George Young publishes blog post on 'Huffington Post'
George M Young, Ph.D., fellow, UNE Center for Global Humanities, published a blog entry on Aug. 1, 2012 for the Huffington Post titled "Do You Want to Be Immortal? Really?"
Young, the author of The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers, discusses the Cosmists' belief that medical technology is advancing so rapidly that humans at some point may become immortal.
In the blog, he asks: "The important question now may not be whether remaking ourselves and our universe to eliminate limits to present life is possible, but whether it is desirable. For centuries poets have intuited profound value in the mystery of death. As Shakespeare tells us in Sonnet 73, death gives life meaning, and love grows more strong for that 'which thou must leave ere long.' Or, as Wallace Stevens wrote in 'Sunday Morning,' 'Death is the mother of beauty.' Could many of our best intangibles be lost in the transition from human to 'transhuman'?" Read the blog.