Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

by Stephen Cave

If you could live forever, would you want to? Both a fascinating look at the history of our strive for immortality and an investigation into whether living forever is really all it's cracked up to be.

A fascinating work of popular philosophy and history that both enlightens and entertains, Stephen Cave investigates whether it just might be possible to live forever and whether we should want to. He also makes a powerful argument that it's our very preoccupation with defying mortality that drives civilization.

Central to this book is the metaphor of a mountaintop where one can find the Immortals. Since the dawn of humanity, everyone - whether they know it or not--has been trying to climb that mountain. But there are only four paths up its treacherous slope, and there have only ever been four paths. Throughout history, people have wagered everything on their choice of the correct path, and fought wars against those who've chosen differently.

In drawing back the curtain on what compels humans to "keep on keeping on," Cave engages the reader in a number of mind-bending thought experiments. He teases out the implications of each immortality gambit, asking, for example, how long a person would live if they did manage to acquire a perfectly disease-free body. Or what would happen if a super-being tried to round up the atomic constituents of all who've died in order to resurrect them. Or what our loved ones would really be doing in heaven if it does exist.

We're confronted with a series of brain-rattling questions: What would happen if tomorrow humanity discovered that there is no life but this one? Would people continue to please their boss, vie for the title of Year's Best Salesman? Would three-hundred-year projects still get started? If the four paths up the Mount of the Immortals lead nowhere--if there is no getting up to the summit--is there still reason to live? And can civilization survive?

Immortality is a deeply satisfying book, as optimistic about the human condition as it is insightful about the true arc of history.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Science, Psychology, Death, Technology

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Stephen Cave is Academic Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and Co-Director of the Institute for Technology and Humanity, both at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on philosophy and ethics of technology, particularly AI, robotics and life-extension. He is the author of Immortality (Crown, 2012), a New Scientist book of the year, and Should You Choose To Live Forever: A Debate (with John Martin Fischer, Routledge, 2023); and co-editor of AI Narratives (OUP, 2020), Feminist AI (OUP, 2023) and Imagining AI (OUP, 2023). He writes widely about philosophy, technology and society, including for the Guardian and Atlantic. He also advises governments around the world, and has served as a British diplomat.

Reviews

[Stephen Cave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I like it. Okay, I'm biased.

[Book Shark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How it Drives Civilization by Stephen Cave

" Immortality" is the fascinating and thought-provoking book about life, death and civilization. It's about humankind's quest by one or a combination of four paths that promise immortality and whether any of these paths can deliver on that promise. Finally, with the newfound wisdom it's about following a philosophy of life that provides us with a meaningful existence. Stephen Cave holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Cambridge University and a writer who skillfully provides the reader with a gem of a book that is enlightening and a joy to read. This 338-page book is broken out into four parts that correspond to the four narratives of immortality and a conclusion: Part I. Staying Alive, Part II. Resurrection, Part II. Soul, and Part IV. Legacy.

Positives:
1. A well written, accessible book for the masses.
2. A mesmerizing topic: immortality. The author treats the topic with utmost care and respect.
3. A fantastic format that follows logically with the author's overall thesis.
4. The four immortality narratives: Staying Alive, Resurrection, Soul, and Legacy. The entire book revolves around these four main paths.
5. The author clearly presents three main goals upfront and thoroughly succeeds in achieving them.
6. Each chapter begins with an interesting historical vignette in which the author highlights the main topic of the chapter.
7. In the first path of immortality the author goes through a number of examples that clearly show how the determination to stay alive and reproduce is one thing that all life forms have in common.
8. The Morality Paradox. The immortality narratives were created to resolve the paradox.
9. Great use of secular, religious and scientific viewpoints to go through all the arguments. Great stuff!
10. Thought-provoking quotes and ideas: "These psychologists were testing the hypothesis that we have developed our cultural worldviews in order to protect ourselves from the fear of death". Interesting.
11. The author goes through various and diverse civilizations to explain his thesis. Thus keeping the book fresh and interesting. "Civilization is built on the promise of immortality".
12. Attempts to engineer immortality. The Engineering Approach to immortality. Transhumanists...
13. The significance of resurrection and the three major problems with it.
14. The impact of Paul to Christianity.
15. The importance of rituals, "This is the function of religion at its grandest: enabling mere mortals to attain cosmic significance, to become one with their gods and so to attain immortality."
16. Cryonics, interesting stuff.
17. My favorite section of the book, the thorough debunking of the soul.
18. The idea of the soul, its claims and the implications.
19. The history and evolution of the concept of the soul. From soul to self...
20. The argument from neuroscience against the existence of the soul.
21. The concepts of heaven.
22. Scientific and religious looks at the soul. Eastern and Western religions.
23. Legacy what it means and how it is achieved. Great examples.
24. Great quotes, "Jean Rostand wrote in 1939, “Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god.”
25. Fascinating facts, " By spring 2011, Facebook, had over 600 million active users and counting."
26. The "bundle theory" of the self and the problems associated with it.
27. Nation's myth of common ancestry.
28. Planet Earth, the biggest superorganism, Gaia. Global consciousness.
29. The author does a wonderful job of summarizing his finding into a satisfying conclusion.
30. A positive, secular outlook to death. The Wisdom Narrative.
31. Some great closing thoughts that will stick with me, " This is no doubt why medieval European rulers found Christianity so useful—it taught their exploited subjects to avert their eyes from the horror of their daily lives and dream instead of a future paradise."
32. How these narratives contribute to what our civilizations are.
33. A look at the impact of infinity. Enlightening.
34. The three virtues on our view of life and death.
35. A page turner of a book.

Negatives:
1. No formal bibliography.
2. A notes section was provided but it was not linked to the body of the book.
3. The author overstays his welcome a tad with the last chapter. That is, it was too long and started becoming preachy but if that's the worst thing I can find about this book well you know you got yourself a gem.
4. Charts and illustrations would have added value. For example, a chart illustrating the worldview on immortality would have been welcomed.

In summary, I really enjoyed this book. First of all, this is philosophy at its best. It asks the big questions and it follows a path that is logical and reasonable. It tackles fascinating topics surrounding immortality and it ends with a satisfying conclusion. My favorite part of this book was Part III. The Soul; finally, an author who spends some time addressing the soul in a comprehensive manner. This book was a real treat for me, treat yourself and get it! I highly recommend it.

Further suggestions: "Physics of the Future" by Michio Kaku, "Paranormality" by Richard Wiseman, "Scientific Paranormal Investigation" by Benjamin Radford, "Demon-Haunted Word" by Carl Sagan, "The Believing Brain" and "Why People Believe Weird Things" by Michael Shermer, "The Problem of the Soul" by Owen Flanagan, "God Soul Mind Brain" by Michael S. A. Graziano, "The Brain and the Meaning of Life" by Paul Thagard, "The Belief Instinct" by Jesse Bering, and "Human" by Michael S. Gazzaniga.

[Andrés Astudillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books you won't forget. Cave explains four narratives that are wide spread in every mythos throughout the history of mankind, the four narratives are: Staying alive, Resurrection, Soul and Legacy. All of them are mentioned in every myth, from Gilgamesh to Buddhism, from Islam to Zoroastrism, and they all are a by product of our (in Ernest Becker's words) "fear of death". We all are a product of evolution, and we are the descendants of people who managed to -stay alive- (even though they all died) by being anxious of the future, and by fearing death.
However, the world today, is not the same as it was one hundred thousand years ago.

We are the first ones to actually understand nature, in every aspect: we can explain childbirth, love, the universe, and genetics, and for the first time ever, we live longer as we've never had.

He proposes a fifth narrative, "Wisdom narrative", based on science and deeply stoic, recommends each and every one of three ways to apply it: identify with others, focus on the present, and gratitude.
The most lovely thing about this, is that it is not a -new age- kinda thing; it is the way in which we can appreciate life, and not just human life, but any life. I have a son, a little dog. There were times in which I thought about him living no more than 20 years, and I couldnt stop crying. After reading this, I have those emotions still around, but at the same time I just cherish every moment with him; instead of sitting and reading, I take the book, put it aside, and just lie beside him and tell him that I love him. I want him to remember, and I want to remember that after he's gone someday, I told him that I really loved him. We keep lives that are gone alive by remembering them.


The book gave my tattoo "memento mori" an even more powerful meaning.

[Brian Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like this. It's a very clear, entertaining exploration of our drive for immortality throughout history. I'm not sure that escaping death is quite so central to all that we do. But Cave weaves a fascinating mega-story with a great rationale. Our efforts to keep living, hopefully forever, take four main forms: (1) make the body last forever; (2) arrange for the body to be resurrected (and then last forever); (3) arrange for the soul to live forever; (4) arrange for your fame, beauty, accomplishments, progeny, or whatever, to give you some eternal legacy. Those hopes or strategies, Cave claims, are what drives civilization, religion, and just about everything. It seems he takes even the Buddhist remedy for suffering, of relinquishing all attachment to things that pass away, is yet another strategy for gaining eternal existence.

[Audrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, someone has put in context my existential angst (which I have written about on my blog).

Beyond that, Stephen Cave has provided hope to those of us who simply cannot buy into any of what he calls the four "immortality narratives:" staying alive, resurrection, soul, and legacy.

The book leads the reader on a fascinating journey through the history of philosophical thought as it relates to death and our quest for immortality. Cave uses stories--mostly of history and mythology--to bring his points alive and keep the book moving. Every major religion, he argues, from Taoism to Christianity, can be seen as a vehicle for one or more immortality narratives. He also looks at what modern biology and neuroscience have contributed to the discussion. His central idea is that while individuals' quest for immortality has driven much of civilization's progress, it has also resulted in enormous harm, causing many to focus on the preservation of self at the expense of others and giving rise to the fatalistic view that the circumstances of our lives on earth are predetermined or not worth attending to (since they are only a sliver of the eternity we will experience).

If this were the only thing the book accomplished, that would be a lot. But for someone like me, who has found herself on more than one occasion smack up against the pure terror of contemplating her own end--without the succor of religious belief to ease my anxiety--Cave does more. He offers a pathway to those who know in their hearts that immortality is impossible and yet still suffer the very human fear of death. Although the path he describes is reached through the intellect and not through the senses, it leads to some very concrete daily actions that can alleviate this suffering. And I was gratified to know that this path, which he calls the "wisdom narrative," is awfully close to the one I arrived at intuitively and which he sums up neatly at the book's end: "All we can ever know is life, and by accepting that it is finite, we can also know how to treasure it."

In short, this is a wonderful read if you enjoy pondering the big questions.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is nature, after all, that decrees that we must die—that causes our joints to seize up, our skin to wrinkle and cancer to strike. In order to live forever, we must, like the gods, rise above these natural limits. This therefore is the grand project of science, its answer to the Mortality Paradox: death and disease might be what nature intends for us, but we can master nature and thwart her plans. The founding fathers of the scientific method were quite explicit about this. René Descartes, for example, talked openly of seeking knowledge that would “render ourselves the lords and possessors of nature” and was considered by his contemporaries to be obsessed with the extension of life. And Francis Bacon pursued what he considered this “most noble goal” of life extension to his death—in 1626 from pneumonia, which he contracted when experimenting with the use of snow to preserve corpses. Throughout its history, science has sought to make life unending and death reversible.

***

As unjustifiably fearful as we are of the differences between us—the different colours of our skins, differences of religion, of politics, of sexuality and attraction—we, as humans, are most fearful of the one thing, the only thing, that all of us have in common: we are going to die. We don’t like it, we certainly don’t look forward to it, and given the gluttonous amount of late-night infomercials peddling stay-young-and-fit skin creams and homeopathic remedies, we’ll leap at any opportunity—no matter how deep into the red it spikes our bullshit radars—to cheat our way out of an early grave. Kevin Trudeau has made a living off of this fear (and several get-rich-quick schemes), as have so many doctors, scientists, philosophers, and religious leaders. Author Stephen Cave, however, wants you to understand both sides to the immortality coin.

Cave’s Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How it Drives Civilization is a surprisingly modest analysis of the myths, legends, and facts surrounding immortality and how the ambition to live forever has crossed all historical and cultural barriers.

By modest I don’t mean bereft of detail, rather that Cave recites his thesis without unnecessary hyperbole, presenting his topic with an academic’s attention to detail. Divided into four sections for the four families of thought regarding immortality—Staying Alive, Resurrection, Soul, and Legacy—Cave employs a wide breadth of examples—from the Egyptians, Alexander the Great, and The Epic of Gilgamesh, to more recent pioneers in the quest for immortality like Aubrey de Grey and Ray Kurzweil—to bridge the fact-fiction gap.

The strength of Immortality is Cave’s willingness to present the dark reality to the search for humanity’s literal Holy Grail. The yearning one feels to live forever is a desire born of ignorance; because forever isn’t several lifetimes, or a few dozen, even. It’s all of them. It’s billions and billions of years, until the heat death of the universe or the Big Crunch or something equally disastrous and capable of annihilating all life on Earth and every other life-sustaining rock in the universe comes to pass.

The pursuit of immortality has given rise to entire industries and religious sects, but the advancements of thought and faith and science represented therein are born from the carrot on a stick that will most likely never be within our reach. The mummification of bodies, the Christ resurrection myths, and so many similar folktales and established belief structures have promised a life beyond this one, or a continuation thereof, but we remain, to this day, without proof. In fact, only the Legacy branch of the quest for immortality holds any weight, as evidenced by the stories still told of Alexander the Great, past Presidents of the United States, of celebrities and figures of some notoriety that have lived on in narrative if not in flesh. Though arguably a form of immortality, it’s difficult, when all is said and done, to see where the benefit lies for the dead who, despite the lasting impact they’ve had on the world, are still very much worm food. And like such legacies, immortality is a story beyond tangibility.

But what of the future? Of digitally mapping the mind, uploading one’s consciousness into a clone or a synthetic avatar of some kind? That presupposes that the mind and what makes us human are memories and thought patterns. Even if that were the case, death would still inevitably take each and every one of us—a mind could theoretically be copied and mapped to the body of another, but the original, soul or no soul, would still have ceased operating and thus moved on to whatever’s next, or nothing at all.

As a natural extension of itself, of the severe longing at its unobtainable core, the pursuit of immortality is indeed a tragic one. Cave, who holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy, makes no attempts to lessen the oft-neglected gravity of the search and the likely impossibility of actually achieving immortality. In the end, he suggests the pursuit of immortality is a life-wasting quest in more ways than one. Yes, the time and energy spent on such a quest is in and of itself a waste, but there remains the possibility, far reaching though it may be, that the impossible may one day become a reality. If that were to happen, our lives would slow, grinding to a halt, because it is the fear of death, the “dread that, on our deathbed, we might look back on a wasted life” that pushes us ever forward, to realizing our true potential. “The clock that steals a second of our lives with every tick reminds us that the time to act is now. In other words: death is the source of all our deadlines.”

Immortality is never weighted down by the magnitude of its central topic, or by the almost universally faith-based set of ideologies that form the basis of Cave’s thesis. Instead, it offers a reasoned, sober series of conversations, both debunking the myths and legends of the immortality quest, and encouraging new thoughts and ideas to be brought to the forefront. Though it is likely a search for the impossible, and though our attempts to discover the key to our immortal souls remains a mystery, it’s the nature of the search that will invariably push us to one day realize our full potential—to extend our temporary, tangible lives as far into the future as possible.

[Louise Armstrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting read - he divided up our desire to live for ever (despite not knowing what to do with ourselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon) into 4 segments: Staying Alive keep taking the vitamins and jog so fast Death can't catch you; Resurrection, believe the body will rise again; have a Soul that lives forever; commit Famous Deeds that will live forever. He also shows how the Egyptians were a fascinating culture because they practised all four.

He tries to suggest that a fifth way of wisdom is emerging, and that we won't mind being dead because we won't be there. Trouble is, no matter how persuasive his arguments, and I found them very persuasive for say, resurrection of the body, which I've never believed in, even though I was taught by nuns who did, he didn't move me on my belief in the soul. I agree it's a mystery, but I persist in believing that my mind functions like a mobile phone or computer, and it's something else that animates it.

[Baal Of · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book in which the author handily address the claims and ideas behind the various immortality narratives, as he calls them. He is at his best when taking on these claims directly, and showing where they fail. For example, when talking about how theologians tie themselves in knots attempting to describe heaven, as the possible locations for such a place get pushed further and further out of possibility, capped off with a quote from motherfucker Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict XVI, making the meaningless statement that heaven is the new 'space' of the body of Christ. I think that the author occasionally overreaches on his argument for the quest for immortality being the driver of, well, everything humans do, without giving enough credit to other drivers such as selfishness and just plain stupidity (wrt procreation), but that is all a matter of degree.
The biggest problem I have with the book is over his use of the Mortality Paradox - the idea that we know we will die, but that we can not imagine the state of non-existence. I agree with the first part, but not the second. I know I stand in opposition to a raft-load of philosophers, that he has quoted, but I still don't buy it. The reason given is that even when trying to imagine the universe without, there is still an observer, and that observer is you, and thus you must, in the words of Freud, "in the unconscious [still be] convinced of his own immortality." I think this claim fails on several points.
1) It limits human imagination in an arbitrary manner. There is no acknowledgement that maybe I can imagine things without explicitly being the observer, i.e. as someone else. Or maybe even as an abstract observer, with no actual substance, which leads into the next point.
2) It fails to treat imagination as imagination. By their argument, if I try to imagine myself as someone else, observing something, I can't because I only my own experience to draw on. But that's the fucking point of imagination - to think about things that aren't necessarily so. I can draw on all kinds of experience to *imagine* things that I have actually never observed, and thus where I couldn't be the actual observer.
3) It fails to consistently apply the claim. Using the same argument as the mortality paradox, it must also be the case that I believe I have lived forever, since I can't possibly image the universe *before* I existed. But I can imagine it, and I don't believe that I've always existed. The same argument applies to anytime I imagine from a point of view I can't actually do, for example in the deep vacuum of space.
4) It makes an unwarranted leap from the claim that it is impossible to imagine non-existence (I still don't buy it), to the claim we must therefore believe in our own immortality. For the first, it might be possible to put forth testable propositions, but for the second, it comes down to philosophers telling me I don't believe what I think and say I do believe. Maybe they know my belief state better than I do, but there will need to be a lot stronger proof for me to accept that claim.

[Clark Hays · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spoiler alert: We're all gonna die.

It's a given. There's an expiration date stamped in barely legible ink somewhere on our persons. Even though we can’t see it, we can feel it. We know it’s there. And yet as a species, we humans go to great lengths to convince ourselves it doesn’t apply. The tension that exists between the reality of this and the mental contortions we go through to create imaginary escape routes to avoid acceptance, according to author Stephen Cave, is the engine that powers civilization, literature, art, science and everything in between.

Cave, a philosopher and all around man of letters, ambles through history — focused primarily on the ancient Greeks and ancient Christians, with a little Gilgamesh thrown in for good measure — to examine what he considers the four most common strategies, or narratives, humans have devised to cheat death. He carefully explains each, then just carefully disassembles them, exposing the logical fallacies that should be enough to give any rational person pause.

It's a fun and fast-reading romp filled with interesting asides, great quotes from brilliant minds and swirling eddies of thought that never forces the reader to dive too deep. That's a shame, because I really wanted it too. I wanted more analysis of some of the almost casual asides that I found so powerful. Civilization as a by-product of death avoidance? Yes please, can I have some more?

The long build up and dismissal of the four traditional paths — a full three quarters of the book — eventually leads readers to a fifth way, as described by the author. Getting to that fifth way was the reason I kept reading, only to find it was explained in one short chapter. It was decent enough philosophic foreplay but an unsatisfying climax. The fifth way deserved an equally detailed compiling of anecdotal evidence, a deeper explanation of how it might work and examples from history that could bring it to life.

Still, I liked this book, though occasionally grew frustrated at the surface treatment only to get pulled deeper on subsequent pages, sometimes unintentionally. I read it to try and better understand immortality as it applies to the vampire mythos (for my own writing) and actually enjoyed it well beyond research. I only hope the author comes out with a companion book that spends as much time and care on a method of living fully, meaningfully and thoughtfully without worrying about death.

[Shawn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would have to characterize the majority of this book as the juvenile philosophical ravings of an apparent atheist, intent upon elevating the limited physical perceptions of modern humanity into universal truths. This author seems caught in the same quagmire that binds many atheists: that being an inability to understand that the five human senses are capable of perceiving only a minute portion of all that is. Hence, confining ones religious sensibilities to only what has been revealed by science leaves one … well … “confined”.

This book explores four aspects of humanity that the author perceives as “strivings for immortality”, they are: (1) trying to stay alive, (2) physical resurrection, (3) belief in the soul, and (4) establishing a legacy. While this book offers some entertaining insight into each one of these human endeavors, the overall theme is callous and ultimately pessimistic.

Under the first of the authors perceptions, that of trying to stay alive, he expounds upon how civilization succeeds in perpetuating human existence and discusses the development of an immortality elixir, drug, or potion that would extend life indefinitely. But the question then becomes: how do you avoid overpopulation and how would you determine who to immortalize and who not? Here I think this author misses the perfect parallel to the religious question. If we had such an elixir, would we immortalize fools and evil people? It is quite reasonable to expect that such an elixir would be reserved for those who love life so much as to believe in refraining from those actions, or sins, that diminish it. The author quotes the novelist Susan Ertz in saying: “Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon”.

Under the second perception, that of resurrection, the author explores the nature of physical resurrection, citing as an example the disciple “doubting Thomas”, to whom Jesus invited to put his finger into his nail wounds or the wound in his side; and the report that Jesus actually ate after being resurrected. Here the author has an atheistic heyday in citing all the reasons why it is untenable to believe in physical resurrection because a physical body will deteriorate. In my opinion, this author fails to recognize that, even while we are alive, the atoms that compose us are constantly changing. Cells are constantly dying and new ones grown. We are not the exact same physical self that we were a year ago, a month ago, or even yesterday. The contention that the physical self is somehow static is untenable and I do not believe widely held.

The author’s third perception is that of the soul, or that of continuing independent of the physical body, or that we transcend mere biology. Invariably, atheists such as this author, just can’t seem to remember that what humanity knows as science is but a minuscule percentage of all that can be known. To reject God and the afterlife on such a minuscule foundation is just plain foolish.

Yet, from the author’s ramblings, we are ultimately able to synthesize some things for ourselves. We must question that if a soul is indeed ultimately able to occupy any environment of its choosing, its ability to attain bliss is limited only by the range of its perceptions. A soul that has limited itself to worldly physical perceptions might limit itself to that particular realm because that is all it knows. It is not difficult to imagine that only a soul that has sought after the spiritual realm, and so perceived and embraced the perfection of God’s kingdom, would possess a sufficient range of perception to choose entry into a heavenly realm. To this end, it may be said that “The Kingdom” must be believed and desired to be seen. “The Kingdom” is the open manifestation of justice, compassion, kindness, truthfulness, and all elements of the Godhead, such that all souls able to perceive it will clearly select it as the environment of their ultimate destination and so converge together in it. Just as today one either despises or loves our feeble attempts to produce “The Kingdom” in our churches, so the freed soul will seek it out or reject it in eternity. Remarkably however, many exercise an open volitional choice for a physical hell.

The difficulty for this particular author to understand “The Kingdom” lies in his narrow-minded focus upon his own limited, organic existence. The totality of human knowledge is clearly an insufficient amount of knowledge to fully understand the afterlife through merely physical means. When one rejects a spiritual means of understanding (prayer, meditation, scripture, spiritually meaningful action), ones perception becomes so narrowed as to recede into the dark recesses of atheism.

This author ends with the pessimistic implication that it is only through legacy that we can leave any lasting imprint and even that will ultimately diminish over time. The author speaks of a process of proliferating oneself, which is essentially self-worship; and most certainly does not result in an afterlife. It is, quite frankly: total nonsense. This author demonstrates a deep difficulty in segregating the physical and spiritual worlds. This author cannot seem to grasp or understand that dimensions exist that he cannot see, just as he cannot see germs or hear sounds beyond the perception of his eyes and ears, unaided. The wholesale rejection of everything beyond the limited sensory capacity of human beings is narrow minded and juvenile. Clearly this author has never experienced the Holy Spirit as manifest in Godly work. This author would, in the end, leave us to feel like: “twitching blobs of biological protoplasm”.

[NormaCenva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13419088

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steven Cave has pulled off an amazing feat: he has written a secular book every bit as profound as any religious text I've read. I first heard him describing his research in a TED talk, which intrigued me enough to pursue his writing further. Since season 6 of Game of Thrones is still fresh in my head, I would compare the experience of reading Immortality to Arya's apprenticeship with the Faceless Men. Cave's exploration of immortality narratives is as much concerned with profiling them as it is with discrediting them - and that can be rather unsettling. Toward the end of the book I found myself muttering: "a man is no one".

The desire or even expectation of immortality is one that Cave regards as being almost inseparable from human consciousness. "We are therefore blessed with powerful minds yet at the same time cursed, not only to die, but to know that we must." But to know that one will die and to truly grok it are two very different things. "The fact is, whenever we try to imagine the reality of our own deaths we stumble. We simply cannot envision actually not existing." "Our powerful imaginative facilities malfunction: we cannot consciously simulate what it is like to not be conscious".

To deny or at least distract us from that inconceivable finality of death, we invent immortality narratives, which Cave groups into four categories: Staying Alive, Resurrection, The Soul, and Legacy. I would be doing the book a disservice to try and distill all of Cave's thoughtful (and often humorous) discourse on these narratives here. But all are thoroughly explored, and at least to my mind, properly debunked. I can't help but mention one section that I particularly liked having to do with whether we can become immortal by way of uploading our brains to a powerful computer. As enticing as that may sound, "these would all just be high-tech ways of producing a counterfeit you." He points out the transporter in Star Trek suffers from the same problem, by breaking a person down into energy and then reassembling, you are effectively killing them in the process. "Such a reconstructed person is really only a replica—a copy, like an identical twin, not literally the same person come back to life. The tragic truth is that Captain Kirk, poor man, died a long time ago—and countless duplicates have gone the same way since."

Perhaps more insidious than the immorality narratives being false is the fact that "all four exacerbate the very attitudes that underpin [a fear of death]. By encouraging people to obsess about their own health, or the state of their own soul, or their particular legacy, they encourage the very self-centered, future-oriented, and negative view that caused their fear in the first place." Furthermore, rather than just blindly hoping for it, one has to consider the implication of what it would mean if immortality were actually possible. "The deep problem is this, the value of a thing is related to its scarcity— people conscious of their mortality value their time and aim to spend it wisely because they know their days are numbered. But if our days were not numbered, this incentive would disappear: given infinity, time would lose its worth." Alan Watts often spoke of a similar thought experiment where a person given immortality, after exhausting all the exotic possibilities they could dream up, would eventually decide to forget they are immortal and live a mortal life just to make things interesting. So we are left a true mortality paradox: "we yearn to live forever, but it we did it would be awful. We need finitude to give life value, but finitude comes packaged with fear of death."

If we must learn to live with our mortality, how can we do it? "'Death is nothing to us', [Epicurus] wrote around 300 BCE: 'For all good and evil lies in sensation, and death is the end of all sensation.'" "Death is not an event in life. That is, we can never be aware of [life] having an end—we can never know anything but life." There is some conciliation in that knowledge, and seeing as we can't do anything about it, we would do well to listen to the Greek Stoic Epictetus who said, "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."

Cave offers three antidotes to living with mortality which are common threads handed down from all the great wisdom traditions of history:

Identifying with Others - "Awareness of self might be important, but excessive concern with self only exacerbates the fear of death, or loss of self, and leads one to a life of self-absorption. In order to combat this, we should cultivate selflessness, or identifying with others."

Focus on the Present - "Picturing the future helps us plan a successful life, but excessive concern with the future causes us to focus on the tribulations that lie ahead of us—and we forget to live now. Therefore, we should learn to live more in the present moment."

Gratitude - "Imagining all the things that could threaten our existence might help us to avoid them, but in excess it leads us only to worry about what we might lose rather than appreciate what we have. Therefore, we should cultivate gratitude."

[nico · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think this just changed my whole life.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Immortality: Just imagine if nobody died...

From the preface: "This is a book about life, death and civilization."

For those who think that this is a boring treatise on any or all of the three topics listed above, they might be surprised to see how insightful British philosopher and author Stephen Cave's Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization actually is, as from the very beginning we get pulled right into it.

Again from the preface, which is entitled 'A Beautiful Woman Has Come / The Four Paths to Immortality', we find the author beginning with this:

"They tried to destroy her. Hammers swung to smash the elegant nose and break her long and graceful neck. All across the kingdom, the statues and busts of the great queen were pounded to dust. Her name was chiseled from the monuments, its utterance banned. This embodiment of regal womanhood was never to be seen or spoken of again.

It was a sentence made to last for eternity: no cult would tend her tomb, keeping alive her soul with incense and offerings; she would not be preserved in dignity so that she might reign in the Otherworld. Her brief dynasty was extinguished. By systematically erasing her from history, the new pharaoh was not only purging Egypt of her ideas and influence-- he was knowingly consigning her to cold, endless oblivion. Or so he thought."

As we read on, we're taken back to around 1340 BCE, reading of an Egyptian queen who had once enjoyed a status and influence that had been unprecedented in that country's long history. And we find how important that quest for immortality was within that civilization, one that survived almost unchanged for thousands of years. Among the ancient Greeks and Romans, Egypt had stood for ancient wisdom, and this was only finally suppressed when the Roman conquerors converted as a whole in 380 CE to a powerful new system of immortality, the one we know as Christianity. And in Egypt among other areas this was to be replaced a few hundred years later with yet another: Islam.



The author has broken his book into four major sections, and each has a series of chapters:

Part I: Staying Alive
• Magic Barriers / Civilization and the Elixir of Life
• The Vitamin Cure / Science Versus the Reaper

Part II: Resurrection
• St. Paul and the Cannibals / The Rise of Resurrection
• Frankenstein Redux / The Modern Reanimators

Part III: Soul
• Beatrice's Smile / What Happens in Paradise
• The Lost Soul / Reincarnation and the Evidence of Science

Part IV: Legacy
• Look on My Works, Ye Mighty / Everlasting Fame
• The Immortal Seed / Genes, Gaia and the Things in Between

Conclusion
* He Who Saw The Deep / Wisdom and Mortality

Author Stephen Cave has presented us with some interesting observations in this work, and it's sometimes surprising in the range of topics covered. He has observed that mankind has followed four paths that promise immortality, and without claiming to have found any secrets for everlasting life. He has covered the historical to the secular, the literary to the religious in a very readable fashion, and has offered some thought-provoking ponderings in which one can occasionally detect a dry and wry sense of humor just beneath the surface.

As he points out, every civilization through the ages had such immortality systems. Some of these systems parade their death-defying assurance even today, be they religious or in our popular culture, such as the popular Torchwood TV series, with its central character is of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), an immortal former con-man from the distant future.

But is immortality what we really want?

In the beginning, Stephen Cave noted that the final aim of this work was to ask if any of the paths to immortality could deliver on that promise, and what the answer might mean for how we should and would live. He has largely succeeded, and still leaves some thought provoking questions. Luckily this is no tome with some elixir for guaranteeing immortality, and this reader is thankful that the magical solution continues to elude us.

Note: This review originally appeared on Amazon.com.

[Raed · Rating 5 out of 5]

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare ,
The lone and level sands stretch far away

No matter how great our glory, it could only ever be a postponement of oblivion ...

This book will do three things: First, it will show that beneath the apparent diversity of stories about how immortality is to be attained. there are just four basic forms :
* Simply Staying Alive
* The Resurrection
* The Soul
* The Legacy

The second aim of this book is to show how the efforts to clear these four paths and prepare for the ascent up the Mount of the Immortals have thrown up what we know as civilization—the institutions, rituals and beliefs that make human existence what it is.

The third thing this book will do is draw on new insights to examine which of these four narratives have a real prospect of taking us to where we might live forever.

Can there be progress, justice and culture if we know that all our efforts will end in dust? This is the main question of the author.

I think that everyone seeks the eternity should take the advice of the Young woman, maker of wine in the Epic of Gilgamesh :
-“What’s up, stranger?” she asked, handing him a beer
-“I was a king,” he said... “I seek the one who survived the flood, Utnapishtim, the one they say is
immortal, that I might learn his secret. Tell me, where can I find him?”
-“Then you must be Gilgamesh,” replied the barmaid. “But don’t you see, immortality is not for the likes of us.

The life that you seek you never will find:
when the gods created mankind ,
death they dispensed to mankind ,
life they kept for themselves .
But you, Gilgamesh, let your belly be full ,
enjoy yourself always by day and by night!
Make merry each day ,
dance and play day and night!
Let your clothes be clean ,
let your head be washed, may you bathe in water!
Gaze on the child who holds your hand ,
let your wife enjoy your repeated embrace!”

Really an interesting read

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an easy read but well-thought-out look into what the fear of dying prompts us to do. The author does a good job at categorizing the various ways people try to stave off death, return from it, or survive it in another form. Each approach has its appeal but also a significant Achilles's heel. We are left at the end with an approach that accommodates the fear of death and the difficulty in believing we actually will totally die. Did I learn anything staggeringly new? No, but this book is a good prompt to look introspectively at your own mortality.

[Bruce · Rating 1 out of 5]

“In this book I will talk about…” is first grade level stuff and it happens twice in the first five pages.

He also claims that the human soul is a central tenet of many religions, but includes Buddhism in the list. Which couldn’t be more wrong and a simple search would tell this.

On the first point I lost trust in the writing ability, on the second lost faith in the research done for the book. Got to 10 pages then gave up.

1/5, dont read this.

[Julio Astudillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books you won't forget. Cave explains four narratives that are wide spread in every mythos throughout the history of mankind, the four narratives are: Staying alive, Resurrection, Soul and Legacy. All of them are mentioned in every myth, from Gilgamesh to Buddhism, from Islam to Zoroastrism, and they all are a by product of our (in Ernest Becker's words) "fear of death". We all are a product of evolution, and we are the descendants of people who managed to -stay alive- (even though they all died) by being anxious of the future, and by fearing death.
However, the world today, is not the same as it was one hundred thousand years ago.

We are the first ones to actually understand nature, in every aspect: we can explain childbirth, love, the universe, and genetics, and for the first time ever, we live longer as we've never had.

He proposes a fifth narrative, "Wisdom narrative", based on science and deeply stoic, recommends each and every one of three ways to apply it: identify with others, focus on the present, and gratitude.
The most lovely thing about this, is that it is not a -new age- kinda thing; it is the way in which we can appreciate life, and not just human life, but any life. I have a son, a little dog. There were times in which I thought about him living no more than 20 years, and I couldnt stop crying. After reading this, I have those emotions still around, but at the same time I just cherish every moment with him; instead of sitting and reading, I take the book, put it aside, and just lie beside him and tell him that I love him. I want him to remember, and I want to remember that after he's gone someday, I told him that I really loved him. We keep lives that are gone alive by remembering them.


The book gave my tattoo "memento mori" an even more powerful meaning.

[Chrissy Scivicque · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things I didn't like about this book: the author takes on each of his points with such literal interpretation as to make them absurd. He does not explore with any depth or nuance the importance of faith or what we still do not know. The concepts he sets out to disprove are taken to logical extremes that make them all sound ridiculous...which I suppose is the point, but it felt like overkill within the first few chapters. I agree with some other reviews that said the author makes sweeping statements that again lack nuance - like that all humans fear death - not differentiating that from the fear of the dying process.

Things I liked about this book: The ultimate conclusion seems justified though not necessarily revolutionary. We are left with the understanding that life is precious because it is finite, and that imminent prospect of death provides motivation. We are also left with three solid principles (which ironically align with many of the religious philosophies he spends the majority of the book arguing against) - selflessness, mindfulness and gratitude. And in fact seems to suggest that through our values-aligned actions we can indeed leave marks that endure...the exact non-literal interpretation of immortality through legacy.

All in all, I thought this was an interesting and fast read that helped me contemplate my own beliefs after the passing of my mother. The idea that death is not experienced as it is is the END of all experience is a bleak comfort.

[Ibrahim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen does a great job of leaving no stone unturned regarding personal immortality. As the title of the book says, it's about immortality and how it drives people directly and some indirectly towards living forever. For some literally (conquering death through medicine, uploading your consciousness, getting resurrected for the religious folks) and some figuratively (having kids, leaving a legacy behind for future generations).

It dives into the main 4 immortality narratives that people follow ( staying alive, resurrection, soul, legacy). Stephen dives into great detail about these narratives and tells us about why certain people see it as a plausible narrative and the fundamental flaws with it. The end of the book turns into a self help book and suggests what we can do with the knowledge that Stephen has given us. He recommends the Stoicism philosophy and to implement 3 main attributes : Empathy, Mindfulness and Gratitude.

This book would be more in the philosophical category. Definitely worth a reread!

[Anthony Pierri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The four immortality narratives vs. the wisdom narrative

The basic argument of the book is that there are four narratives that we use to deal with the mortality paradox (e.g. we know objectively that we are going to die, but subjectively we don't believe it) and that none of these narratives can make us immortal or effectively help us deal with our own impending doom. The four narratives are 1. Staying alive 2. Bodily resurrection 3. The soul 4. Legacy. The author suggests we instead follow the "wisdom narrative" that tells us 1. we need not fear death because we will not "experience" it at all and 2. eternal life would actually be a curse. Living as a mortal gives us a scarcity mentality that allows us to enjoy and value our lives. We should therefore spend our time thinking less of ourselves, helping others, and practicing gratitude.

[Filip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holistický pohľad na rôzne cesty k nesmrteľnosti plný historických aj literárnych príkladov, filozofických odbočiek a teologických skratiek. Kniha je veľmi pútavo napísaná a cítiť z nej humor aj nadhľad. Autor vedie čitateľovu pozornosť dostatkom zaujímavých príkladov z praxe, ktorými postupne smeruje k svojmu nihilisticky ladenému záveru plnom nádeje.

Napriek tomu, že sa s autorom miestami rozchádam v názoroch (v kapitole o duši tento koncept odpísal dosť skrat(k)ovito), musím povedať, že celkové posolstvo jeho publikácie oceňujem a stotožňujem sa s ním. Krásne tu vidieť, že otázky o ľudskej (ne)smrteľnosti sa s našou civilizáciou nesú od počiatku dejín a možné "riešenia," ktoré sme vymysleli za tých 5-6 tisícročí, čo vieme o svojich životoch podávať svedectvo prostredníctvom písma ... sa dajú spočítať na prstoch jednej ruky.

[Marcus Haugen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this one in the police station waiting room while detectives were questioning my frail and very old little brother about a string of recent murders in our small idyllic home. I guess people were getting killed in Roald Dahl inspired ways like getting shoved inside a giant peach and suffocating on peach flesh. The peach won the blue ribbon at the county fair and was very big for anyone interested. And also someone got killed by being drowned in a river of "chocolate." It was actually brown cause the sewage plant blew up cause of a New Year's firework someone shot off inside it but close enough. And then someone also got smooshed completely flat I assume by a BFG was the intention. Anyway my brother is the librarian at the children's library and so an obvious suspect but like if he was going to kill people why go to all this trouble when he has his huge collection of antique daggers all over his house that he could just stab people with? I dunno. This book was good.

[Bernie4444 · Rating 5 out of 5]

The footnotes cannot come fast enough

Stephen Cave does not take enough time to build up the background to make the sweeping assumptions that he does. This may have been helped if there are been Footnotes all along saying here somebody else too says this or some other thing that shows this.

He flippantly assumes that all societies and people are built on the thought of four types of immortality. That would be okay in itself except very seems to be a snot when it comes to who is immortality can trump whose immortality as if it was all a game.

[Johanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who doesn't want to live forever? Cave points out how people have wanted to achieve that and then - what would be the reality of achieving that? It scratches the surface and especially in the first few chapters I would have liked some more scratching but altogether it's a satisfying read that makes the reader ponder about their own existence, goals and life philosophy. If you happen upon it in a library, definitely give it a go.

[Nilendu Misra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book - history is applied philosophy and the author infuses both in a delightful read. History, esp civilization, is our quest to be alive forever. Cave draws examples from Nefartiti, the first Xin empire, evolution of religion and many others to draw four narratives on our quest for immortality. Christianity was the most potent “immortality system” was a beautiful insight. Best book of 2024 so far.

[Olivier Brassard · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai aimé comment l'auteur sépare les narratives d'immortalité :

1. Staying Alive
2. Resurrection
3. Soul
4. Legacy

Jai aimé la statistique qui dit que même si on réussirait à maintenir le corps humain en vie pour toujours, on vivrait en moyenne 5750 ans (approx).

J'ai pas trouver la conclusion si impressionnante, mais j'ai aimé les arguments rapides que l'auteur donne.

[Joshua Richter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interested in life and death

A wonderful book describing the challenge of morality to our lives. Cave looks at legends, myths and stories in describing the different immortality narratives and their effects of our civilizations. A great read for any one interested in life and death.

[Tillmann Ziegert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant read

The author investigates four different narrative structures prevalent in history and our life. A tour de force that synthesizes knowledge of history and philosophy. A strong conclusion, based on various insights from sages throughout the ages. Wonderful, enjoyable read. Highly recommend.

[Yiliang Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very elegantly written and logical to me. I enjoy reading it every moment I spent. A lot of stories included in this book triggered me to think and nod. This topic of "Immortality" is probably of high interest to many people. Of course, this book only offers a view from one particular person, but it is instructive to me.