A Beginner's Guide to Immortality: Extraordinary People, Alien Brains, and Quantum Resurrection

by Clifford A. Pickover (Author)

14 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-1560259848

ISBN-10: 1560259841

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A Beginner's Guide to Immortality is a celebration of unusual lives and creative thinkers who punched through ordinary cultural norms while becoming successful in their own niches. In his latest and greatest work, world-renowned science writer Cliff Pickover studies such colofrul characters as Truman Capote, John Cage, Stephen Wolfram, Ray Kurzweil, and Wilhelm Rontgen, and their curious ideas. Through these individuals, we can better explore life's astonishing richness and glimpse the diversity of human imagination. Part memoir and part surrealistic perspective on culture, A Beginner's Guide to Immortality gives readers a glimpse of new ways of thinking and of other worlds as he reaches across cultures and peers beyond our ordinary reality. He illuminates some of the most mysterious phenomena affecting our species. What is creativity? What are the religious implications of mosquito evolution, simulated Matrix realities, the brain's own marijuana, and the mathematics of the apocalypse? Could we be a mere software simulation living in a matrix? Who is Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and Emanuel Swedenborg? Did church forefathers eat psychedelic snails? How can we safely expand our minds to become more successful and reason beyond the limits of our own intuition? How can we become immortal?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Clifford A. Pickover received his Ph.D. from Yale University and is the author of thirty-six highly acclaimed books on science, mathematics, art, and religion. His web site, pickover.com, has received several million visits.

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Basic Books (December 27, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1560259841
ISBN-13: 978-1560259848
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 14 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,027,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5507 in History & Philosophy of Science
- #28189 in Science & Mathematics
- #32339 in Philosophy (Books)

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M. Cunningham

I didn't see what most reviewers did.

October 3, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

First you have to realize that this book doesn't really address much about Immortality. It shouldn't even be on the same book shelf as Stephen Cave's "Immortality:The Quest to Live Forever and How it Drives Civilization." Second over 50 pages of the book are just various quotes. Clifford also references many of his other books essentially getting double use out of his writing. That said there's such a bricolage of diverse ideas in this book that there's something that will appeal to just about anyone. For example I found Clifford's discussion of evolution over intelligent design on pages 182-198 to be a nice and correct summation of the major issues.

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Amazon Customer

This heavy subject went down hard when Cliff tackled it but ther're both okay now.

January 28, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Another romp around a theme that might include amortality. The book is a collection of scientific thoughts on immortality and is heaping with great quotes to help get you thinking. Cliff suggested this book because I liked his Drugs, Sex, Einstein and Elves and it is almost as free flowing despite the gravity of the theme; it is an enjoyable read with many interesting tidbits and intriguing quotes sprinkled thoughout (especially those hidden at the end of the notes and references sections and one reference to spindle cells). In the "about the author" section, Cliff indicates that one of his next book topics will depend on reader response to a list: 1) Matrioshka Brains, 2) Carolingian Renaissance, 3) pareidolia and Marian apparitions, 4) Gram-schmidt orthonormalization, 5) Phyllodocida, 6) Turangalila, 7) factorion 40,585, 8) Egil Skallagrimsson, 9) aposiopesis and asyndeton in literature and life, 10) calipee, and 11) Olaf Sporns' connectome. I chose calipee. How about you?

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B Diddley

A Fun and Fascinating Read

January 2, 2007

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I just finished Pickover's book and like the way he bridges all sorts of different ideas, interspersed with great quotes form notables. For example, he weaves the lives of famous authors, Science Fiction Films, anthropologists, philosophers, scientists, mind altering drugs, mathematical equations into a fascinating and fun discovery of ideas and notions I never would have thought about. Particularly interesting are the strange, quirky and addictive habits and coincidences of highly creative people. As a non-academic, he made many topics easily accessible and a blast to read. I like the way he goes off on tangents, as they are always interesting. Any scientist who entertains notions of parallel universes, DMT ingestion, liver divination and intelligent design (to name a few) is OK in my book. Enjoy.

6 people found this helpful

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E. E. Kuersten

My brain is glowing

January 28, 2007

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Pickover knows just what to say to kickstart the parts of your brain you haven't even used yet. Reading this book is like taking a walking tour through the magical zone where your life and reality and history and b-movies intersect. Educational, hilarious, mind-blowing, engaging and full of zest and zing, Pickover punctuates his prose with trenchant quotes aplenty. The thing you learn quick when traveling in the Pickover realm is that your brain is always growing and learning, and there is no limit to how far we can go. This guy's also got a generous heart and spirit, you can feel it in the words he writes, and that sort of hawk-eyed optimism for a transcendental, trans-dimensional future is damned contagious. I read this book and I feel like whatever happens, the collective mass of DNA we call the world/self is gonna be not only fine but blazin'! Plus it's light (nice soft pages) and has cool purple cover, with a skull!

9 people found this helpful

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Lee Scott

INTOXICATING IDEAS...

January 19, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Of the 40,000 books in my private library, this one is in the top 5 of my favorites. I constantly re-read it and always find something new each time. It hasn't left my nightstand since the day I received it 7 or 8 years ago. This book is a lot like Pickover's other book, Sex, Drugs, Einstein & Elves, which I just wrote a review of. That one is also in my top 5 of favorites. I treasure the information in these two books, they have led me in new directions and explore arcane subjects and areas I may never have stumbled upon if I had not read them. Bravo Professor Pickover, PLEASE write more books like this.

2 people found this helpful

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A. Caballero

Five Stars

March 11, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Great read! I enjoy all of his books.

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Marc G. Lony

He is the best!

February 9, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Very good!

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Jeanine

Immortality as in being remembered after your death....

February 18, 2008

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I am enjoying this book thus far. Obviously, it's not a book on how to become immortal in the supernatural sense. It's a book about people who have become immortal by doing things that they will be remembered for. At least, that's what I've gotten out of it so far, but I'm only a couple of chapters in.

2 people found this helpful

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A Beginner's Guide to Immortality: Extraordinary People, Alien Brains, and Quantum Resurrection