The Dream & Meaning of Immortality 长生不死的梦想与意义

长生不死的梦想与意义[^0]

有意识人类的最古老梦想？[^1]

一旦有可能，人类为什么不能尝试保存自己的意识并因而争取到能够决定何时丢弃它们（比如当人们厌倦了长生不死并准备通过死亡之门去会见造物者或到其他的宇宙/世界/状态中去时）的权力呢？

长生不死的意义

长生不死，如果指的是，拒绝让一个活的足够长时间的人（比如几百年）丢弃本身的意识而“死”的权力，那将会与无可避免的死亡同样的恐怖或糟糕（或甚至可能更糟）。所以所谓的长生不死应该是指赋予人类权力让他们：

（1）决定是否愿意在本身的生物体寿命死亡后继续保存自己的意识（若我们有能力为每一个人提供这样的选择的话）。

（2）决定是否要丢弃本身被保存的意识（在生存了一段“法定规定的时间”后？）并进入另一阶段（通过意识“死亡”来转换达成？）的“宇宙生命境界的体验”（？）（若当事人自愿选择相信那样的境界或生命形式确实存在并愿意去探索的话）。

几点意见

（1）能够长生不死只是单纯的意谓着，让人类可以从不可避免的死亡（疾病？）宿命中解脱出来。但这并不是说能够长生不死就能解决人类生活中可能出现的各种悲苦与磨难的事情。

（2）想望能够长生不死的念头对一些人而言可能听起来很奇怪。但是如果我们接受人类医治疾病的事实是为了防止死亡及延长寿命，那么迟早有一天，若我们能够治好所有的疾病（包括人体/生物体器官的衰老退化现像），我们是有可能达至“生物-医学”上的长生不死的[^2]。所以就这一点而言，长生不死并不是奇怪的想法；而且，我们甚至可以说医学上的治疗是人类趋近长生不死梦想的方法之一。

（3）对于长生不死的梦想，我是用生命科学课题的态度而不是神秘主义课题的态度来看待。希望我表达的意见是客观的。

The Dream & Meaning of Immortality[^0]

The Oldest Dream of Conscious Human Beings?[^3]

"Whenever it is possible, why can't human beings try to preserve their consciousness and therefore earned their rights to decide when to discard them when they are tire of being Immortal and ready to go through the Door of Death to meet the Creator or to another Universe / World?"

The Meaning of Being Immortal

It will be as terrible or as bad as Un-avoidable Death (or probably worst than it) if Immortality means deny one's rights to discard one's consciousness and "die" after one has lived a sufficient length of time (says a few hundred years). Therefore being Immortal should mean giving Human Beings the rights to:

(1) Decide whether they prefer to preserve their consciousness beyond biological death if we are able to provide such a choice (?) to everyone.

(2) Decide whether they want to discard their preserved consciousness (after they have lived through a "legal tender period of time"?) and proceed to the next stage (using "death" of consciousness to transform & achieve it?) of "cosmos life experiences (?)" (If they choose willingly to believe that such a stage do exist and would want to explore it).

A few Remarks:

(1) Being Immortal simply means release human from Un-avoidable death (disease?). It does not imply that being immortal will solve the many human sorrows and sufferings. However it does mean to give those who wish to live on beyond their biological life a choice.

(2) The idea of being Immortal may sound odd to some people. But if we accept the fact that Human Cure in order to prevent one from death and to prolong one's life, then sooner or later if we manage to cure all the diseases (including aging & decaying effects on human body), we will face the possibility of being Immortal "bio-medically" [^4]. Therefore in that sense, immortality is not an odd idea and we can even say that Medical Curing is one of the process that human beings take to approach their Dream of being Immortal.

(3) I have treated the Immortality dream as a life science topic rather than mysterious topic and hope that I have presented my opinion objectively.

Reference 参考:

[^0] 上网日期Posted: 11/July/1999(7月11号) --- 更新日期Updated: 15/Jun/2002(6月15号) --- 草稿Draft: (原稿dd/mm/yyyy) (发稿dd/mm/yyyy, [x]) (修稿dd/mm/yyyy) (ChangedTo改成HTML5版本，添加一个注解[^0]，23/03/2021)
[^1] 对待死亡可以有两大方式：

第一种是将死亡看成回归到出生之前的状态。

第二种是通过两种方式抗拒死亡：

(a)通过精神与宗教的方式来超越死亡

(b)通过生物医学与科学的方式来克服死亡

尽管第二种方式中所提的两个方法有所不同，但它们表达的却是相同的人类梦想，那就是：抗拒死亡并且让一己的意识能在生物体的寿命终结后继续存在。
[^2] 必须指出，“生物-医学”上的长生不死与意识的长生不死是不同的。

一个“生物-医学”上长生不死的人，将经受不起任何关系到脑毁坏的意外，因为脑毁坏意识就没了死了，所以即使身体还能用“生物-医学”的方法保持长生不死也是没意义的，除非我们能复制出同样的头脑及意识。而这一点，正好是意识长生不死的重点。

意识的长生不死，简单的说，就是尝试通过应用某种记录及再造或复制出同样头脑或意识的方法来确保意识的永存。这与目前用基因繁殖（或复制人？）的方法不同，因为目前的方法无法生出或复制出同样的头脑与意识。

从演化的角度看，宇宙中的物质及生命的演化，就地球这个小星球上的发展而言，至今已经达到了能用基因繁殖（或复制？）的方法让各种生命一代传一代的延续下去（若无意外的话）。将来的演化可能包括某种形式的意识延续或长生不死的发展吗？

当然，对组成我们人体的各种体细胞而言，只要我们能用目前完善的基因繁殖/复制法，传宗接代，延续生命之火（就人类而言，这包括了延续各代人类用意识共同演化出来的各种知识及文明）于不灭就已经很好了。但是，对于由各种有生命的体细胞共同组成的，有生命也有自我意识（所以人不仅仅只是亿万个体细胞的组合体）的人而言，传宗接代，以及延续自己意识的长存，应该是同等重要的（？）。因此有意识的人类最有可能促使演化朝意识长生的方向发展（一种有意识的演化过程？）。

所以，当人类有足够的能力时，相信他们迟早会尝试研究如何延续自己意识的方法。而其中一个可行的做法自然是研究人脑。因为如果我们最终能以某种方法为每个人记录及再造或复制出同样的头脑或意识，意识的延续及长生不死就有可能了。

比如，当一个意识被毁时，只要有关意识的组成资料还在就能让它重生。这与电脑文件存档保存以防万一的概念类似。所以理论上，只要意识的组成资料始终被保存（许多份？，及不时更新），意识就能一直存在。

有兴趣的读者请参阅另一篇文章：进化，意识与永生
[^3] There could be two major type of responses to the death phenomena:

Type-1 will equate Death as Returning to the state before one was born.

Type-2 will resist Death in two ways:

(a) To Transcend Death through spiritual and religious approach

(b) To Overcome Death through bio-medical and scientific approach

Although the two approach mentioned in Type-2 are different, but they express the same human dream, that is: To resist Death and "preserve" One's Consciousness beyond biological death!
[^4] It should be pointed out that being immortal bio-medically is different from immortality of consciousness.

Anyone who is being immortal bio-medically will not be able to withstand any accident that involved total damage of brain. This is because the damage will cause the death of one's consciousness. Therefore even if one's body can still be kept immortal bio-medically, it will be meaningless unless we can re-create the exact brain & consciousness. This is in fact what the immortality of consciousness is trying to achieve.

In simple term, the immortality of consciousness is the attempt to achieve the ability to record & re-produce or clone the exact brain & consciousness through some means. It is different from existing reproductive system which uses gene to re-produce (or clone?) new lives. The gene method is not able to re-create the exact brain & consciousness.

From evolution point of view, so far the evolution of matters & life forms on earth has developed the gene-based reproductive (clone?) system to re-produce new lives from generations to generations (if everything go well). Will next stage of evolution involve some development that allow the preservation or immortality of consciousness?

Of course, it would be fine for our body cells as long as existing reproductive system ensure the continuous survival of lives (for us as human, this will include the survival of knowledge & civilizations created by generations of our conscious efforts). But for human beings, they are not simply a combination of billions of body cells, they have lives & are conscious that they are alive. Hence, besides reproducing new lives, the preservation of consciousness should be equally important for them(?) It is therefore possible that the next stage of evolution might be affected by human beings' conscious efforts (a type of conscious evolution?) towards the development of immortality of consciousness.

Thus, sooner or latter, when human beings are able to look into the problem, they will start trying to study various ways to preserve their consciousness. One obvious way is to study human brains so that if we are able to find some ways to record & re-produce or clone the exact brain & consciousness, we might truly achieve immortality of consciousness.

For example, if one's consciousness is badly damaged, if we have its formation records we can revive the consciousness again. This is quite similar to the concept of backing up document data in computer to prevent any damages that might occur. Therefore, theoretically speaking, consciousness can be preserved & exist as long as its formation records are kept (many copies?, & updated constantly).

For some more readings, please refer to "Evolution, Consciousness and Immortality".