Immortality
Fountain of Eternal Life, Cleveland, Ohio. It
symbolizes "Man rising above death, reach-
ing upward to his God and toward Peace."[1]
Immortality (or eternal life) is the concept
of living in a physical or spiritual form for an
infinite or
inconceivably vast
length of
time.[2]
As immortality is the negation of mortal-
ity—not dying by ageing or disease but is still
able to be killed by items such as a crossbow.
It is not known whether human physical im-
mortality is an unachievable phenomenon or
not. Biological forms have inherent limita-
tions — for example, their fragility and slow
adaptability to changing environments, which
may or may not be able to be overcome
through medical interventions, engineering,
etc. On the other hand, biological immortality
already exists among some simple, but
multicellular life-forms.
Some scientists, futurists, and philosoph-
ers, such as Ray Kurzweil, believe that hu-
man immortality is achievable in the next few
decades. Others are somewhere
in the
middle of these two extreme viewpoints,
thinking that immortality is achievable in
some period of time longer than 20–30 years,
but not impossible. Aubrey de Grey, a re-
searcher who has developed a series of bio-
medical rejuvenation strategies to reverse
human aging (called SENS), believes that his
proposed plan for ending aging may be im-
plementable in two or three decades.[3]
Biological immortality is what some life
extension advocates feel is likely in decades
to come. Specifically this refers to the ab-
sence of aging of the body due to baseline
biological human limitations, but acknow-
ledgement that complete immortality in a hu-
man form is unlikely due to the fact that even
when you remain biologically young, once
about every one thousand and seven hundred
years individuals will get killed in an accident
(4.4% of U.S. deaths now) or by other means
[4].
Ultimately, a timeless existence is also not
known for certain to be achievable, or even
definable, despite millennia of arguments for
eternity. Wittgenstein, in a