BIOETHICS OF IMMORTALITY (Part 32)

Science fiction has long reported that, someday, we will be able to live forever. A simple matter of using the best of the above techniques to improve our current bodies should someday be available, and, perhaps, in a decade or two or slightly more. However, a second mechanism in case science is late or bioethical attitudes prevail to delay development is to store your memory in a computer for later transference to either your clone or, even, better body, for all of us are deficient in some way. How can you store your memory? Its amazing how quickly the field of electronics and, soon, bioelectronics, are advancing. In your lifetime, for some, this capability should be possible.

But what of human clones, superbabies, the Boys from Brazil, Adolph Hitler, playing God? The public will support therapeutic cloning, but will it ever allow federal funds to allow focused research, and, ultimately, the open marketing of immortality? Do we need the federal government?

As I will cover religion in Chapter 5, let me close this discussion by referring you to the following books:

○ Merchants of Immortality, Stephen Hall, Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

○ Aging, Death and the Quest for Immortality, C. Ben Mitchell, Robert Orr and Susan Salladay, editors, William B. Erdmans Publishing, 2004.

○ The Scientific Conquest of Death, Immortality Institute, 2004

○ The Geneticist Who Played Hoops with My DNA, David Ewing Duncan, Harper Collins, 2005.

Frank Tipler has written The Physics of Immortality, which will be relegated to Chapter 5 on religion.

There is no way I will be able to influence anyone on the bioethics of immortality. You can do it yourself.

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The Dow Jones Industrials seesawed around zero today and ended up 30 lower at 9281. World markets mostly declined, gold jumped $24/toz and crude loitered in the $68/barrel range.

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There is now only one storm each in the Pacific and Atlantic. Hurricane Jimena just passed over Cabo San Lazaro and will lose hurricane status today. Remnants might bring desperately needed rain to scorched California, but the storm itself will mostly dissipate off Baja and move west instead of north.

Tropical Storm Erica, now at 40 MPH, could strengthen to 50 MPH over the next day or so, but is poorly formed, and should weaken as she encounters Florida early next week.

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