THANATOS

I’d like to introduce my readers to a thought experiment. Imagine you are lying on your death bed. You are not dying in pain or suffering; isn’t modern medicine wonderful? Your family surrounds you and mayhap a few friends if you have them. Not me, I’m the ultimate loner. A doctor attends; white coat and dignified white hair. I’m sure you know the type. And he says: “Flaxen I have a nostrum which contains a billion nanobots. If you assent I will inject them into one of your collapsed veins, with difficulty of course. Within hours you will feel rejuvenated as nanomachines pick and renew every cell in your body. You will be decrepit and ill no longer and your body and mind will be transported to when you were about 25 years of age, or so. And remember, your own thoughts will remain together with your accumulated wisdom." What would you do? Now that is a dilemma worthy of deliberation……….

It is said that humans are the only animal species endowed with knowledge of their mortality. Life ultimately ends in death. Entropy can only be placated for so long. But here is the rub: death is not part of life as death resides outside the demarkation of existence. We cannot relate our existence to the nonexistence to come. No one can look directly at the sun or death. Some folk, of religious sensibilities, aver that death is just the start of a new wondrous beginning. They envisage an eternal existence communing with the deity of their choice, in paradise; sounds boring to me. Even so, very few seem keen to relinquish this world for the ecstasy of the next. Mayhap, deep in their heart (?or soul), they realise that heaven is but a fantasy/fantasm born of more primitive times and tis best to cling to this world which they know to be real. And what happened to hell?

Modern medicine seems keen to delay the moment of oblivion. Too keen perhaps? Doctors take heroic measures to keep the guttering, flickering flame of life alight within failing breasts. Physicians are driven to wring the last drop of life from a dried-out husk of humanity riddled with disease. But before we castigate doctors too harshly we must appreciate that their training allows no other course. And in truth, death is seen as a failure of modern medicine even though our mortality is manifest and death inevitable. Doctors like politicians, ultimately fail.

Death can be viewed as a leap into the unknown void. But is it really? Is Socrate’s dreamless sleep to be feared? If the universe is over 13 billion years old, then our sojourn unto consciousness is but a brief hiccup in the vast morass of time (what is time?). We have always been dead. We should not fear death. What we should fear is the dying process itself especially if that process is protracted and veiled in suffering and pain. That said, modern medicine is very good at managing pain and distress. A mass of rot can be kept insensible to agony. A good death, if there is such a thing, surely invites instantaneous demise before the degenerative debilitating signs become palpable.  But if we are honest, few will be so blessed. Most will linger under death’s fetid breath, even if it be for a little while.

And so we return to the question penned at the beginning: would you accept the gift/curse of immortality? There is much to reflect upon here, especially as we may be close, at least according to some respected authorities, to achieving immortality by regenerating the human body forever. Well, at least until physical misadventure ultimately intervenes; banana skins are everywhere. Optimistic heads predict that there are mortals alive today that will eat from the tree of everlasting life. I am not of this opinion- but I may be wrong. I have previously discussed the implications: scientific, practical, psychological and ethical, elsewhere- read and weep, here. There can be no definitive answer to this final question. Our decision in our last lucid moments may not be the one we would make today. Think about it, if you can. My provisional decision (subject to change) would be nay. My three score and ten is enough. My dreamless sleep is something to be embraced, my prize for being mortal. And anyway, what do we become if we achieve immortality? I suspect we will succumb to be less than human.

I will leave the immortal Bard to have the last word on the subject. He certainly had a way with words.

By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death.