A drastic extension of human lifespans may be closer than you think, says Peter Ward in “The Price of Immortality”
, in heaven or through reincarnation on Earth, is promised by many faiths. For a simple reason: it eases the fear of death. The idea of living for ever has other devotees, too. It is now pursued by a motley crew of fringe scientists, cultish groups and tech billionaires, united by a conviction that a way to make humans immortal will eventually be found. Meanwhile they pin their hopes on experimental, often fraudulent therapies that promise rejuvenation.
America’s “immortalists”, he discovers, are inspired by the dreams of futurists such as the science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Another influence is Nikolai Fedorov, a 19th-century Russian philosopher who thought all living beings could, one day, be resurrected using traces of them floating around in the cosmos—a vision that brings to mind modern“Longevity escape velocity” is one of the immortalists’ central tenets.
This is not all pure fantasy. Gene and stem-cell therapies and other types of regenerative medicine can tackle some of the ways in which ageing causes natural deterioration—though these methods are yet to be turned into proven and safe treatments. That may not take long, though. Tech magnates such as Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the co-founders of Google, and Jeff Bezos of Amazon have been pouring money into longevity research.
Some immortalists back an even more radical aim: doing away with the body and resurrecting a dead person’s mind in a robot or through some form of digital alternative reality. The theory is that this could be accomplished using scans of brain tissue, or by applying artificial intelligence to reconstruct a personality from “mindfiles”—vast amounts of digital data accrued during the subject’s life. Tech titans are bankrolling this moonshot, too.
Mr Ward combines thorough reporting and lucid scientific explanations in a fluent and balanced account of a diverse movement. From the tragicomedies of cryonics’ early years, to tales of scam artists and reckless zealots, he is a vivid storyteller. And he ponders a world in which people do indeed live a lot longer. Even if old age is made healthier, drastic new kinds of inequality—and political strife—could result.
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