Immortality

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Immortality (or eternal life) is the concept of living in physical or spiritual form for an infinite length of time. What form an unending or indefinitely-long human life would take, or whether the soul, should such a thing exist, possesses immortality, has been the subject of much speculation, fantasy, and debate, as well as a fundamental point of focus in many faiths and religions.

Contents 1 Definitions 2 Immortal species 3 Causes of death 3.1 Aging 3.2 Disease 3.3 Trauma 4 Physical immortality 4.1 Technological immortality 4.2 Cryonics 4.3 Mind-to-computer uploading 4.4 Quantum immortality 4.5 Biological immortality 4.6 Cyborgization 4.7 Other 5 Religious traditions 5.1 Buddhism 5.2 Christianity 5.2.1 Roman Catholicism 5.2.2 Jehovah's Witnesses 5.2.3 Other Christian Beliefs 5.3 Hinduism 5.4 Judaism 5.5 Islam 5.6 Shintoism 5.7 Zoroastrianism 6 Concepts 6.1 Unending existence 6.2 Undesirable 6.3 Desirable 7 Symbols 8 Fiction 9 See also 10 Notes and references 11 External links

[edit] Definitions

(See also 'Concepts of immortality', below.)

• Spiritual afterlife - The belief in the immortal soul is a dogma of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. This belief is related to the philosophy of dualism.
• Immortality through fame - Others believe that they can achieve immortality through the achievements that they leave behind. This view of immortality places value on how one will be remembered by generations to come. His or her good works 'live on' in the world. This view of immortality is embraced in many religious and humanistic philosophies.^{[citation needed]} In Homer's Iliad, Achilles' main motive for fighting in the Trojan War is recognition and everlasting fame.
• Philosophic immortality. This idea holds that metaphysical universals and abstract phenomena exist and can at least be partially interacted with by human beings. If an abstract phenomenon might have at least a partially eternal existence, then a person might obtain at least a transitory level of immortality by interacting with it.
• Genetic immortality. This view of immortality concentrates on leaving offspring, or immortality via evolution, which is curiously similar to Richard Dawkins' theory of the selfish gene ("you never really quite die; as long as there is some of your genetic material left behind in this world").
• Magically immortal - Many European and Chinese alchemists were among such people. The depiction in literature of Gilgamesh was one such as this and an entire cycle, or cycles of Arthurian legend exist in the British Isles, including the Knights of the Round Table going in search for the Holy grail; supposedly, the chalice from which Jesus and his disciples drank at the Last Supper. It may also be taken to mean being invincible or unable to be killed.
• Never dying - Some believe life extension technologies will lead to rejuvenation. Some believe cryonics will allow the dead to be revived in a medically advanced future.
• Atomic immortality - Your mind ceases with death. Your body decomposes. While "you" cease to exist in a living person sense, your body will be recycled until the end of the universe.
• Quantum immortality - In the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, the wavefunction never collapses, and thus all possible outcomes of a quantum event exist simultaneously, with each event apparently spawning an entirely new universe in which a single possible outcome exists. In this physical theory, one could hypothetically live forever as there might exist a string of possible quantum outcomes in which one never dies. This theory of quantum immortality, however, is not widely regarded by the scientific community as being a verifiable or even necessarily correct offshoot of the many worlds interpretation, which itself exists as one possible interpretation of quantum mechanics among many.
• Artificial immortality - This represents the concept of transferring one's consciousness from the brain to an alternative media providing the same functionality as the brain. Such a media may be biological or non-biological. The transference may be gradual (e.g. through cognitive prostheses) or immediate (e.g. through a brain scan).
• Relativistic immortality - Any person travelling to the stars and back at a significant fraction of the speed of light, or residing in an especially strong gravity well, would be able to invoke the twin paradox. An outside observer would notice the affected person ageing at a much slower rate than the observer.

[edit] Immortal species

• Turritopsis nutricula jellyfish — After becoming a sexually mature adult, the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula can transform itself back into a child (the polyp stage) using the cell conversion process of transdifferentiation. The Turritopsis nutricula repeats this cycle, meaning that it may have an indefinite lifespan, though it can be killed.^[1]
• Bacteria (as a colony) — Although they can be killed by antibiotics, radiation, or starvation, bacteria, as a colony, appear to never age. Bacteria reproduce through cell division. A parent bacterium splits itself into two identical daughter cells. These daughter cells then split themselves in half. This process repeats, thus making the bacterium colony essentially immortal. However, a bacterium, as an individual, is mortal since it “dies” when it divides in half.
  Recent research, however, suggests that even bacteria as a colony may eventually die since each succeeding generation is slightly smaller, weaker, and more likely to die than the previous.^[2]
• Bristlecone Pines are speculated to be potentially immortal, but are susceptible to destruction by lighting, disease, and other causes. The oldest known living specimen is over 4800 years old.

[edit] Causes of death

There are three main causes of death: aging, disease and trauma.

[edit] Aging

Aubrey de Grey, a leading researcher in the field of aging, defines aging as follows: “a collection of cumulative changes to the molecular and cellular structure of an adult organism, which result in essential metabolic processes, but which also, once they progress far enough, increasingly disrupt metabolism, resulting in pathology and death.” The current causes of aging in humans are cell loss (without replacement), oncogenic nuclear mutations and epimutations, cell senescence, mitochondrial mutations, lysosomal aggregates, extracellular aggregates, random extracellular cross-linking, immune system decline, and endocrine changes. Eliminating aging would mean finding a way to deal with each of these causes.

[edit] Disease

Disease also is theoretically surmountable via technology. Human understanding of genetics is leading to cures and treatments of a myriad of previously incurable diseases. The mechanisms by which other diseases do their damage are becoming better understood. Sophisticated methods of detecting diseases early are being developed. Preventative medicine is becoming better understood. Neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's may soon be curable with the use of stem cells. Breakthroughs in cell biology and telomere research are leading to treatments for cancer. Vaccines are being researched for AIDS and tuberculosis. Genes associated with type 1 diabetes and certain types of cancer have been discovered allowing for new therapies to be developed. Artificial devices attached directly to the nervous system may restore sight to the blind. Drugs are being developed to treat myriad other diseases and ailments.

[edit] Trauma

Most likely the hardest cause of death to overcome is trauma. The problems of aging and disease usually at least provide ample time to solve them, if the technology exists. But even in a postulated world where aging and disease were correctable conditions, a sudden hole in the brain from a gunshot, for example, would not be. In situations where time available to provide treatment is extremely short, the success rate of even advanced paramedical technology remains low. Unless technology advances to the point (via perhaps nanotechnology) that a body can automatically treat itself from severe trauma, then the time it takes to deliver a patient to a care facility will likely remain the overriding factor. An additional problem with an injury such as a shot to the head is that with the damage, data is lost, so unless the person's mind has been "saved" before being shot, even if the tissue is repaired the data will remain unrecoverable, a severe problem if it's data needed to control vital organs, such as the lungs or heart. Also, unlike other organs, a brain can't be replaced in the same way other organs can. Preventatively engineering inherent resistance to injury into the body is thus relevant in addition to entirely reactive measures more closely associated with the paradigm of medical treatment (see transhumanism).

[edit] Physical immortality

Physical immortality is the unending existence of a person from a physical source such as a brain or computer. This can either be because of a spiritual belief, such as held by members of the Rastafari movement and some who practice Rebirthing-Breathwork or it can be based on technological singularity predictions about the future.

[edit] Technological immortality

Technological immortality is the prospect for much longer life spans made possible by scientific advances in a variety of fields: nanotechnology, emergency room procedures, genetics, biological engineering, regenerative medicine, microbiology, and others. Contemporary life spans in the advanced industrial societies are already markedly longer than those of the past because of better nutrition, availability of health care, standard of living and bio-medical scientific advances. Technological immortality predicts further progress for the same reasons over the near term. An important aspect of current scientific thinking about immortality is that some combination of human cloning, cryonics or nanotechnology will play an essential role in extreme life extension. Robert Freitas, a nanorobotics theorist, suggests we may be able to create tiny medical nanorobots that could go through our bloodstream, find dangerous things like cancer cells and bacteria, and destroy them.^[3] Freitas anticipates that gene-therapies and nanotechnology will eventually make the human body effectively self-sustainable and capable of living indefinitely, short of severe trauma. Some suggest we will be able to continually create biological or synthetic replacement parts to replace damaged or dying ones, a situation that could allegedly cause an organlegging problem as seen in much Science Fiction.

[edit] Cryonics

Some people believe that such treatments will not be available in their natural life span. Cryonics is the practice of preserving organisms (either intact specimens or only their brains) for possible future revival by storing them at cryogenic temperatures where metabolism and decay are almost completely stopped. Ideally this would allow clinically dead people to be brought back in the future after cures to the patients' diseases have been discovered and aging is reversible. Modern cryonics procedures use a process called vitrification which creates a glass like state rather than freezing as the body is brought to low temperatures. This process reduces the risk of ice crystals damaging the brain structure. Many people who wish to become physically immortal think of cryonics as a backup plan in case the emerging life extension technologies don't develop rapidly enough.

[edit] Mind-to-computer uploading

Main article: Mind uploading

One interesting possibility involves uploading the personality and memories via direct mind-computer interface. Some extropian futurists propose that, thanks to exponentially growing computing power, it will someday be possible to upload human consciousness onto a computer system, and live indefinitely in a virtual environment. This could be accomplished via advanced cybernetics, where computer hardware would initially be installed in the brain to help sort memory or accelerate thought processes. Gradually more and more components would be added until the person's entire brain functions were handled by artificial devices, without any sharp transitions that would lead to some identity issues mentioned below. At this point, the human body would become only an accessory and the mind could be transferred to any sufficiently powerful computer. A person in this state would then be essentially immortal, short of cataclysmic destruction of the entire civilization and their computers.

However, some argue that it is impossible to truly move one's consciousness from one body to another; it could be duplicated, but the original would still exist, creating two independent consciousnesses.

[edit] Quantum immortality

Main article: Quantum immortality

Quantum immortality is the name for the speculation that the Everett many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that a conscious being cannot cease to be. The idea is highly controversial.

[edit] Biological immortality

Main article: Biological immortality

Biological immortality is an absence of aging. A cell or organism that does not experience aging, or ceases to age at some point, is biologically immortal. Hydra can be considered biologically immortal as they do not undergo senescence or aging. Bacteria, as a colony, can also be considered immortal by cell division, because damaged macromolecules can be split between the two cells and diluted. However, biologically immortal organisms can also be killed or damaged by physical destruction.

[edit] Cyborgization

Transforming a human into a cyborg can include brain implants or extracting a human mind and placing it in a robotic life-support system. One would thus be impervious to aging and disease and theoretically immortal unless killed or destroyed.

[edit] Other

Rastafarians believe in physical immortality as a part of their religious doctrines. They believe that after God has called the Day of Judgment they will go to what they describe as Mount Zion in Africa to live in freedom for ever. They avoid the term everlasting life and deliberately use ever-living instead. Another group that believes in physical immortality are the Rebirthers, who believe that by following the connected breathing process of rebirthing they will live forever physically.

Long before modern science made such speculation feasible, people wishing to escape death sought what we might term mystical immortality, turning to the supernatural world for answers. Examples include Chinese Taoist and the medieval alchemists and their search for the Philosopher's Stone, or more modern religious mystics such as Sri Aurobindo, who believed in the possibility of achieving physical immortality through spiritual transformation.

In Hinduism, one feat that advanced Yogis (practitioners of Yoga) can supposedly perform is "body jumping" — the ability to jump into another host and therefore live a longer life. Many Indian fables and tales include instances of this, and some believers treat the frequent recurrence of this idea as evidence that such an "immortality" method cannot be dismissed outright. There are also entire Hindu sects devoted to the attainment of physical immortality by various methods, namely the Naths and the Aghoras.^{[citation needed]}

Some believe that biological forms have inherent limitations in their design^{[weasel words]} — primarily, their fragility and inability to immediately morph to fit the environment. A way around that predicament may someday present itself in the ability to "exist" outside of the biological form. Over the long term, the biological nature of humanity may only be temporary; should technology permit, people may circumvent death and evolution, simply by taking artificial forms.

Some people believe physical immortality would not be possible or even desirable.^{[weasel words]} Jacques-Yves Cousteau, in the preface to his book The Ocean World, expressed his meditations on physical immortality, as a part of life and its adaptive processes: “Death,” Cousteau states, “is fundamental to evolution,” and “evolution is fundamental to survival.” He concludes that, biologically speaking, “immortality does not present a possible means to avoid death”: “Mortal or immortal, [an organism] must die.”
Michael Shermer believes there is no significant scientific evidence for the proposed methods of achieving physical immortality. He says about them, “All have some basis in science, but none has achieved anything like scientific confirmation.”

[edit] Religious traditions

Spiritual immortality, also known as the Immortality of the soul, is the unending existence of a person from a nonphysical source such as a soul.

It is a belief that is expressed in nearly every religious tradition. In both Western and Eastern religions, the spirit is an energy or force that transcends the mortal shell, and returns to: (1) the spirit realm whether to enjoy heavenly bliss or suffer eternal torment in hell, or; (2) the cycle of life, directly or indirectly depending on the tradition. Below we consider the perspective of some of the world's most popular religions on spiritual immortality.

[edit] Buddhism

Buddhists believe that there is a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth and that the process is according to the qualities of their actions. This constant process of becoming ceases at the fruition of enlightenment (Bodhi) at which a being is no longer subject to causation (karma) but enters into a state that the Buddha called amata (deathlessness). However, in Buddhism there is no belief in an eternal soul (anatta), and some sects also believe in rather a collection of habits and memories in a dynamic process of constant change. At enlightenment the kammic seeds (sankharas or sanskaras) for all future becoming and rebirth are exhausted. After biological death an arhat or buddha enters into what is called parinirvana.

[edit] Christianity

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Christians believe that every person will be resurrected; Bible passages are interpreted as teaching that the resurrected body will, like the present body, be both physical (but a renewed and non-decaying physical body) and spiritual. After the Last Judgment, those who have been born again will live forever in the presence of God, and those who were never born again will be abandoned to never-ending consciousness of guilt, separation from God, and punishment for sin. Eternal death is depicted in the Bible as a realm of constant physical and spiritual anguish in a lake of fire, and a realm of darkness away from God. It has suggested that the fires of Hell are a theological metaphor, representing the inescapable presence of God endured in absence of love for God; others suggest that Hell represents complete destruction of both the physical body and of spiritual existence.

[edit] Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholic dogmatic theology also teaches that there is a supernatural realm called Purgatory where souls who have died in a state of grace but have yet to expiate venial sins or temporal punishments due to past sins are cleansed before they are admitted into Heaven.

[edit] Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses believe the word soul (nephesh or psykhe) as used in the Bible is a person, an animal, or the life a person or animal enjoys. Hence, the soul is not part of man, but is the whole man — man as a living being. Hence, when a person or animal dies, the soul dies, and death is a state of non-existence, based on Ezekiel 18:4.^[4] Hell (hades or sheol) is not a place of fiery torment, but rather the common grave of humankind, a place of unconsciousness.^[5][6] After the final judgment, it is expected that the righteous will live for ever in an earth turned into a paradise.

[edit] Other Christian Beliefs

Some sects who hold to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration also believe in a third realm called Limbo, which is the final destination of souls who have not been baptised, but who have been innocent of mortal sin. Souls in Limbo include unbaptised infants and those who lived virtuously but were never exposed to Christianity in their lifetimes. Christian Scientists believe that sin brought death, and that death will be overcome with the overcoming of sin.

[edit] Hinduism

Hindus believe in an immortal soul which is reincarnated after death. According to Hinduism, people repeat a cycle of life, death, and rebirth (a cycle called samsara). If they live their life well, their Karma increases and their station in the next life will be higher, and conversely lower if they live their life poorly. Eventually after many life times of perfecting one's karma, the soul is freed from the cycle and lives in perpetual bliss. There is no never-ending Hell in Hinduism, although if a soul consistently lives very evil lives, they could work their way down to the very bottom of the cycle.

[edit] Judaism

Judaism claims that the righteous dead will be resurrected in the "messianic age" with the coming of the messiah. They will then be granted immortality in a perfect world. The wicked dead, on the other hand, will not be resurrected at all. This is in contrast to Christianity where the wicked dead are still immortal and exist forever in Hell. This is not the only Jewish belief about the afterlife. Others do believe in some version of Hell. The Tanakh is not specific about the afterlife, so there are wide differences in views and explanations among believers.

[edit] Islam

Muslims believe that everyone has an immortal soul which will live on after death. A soul undergoes correction in Hell if it has led an evil life, but once this correction is over, the soul is admitted to Heaven. Souls that commit unforgivable evil will never leave hell. Some souls will therefore never taste Heaven.

[edit] Shintoism

Shintoists claim that except for those who choose or are dispatched to the underground world of Yomi, every living and non-living being may lose its body, but not its soul (tamashii), and that they live together with mortal souls as an immortal being called Kami. Unlike the previously mentioned religions, Shinto allows anything to attain Kami status regardless of its existence before becoming Kami. Therefore, even those that do not believe in Shinto may choose to become Kami, as well as things like a rock, a tree, or even a robot. Some may be reincarnated for various reasons. Shinto has no version of Hell or a judgment day.

[edit] Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrians believe that on the fourth day after death, the human soul leaves the body and the body remains as an empty shell. The souls would go to heaven or hell. The concept of Heaven and Hell in Zoroastrianism may have influenced Abrahamic religions.

[edit] Concepts

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Considerations of immortality usually bring to mind the idea of unending existence, a freedom from the concerns of annihilation and death. Often, talk of the immortality of the soul arises in conjunction with talk of immortality. The ideas of science and religion find common goals in the perpetuity of man's existence.

[edit] Unending existence

As a thought experiment, suppose that clinical immortality were possible, in which, through advanced life support machinery or similar, the bodily functions of a comatose human could be kept running in perpetuity. Is it good news to keep a vegetative human's heart pumping for aeons? According to the vast majority of ethicists, "Not at all," since unending biological functioning is not the goal of human immortality. Ultimately, what one desires is the permanent preservation of both the body and mind, not just the body.

This raises the philosophical question of the origin of personality. As another thought experiment, suppose that, over a period of time, a person has many operations which gradually replaces all the parts of their brain with computer hardware. For the intentions of this experiment, suppose that doctors already fully understand the brain and are able to successfully move sections of the brain's neural network and memories onto hardware where they can perfectly emulate the "architecture" of the brain. After each procedure, the patient wakes up feeling like the same person. Eventually, the person's entire brain consists of computer parts.

Now suppose that, instead of replacing the person's brain with hardware in many small steps, doctors replace their entire brain with hardware all at once. The person wakes up with the same memories and claims to be the same person, but are they? One speculative view on the above thesis is: The synthetic version of the person would become a different person than who they would have been had their natural brains not been replaced.

The term 'personality' refers to a series of experiences and behaviors throughout an individual's past which molds them into who they are at present. The split second after a replacement operation (partial or complete), the person's personality would change as a result of improved focus, improved logic, increased speed of thought, improved memory retention and other factors. Of course, these would be the goals of having such an operation in the first place.

There is also the question of whether or not this immortality would be able to transcend the Heat death of the universe. While physical implementations of immortality (and those requiring free energy) would not survive, spiritual implementations might be exempt, although many of the major religions that subscribe to spiritual immortality have not considered such an end of the Universe.

[edit] Undesirable

Essential to many of the world's religions is a doctrine of an eternal afterlife. But well known narratives from Christianity and Islam show why freedom from annihilation and death could (in principle) not be desirable:

The rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

—Luke 16:22-26 King James Bible Translation

Those who are wretched shall be in the Fire: There will be for them therein (nothing but) the heaving of sighs and sobs: They will dwell therein for all the time that the heavens and the earth endure, except as thy Lord willeth: for thy Lord is the (sure) accomplisher of what He planneth. And those who are blessed shall be in the Garden: They will dwell therein for all the time that the heavens and the earth endure, except as thy Lord willeth: a gift without break.

—The Qur'an, 11:106-108

Instances from other religions could be added, especially from Buddhism, which considers the eternal rebirth, caused by ignorance, an essentially undesirable condition that is to be overcome, and there is still a rich debate today concerning whether the goal is the attainment of a higher level of consciousness or the ceasing of existence, with several interpretations existing today, with mainstream Buddhism generally leaning towards the attainment of a higher level of consciousness called Nirvana.

Mere perpetual existence is obviously not enough. Ultimately, one desires that this existence be of a desirable quality. As the prevalence of suicide suggests, people may prefer not to exist at all, than exist in a severely unpleasant environment.

Immortality of just one person will eventually grow to torture, as everyone you care about will die around you. However author Jorge Luis Borges explores the consequences of a whole society becoming immortal in the short story The Immortal. Having achieved immortality, there is no motivation for any action, for time becomes infinite. For the immortals, time is unimportant. Borges here is highlighting the idea that life gets its meaning from death. Mary Shelley also wrote a short story on this subject, The Mortal Immortal.

[edit] Desirable

Immortality may appear desirable for many obvious reasons. There are few direct counters for arguments against immortality, but whether or not the arguments against it mentioned above would actually be relevant at all are disputed:

• Artificial reincarnation:

If the memories of a living being could be partially or totally erased, he would then be able to rediscover what he had willingly forgotten, maybe even since birth. He would then be able to live a new "life".

Scientists are already considering pills that would be designed to forget specific experiences (currently, traumatic ones),^{[citation needed]} and studies of current amnesias are progressively unraveling the mechanisms of forgetfulness.

In the more futuristic context of mind uploading, erasing of selected memories would almost surely be relatively easy. It would theoretically be possible for an immortal individual to develop a series of perfect experiences, and then proceed to indefinitely repeat experiencing them without them losing their appeal via this method.

• Paradise-engineering

Another idea, explored in the works of Alastair Reynolds and others, involves the changing of the neural state of individuals to edit out boredom entirely. This technology would also be of use to immortal individuals, who could simply cause themselves to cease feeling bored (or other emotions for that matter) as it suited them.

In 18th century France, a man who called himself the Comte de Saint-Germain claimed to be centuries old and still maintains a following of people, those adherent to the Ascended Master Teachings, who are convinced of his physical immortality.

[edit] Symbols

There are numerous symbols representing immortality. Pictured here is an Egyptian symbol of life that holds connotations of immortality when depicted in the hands of the gods and pharaohs who were seen as having control over the journey of life, the ankh (left). The Möbius strip in the shape of a trefoil knot is another symbol of immortality. Most symbolic representations of infinity or the life cycle are often used to represent immortality depending on the context they are placed in. Other examples include the Ouroboros, the Chinese fungus of longevity, the ten kanji, the phoenix, and the colors amaranth (in Western culture) and peach (in Chinese culture).

[edit] Fiction

Main article: Immortality in fiction

Immortal beings and species abound in fiction, especially fantasy fiction.

[edit] See also

Actuarial escape velocity Afterlife Aging Amaranth Ambrosia Amrita Aubrey de Grey Alex Chiu Biogerontology Bioethics Biological immortality Chiranjeevin

Consciousness Crown of Immortality Cryonics Cyborg Degrees of glory Elixir of life Immortalist Society Immortality Institute Infinity Life Lich Holy grail

Henrietta Lacks Horcrux Hydrozoa Indefinite lifespan Life extension List of immortal people Longevity Molecular nanotechnology Persian Immortals Philosopher's stone Posthuman Quantum immortality

Real death Reincarnation Rejuvenation Religion Resurrection Senescence Suspended animation Nikola Tesla Simulated reality Technological singularity Transhumanism Xian (Chinese immortal)

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• Why We Age - A scientific resource for aging and anti-aging research
• Immortality / Eternal Life - An Evangelical Christian perspective
• Immortality: A Taoist perspective
• Artificial Immortality
• Mary Shelley's The Mortal Immortal
• Who Wants to Live Forever? - Overview of the Three Basic Types of Immortality
• Discussion of immortality
• Dictionary of the History of Ideas: - Death and Immortality; Resurrection; Reincarnation
• "How you Can Have Eternal Life" by Jack Graham
• KurzweilAI.net
• Immortality Online All the latest news on Immortality and Human Life Extension
• Immortality Institute - Advocacy and Research on Indefinite Lifespan - Scientific and sociological discussions, activism, research
• Jhershierra Immortality Message Board - Discussion board of spiritualist Jhershierra
• "Inventor Kurzweil Aiming to Live Forever"; RedNova
• The Quest For Immortality - Informative article on the current status of immortality-related science.
• A History of Man's Quest for Immortality Indepth research into four major areas of the Quest for Immortality: Elixir, Body, Science, and Soul.
• Pimm - Partial immortalization
• Achieving Immortality via the Scientific Method
• Immortality International - Life is a basic human right
• The Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection of the Body by Heinrich J. Vogel
• Eternity by J. P. Meyer

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v • d • e Death and related topics
In medicine	Autopsy · Brain death · Clinical death · Euthanasia · Persistent vegetative state · Terminal illness
Lists	Causes of death by rate · People by cause of death · Notable deaths in 2007 · 2008
Mortality	Immortality · Infant mortality · Legal death · Maternal death · Mortality rate
After death	Afterlife · Burial · Cremation · Decomposition · Funeral · Grief · Mourning · Promession · Resomation · Séance · Customs
Research	Cryonics · Near-death experience · Near-death studies · Reincarnation research
Other	Genocide · Fascination with death · Martyrdom · Sacrifices (Human · Animal) · Suicide · War · Personification of Death · Death and culture