So I went with my brother in-law today to see Jupiter Acending.
I feel like the title is cheesy, but, I’m pretty much dedicated to the Wachowski’s since Matrix 1. I think they’re great story tellers and directors. I know, they recycle. But, this is how things are and if you can’t recycle in the modern age, then you have *a lot* of hard time being ‘original’. (Is anyone ever original?)
The movie FX was, of course, top of the mark. The story was not bad. The script was better than others.
So after we left the theater, we found a place on Polk St. to digest. Of ocurse I brought up overwhelming ideas of what it means to be human and have the ‘limited’ life span we do.
We talked about Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Richard Branson and others. Those that have pushed humanity forward.
I also posited (reaching back to the movie) “what if you could live 14k or 90k years? What would your life be like? Would having a spouse or children even matter?” Nevermind the bigger galatic/universe issues — would your closest connections, which you wire your brain from, even matter?!
I actaully, think about this a lot. So I was cheating a little — maybe an ambush — when I asked my bro in-law this question.
“If you and your parents could live to 500+ years old — would you maintain the same relationship?”
We chatted about this for a few minutes and what we arrived at was the fact that you are always changing. Always growing. You do not see the world the same way you did when you were 5, 10, 15, 20 years old. You don’t even remember the same things.
So if you were 100, 200, 300, 400 years old, how could you feel the same love for your family, children, friends that you did when you wer 40? Or 60? How could you even relate to yourself when you were ‘so young’?
I don’t think you can. I have a 3 and 1 year old and as a parent, it’s indescribable the bond I have with them. A big (maybe majority?) part of my bond is biological for sure. But I know there’s also a rational and non-biological side that is connected to them as well. You could call it our higher selves ‘knowing’ our destiny together.
But… As Isaac Asimov (roughly said), destiny is just a human emotion that cannot be proven. Love cannot even be proven. So, what is an analytical mind to think about these things other than the moment is the most precious thing we have. As the movie stated, time is the most precious resource.
So maybe for our species at this point in our history and evolution, we are accustomed to our short ‘now’. We work within those confines because it’s all we know. It’s what we are taught and observe.
But it doesn’t have to be the end all.
I told my brother in-law “I am probably on the border. I think Ray Kurzweil probably won’t make it — he’s over 20 years older than me. But you probably will, I might, and the kids definitely will”. What will they make it to? The doorstep of longevity through science. They will cross it too. Who wouldn’t?
I’ll scrape and claw and scratch my way to and through that door as much as I can because what’s the alternative? Only one thing. Death. Fin! The absolute end. You can philosophize and rationalize all you want about returning and the like, but no one has *ever* come back *with proof* that death can be beaten.
I think it can be beaten, but not with scripture or hocus pocus. Instead it can be held back by the discoveries and hard work from people like Aubrey De Grey. Maybe even groups/companies like Alcor.
I’m a member of the Long Now Foundation and their really big project is the 10k year clock. In Jupiter Ascending, the big royal characters have already surpassed that mark. If you try to sit down and contemplate 10k years.. Well, it’s a sober trip unto itself and not (really) quantifiable by our brains.
In the end, I feel like you kinda fall into two camps. Those that wish to live forever and those that don’t.
I don’t know if wish to live forever, but if there were two lines that said “Live forever”, “Live normal” — I would choose the former and then decide when I’ve had enough.
I’m not sure if this is an exercise of the ego or a real desire of the universe itself becoming aware. I think maybe the ego explanation is an easy cop out in some ways. If you study anything Freudian (as wella s Buddhism — probably others as well), then you’ll quickly run into the ‘bad ego’ and its childlike wants and needs (like, you know, living past 150..).
But how much of this is ego vs. biology vs the universe itself wanting to become self aware and express in ways incomprehensible to us?
Are we delusional?
Like I told my brother in-law, I think about this all the frickin time. I’m not just content with my limited time on planet Earth. And even though I do subscribe to many buddhist and hindu tennants, I just feel like they are what they are — great ideas for thousands of years ago. Maybe not the best for ‘now’.
With that said, I have no qualms about trying to figure out over the coming decades, like Ray, how to beat this inherent injustice that is death. I am one of those that does believe that we are all talented and creative and we’re here to show that. A loss of life, is a loss of a million possibilities. (What if Elon Musk was killed in a South African riot or protest? No Tesla, no Space X, no Paypal..)
The deepest thing I took away from Jupiter Ascending was the conversation about our mortality and longevity. They didn’t go as deep on that as they could have (it was more action based), but I give them props for connecting it into commerce they way they did and making it a core part of the plot.
The bigger question is: when life extension comes, how will we handle it?
