On Not Dying is an anthropological, historical, and philosophical exploration of immortality as a secular and scientific category. Based on an ethnography of immortalist communitiesthose who believe humans can extend their personal existence indefinitely through technological meansand an examination of other institutions involved at the end of life, Abou Farman argues that secular immortalism is an important site to explore the tensions inherent in secularism: how to accept death but extend life; knowing the future is open but your future is finite; that life has meaning but the universe is meaningless. As secularism denies a soul, an afterlife, and a cosmic purpose, conflicts arise around the relationship of mind and body, individual finitude and the infinity of time and the cosmos, and the purpose of life. Immortalism today, Farman argues, is shaped by these historical and culturally situated tensions. Immortalist projects go beyond extending life, confronting dualism and cosmic alienation by imagining (and producing) informatic selves separate from the biological body but connected to a cosmic unfolding.
On Not Dying interrogates the social implications of technoscientific immortalism and raises important political questions. Whose life will be extended? Will these technologies be available to all, or will they reproduce racial and geopolitical hierarchies? As human life on earth is threatened in the Anthropocene, why should life be extended, and what will that prolonged existence look like?
On Not Dying is an anthropological, historical, and philosophical exploration of immortality as a secular and scientific category. Based on an ethnography of immortalist communitiesthose who believe humans can extend their personal existence indefinitely through technological meansand an examination of other institutions involved at the end of life, Abou Farman argues that secular immortalism is an important site to explore the tensions inherent in secularism: how to accept death but extend life; knowing the future is open but your future is finite; that life has meaning but the universe is meaningless. As secularism denies a soul, an afterlife, and a cosmic purpose, conflicts arise around the relationship of mind and body, individual finitude and the infinity of time and the cosmos, and the purpose of life. Immortalism today, Farman argues, is shaped by these historical and culturally situated tensions. Immortalist projects go beyond extending life, confronting dualism and cosmic alienation by imagining (and producing) informatic selves separate from the biological body but connected to a cosmic unfolding.
On Not Dying interrogates the social implications of technoscientific immortalism and raises important political questions. Whose life will be extended? Will these technologies be available to all, or will they reproduce racial and geopolitical hierarchies? As human life on earth is threatened in the Anthropocene, why should life be extended, and what will that prolonged existence look like?
![On Not Dying: Secular Immortality in the Age of Technoscience](http://vs-images.bn-web.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.13.3_ATG-32734)
On Not Dying: Secular Immortality in the Age of Technoscience
336![On Not Dying: Secular Immortality in the Age of Technoscience](http://vs-images.bn-web.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.13.3_ATG-32734)
On Not Dying: Secular Immortality in the Age of Technoscience
336Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781517908102 |
---|---|
Publisher: | University of Minnesota Press |
Publication date: | 04/21/2020 |
Pages: | 336 |
Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d) |