In the 1969 film comedy “Hibernatus”, a man is found who had frozen in a block of ice half a century earlier. After defrosting, it comes back to life. Doctors, to spare him the shock of civilization, keep him in the belief that it is still 1905. “Hibernatus” was included in the comedy science fiction. But freezing the bodies in the hope of a “resurrection” later is very real. The bodies of 221 people await the afterlife in two, by no means film-based, American institutes!
The desire for immortality is almost as old as human civilization. Yet despite the tremendous advances in science, immortality is still at the same point as in antiquity – between desire, impossibility and hope. For what else was the mummification of a corpse, the building of magnificent pyramids in ancient Egypt? The Egyptians did everything so that their bodies would survive, sparing no effort and money. It was believed that only in this way would they attain immortality, as the soul still lives in a dead body.
Platon i Artephius
Ancient Greece also dreamed of greatness and immortality. The Greek gods and heroes were in fact a projection of the dreams of the people of that time about eternal life and perfection. They were powerful and beautiful in the way that each of us wants to be powerful and beautiful.
It is hardly surprising that the ancients were especially keen on immortality. People then lived an average of only 35 years. Therefore, a way to live forever was earnestly sought. Ebers papyrus written 3,5 thousand. years ago, it contains a prescription for an elixir of eternal youth, consisting of about 700 drugs and natural substances.
In later eras, humans lived a little longer, but modern religions appeared and spread, offering hope for an eternal but afterlife. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, man is an immortal soul and a mortal body. The soul can exist without a body, so man is, in a way, immortal. Plato also wrote earlier about the immortality of the soul. In his opinion, a perfect soul is trapped in an imperfect body. However, even humanity’s hopes for a future, happy existence in Paradise have not diminished the desire for eternal youth and temporal immortality here on earth.
Therefore, for centuries a recipe for eternal life has been searched for. It is said that this recipe was in the possession of Claude-Louis de Saint Germain in the XNUMXth century. Voltaire and Frederick the Great admired him. Sources say de Saint-Germain did, however, die. Five hundred years earlier, the owner of the recipe for immortality was also a certain Artephius, who wrote the Treatise on the Extension of Life. The proof of the recipe’s effectiveness was to be the master’s assurance that he had been alive for a thousand years. Artephius wanted to share his knowledge, but the recipe was encrypted so effectively that no one could read it.
Hope in science
The greatest hopes for immortality were and are still associated with the progress of medicine. Many scientists argue that the advancement of science will ensure immortality in the future. What used to be the dream of alchemists looking for miraculous elixirs became the goal of science in the 1967th century. James Bedford, an American psychologist who died in 220, decided to wait for this advancement in medicine. He became the first cryonaut – his body was placed in liquid nitrogen, where he waits for doctors of the future who will be able to bring it back to life. 140 other people followed suit. They were not deterred by the relatively high costs: freezing costs even over PLN 1. dollars. The more economical dreamers, however, can freeze their heads alone for 3/XNUMX of this price.
Some modern ideas predict that modern technologies will enable people to live for as long as possible in the future. Such an ideology is, for example, transhumanism, which assumes that we are in a transition to something more because evolution is still going on. The acceleration of these changes is due to the progress of science.
However, it is difficult to imagine literal immortality. You think more often about longevity, health and long-term youth. Technologies that are to enable longevity include genetic engineering or regenerative medicine, the aim of which is to replace old and diseased tissues with new ones. Nanotechnology, in turn, includes activities carried out at the atomic and molecular level, the aim of which is to build machines or objects that function in human everyday life. Immortality would also be given to us by representatives of a new futuristic specialty – neuroinformatics. The method of extending life here would be mind transfer, also known as brain copying. In other words, this is, and actually will be, the transfer of human consciousness to a computer. Neuroinformatics specialists would like to create a computer program whose parameters would reflect the human personality. scientists who have seriously addressed the problem of immortality assume that they will be able to transfer the human brain to a humanoid machine by 2045.
The royal dream of medicine
Is there a place in modern medicine, painfully rational, full of modern techniques, solutions and perfect instruments, for a dream of eternal youth or immortality? In the book Immortality. Promethean dream of medicine ”thought about this prof. Andrzej Szczeklik, an outstanding physician and humanist who has recently passed away. According to the professor, despite the great achievements of science, the hard dictatorship of reason and experientiality, medicine is still associated with sacred experience, combining temporal concern for the health of the body with religious, fearful care for the soul.
And the fundamental question: do we really need immortality? – It would be a gift as terrible as death and nothingness. Which does not mean that medicine should give up its “royal dream” – wrote prof. Szczeklik.
Author Piotr Janczarek