James Hughes - he would have found compelling answers to the arguments he raises.
For example, life might get boring, he says, if it went on for centuries whilst our mental capabilities remained much the same. Well, d'oh! transhumanists talk convincingly about expanding our mental capabilities and our interests in life - not just extending them. And aspects of the meaning of the human race would be changed if there was less certainty about death. Art would lose some of its current meaning, etc. Well, d'oh! why does that mean that we should continue to be enthralled by death, and prefer the currently limited and tragic human condition, to the much greater condition that humanity has the potential to transform into?
On the very last page, there's another of the (sadly) very many non-sequitors that Appleyward makes. He talks of a new world of "unageing, undying, unloving people". Hello?! Why on earth should "unageing and undying" imply "unloving"? This is nonsense.
The more interesting question is why an obviously bright person, like Appleyard, gets his thinking so immired and befuddled by these deathist (pro-death) principles? I believe the reason can be discerned from the unwarranted amount of time the book spends on trying to champion antiquated Catholic thinkers like Aquinas as (to quote) "most persuasive". Why, given the rich possible pickings from the highly creative transhumanist thinkers, does Appleyard instead tediously regurgitate tired old analyses about long-irrelevant theological debates? (He doesn't include the one about "how many angels could dance on a pinpoint?" but much of what he covers has a similar streak of other-worldiness.) In short, this is yet another example of the crippling effect that a life-long involvement in relgious thinking can have on someone's ability to reason clearly.
For a MUCH better treatment of the same concepts, go directly to the writings of the "new immortalists" themselves!
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They want to live forever
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They call themselves 'immortists' and their aim is to cease being 'mortals' .Appleyard presents a picture of the various players in this game and their strategies for saving us all from oblivion. The Cryonics and Alcor people who want to freeze us until the time is right for us to come back, the Singularity' folks who want us to become part of some silicon- enduring artificial intelligence, the transformationists who too believe that our downloading may be our salvation- all these are pitted against the old mean bad 'deathists' who believe that our being mortal is essential to our humanity. The Leon Kass and Sherwin Nuland bad guys who have a concern about the familial and generational aspects of the human condition . Then too there are the other opponents including the twenty- eight leading scientists who signed a petition against a key guru of it the 'keep the life going-ists' Aubrey de Grey. Grey who is not concenred with the science of immortality but rather would be content with an engineering trick which would make us immortal is the most powerful spokesman the movement has. But the twenty- eight leading gerontogists who wrote against him said his methods have not succeeded in extending the life of anything. All phatasmagoria from their point of view.
All this is tremendously interesting stuff, I believe, for most of us. For after all who wants to die if nothing is really hurting us? On the other hand Appleyard who admits to being confused about the whole issue understands too there might be something problematic about a world in which everything only grows old and older.
I myself tend to most reluctantly side with those who believe we only go this way once. And as to what comes after if it does my thought is similar to that of the great Maimonedes who cautioned against speculating about what we really can know nothing about.
This is a fine book on a tremendously interesting subject.
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