Re: The Future, Space Travel, and Immortality

From: Joel Olson (jeolson_at_webzone.net)
Date: 07/27/04 

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 12:28:30 GMT

<
Can anyone think of books that has mankind being virtually immortal in
the far future? The only books I can think of are _The Man Who Awoke_
by Laurence Manning, and _Time Enough for Love_ by RAH(which I never
read in it's entirety).
>

James Blish's Cities in Flight novels.
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=136

A short list:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/358QFCUQHD62C/002-2
651447-5366404

Also relevant:
Philosophical Models of Immortality in Science Fiction
by John Martin Fischer and Ruth Curl
...
Our discussion will use as its base the analytical framework presented
in Bernard Williams's influential discussion of immortality, The Makropulos
Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality.9 This simple and natural
framework involves two criteria to make immortality truly appealing: first,
there must be a future in which an individual can recognize himself or
herself--someone genuinely identical to the individual, not just qualitatively
similar or with several identical properties. Second, the future life of the
individual must be appealing [in some way] to that individual; it cannot
involve constant torture, hard labor, tedium, or the like. These conditions
can be dubbed the identity condition and the attractiveness condition. With
these, we can construct a taxonomy of different models of immortality [see
table I]. ...
http://www.poems2u.com/writings/immortal.html

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Future, Space Travel, and Immortality
    ... The only books I can think of are _The Man Who Awoke_ ... Philosophical Models of Immortality in Science Fiction ... Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality.9 This simple and natural ... framework involves two criteria to make immortality truly appealing: ...
    (comp.theory)
  • Re: Successful Series
    ... Apparently Piers Anthony has written 8 books in the "Incarnations of ... Immortality" series. ... continuing the Incarnations of Immortality series even though they sold ... or the gap between the 7th and 8th books was too long. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Successful Series
    ... Apparently Piers Anthony has written 8 books in the "Incarnations of ... Immortality" series. ... continuing the Incarnations of Immortality series even though they sold ... or the gap between the 7th and 8th books was too long. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Mathematica Vs. Matlab. It is not a superset
    ... i have absolutely no relationship with wri at all. ... Sales of his books presumably would fall if Mathematica's ... journals have electronic archives which allow old journal articles to ... immortality thorugh his films, replied "no, i'm seeking immortality by ...
    (sci.math.symbolic)
  • Re: Immortality changes everything.
    ... Are we talking pure immortality, or do we get eternal youth (or at least ... Reading Usenet after having returned from a bike ride? ... a place to hold all my books and computers I use to read Usenet. ... Once the mortgage is paid off, all I need is enough to keep me in food, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)