Contents
- Introduction and Acknowledgements
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Foreword
- A Shift Toward Immortality
- Between Representation and Speculation
- Immortality as a Subject of Research
- Immortality in Late Capitalism
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Chapter 1. Introduction to (Im)mortality Studies
- 1. Contextualisation of Immortality
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- Deep History
- Shallow History
- Dominating Narrations
- Alternative Terms
- The Term of Immortality
- 2. Social Translation of Death and Life
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- The Place of the Deceased in Public Space
- Technological Shift
- From Ancestors to Avatars
- Continuing the Bond
- A Social Being
- The Valley of Incredibleness
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Chapter 2. Re-animation Performance
- 1. Memory. Immortality as Cultural and Technological Performance
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- Eterni.me and Dadbot
- Cultural and Technological Performance
- Developing a Digital Personality
- Playing with Source Material
- Memory Performance
- The Immortality Effect
- 2. Mindclone. Immortality as a Relation Network
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- Artificial Memory and Private Immortality
- Two Hypotheses
- Personality as an Object
- Task 1: Talk
- Task 2: Become Someone Else for Yourself
- Task 3: „Me” and One Hundred Thousand Questions
- Biological Death – Me without I
- Symbolic Interactionism
- Immortality Ontoperformance
- 3. Crionics. Immortality as an Operation on the Body and Language
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- A-2789 Symbol
- Biological Death
- Death of Information
- Dead Body Transfigurations
- A Dead Body as a Sign and Object
- Empty Signifiers and a Crionic Capsule
- An Attempt to Regain Integrity
- Anti-Materialism?
- A Crionically-Suspended Corpse
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Chapter 3. (Im)mortality Studies
- 1. Development Beginnings
- 2. Positioning the (Im)mortality Studies: Objectives and Postulates
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- (1) A Question, Not a Task
- (2) Working in the Face of New Challenges and Weaknesses
- (3) Remaining in Trouble
- (4) Integrity of the Digital and Material Dimension
- (5) Working in Interdisciplinary Research Teams
- (6) Developing Research in an Intercultural Perspective
- (7) Combining Expert and Non-Expert Knowledge
- (8) Cooperation with the Private Sector
- (9) Education
- (10) Social Innovation and Activism
- 3. From Theory to Practice: Examples of Research and Implementations
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- Intercultural Perspective
- Collective Expertise
- Participatory Practices and Education
- Cooperation Between Academia and Business
- Professionalization as a Social Innovation
Excerpt from the book
We have found ourselves at the centre of a vast technocultural experiment, in which the boundaries of death are being tested in both biological and social dimensions. What are the sources of this cultural and technological endeavour? What exactly does human immortality mean in the new century? And are we really fighting for a good cause?
For centuries, humanity has dreamt of immortality, but never before has death been the target of such a massive scientific and technological offensive. If we have managed to convince ourselves that death is a ‘technical problem that can be solved’, this is due to the dynamic development of science and technology in recent decades, accompanied by the immense hopes placed in the advent of artificial intelligence. […]
The greatest prophets of immortality have long since passed away – starting with the great ancient rulers, with their obsessive desire to drink the elixir of immortality, the Chinese Emperor Shi Huangdi, thinkers and philosophers, in particular Nikolai Fyodorov, who called for a collective stand against death, to contemporary transhumanists, such as Ferejdun M. Esfandijari (who, having changed his name to FM-20230, believed he would live to see his hundredth birthday). One might therefore say that the concept of immortality has already been discredited, and yet it has entered the twenty-first century with great momentum. How is this possible?
