The Burden of Immortality
Immortality, such a sweet word you are. Having the possibility of living forever no matter what. While many people dream of becoming immortal, the scientists say that such a life would be a burden. The theme of immortality has been present for a very long time.
Adam and Eve had this power but they lost it, alchemist worked in vain trying to obtain it, and Juan Ponce de Leon was in the process of searching it when he discovered Florida. The ability of living forever while being young during all the time is one of the greatest goals of humanity. The scientists stated that they might have found the possibility of enhancing their lives with a few decades. They can not promise immortality yet, but they say that that might be possible in the future. They do not base their science on magical waters or liquids, but on the way in which the molecules and the cells are affected by old age.
They have managed to control the ages of the mice, prolonging their lives with the control of the calorie intake. That made the scientists that the humans could have this possibility of living more, up to 140 years. Some believe that we will be able to live forever sometime in the future. However, is it wise to do so? Do we have the rights to make these changes? Some say yes, whereas some say no. The reality is that there are lots of psychological implications related to the possibility of living forever.
In many movies and novels, such as “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde, the main character sold his sold his soul in order to have the possibility of living forever. Leon Kass, who is a bioethicist at the University of Chicago and a longtime critic of life-extension research states that such attempts at living longer and forever can do more harm than good. Many questions have been raised regarding the process of aging. It is unknown if aging is a disease, or if it is something we have to accept?
Kass believes that mortality is very important because brings lots of different virtues. The people live their lives in a certain manner because they know that they will eventually die. Kass believe that immortality would change all of that, as people would know that no matter what they do, they will live forever. He believes that because of that, people will no longer treasure certain things, and will take some things for granted. He also believes that the process of aging gives sense to our lives. He stated that it is very important for us to know that we have accomplished something during our life, that we have performed the passage in the proper manner.
Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute in New York believes that using technology in order to enhance the life of the people is a bad thing, but he believes that Kass has an extreme way of viewing things. Callahan does not agree to Kass’ theories regarding the fact that if we know that we will die we will think more serious about life. There are many people who do some dangerous things, and they know that they can die, yet they still do them.
He does not believe that humanity is related to the amount of years that we live. He believes that even if we would have the possibility of living 1000 years we would still be humans. Richard Miller, a pathologist at the University of Michigan, does not believe that we will ever have the possibility of becoming immortal. Chris Hackler, head of the Division of Medical Humanities at the University of Arkansas stated that Kass’ arguments do not hold up even if we would find a way of enhancing our life by about three or four decades.
He stated that we live more now than we did 100 years ago, but even so, we do not see life in a certain manner, and we do not consider it less important as we did back then. “Doubling our life will not make us change our opinion about it” Hackler said. He also stated that even if we would be able to find a way of doubling our lives, that would not mean that we would not be affected by the diseases which are present nowadays. We could die at 20 of a certain disease, even if we would be able to live up until 180.
Callahan and Heckler see a problem in living longer, and that problem is boredom. The two believe that we would be bored with living that much as we would not know what to do with the extra time. Hackler stated that many jobs are not fascinating at all, and because of that we would be bored by them. Doing the same job for more than 100 years, would be very stressful, and could potentially lead to very serious mental illnesses. Hackler stated that he would not get bored living, but there would be many people who would.
He believes that many people would resort to suicide, as they would know that they would still have to live 100 and something years before they would die of old age. Aubrey de Grey from the University of Cambridge has a different opinion. He believes that by living longer we would be less bored because we would have the possibility of testing certain things and experiences which we can not test now. Callahan believes that the personality plays a huge role.
He stated that if one would like to do a certain thing he would do it because he has enough time to do it. He believes that the extra time would not make a person do certain things.He also stated that even if they would have all the time in the world, the people would not have the possibility of doing whatever they want.
