Prosthetic Immortalities : Biology, Transhumanism, and the Search for Indefinite Life / Adam R. Rosenthal ; foreword David Wills.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rosenthal, Adam R. (Assistant professor), author.

Contributor:

Wills, David, writer of foreword.

Series:

Posthumanities ; Volume 71.

Posthumanities Series ; Volume 71

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Transhumanism.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (350 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis, MN : University of Minnesota Press, [2024]

Summary:

"From Plato's notion of generation to Derrida's concept of survival to such modern phenomena as anti-aging treatments, cryogenics, cloning, and whole-brain uploads, Adam Rosenthal's Prosthetic Immortalities shows how the dream of indefinite life has always been a technological one: a matter of prosthesis. He argues that every biological instance of perpetual life, from one-celled organisms to rejuvenating jellyfish to Henrietta Lacks's 'immortal' cancer cells, always results in the transformation of the original being. There can, therefore, be no certainty of immortality. Yet, because finite mortal life is already marked by difference, division, and change, as Rosenthal concludes: 'the problem of immortality will not cease to haunt us.' Prosthetic Immortalities examines the persistence of humans' aspirations of deathlessness, showing that the link between immortalization and prostheticization is not unique to a single period but is, rather, a ubiquitous element of the discourse of immortality, encompassing both modern technoscientific efforts and religious discourses of an afterlife. Rosenthal asks to what extent the emergence of a virtual, posited, immortal presence follows from the tenets of empirical science--and not simply from the discourse of biology but also, and more radically still, from biological organization itself. Rosenthal ultimately argues that the discovery of biological immortals--lifeforms that naturally have indefinitely long lifespans, such as cancer cells and bacteria--present novel conceptual difficulties for traditional philosophical approaches to mortality and selfhood, asking whether it is life itself that first births immortalizing prostheses"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

Foreword. Preferring being condemned not to / David Wills

Preface and acknowledgements. Deconstruction's last word, or the afterlife of immortality

Introduction. On prosthetic immortalization

Part I. Immortality as indivisibility. Life as generation in Plato

Derrida and the mortal immortality of sovereignty

Part II. From immortal to indefinite life. Substance immortality

Ontological immortality

Biological immortality

Mortality revisited : on Derrida's "condemnation to die" and "condemnation to death"

Undecidable desire for survival : Harari, Bostrom, Hägglund

Part III. Indefinite life in the biological sciences. Genetic immortality

Biological immortality I : unicellular (metabolic)

Interlude on death, division, and the life of Henrietta Lacks

Biological immortality II : multicellular (metabolic)

Biological immortality III : multicellular (organismal)

Metabolism and the meaning of life

Part IV. Immortality as translation : two (and a half) paths. Age reversal

Whole brain emulation

Cloning and the fictions of immortality

Conclusion. Am I, then, immortal?

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-4529-7174-9

1-4529-7173-0

OCLC:

1443490393