Customer Reviews

How to Live Forever: Science Fiction and Philosophy

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Stephen R. L. Clark is an author I discovered about four months ago while doing a websearch for vegetarian philosophers. Since then, I have read (and learned a lot from) all fifteen of his published works, "How to Live Forever" being the last in the list, though not the last he wrote.

Prospective buyers of this book will at least have gathered that this is a philosopher's attempt to reflect on the theme of immortality as it has been variously dealt with in over a century of science-fiction. However, a look at the table of contents of the book will not give you much information as to its structure, since Clark has chosen to give each of his thirteen chapters the title of a famous science-fiction story or novel. Indeed, having read the book does not make its structure much clearer, and I had to skim each chapter again to remember (or even understand) what exactly they had been about.

The device of naming each of the thirteen parts of the book after an existing work may also lead the potential reader into an error of perspective : those parts are not extended, in-depth essays on the works mentioned, but they do focus on a theme which features prominently in those works. In fact, dozens of novels and short stories are quickly summarized and more occasionally quoted from and analyzed, which makes this short, 186 page volume a much more exhaustive (and probably daunting) affair than might at first appear.

But for a few exceptions, such as chapter 1, which discusses the ethical pros and cons of immortality, chapter 4, which is concerned with the social problems entailed by the existence of immortals, or chapter 13, which briefly evokes the end of time itself, most of the chapters deal with specific ways (not always techniques) in which some more or less satisfactory form of immortality can be achieved.

Chapter 2 is interested in the mere prolongation of life ; chapter 3, in mental (?) uploads into some cyberspatial substratum ; chapter 5, in the much more commonly achievable possibility of survival through the values we serve or the artefacts we create (Clark astutely remarking that uploads are actually nothing but a species of that artefactual pseudo-immortality) ; chapter 6 deals with the prolongation of the self through influence and fame, and the more metaphysical notions of functional forms and real selves ; "Bridge of Ashes" tackles such cosmological immortality as is given to all in the "monistic time" model (making "transchronic contact" possible) or the fantasy of eternal returns ; "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", as readers of Philip Jose Farmer's epic will have surmised, contemplates resurrection ; chapter 10, "A Fish Dinner in Memison", named after E. R. Eddison, explores immortality as an awakening to an eternal, real self ; "Childhood's End" sceptically addresses the concept of immortality through the aggregation of souls into a sort of enduring, collective hive mind ; and chapter 12 returns to the relevance to immortality of the nature of time, by examining three options : the monistic, many-worlds and "make-it-didn't-happen" models.

The only chapter I have left out from this list is 9, "Superluminal", whose theme I found a little difficult to identify, and whose relevance to the main topic escaped me. It begins with a classification of travels borrowed from Carol Zaleski's historical book on near-death experiences (journeying up, down and out) and seems to be mostly interested in Hell, but I guess I would have to reread it carefully one or twice to get its point.

"How to Live Forever" is not my favorite of Clark's works, though I may have enjoyed it more than the casual reader because of the exposure I have had to other facets of his talent. I am (or at least have been) a big fan of science-fiction, having read about two hundred volumes of it (or even three, if I am allowed to count the Star Trek novels I used to consume when time seemed less precious and Vulcans better role models), including about seventy of the volumes listed in Clark's own bibliography (and a mere three of the thirteen that give their titles to the chapters.) But despite Clark's defense of the genre (as the twentieth century's greatest gift to literature, if I remember correctly) and of its relevance to philosophical speculation, his cramming of dozens of plots, and of his rather concise analyses of many of them, into such a slim volume, has tended to confirm my suspicion that science-fiction should be read sparingly and discriminatingly, just like any other genre, and that its authors may be generally more gifted at thinking big than thinking straight. Indeed, I sometimes wondered whether many of the books included were not more interested in pursuing weirdness for its own sake (as eccentrics do with their haircuts, make-up or manners) than in the actual pursuit of truth by means of the imagination. Otherwise, how to explain that so much of science-fiction is so wide of the mark, and so obviously demonic ?

I was also slightly disappointed that Clark, a great fan of Middle Earth, chose not to discuss Tolkien's treatment of mortality as God (Eru)'s particular gift to us, Tolkien considering death to be the central theme of "The Lord of the Rings", and having himself created his own breed of immortals with the Elves. And though I was pleased to see that Clark, who is generally described as an "orthodox" Christian, dismisses Teilhard de Chardin's visions as un-Christian, I was also disappointed that he quoted as historical the apocryphal "Kill them all, God will tell the difference", which I saw as a sign that he might be more under the influence of Protestant propaganda than I thought (as one of my sincerest hopes is that he will soon convert from Anglicanism to Catholicism.)

Despite these flaws, I still recommend the book, though people unfamiliar with the corpus of works he surveys might find it difficult to digest. Being read is definitely one form of immortality Clark deserves.