Can We Defeat Death?

                           *Saumitra Mohan

            The ‘Second Law of Thermodynamics’ says that entropy results in the gradual decline and death of all systems including stars, people and the universe. The ‘Law of Natural Selection’ has ensured hereditary transfer of immortal genes through generations. This has also guaranteed the replacement of the present with the posterity through the instrumentality of death.

            Death, defined as the permanent cessation of all biological functions sustaining a living organism, is brought about through ageing, predation, malnutrition, disease, suicide, homicide, starvation, dehydration, accidents or major trauma resulting in a fatal injury.            The remnants of an organism naturally merge with the biochemical cycle on death. Such remnants and residues become food for other predating or scavenging animals.

            The organic matter is further decomposed by detritivores (including earthworms or fungi), transferring and transforming the same for reuse of others in the food chain. All such material, eventually decomposed as chemicals, get consumed and assimilated into the cells of one or the other living organism. The process keeps repeating itself forever, thereby ensuring the sustenance and continuity of the ecosystem.

            With the enlightenment and epiphany afforded by the continuous march of science, we all know today that nothing in this world ever ‘gets lost’ and wasted. Every organic and inorganic matter being different permutations and combinations of energy, they simply change form on their eventual depreciation and disintegration as energy could never be destroyed. Even as organic bodies deteriorate and die, they also undergo a similar process of formative mutation, by becoming or providing building blocks for other living or non-living beings in the universe.

            So, energy including the one forming our ‘soul consciousness’ does not actually end. It simply metamorphoses from one state to another.     That being so, why are we ever so frightened of death? It is our perennial fear of death or love with our earthly life that goads us into seeking, exploring and unearthing the secrets of death for keeping it at bay perpetually. In our daily struggles to make the ends meet, most of us hardly find time to pause and ponder over such esoteric matters as death and life thereafter.

            While it is a truism that almost all the religions and cultures have dealt extensively with the subjects of death and afterlife within the confines of their own cognitive perspectives, this is also true that man has forever tried to explore and unearth the mysteries of death, not to speak of making an untiring effort to defeat death in his desire to live forever. The eternal human desire for immortality by getting around the biological death of organic life has always inspired civilisations since time immemorial to discover the ever elusive ‘elixir of life’ or a ‘philosopher’s stone’ for a permanent victory over death.

            Notwithstanding a series of failures in doing so, the human endeavour has never ceased and continues with renewed vigour and fervour. And this is but natural. As humans get more and more comfortable with their day-to-day problems of survival, they think of continuing and extending the pleasing experiences of human life forever though there have always been a significant number of people who wish to do otherwise because of their negative and miserable life experiences.

            Different schools of science at different phases of human history have explored, propounded and declaimed differently on diverse ways to tame the hydra-headed monster of death of a living organism for realising the human craving for immortality. One of the ways includes transplanting the head of a physically disabled person on a fully-functioning brain-dead body. There is also a phenomenon of ‘whole-body transplant’ where the brain of one organism is transplanted into the body of another organism.

            The ‘whole-body transplant’ is a procedure distinct from the head transplant, which involves transplantation of the entire head into a new body, as opposed to the brain only in case of the former. After a 2014 Harvard study noted significantly enhanced memory and ability to learn in the older mice who were injected with the blood of the younger mice, harvesting teens’ blood has since been promoted for acquiring eternal youth. How successful the same would become, only time will tell.

            Cryonics, a specialized stream of science, proposes to attain immortality through freezing, preserving and reanimating the cadaver of a living organism by way of pre-stipulated formulae. Here, the human memory in the form of individual body is cryo-preserved infinitely until we have the right technologies for reanimating it. If frozen embryos could be brought back to life, why can not the human memory? However, a brain being much larger and many times more complex than an embryo, the freezing process is likely to set in entropy and destroy the neurons carrying the individual memories, thereby destroying the ‘Self’ itself.

            Then, we have ‘Singulartarian’ scientists who propose to immortalise us by uploading the composite patterns of our thoughts and memories into a computer. By intending to upload human consciousness on cloud, the idea is to transform a human from a biological being into a non-biological being to such an extent that the biological part becomes redundant. It is the non-biological part which dominates and by dint of being non-corporeal and non-biological transcends the eternal cycle of birth and death to make a human being immortal.

              In an age of information technology, advanced robotics and artificial intelligence, it won’t be long when we shall soon be able to afford any android body with options to upload a mind of our choice. This could become possible as and when science succeeds in uploading human consciousness or mind onto the humongous pool of interconnected ‘cloud’ as the virtual repositories of brains/minds/consciousness and, thus all human knowledge and wisdom, possessed by all individual human beings. It would then become possible to share or exchange our minds with others.

            One may flaunt as many android bodies as possible depending upon one’s desire, predilection and matching financial condition. This would, however, give rise to another kind of inequality in the world unless the future Government comes out with support and subvention for meeting such needs of its citizens. Whatever be the financial capabilities of the people, the science could definitely facilitate our choosing from a bouquet of minds of different genders and different ages available on the cloud.

            So, even if our physical bodies die, we could still be around by way of our uploaded individual consciousness which could again manifest and express itself through the media of available android bodies. It would become technically possible for an individual to show off as many android bodies as possible, depending on the fact as to whether human civilization is able to solve the problem of poverty and inequality by then or not.

            Nevertheless, the idea of uploading human consciousness into a computer or on an online interconnected database called ‘cloud’ and expressing the same through the instrumentality of androids also has its limitations. This actually traps the humans into another cycle of birth and death, rather than liberating from the same. The knowledge, expertise and administration of new levers for our manifestation through androids or downloading desired minds from the cloud, if fallen in wrong hands, may wreak havoc with human existence.

            Our manifestation through android or downloading the required consciousness would depend upon the mercy and efficiency of those entrusted with the knowhow of the entire mechanism surrounding the conception, design, manufacture and distribution of the androids and administration of the ‘cloud’ containing all our minds. This forebodes the creation of another religion and another God in future. If humans could actually create and work out an efficient and effective system for the same coupled with the technologies for teleportation and telepathy, the same shall open the avenues for colonisation and population of other habitable celestial bodies.

            To get around the problem of dependence on a human agency, the human capacities aided by science and spirituality shall need to be enhanced to the extent of manufacturing their own bodies at will as and when required. The requirement of permanent physical expression shall require to be reduced to the minimum. The human capacities would require to be enhanced to an extent to be able to materialize, travel and express at will at the speed of thought without in any way compromising the similar liberties and rights of others.

            Any such continuation of human consciousness through scientific breakthrough would, however, strike at the roots of the belief in the permanent loss of consciousness after death. As the spiritualist and reincarnation studies have already suggested the existence and survival of human consciousness through eternity notwithstanding physical demise, such a development would actually ensure the convergence of spiritual and scientific perspectives, thereby making the Homo sapiens immortal forever. This would also corroborate and confirm the Hindu belief in the eternal existence and immortality of human consciousness.

            Against the above very futuristic solutions to the problem of ‘death’, there are many who believe in the more feasible and practicable goal of extending human life to the maximum extent possible. The intercellular competition in the animal body for eliminating and replacing the damaged cells does have the potential for immortality. If our body could just keep doing this indefinitely, theoretically we do have a decent chance of living an interminably longer life. The human life could be very well extended by slowing the rate of ageing, periodic molecular repair, rejuvenation or replacement of atrophied cells and tissues.

            The average life of a human being could actually be extended by slowing or reversing the processes of ageing through a balanced diet, calorie control, regulating human vulnerability to natural and man-made calamities and accidents, regular exercises and cultivation of healthy habits like avoidance of health hazards like consumption of tobacco products or carcinogenic foods. Doing so, one can very well avoid premature deaths or lifestyle related afflictions and ailments like cancer, diabetes, obesity or cardiovascular diseases. 

            Yet, the life extension methods could only reduce the rate of ageing and postpone our death, but that will not take us anywhere close to the realization of the cherished immortality because of inescapable ‘senescence’. Even if a living being is able to survive all the possible life-threatening accidents or calamities, s/he would still expire due to ‘senescence’ referring to the process of ageing and old age due to the deterioration of cellular and other bodily functions.

            Though there are ‘biomedical gerontologists’ who are trying to understand the various nuances of ageing while also developing treatments for reversing or slowing the process of ageing to ensure improved health and youthful vigour at every stage of human life, still death catches up sooner or later. The ‘trans-humanists’ come on the scene here, promising to create a ‘superman’ with vastly enhanced capabilities to tide over the problem of senility, dotage, caducity and ageing.

            The ‘trans-humanists’ seek to achieve their goals through a combination of behavioural changes, body enhancement techniques and genetic engineering. This inter alia includes diet control, physical exercises, breast or cochlear implants, organ transplants e.g. artificial knees, hips and hearts as well as biological tinkering via genetic engineering.       The new-age ‘nanobots’ or micro-robots are proposed to be pressed into service to get into our bloodstream to annihilate the targeted pathogens, clear the accumulated vascular and arterial debris, rid our bodies of all life-threatening clots, clogs and tumours and carry out the required DNA corrections.

            All this is done with a view to reverse the ageing process for regulating our evolutionary process to transform our species into a stronger, faster, healthier, and more erogenous species with vastly superior cognitive capabilities. So, even if we are not immortal, we can very well become ‘amortal’, i.e. one who is unable to die from disease or ageing.   The modern ‘Rejuvenation Biotechnology’ and ‘Regenerative Medicine’ are convinced that humans will be able to live forever one day.

            Regulating and stopping the molecular and cellular damage or dysfunctions in a human body through state-of-the-art technologies as stem cell, gene therapies, better drugs and vaccinations would soon ensure the same. It would soon be possible to generate human organs using 3D printers loaded with living cells, making them much more accessible and affordable than they are today. The humans shall be able to fix their bodies at will and could rejuvenate it every time they feel so while effectively living in the cloud by being able to link their minds to the interconnected and uploaded minds of all the sentient beings. This will be as good as living in a real world.

            Countering the natural entropy through ageing, the ‘extropians’ like trans-humanists aim at lengthening our biological life, enhanced intelligence, greater wisdom, vastly superior physical and mental abilities while simultaneously aspiring to eliminate political, economic and cultural limits to our personal and social growth. Immortality could easily follow the achievement of these more achievable goals. All said and done, our mortality appears to be immanent and naturally programmed into every cell, organ and system in our bodies as of now. The same shall continue so till the time we are capable of resolving the multifarious issues at different levels of complexity including those relating to ageing and senescence.

            The truth is even if manage to break through the upper ceiling of 125 years by solving the many problems associated with ageing, there are likely to come around newer issues if we succeed to live 200 or 500 years as many of the spiritualists are claimed to have achieved already a la the character of ‘Babaji’ and other beings as mentioned in books like ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ and ‘Living with Himalayan Masters’. Hence, instead of vying for the utopian goal of immortality, a more modest objective of living for 150 years with a better functioning human body through the aid of modern science could be something well worth aspiring for.

            However, one also needs to visualise the many problems emerging from the possible attainment of ‘amortality’ or a longer life of 150 or more years. What would happen to the problem of population? Won’t the very natural evolution of human beings be compromised as a result thereof, thereby trapping many humans in the time warp forever, not to speak of compromising their spiritual growth? We shall need to realise the goals of teleportation and telepathy for real-time transportation and communication with life on other celestial bodies before we make them habitable to tide over the problem of population. Our spiritual growth and advancement may also be severely compromised if we seek to extend our stay in a physical world forever or for an unduly prolonged life.

            One hopes that with scientific growth, we shall also attain corresponding spiritual growth and insights, thereby unveiling and unravelling the mysteries of life, afterlife and rebirth more authentically and authoritatively. If that happens, the humans may lose interest in a longer life or immortality, realizing that they already live forever through the instrumentality of newer physical or spiritual bodies, acquired after every pause called ‘death’ through reincarnations in physical and other dimensions. This would convince the human race of the futility of chasing the chimaera of immortality.

Dissent is the fulcrum of a democracy

                                                                                                *Saumitra Mohan

            Dissent and democracy are often considered synonymous in a liberal-democratic social order. It is through open debate and discussion that the huge range of diversity of opinion in a democracy is captured. It is by means of such continuous conversation on relevant issues and contretemps that the real truth comes out. However, many have questioned the putative usefulness of ‘dissent for the sake of dissent’, as without much import.

            It is suggested that motivated and manufactured dissent can do more harm than good in an ‘open society’. The critics point out that too much of dissension actually thwarts and frustrates a meaningful discourse. This is because a conscious attempt is usually made to drown out the real issues and airbrush the truth behind a surfeit of information, debate, disagreement and discussion.

            The critics have pointed to the meaningless reflexive dissent by opposition political parties in a democracy. They do so not just to make their presence felt, but also to embarrass and run down the Government of the day with a view to earn some brownie points to feather their political nest. But here the question is how does one recognize which dissent or disagreement is genuine, reasonable and legitimate? The same could be known only through dialogue and debate.          

            Any proclaimed right to justify the suppression of such discord in the garb of curbing socially insidious opposition could later be misused to stifle even rightful and lawful dissent as is on display across the globe today. So, it is definitely never advisable to indulge in the misadventure of restraining the dissenting behaviour or voices. The truth is always strong enough to come out stronger through the rough and tumble of democratic discourse. This happens notwithstanding all the falsehood, fabrication, and misinformation advanced to screen the truth via multimedia channels.

            A sturdy, liberal democratic body politic has innate homeostatic system to ensure a balance in favour of truth and justice. Freedom of expression is the much elusive ‘Holy Grail’ which is the real fulcrum of a functioning democracy. So, the so-called critics of reflexive dissent should be too careful before advancing an argument in favour of any curbs on any type of dissent, howsoever disruptive or subversive. Expression of such dissent should, however, be subject to reasonable restraints and within the confines of relevant regulations.

            An institutionalized ‘rule of law’ cushions a democracy against possible abuse of the right to dissent and disagree. The alleged misuse of some of the legal provisions in our fledgling democracy including those relating to defamation and sedition has been noted with concern by many. The penchant for booking and arresting people for their anti-establishment vitriol is definitely not a very encouraging development and should be restrained.

            The USA, as the world’s oldest democracy, does provide a shining example of allowing any criticism or censure of the Government and its policies, howsoever disparaging to American values and ethos. An open society shall never fear any such divergent opinion or criticism. A tradition of healthy debate and constructive criticism are said to be beneficial for any progressive and vibrant polity. A society without any tradition of debate and dialogue starts stinking like the waters of a stagnant pool.

            It is through such constructive criticism and dialogues that new ideas and vision come forth, thereby taking the society to a new developmental height. As John Stuart Mill would have said, ‘My right to swing my arms in any direction ends where your nose begins’. Voltaire had similarly said, “I may not like what you say, but I would defend your right to say so till my death”.

            In an age of high-speed information and communication, it is well-nigh possible to tweak and twist facts to present the same as truth, thereby compromising the very efficacy of democracy and open discussion. As such, there is definitely a need for being vigilant against falsehood and propaganda in an age of ‘post-truths’ where sentiments and schmaltz are passed as ‘truth’ by the power peddlers.

            The new-age social media has made the situation further murkier. There have been many gruesome incidents and sanguinary episodes resulting in bad blood and loss of lives, just because the vested interests somehow were successful in manipulating information and news through media and social media for advancing their selfish interests. It has been proven beyond doubt as to how the entire presidential election of USA was influenced by another country with a view to ensure the victory of a particular candidate.

            As control of the mammon decides the information outreach, those with deeper pockets and influence over different media houses have higher chances of manipulating and manoeuvring any information, news or views. Hence, it is more than advisable for having a system of checks and balance in form of an impartial ombudsman to regulate the means of information and communication in an open democratic society.

            It is only through functioning of a vibrant media along with homeostatic checks and balance that a liberal democracy could survive. However, a trend has been noticed across the world for the rightwing revisionist forces to do everything possible in their might to be intolerant to any uncomfortable opinion as may prejudice their vested interests. Such orthodox and reactionary forces not only misuse media to manufacture convenient opinion, they also actively discourage any free expression of opinion and disagreement.

            The murder of Shujaat Bukhari, Gauri Lankesh, MM Kalburgi, Narendra Dabholkar or many others in India and abroad for their candid views are all examples of intolerance to dissent and disagreement. Be it the imposition of the emergency in the 1970s or the lynching of some people with impunity, we only hurt the cause of democracy by such actions. Notwithstanding all attempts by the British to throttle freedom of expression in pre-independence India, they still could not contain the same at a time when we did not have such sophisticated means of mass communication.

            The argument here is very simple. If the negative opinion is within the precincts of law, none has any right to suppress the same unless the finds reflection in unlawful activities. The same has also been concurred by the Supreme Court of India. By prohibiting such free expression, we only make them go underground thereby hurting ourselves more as then it get difficult to track such individuals and groups who may become more sinister to the larger societal interests.

            In fact, a prohibition often has an opposite effect by putting more gloss on the subject. All the attempts to manage and manipulate media by the dominant power groups never have the desired effect because of the inherent strengths of Indian democracy. As Abraham Lincoln said, ‘You can fool some of the people for some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time’. All autocrats have attempted to control media with disastrous consequences.

            While violence has always been a tool with those expressing and curbing dissent, its effectiveness is always questionable. It’s because of this that Gandhi never recommended the same for a just cause. The use of violence as an alternative to a meaningful dialogue is dangerous and has the potential to balkanize any society. Hence, there is a need to be alert against any mindless use of violence.

            A constructive criticism and meaningful dialogue is the hallmark of a democracy. But before we can expect that to happen, we need to have a more educated and informed society. One only hopes that amid all the attempts to impose fetters on freedom of expression and package lies and post-truths as truths shall come apart in a country as diverse as ours. India and its institutions shall emerge stronger as a more educated civil society comes forward to fight its battle as is already visible.