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Aug 30, 2010 09:30 AM | 22
Transhumanists! Singularitarians! Listen up! You who harbor a fervent faith in science’s imminent transformation of our frail, fleshy selves. The conquest of all our physical and mental ailments, cancer, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, depression, senescence—death itself. You who exult over every “breakthrough” in nanotech, biotech, neuro-prostheses, artificial intelligence bearing you closer to eternal life.
You must read Super Sad True Love Story (Random House, 2010) by Gary Shteyngart. Normal people should, too, but believers in immortality have the most to gain, because Shteyngart’s novel is a marvelous, black-comedy send-up of their dreams.
I recently slammed Inception for being a technical blockbuster and emotional dud. Super Sad True Love Story hooks you on all levels, emotionally as well as aesthetically, intellectually, even politically. Shteyngart is the real thing, a tragicomic wise guy incapable of writing a dull sentence. He’s Bellow souped-up with sci-fi and with a sharper satiric edge. Or Nabokov, another Russian immigrant (Shteyngart was born in Russia in 1972 and brought to the U.S. when he was seven) repulsed and seduced by America’s vulgar vitality.
And like Joyce (why stop now with the over-the-top comparisons?), Shteyngart can shape-shift into wildly different characters. He surely didn’t labor to create his protagonist Lenny Abramov, a death-obsessed, 39-year-old Russian-born schlub. Much more impressive is Shteyngart’s channeling of Eunice Park, the 24-year-old vixen and compulsive shopper for whom poor Lenny falls. Lenny and Eunice evoke Leopold Bloom, the hapless protagonist of Joyce’s gobbledygookian magnum opus Ulysses, and his sexy-bitchy wife Molly.
Lenny and Eunice inhabit a dystopia extrapolated from all-too-familiar features of our flawed world. Young Americans have become fanatical consumers and self-promoters. They are less concerned with reality, whatever that is, than with the data streaming through their apparats, super–smart phones that instantly calculate your financial and sexual status relative to others and provide advice on boosting your ranking. (Girls, guys dig when you giggle at their jokes but hate when you’re funnier than them.) Only a few nostalgic losers like Lenny still read books, which are too long, boring and smelly.
China has become the dominant global superpower, whereas the U.S. has degenerated into a paranoid, near-bankrupt police state scrutinizing foreigners and even its own citizens for signs of subversion. (Hmm. Hasn’t this already happened?) Things are really run by Staatling–Wapachung, a conglomerate with tentacles wrapped around every corner of the economy. Imagine Halliburton, Goldman Sachs, Eli Lilly, Google and Blackwater Security fused into one ruthless megafirm.
So where does immortality come in? Lenny is a salesman, or “Life Lovers Outreach Coordinator (Grade G),” for Staatling-Wapachung’s Post Human Services division, which peddles life-extension treatments to HNWIs, “High Net Worth Individuals.” “Dechronification” methods range from organ transplants to infusion of “smart blood” swarming with nanobots that supposedly rejuvenate cells. Lenny’s boss Joshie Goldmann is a living advertisement for Post Human Services. Joshie looks, especially at a distance, like a buff 25-year-old old stud. Actually, he’s over 60, and the only clues to his actual age are those weird spidery veins throbbing from his temples.
Lenny can’t afford real dechronification yet, so he buys time by drinking green tea and alkalinized water. His faith in immortality is a bit bipolar. Sometimes he believes—really believes!—that he will live forever, longer than the Earth and even the entire cosmos. “When our universe decides to fold in on itself,” he exults, “my personality will jump through a black hole and surf into a dimension of unthinkable wonders.” But deep down Lenny suspects that immortality is a scam. “We hoard our yuan,” he broods, “we take our nutritionals, we prick ourselves and measure that dark-blue liquid in a thousand different ways, but in the end we are still marked for death.”
In his acknowledgements, Shteyngart says he was inspired by the writings of the Singularity-immortality prophets Ray Kurzweil and Aubrey de Grey. Shteyngart obviously—and correctly, in this humble pundit’s opinion—views the proclamations of Kurzweil and de Grey not as scientific treatises but as expressions of fear. Fear of death, decrepitude, loneliness, heartbreak.
I share these fears. Who doesn’t? Many scientifically inclined folks—myself among them—cannot find solace in atavistic mumbo jumbo like Christianity’s heaven or Buddhism’s nirvana. Some nonreligious types—myself not among them—seize upon science as a possible solution to the human condition. Hence, Transhumanism and the Singularity, which are just the latest, most extreme iteration of a long line of pseudoscientific cults. They are really just eugenics plus computers.
If you’re tempted by these childish, escapist, sci-fi fantasies, read Super Sad True Love Story. It may help you realize that there are worse things than being a mortal, flesh-and-blood creature with a heart that can be broken.
More Cross-check: Next: Contemplating the end of the world, math, mystery and other things Previous: Why I'm becoming a pro-nuke nut, continued
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22 Comments
Add CommentJudgmental are we? As far as living forever, I'll take my chances and if it doesn't work out the way i want i can always end it myself, but the choice would be up to me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChildish? Escapist? Quit being so cynical and enjoy it for what it is. A story.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisP.S. And quit putting everybody into your preconceived notions of human.
Childish? Escapist? Quit being so cynical about everything and everyone and just enjoy it for what it is. A story.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisP.S. And quit putting everyone into your notions of human.
Funny that you'd call it escapist. I'd want to live much longer so that I can see what's going to happen - and enjoy all I can of what's here. I'd still be flesh and blood if wounds could quickly heal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTime flies by too fast to consider the desire to make it last as... "childish," that's absurd. What's really childish is rolling over and taking death, knowing that there are other options. Eventually, natural death would be like getting cancer from smoking, people will wonder why you'd neglect your body like that.
Think about the experiments you could do in two hundred years. The books you could write. That trip to another planet planet you always dreamed about!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"whereas the U.S. has degenerated into a paranoid, near-bankrupt police state scrutinizing foreigners and even its own citizens for signs of subversion. (Hmm. Hasnt this already happened?) "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes it has:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/nyregion/30border.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Until we learn how to stop the breakdown of the telomeres, which contribute greatly to perfect cell division by regulating and ending the split of the DNA double helix, we will be doomed to the ageing process. Presently, all medical science is doing to prolong life is delay death. Quality of life at increased ages still looks pretty dismal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt 50, I plan on enjoying this last third of my "quality" life as much as possible.
Buddhist Nirvana as "atavistic mumbo jumbo"? Have you ever tried meditation or yoga? These practices have increased longevity for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike for years. Do your research before lumping Buddhism in with Christianity. Namaste!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow! I did my own research and what is most surprising is that someone with your repertoire of publishings would drop Nirvana into the same category as Heaven. Let's be consistent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't want to live forever- but one lifetime just isn't enough.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthis article really doesn't belong in sciam...no science or anything....just scifi(which i love to)...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislike several of the other posters here, i to want to live forever...
If the book's as hopelessly misinformed as this article I think I'll give it a miss.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the book is as misinformed as this article, I think I'll give it a miss.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI recommend you give this a read:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswww.teleologicalevolution.com
Namaste.
And remember, it is good to dream.
whatever your position, do not fall prey to the argument that the side with the most professors wins...for every R Dawkins there is a J� Polkinghorne, etc. -- at least have some intellectual honesty and take an agnostic position...in the meantime, do the hard math (or try), read a little P Davies and form your own studied opinion/position/faith.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhatever your position, do not fall prey to the argument that the side with the most professors wins...for every R Dawkins there is a J Polkinghorne, etc. -- at least have some intellectual honesty and take an agnostic position...in the meantime, do the hard math (or try), read a little P Davies and form your own studied opinion/position/faith.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this> "Hence, Transhumanism and the Singularity, which are just the latest, most extreme iteration of a long line of pseudoscientific cults. They are really just eugenics plus computers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf youre tempted by these childish, escapist, sci-fi fantasies,..."
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If this was ~200 years ago when the average human lifespan was 37 years, would you be prattling on about the childish, escapist, sci-fi fantasies of those that thought that the average human life span could be increased to age 40?
If you are over age 37, I would humbly suggest that you should pretend that this is 200 years ago, and go off yourself, rather than discrediting a publication called "Scientific American" with your 'Luddite like' babblings.
~
Great article here, I couldn't agree more. Although I'm a little surprised to see so many defenders of the immortality delirium posting on here. Really it's a set of views that sadden me somewhat--as I find religion neither rational nor compelling, I am a little bit concerned to see like-minded individuals fall for an equally simplistic mind-trap like the "singularity".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHonestly, listen up kids. Even assuming that it were possible to extend the human life span indefinitely, the odds that anyone alive today will live to see such technology are virtually nil. That's not even mentioning the undesirability of such a dreadful experience as living continually for all eternity; or the likelihood that you would be one of the "lucky" few (else try fitting 6 billion sex-starved immortals on one planet without increasing the population density). And for those who want to freeze their brains, here's some real news: it's a sham. By the time your brain has been perfused with antifreeze there's nothing left. Zip. Nada. You're a chunk of flesh, which, even if reanimated would be equivalent to a dead brain.
So get over it and enjoy life like the rest of us.
its really a true love story book that i ever known as technicals hooker terrible lab and bad tempering people, praying as much as i could so there could be happen a difference against devils. onelife time is enough with my daughter and that is time for us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne who knows thy self is immortal and is full of love.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://sridattadev-theoryofeverything.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html
Horgan criticizes transhumanism and calls it fanciful but gives absolutely no evidence or arguments to support that claim. Logically, as long as a technology does not go against the laws of physics it WILL be developed, it's just a matter of when. I can understand and agree with the criticism of Kurzweil and current "anti-aging" supplements which have little science behind them, but de Grey is a real scientist who, along with many other scientists, is just proposing a set of scientific interventions to try to mitigate the harmful health effects of aging. (he's not selling anything and makes it clear it isn't certain to work)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe current "reactive medicine" approach of medicine, which focuses on the symptoms of the problem (cancer, alzheimer's, etc) without addressing the root of the problem (aging), is bankrupting the West and only results in people living slightly longer before another age-related disease kills them. Without addressing the underlying biological mechanisms of aging we're all destined for a slow decline in bad health. With Horgan's anti scientific inquiry attitude we would have never developed organ transplants, vaccines or antibiotics. His ignorance and prejudice in the article is clear for all to see.
What bothers me most about discussions such as this is the -- apparently successful -- usurpation of "Singularity" concept by Kurzweil. Before he got hold of it and distorted it to basically mean your concsiousness within a computer, "the singularity" referred to a more general concept: a time at which medicine, cybernetics, chemistry, physics, and other disciplines all acting together, with their exponentially growing knowledge, to transform humanity to something greater than current humanity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis definition of "singularity" did not NECESSARILY have anything to do with moving consciousness anywhere other than the brain at all... it was merely an expression of a condition in which we were "improved" in ways that we would not today recognize. That included scenarios in which the consciousness stayed right were it is, thank you very much.
The original meaning of "singularity", with its greatly broadened meaning in this context, is far more realistic than Kurzweil's overly-narrow definition of it. I would like to see discussion return to such synergistic, realistic conceptions of it, rather than myopically focusing on things that are unlikely to happen any time soon, like computers "smart" enough to encompass consciousness.
As a long-time computer programmer, I can attest that there have been few real breakthroughs in "AI", in a very long time. The field has been mostly stagnant for decades. Sure, there have been the fast (but incremental) changes in processing speed and power, but the computers themselves are just as "stupid" as ever... relying on clever, iterative programming to seem smarter than they really are.
IBM's contraption that will be on Jeopardy soon performs impressively at the tasks given it, to be sure. But even it does not have the native "intelligence" of a cockroach.