Man has always dreamed of immortality. He did not refuse, it seems, from this thought even today. It is curious that the first technical and biological attempts to make a person immortal appeared in Russia.
When a sixth of the world (that is, us) is reproached for being a continent of raw materials – an anachronism, that if in the Middle Ages it was not a shame to supply furs, hemp, honey to Europe, then in the XNUMXst century to follow the same path of raw materials – only replacing furs for oil and gas in addition to caviar and vodka – all the same shameful and unbecoming of an industrial power. But…
But Russia has long been a supplier of ideas, not just raw materials.
At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, we were among the initiators of abstractionism, constructivism and futurism, then we exported socialism for a long time, and today we have become the founders of the most powerful world ideological brand, although few people know about it. It’s about transhumanism. In a nutshell, this is the theory and practice of denying death and the first technical and biological attempts to make a person immortal. On Earth, only two American and one Russian firms are currently working on a practical solution to this problem, in America, Alcor and the Cryonics Institute, in Moscow, the Kriorus firm. So far, the results look strange and even with a touch of black humor. Namely, those wishing to cross into the XNUMXth century enter into an agreement with firms to freeze the body immediately after death. While you are alive, a special sensor reports your location to the remote control, and as soon as you play the box, the team delivers you to the conservation center with lightning speed.
Theoretically, fabric at a temperature of minus 196 degrees can be stored forever. And there, in the future, transhumanists say, science with the help of nanotechnologies will easily revive your mortal body and, along the way, rejuvenate it, return it to a new life, only eternal. The founder of the movement, American doctor Bedford (he died of cancer), has been in a state of ice for more than forty years … For some, I’m sure it sounds like complete nonsense, but there are other opinions. In any case, the number of customers is growing.
Outwardly, the world of the future still looks very peculiar; when I was last near Moscow, in the village of Alabushevo, where this domestic cryostorage is located, the bastion of immortality was an ordinary rural school (former), which was guarded by two shaggy dogs, and the watchman living at the bunker was just preparing food on the stove … The frozen bodies themselves were stored in the other half, where on the concrete floor in the frosty haze of Dante’s hell stood the gloomy Dewar vessels in which the first batch of optimists set off into the future.
At that time, the number of risk takers did not exceed seven people.
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In America, on the contrary, everything is delivered on an American scale; today there are about 200 bodies in the firms “Alcor” and “Institute of Cryonics”. According to rumors, among those who decided to go to the future for eternal life, almost Walt Disney himself. And the latest famous client was the recently deceased science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. He actively supported the ideas of transhumanists, and answered journalists’ questions about the chances of success: there are practically no chances, one in a hundred, but what a chance! For the sake of immortality, you can take a risk.
But – the reader will ask – what do we have to do with it?
And despite the fact that among the practitioners of American cryogenic companies there are Russian names, and the great founder of the very idea of immortality was our philosopher Nikolai Fedorov, an intellectual hermit, author of the book “Philosophy of a Common Cause”, who argued that the main goal of the coming humanity is “the restoration of the fathers from scattered atoms…
Death is the most feared word in the human lexicon.
Death, whether one’s own, whether people close to you, and in general death as a phenomenon of being, without exaggeration, is one of the most fundamental problems of a person and is experienced at the maximum boiling point of all feelings. Needless to say, what passions flared up around the pioneers of cryonics. Thus, the famous futurist Francis Fukuyama said that the idea of abolishing death and thereby stopping the process of evolution is one of the most dangerous ideas of modern times, but former US President Bill Clinton is sure that we want to be immortal and achieve immortality.
Cryologists themselves avoid moral inflections and are emphatically immersed in practical issues, for example, how to increase the efficiency of intellect, how to increase life expectancy, and when discussing the problems of conservation (the entrance is open for those who wish), they often argue about what is preferable to preserve – is it the whole body? Or just the brain? Or is it enough to freeze just a DNA sample?
At the grassroots level, other passions are boiling, for example, information flashed on the Internet that in the center for the conservation of bodies near Moscow, children stole the body of a deceased mother and, against her will, buried it, although all the required documents were signed and money paid. Whether this is true, I don’t know. What is before us – a tragedy or a comedy – I can not say. One thing is clear, for the first time in thousands of years, people have a real opportunity to abandon the worthless modernity and, in sparkling space coffin cases designed for four passengers, rush into a radiant future.
In a word, we remain purveyors of creative impulses, Russia has given birth to a new revolution of consciousness, the odious idea of Nikolai Fedorov has flown into the world like a genie from a bottle, the number of space ice enthusiasts is growing, and the ultra-modern equipment of American firms makes an impression comparable to Avatar or Star wars.”
We’ve got better so far.
When I was writing my novel “Stop the Spit!”, in the summer in a village near Moscow, I was met by ordinary iron gates covered with peeling red paint, and in response to the call, a friendly barking was heard.
In July 2013, there were 29 people, 5 dogs, 4 cats and 2 birds in the cryostorage near Moscow.
* R. Ettinger “Prospects of Immortality” (Scientific World, 2003).