by Phil Bowermaster ( phil at speculist.com)

Synopsis

Phil Bowermaster, ringleader at The Speculist, taps the primal human views of death. What are the roots of inspiration for the fight against aging and the quest to live longer, healthier lives? Read on to find out. Published on February 19 2004.

As publisher of a web site devoted to human progress and accelerating change, I frequently write about advances in medical science that will lead to longer, healthier lives. One of my readers, Mary, recently challenged my interest in the pursuit of longer life with these words:

"Why are you so scared of dying?"

This is an excellent question, so let's examine it. From the context, I'm going to assume that the intended meaning is philosophical. Mary doesn't want to know why I would get out of the way of a speeding truck. All mentally healthy human beings are "scared of dying" in that sense; it's something we share with virtually every living being on the planet. What Mary wants to know is this: why am I not resigned to my own mortality? Why do I want to engage in this unseemly practice of exploring alternatives to aging and dying?

I'll tell you why, Mary: death sucks.

Some say that dying is as natural as being born. I say, so what? Vomiting is as natural as eating, but I happen to like eating a lot more. Some say that death is a part of life. I contend that, by definition, it is not. Besides, anthrax, smallpox and bubonic plague were once "part of life" - should we therefore accept and welcome them? Some say that death is the natural threshold to the next stage of existence. Perhaps. Life at this stage, however, seems to have a natural built-in aversion to that threshold, and I intend to take that aversion seriously.

There are those who would describe the fear of death as a primitive relic, or a lingering superstition. They believe it was the fear of death, the terror that attends the contemplation of our own non-existence, which once led humanity into irrationality. Our ancestors invented gods, spirits, myths and legends to assuage this fear. How different were those times from this modern age in which rational thinking is (allegedly) treasured, taught and adhered to. To differentiate themselves from the irrational throng, modern, self-described rational thinkers proudly state they are not afraid of dying.

I recall an incident from some years ago that stands out as an excellent illustration of this line of thinking. It occurred at a showing of Scorcese's "The Last Temptation of Christ." Two groups of sign-carrying protestors stood out front of the theatre: one Christian, the other atheist. The box office line was rather long, and I was stuck between the two groups: one warning me not to view this shocking piece of blasphemy, the other encouraging my support of free speech. Needless to say, there was a good deal of verbal sparring between the two camps. Some comments were humorous and good-natured; others were more heated. I remember one exchange ended with these very words: "Yeah? Well, I'm not afraid of dying."

Hey, good one. Chalk one up for the sign-carrying atheists.

Unfortunately, that statement is as vapid and pointless a piece of rhetoric as can be offered. No, I don't mean that I doubt that mans honesty when he said that he was not afraid to die. I'm sure he was sincere, and not simply trying to score points from the polyester-clad, big-haired fundamentalists to impress his cool atheist friends. The notion that fear of dying is uniquely linked with irrational thinking is about as wrong as can be, however.

Let's look back 50,000 years or so and examine our primitive ancestors. It's true that, somewhere along the line, they developed burial rituals, myths and belief in an afterlife. Maybe this was just an irrational response to their fear of death, a primal attempt to cope with the loss of friends, loved ones and companions. Maybe it was something more. Either way, it was just a small part of what our ancestors were doing with their lives: they spent far more time engaged in a rational analysis of the ways in which the world works.

These plants will make you sick. Those are good for food. Spears with sharp stone heads are better than pointed sticks at bringing down game and warding off predators. This is a good place to stay; predators don't usually come here. After the moon changes three more times, we'll start the journey South. We used to wait until it got cold, but this way works better and we lose fewer members of the tribe.

Our ancestors relentlessly pursued an empirical investigation into the workings of the natural world. Science didn't begin with Newton, or with Bacon, or with the ancient Greeks: it started with the first humans. All mathematics, physics, biology, astronomy - all rational human thought - is built atop the experiments carried out by our earliest ancestors. They were, in a sense, more serious in their pursuit of rational truth than most of the scientists who followed them. For them, science was a matter of day-to-day survival.

I believe it is fair to conclude that these early humans were motivated to accomplish this hard investigative work, to engage in this rational thinking, by the fear of death. The very same fear of death hypothesized to be the source of irrational thought. Let's stop to think about this for a moment. Our ancestors were besieged by death-dealing threats on all sides: large predators, the weather, hunger, disease and injury. A rational, empirical approach to dealing with the world emerged as the best way to ward off those threats. Early humans, in other words, were fully vested in finding out how to fend off death and live longer. If our fundamentalist-taunting friend could go back in time and somehow convey to a group of his ancestors his basic credo of intellectual superiority - "I'm not afraid of dying" - they'd think he was nuts.

We're only halfway through this examination, however. Looking at the other side of the ticket line, that self-satisfied volley of "I'm not afraid of dying" might just as easily have come from the religious protestors. Religious and spiritually oriented people are often quick to tell you that they have no fear of death, and that if you had faith - whatever that means to the particular believer - you wouldn't be afraid of death, either. They will tell you that if you only understood about Jesus' victory on the cross, or reincarnation, or Nirvana, or even just the Natural Order of Things, you would be just as resigned to your own eventual demise as the rest of us.

This, too, is an exercise in empty rhetoric.

I'm going to carefully restate myself that so I'm not misunderstood. Any religion or religious interpretation teaching a resigned acceptance of death is peddling dangerous nonsense - most likely dangerous nonsense that is at odds with its core beliefs. Most schools of Christianity (to use the religion I'm most familiar with) assuredly do not glorify or accept death. As C. S. Lewis, perhaps the mostly fondly regarded modern writer of Christian apologetics, and a survivor of trench warfare in World War I, famously put it:

"But here is something quite different. Here is something telling me -- well, what? Telling me that I must never, like the Stoics, say that death does not matter. Nothing is less Christian than that. Death which made Life Himself shed tears at the grave of Lazarus, and shed tears of blood in Gethsemane. This is an appalling horror; a stinking indignity. (You remember Thomas Browne's splendid remark: 'I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed of it.')"

I agree with Thomas Brown and C. S. Lewis. I am ashamed of death: appalled by its cost to individuals and to society as a whole, and embarrassed by the lack of effort we put into overcoming it. Christianity teaches that death came to humanity as a result of our fall from grace. The history of technological and medical development shows that we age and die because researchers haven't yet learned how to prevent it. Either way, death is a shortcoming; a limitation; a horror, and a great and ongoing torrent of loss. Either way, it's evident that we are meant for something better.

Deep down, all human beings - people of science, people of faith, and people who couldn't care less about either - share the same natural revulsion for death. We can (and do) blot these feelings out, hide unpleasant realities behind polite social curtains, and cover up our thoughts and dealings with death. When we do this, however, we become like the rabbits in Watership Down who sang melancholy songs while trading their lives for lettuce and carrots.

Anyone who claims to have no fear of death, whether an Objectivist, a Palestinian strapping dynamite to his chest, or the Dalai Lama himself, has lost touch with a primary truth of human existence, a truth which once led us to both science and faith. People who seek to extend the healthy human life span - whether via antioxidants, calorie restriction, activism for medical research, cryonics, regenerative medicine or nanotechnology - have tapped into that same fundamental truth: death sucks.

Death sucks. It's a simple yet profound statement that lies at the core of our society, our individual lives and our very existence, but it is not universally recognized. When I posted my original version of this article, one reader glibly responded: "So what?" I have two answers to that "so what," both of which come from, absurdly enough, comedian Rodney Dangerfield.

In a scene from the movie Caddyshack, Rodney Dangerfield's caddy complains about having to carry a heavy golf bag. Dangerfield tells the kid to suck it in, that when he was that age, he had to carry twenty-pound blocks of ice to the top of ten-story buildings (or some similar hardship). The kid is not impressed. "So what?" he says.

"So what?" Dangerfield replies. "So let's dance!" He whips a remote control out of one of the pockets of the golf bag and turns on a stereo hidden inside. The entire fairway erupts with music (Journey's "Any Way You Want It," as a matter of fact) and all the golfers begin to dance. It's a silly scene in a very silly movie. But this response is right on the money. Life is full of hardship, and some people have it worse than others. We toil away for years on end, grow frail, and eventually die. So what are we going to do about it? For my part, I'm going to dance. I'm going to laugh, sing and shout. I'm going to work. I'm going to play. Above all, I'm going to live.

As poet Andrew Marvell put it:

The grave 's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapt power. Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.

When I asked Cambridge University Geneticist and anti-aging visionary Aubrey de Grey what plans he had for a life that might span several centuries, his answer surprised me. Aubrey told me that he wants to live a long time so that he can spend more time with his wife and his friends. He wants more chances to take his boat out on the river, and more time for games of Othello. "At root," Aubrey explained, "the reason I'm not in favor of aging is because I like life as I know it."

If you like life, health and your capabilities, why not work hard to ensure they continue for as many years as you care to experience them? It makes sense to me: we fight to prevent disease, injury and sheer bad luck from taking away the aspects of life we enjoy. We should be fighting aging and death as well.

The other answer I have to that persistent "so what" doesn't really come from Rodney Dangerfield, although he did recite it quite passionately in the movie Back to School. The words are those of poet Dylan Thomas:

Though Wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

There stands my answer. Death sucks, and I have no intention of going gently into that good night. I will do more than just rage against the dying of the light (although I think we should all do that every now and then, just to keep us grounded). I, like many others, will add my voice to those of the advocates, scientists, educators and doctors who even now are looking for a way, if not to stop the Sun, then to outrun it. Longer, healthier lives and real anti-aging medical technologies are coming. They will come faster if we stand together in support of them.

Notice

Copyright © 2004 Phil Bowermaster. Earlier versions appeared as posts to The Speculist and Fight Aging!