A University of California, Riverside philosophy professor, John Martin Fischer, has been awarded a three-year, $5 million grant by the John Templeton Foundation to study this topic.
[Source: Article published by Claudine Zap on Yahoo News on 8/4/2012]
“The Immortality Project”, as it is called, will solicit research proposals from eminent scientists, philosophers and theologians whose work "will be reviewed by respected leaders in their fields and published in academic and popular journals."
The grant will also fund two conferences to discuss the findings according to UC Riverside Chancellor Timothy P. White who said that, Fischer's research "takes a universal concern and subjects it to rigorous examination to sift fact from fiction."
The numerous reader comments that followed the article on Yahoo ranged from,”the grant is a joke and No matter what is found, pro or con , many will never believe it”. And, as if to justify that comment another commentator suggested the study to be a waste of money in that all the researchers have to do to find the answers is to “read the Bible”.
Well, I am not of the mind to tell Mr. Templeton how his Foundation should spend its money and besides one of the included aspects of the research project , according to Professor Fischer, is to study “whether human beings would want to live forever” and therein lies the topic of my personal interest in this research. (see *1. below)
Certainly, the question of eternal life is one of our societies literary interests. What immediately comes to mind is, the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde. This was made into a motion picture many years ago which many DK readers may recall seeing.
Also a motion picture somewhat akin to the topic was “Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides" where in at a meeting with English King George in St. James's Palace with Capt. Jack Sparrow the King and his ministers asked Jack to guide an expedition to find the “Fountain of Youth" before the Spanish do. “The “Fountain of Youth” being a legendary spring that reputedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks of its waters”. (Ref.:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_of_Youth)
Given the above definition it does not seem unreasonable to me to assume that unless one is killed, the repeated drinking of such fabled springs water would provide for an eternally YOUNG life here on earth.
However, what if you are over 80 years of age already in the real world of today and are aware that, “The risk of developing Alzheimer's disease increases with age, and by 85, the risk is about 50 percent”. (Ref.:www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_127866.httm)
Look at your "significant other" & realize that if it is not you that is Alzheimers afflicted in your eighties & on, it may well be your partner that becomes so afflicted.
Further, say you are that same male with Erectile Dysfunction. In addition, you also have Sleep Apnea and have to contrive to sleep with a CPap mask apparatus, which when on your face makes you look like the human flesh eating character in the movie “Silence of the Lambs” and can, at its worst, interfere with getting a good nights sleep just about as much as getting up three to four times during the night to urinate. Thus, you find yourself feeling sleepy & light headed during the daytime and you doze off when trying to enjoy reading an interesting book or using the computer or watching TV or listening to music.
Say also that you find yourself taking gobs of pills for your multiple other medical conditions (which, for the purposes of this Diary, I specify are not indisputably bound to be lethal for you but do cause you to waste a considerable amount of your retirement years time being spent in doctors offices waiting to seen.
Also grant that as that same elderly person you do enjoy going out for dinner, going to the theater, going to see sporting exhibitions and participating in various groups activities where however, unless you can become extremely engrossed in whatever that activity is, you do not manage to escape the persistent aching arising from your Arthritis or Fibromyalgia.
You, as the elderly example above, may not feel depressed but on the other hand you do not enjoy that sense of well being that you can recall experiencing from your much younger years. Also, of much more immediacy, to the theme of going on living forever, is the feeling of dread thinking in advance about the preparation procedure for the repeated Colonoscopies to come for you for eternity. After all, no use to add ColoRectal cancer to your forevermore medical miseries.
So then, I now ask you to consider immortality NOT in the sense of it being accompanied with eternal youth but rather from a point of view of the often quite tired very elderly person making a choice.
(*1) My answer to the question of achieving everlasting life ON EARTH , at my current age 83, is to say that I would at least like to make it to 100. After that age, I can well conceive that my continued physical existence here might well prove to be no more than “HELL on Earth”.
Note! The Grant has been made for a three year duration. Professor Fischer has commented such as to invite a “Check back in three years” for study findings. If I (dollparty) am still here in three years I will strive to provide followup to the Professor’s research findings for any Daily Kos readers.