Preface Preface

By working hard and saving my money, I intend to become an immortal superman. Naturally, many still question the realism and propriety of such a goal; they see this kind of ambition as both foolish and vulgar. I hope to show that those who are willing to settle for mortality and humanity just do not understand their predicament or their opportunity, how lowly they are and how exalted they may become. That physical immortality—indefinitely extended life— is indeed within the grasp of us now living was the main theme of a previous book.

Since then, a vigorous cryonics program has come into being; "dead" people are being frozen and stored in hope of eventual rescue—revival, repair, rejuvenation and improvement. Practicing immortals are still exceptional, however. (Many are cold, but few are frozen.) There is little support for research to cure old age, despite the efforts and prestige of the Gerontological Society. One reason is a failure of motivation, which depends in part on the feasibility and desirability of improving people—of changing ourselves into supermen.

Merely to expand time, without expanding the psyche, seems to hold little attraction. Furthermore, pundits regularly allow that we should not aim to become superhuman, for a variety of complicated reasons. For example "An ape is not just a super-amoeba, a man is not merely a super-ape, and a 'superman' would not represent progress but only intensification of our traits and shortcomings."

They assert that when we come out of cryonic suspension--after we are thawed, revived and rejuvenated--our efforts to improve out minds and bodies will result only in more cunning and voracious apes, bigger and hungrier amoebae.

To the best of my knowledge this book is the first of its kind--the first to deal in a reasonably systematic way with the varieties and potential of superhumans. These should be of considerable interest even to those who choose to regard them as mere possibilities for our remote posterity. I hope not everyone will so regard them.

You personally and your families have a genuine opportunity to prolong your lives indefinitely and outgrow the human mold; you can really exercise some of the options outlined here or else better ones after your own heart's desire, remolded with each change of heart. If you apprehend the reality of this opportunity and if you actually take the necessary steps soon enough, why then, the adventures of the long tomorrow, which I firmly intend shall belong to me and mine, will be yours too.

We enjoy our bodies--when they function--but there's no denying that we are made of very cheap materials. Our minds have done marvels--but they are feeble in light of the potential we glimpse. Our emotions are frequently delightful or useful--but fragile and erratic far too often. Some do blame us immortalists, us transhumanists, and reproach us for hubris, because in earlier times there seemed to be good reasons to accept the status quo-namely, there was little we could do about it, hence mental health and a stable society might require resignation.

The "human condition" cebrated-lamented in song & story (often by philosophers/novelists crying in their beer) centers on limitations and inherent contradictions. Wagnerian tragedy sometimes focused on "impurity of blood," the irreversible defect. Our psyches are in a chronic state of civil war; there is incurable turmoil in Lorenz' "parliament of instincts," for example with self preservation ever in conflict with self sacrifice. The heroic thing, we are usually told, is to accept the limitations and live with the contradictions--to muddle through.

But humans have always tried to transcend their limitations, and have often to some extent succeeded. ("Natural man" would be living naked in a cave or shivering in a tree.) And now we are on the brink of the can-do era, when the leopard will be able to change his very spots. The transhuman condition is one of life unlimited--no acknowledged boundaries in time, space, or quality.

True enough, no one has grown any younger since the first version of The Prospect of Immortality in 1962; and no one has leaped any tall buildings since the first edition of Man into Superman in 1972. Yet there are potential immortals today, the people in cryostasis or frozen storage. There are supermice and patented animals and plants resulting from genetic engineering. Scientific heavyweights think that even within your natural lifetime we can have mental prostheses--direct computer links to your brain. The future is looking good.

There are risks, to be sure, and dissenters. Some people are fixated on the past, which they claim has produced enough wars, famines, acne, and funny money to make a sensible person say, "All right, already!" Hence they either doubt the future or dread it. Pessimism is partly a matter of bad experiences or/and hormone shortages. These can be remedied, if you can hang on a while. Pessimism is also partly a failure of imagination. Most people think the future will be just like the recent past, with maybe a little more chrome and somewhat higher prices.

They need to pay closer attention to what is happening. What is happening is a discontinuity in history, with mortality and humanity on one side--on the other immortality and transhumanity. With a little encouragement, many of us can make the transition: that is what this book is about. Have you had a better offer lately? R.C.W. Ettinger Oak Park, Michigan November, 1988