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"Farman's Secular Immortal examines "immortalists," people who believe that it is possible for humans to achieve immortality through technoscientific means. These "immmortalists" include people who choose to have their bodies and/or brains frozen in the hopes that they can be reanimated, but also scientists and biologists engaged with extending the natural life of the human. Part history, part philosophical anthropology, and part ethnography, the work is based on communities of immortalists and advocates as well as institutions and organizations engaged in the definition of the end of life, including funeral homes, insurance companies, and lawyers. By looking at three such 'immortalist' strategies (cryonics, biogerontology, and artificial intelligence), Farman's study explores the cultural logic through which immortality projects move betwixt and between logics of religion, secularism, and philosophy"--
List of contents
Contents
Preface: Realm of the Possible
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Problems of Discontinuity and Indeterminacy in a Secular World
1. After Life: Varieties of Immortality in the Secular World
2. Immortalism: The History of a Futuristic Movement
3. Suspension: Stretching Time between the Finite and the Infinite
4. Deanimation: Matter, Materialism, and Personhood beyond Death
5. Convergence: Secular Solipsism and the Mind of the Cosmos
6. Progress and Despair: The Perverse Dialectics of Immortality as Techno-Civilizing Mission
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Abou Farman is assistant professor of anthropology at the New School for Social Research.
Summary
An ethnographic exploration of technoscientific immortality Immortality has long been considered the domain of religion. But immortality projects have gained increasing legitimacy and power in the world of science and technology. With recent rapid advances in biology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, secular immortalists hope for an
