Immortality, Part II

Graven images writ holographically

Dear readers,

Although this essay stands alone, I recommend reading Immortality, Part I before diving into this one. In Part I, I lay out some recent developments in the world of digital immortality and explain my significant discomfort with the entire concept, including the real human perils of settling for “better than nothing.”

I also ask, what will happen if we persist in continuing down this path of immortality-seeking? Here are some potential answers. xox M

Quechua shamans prepare ceremonial offerings to Pachamama in Sacred Valley, Peru. October, 2023. Photo by MPM.

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What would it be like to immortal? I mean, not in a sunshine-and-rainbows sort of way, but really? To live forever, watching everything that human beings have built — cities, cultures, monuments, even continents — disappear? To say goodbye to every single person you’ve ever loved?

And what about the nuts-and-bolts necessities of living? You’d have to find a way to feed, clothe, and house yourself — unless you somehow had an endless source of income. You’d have to stay relatively anonymous, too, because there’s nothing like never dying — or alternatively, coming back from the dead — to raise suspicions among the living.

Enter Borrowed Time by John Nolte, a book I devoured almost whole on my flight to Peru. Nolte paints a portrait of immortality that is so real, harrowing, and unappealing, yet so riveting, that the book should be required reading for all transhumanists.

With acerbic wit, deep insight, and a knack for cliffhangers, Nolte tells the story of Joshua Mason, a man who’s literally immortal. He has lived countless lifetimes over thousands of years, dying like any mortal, yet returning again and again and again.

That alone was enough to pique my interest, having had an existential crisis at seven, but

Sasha Stone

’s stellar review and recommendation sealed it. Stone gives the book two proverbial thumbs-up, but also gives her readers a heads-up on Borrowed Time’s violence, calling it “as grotesque at times as it is tender,” and she’s right. It’s pretty gory.

I generally stay away from gore, particularly in movies, but also in books. In this case, though, it felt appropriate and necessary within the novel’s spellbinding treatment of the spiritual battle that rages at the heart of this book. Because, really, you can’t choose to depict only the good if you’re writing about good and evil.

In fact, as I write that bit of painful obviousness, something becomes clearer to me.

I can see now how my own unwillingness at times in my life to acknowledge darkness has created its own pain. I wouldn’t call myself a Pollyanna, but in my younger days I protected myself inside a bubble of carefree ignorance. I was still there in 2020, when I just assumed that “people in charge” knew what they were doing and were acting in my best interests when they shut down the world.

That outlook caused some suffering in my marriage, just as main character Joshua Mason’s inability to look evil in the eye ends up causing incalculable suffering in the world.

We have to be willing to see everything as it is and as we wish it to be. How do we know how to fix anything if we can’t see what’s broken? But I’ve written about “chasing the light” already here, so I won’t delve into it again now.

I will say that for some, the unwillingness to look at darkness — in the world, but perhaps most concerningly, in themselves — is right in line with the unwillingness to accept death. More on that in a bit.

Without politicizing or sermonizing, Nolte builds a fictional world that could easily be our destination if we continue on the immortality-seeking path. Here, he answers the question I posed at the start of this essay: What would it be like to immortal?

You want to spend eternity in a cubicle pushing papers? You want to dig ditches, cut grass, change oil, wait tables, enter data, deliver mail, sell cars, drive a bus, write code, work in a factory, wash dishes, cut hair, fight fires, groom dogs, mop floors, write briefs, clean teeth, patrol streets, sell homes, stock shelves, make beds, flip burgers, and stand behind a cash register forever?

Um… no, thank you. That actually sounds like hell. And that’s just the practical side of living forever; there’s the emotional side, too. Joshua Mason falls in love for the first time in his endless life, which is what initiates the book’s cascade of events. It’s also what spurs him to say this:

“Don’t you understand, it’s the cold truth of dying that forces a man to face the fact there’s no endless supply of tomorrows. It’s death’s unrelenting approach that says you need to become a better man, a better husband and father—now, right now, before it’s too late. Now is the time to forgive, to beg forgiveness, to say “I love you,” and take hold of what matters.

Mason has lived long enough to see, over and over, the power of death to bring meaning to life — and he acts in accord with that accumulated knowledge.

But what really strikes me about his quote is the humility inherent in it. There’s an assumption that the humble desire to change for the better — to become more forgiving, more loving — is a human longing.

Are you hearing that kind of desire from transhumanists? I’m not. I hear a lot about “improving” humans, but it sounds like this: “I’ll be smarter, more powerful, more productive.” Those are qualities you’d want from a machine, not a human being.

Humility is seriously lacking in tech titans and transhumanists. The title of Yuval Harari’s book — “Homo Deus” (Man God) — says it all, no? There’s no modesty, no equivocation here.

Humanity will (and should) gain God-like status, presumably led by superior beings like Harari, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, and the like, all longing for immortality because they believe they are extra-special brilliant human specimens whose tremendous talents and intellect should ne’er die, because what a waste that would be!

Yes, I’m making some assumptions about these people. (I guess I’m human.) But I do wonder if, as I mentioned above, part of their inability to accept death is due to their unwillingness to look at — and accept — the darkness in themselves.

I’m also convinced that the transhumanists are terrified of death, and are enlisting what they perceive to be the greatest power on Earth to defend against it: technology. A character in Nolte’s book fears death because he’s afraid of God, and what he perceives to be God’s judgement of his crimes.

Here’s a thought: what if transhumanists are furiously working toward dispensing with death altogether so that people (not naming names) can keep perpetrating heinous acts with no consequences?

Nah, that’s too farfetched. I’m sure Harari et al are doing it for all the right reasons.

The sad fact is that as transhumanists push away death, they may also be pushing away the most pure experience of unconditional love they will ever know. If they succeed in trapping themselves on this earth plane permanently, they will never feel the release, the joining of their consciousness with all that is, the welcome reunion countless near-death survivors report.

Look, I’m not gunning for a hastened demise, myself. But I’m also not afraid of dying, because I really do believe that this — this mortal brain, this almost-six-foot-tall meat-suit, even this compilation of traits called Mary — isn’t what or who I am.

And this speck of a planet spinning in an impossibly vast universe — a situation and cosmos we can’t even begin to explain or understand or recreate — isn’t the be-all, end-all, either.

As Hamlet said, after his encounter with the Ghost of his father:

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

It is the fantasy of a fearful, childlike egotist to want to live forever. Which brings me back to Borrowed Time. I don’t want to give away any of the page-turner plot — the book really crackles along — so I’ll just say that immortality doesn’t necessarily confer betterment in the arenas of goodness, humility, morality, or love.

Ah, love. Borrowed Time abounds in it, which is another reason I highly recommend reading the book. Above all else, Nolte has written an epic love story. Love sets the plot in motion and sees it through to an utterly satisfying conclusion, one possible iteration of the world to come. But there are others, of course. The possibilities are infinite, because we are infinite.

That’s right, I’ve said it. We are infinite! So let’s talk about the elephant in the room, shall we?

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“Our computers, our tools, our machines are not enough. We have to rely on our intuition, our true being.” [Emphasis mine] — Joseph Campbell

Proponents of digital immortality seem perfectly content to ignore an entire swath of humanity, which you know by now includes yours truly, that believes we’re already immortal, thank you very much. Some estimates say that nearly half the world believes in some form of afterlife.

Spending some time with indigenous Quechua people in Peru — some of whom are believed to be descendants of the Incas — gave me a glimpse of an entirely different way of understanding the world and our place within it. They do not question the reality of the spirit world. Our “true being” is a given.

Call it whatever you like — spirit, soul, essence, life force — it’s the eternal part of us that animates us, connects us one to another, and in the hearts of the Quechua, lives in harmony with Pachamama, Mother Earth. Everything they do — how they live, work, dress, eat, raise their children, care for their elders — is in accordance with that belief.

Quite a different life model from our own.

Michael Munn writes about his interaction with the Q’ero, a Quechua community in the Cusco region of Peru. According to Munn, the Q’ero say we are at a crucial time in our history, where the world is on the brink of extinction. They call it “pachakuti,” the “turning over of the world:”

“The Q’ero believe we’re lost in a world of logic and materiality, a soulless world. For them, everything is alive. Spirit is everywhere.

The Q’ero… see an egg of luminous fibers around people. They see dark spots in our fibers. We are unaware of these because we are lost in materiality and logic. They use ceremonies to connect us to luminous fibers, along which knowledge travels. They cleanse the dark spots. By traveling these inner dimensions we survive the pachakuti to create a golden age as a new species, Homo Luminous.”

“Homo Luminous.” Pay attention, Harari. Our machines are not enough. In fact, they are obscuring the truth and impeding our healing.

As I mentioned, I had an existential crisis at age seven. I couldn’t grasp the concept of death, of not being. I see that now as an existential awakening, not a crisis. I was awakening to the fact that I am eternal, just like you are.

The confusion and disorientation I felt, that we all feel at the prospect of dying, is not because we refuse to face the “reality” of dying; it’s because we know the real reality of our immortality. We know, in our deepest knowing, that our “true being” will live far beyond this earthly existence. We know what is real. But we forget, all too easily.

We forget that we’re not here to circumvent the vulnerabilities of the flesh, including pain and death. We forget that we’re not here to alter our brains and bodies so profoundly that we escape human limitations such as mortality and confinement to a physical body, as transhumanists believe.

We are here to experience life through the vulnerabilities of the flesh. We are here to feel ecstasy and agony, and everything in between.

Yes, life is difficult. And that’s the point. I believe that each lifetime provides an opportunity to learn and expand, so that our souls are freed more and more, eventually choosing to step off the proverbial wheel because we no longer need it.

I’ve written about that topic here as regards spiritual enlightenment, but it bears repeating:

“If, as soon as we arrive here, we’re supposed to spend all our time transcending the physical, then we might as well have stayed in spirit form, no? Wouldn’t that be more efficient? Not to mention easier?”

The kind of transcendence that transhumanists seek has the potential of landing us squarely in a world like The Matrix, where graven images writ holographically become accepted reality, and the human body becomes merely a battery for AI. What then becomes of the human soul in such a scenario?

An Egyptian hermetic text written approximately 2000 years ago called Thoth’s Prophecy talks about the nature of cosmology, God, time, cycles of life, and more. Part of it contains this part of the prophecy:

“Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will thought more profitable than life, no one will raise his eyes to heaven, the pious will be deemed insane, the impious wise, the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good.

As for the soul, and the belief that it is immortal by nature, or may hope to attain to immortality, as I have taught you, all this they will mock at, and will even persuade themselves that it is false.”

This is where we are today, where everything is inverted, including the nature of the soul.

But there’s some hope.

Bina48, a geminoid robot, speaking with her caretaker at the Terasem Movement Foundation in Bristol, Vt. Credit Max Aguilera, Hellweg/Institute, via Blast Books.

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In researching these articles on immortality, I came across a techno-religious faith movement called “Terasem Movement Foundation (TSM),” which is devoted to “spreading the good word that software people are people too — not having a body makes you differently abled, not sub-human.” The four pillars of TSM: (1) Life is purposeful. (2) Death is optional. (3) God is technological. And (4) Love is essential.

I gotta say, all of that gave me pause.

I’d heard others link the transgender movement to transhumanism, but I’d never seen quite as solid a connection as exists within TSM’s founder (and funder): Martine Rothblatt, formerly Martin Rothblatt, the uber-wealthy creator and former CEO of SiriusXM.

For the first time, I think I really understand the link. I also understand why transhumanism is doomed.

In a TedX interview, Martine describes her journey into transgenderism by referring to the soul multiple times. “My soul was always female,” she says, then quotes her wife, Bina, as having said, “I love your soul.”

Of course, someone who turned to technology to create a new bodily exterior around the soul would again turn to technology to extend its life. That makes sense to me.

It would also make sense that Martine would create Bina48, one of the “world’s most advanced humanoid AI robots” to replicate her wife — even though Bina is still very much alive. Martine fears what we all fear: losing the love of her life.

What doesn’t make sense, and what gives me hope, is the very use of the word “soul.” Martine’s underlying beliefs are clear: first, that the soul is an essence apart from the body — good on her for identifying that, but why would she choose a word like soul, which has clearly spiritual connotations?

And second, that a soul captured digitally in its totality will last forever.

That’s what really delights me. Because when Martine, and the rest of the frightened overlords, the ersatz immortality junkies, realize — and that’s a when, not an if — that a soul is not something that can ever be captured, that God is not technical, it’s game over.

How ironic is that? In their relentless quest to evade death, they will effectively squander the very lives they sought to extend.

In the meantime, the rest of us will do our part to manifest Homo Luminous… by turning back over all that has been inverted, by restoring faith in the perfection of Nature, and by replacing fear with what is truly the greatest power on Earth: love.

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Some humor to leave you with:

Bina48 and its “poetry mentor” Sasha Stiles “collaborate” to create “provocative texts” (poems, presumably) that challenge the reader “to empathize with a machine on the brink of sentience.”

If one of the world’s most advanced robots needs our empathy, I think we humans are far better off than we realize.

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Last week’s essay elicited some beautiful, thought-provoking comments. How did Part II land on you?

As always, keep your light shining bright.

xox
Mary