X-Message-Number: 8832
Subject: Let's coin a new word for "technological immortality"
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 13:29:10 -0600
From: Will Dye <>

I've found that the discussion of life extension, cryonics, 
nanotech, and such to be complicated by hangups over the 
word "immortality".  This thread is not intended to rehash 
that familiar ground, but rather to give us the OPTION of 
avoiding the issue on the occasions when we may decide that 
we don't want to bring it up.  


In brief, I want a different word for technological 
"immortality", so that I can discuss the issue with a 
reduced chance of bringing up some variation of the 
issue: "is 'not dying' the same as 'immortality'?".  
It's an interesting issue, but there are times when I 
want to concentrate on other things.


Can we all agree that there are noticable differences 
between religious immortality and technological attempts 
to eliminate dying?  I understand that many of you feel 
quite strongly that the technological attempts are indeed 
"immortality".  I understand that you believe that your 
attempts are logically and ethically superior to religious 
attempts.  I don't want to resurrect all that again.  But 
can you see that the superiorities that you assert are 
themselves evidence that they two ideas are different?  
I'm not asking that we settle the issue of wether they 
are fundamentally the same thing, nor should coining a 
word be interpreted as judging which is better than the 
other.  I just want us to agree that there are sufficient 
differences to justify the introduction of a new word, if 
only for the purpose of clarity of speech.  


I've heard various multi-word terms, such as:

	defeat of death
	
	eternal youth 
	
	indefinate life span
	
	technological immortality
	
	biological immortality
	
but these do not seem to avoid the immortality debates.  


Various common words have been brought in, such as:

	ascention (spelling?)
	
	singularity
	
	nirvana

and others.  But these are mixed up with ideas that 
go far beyond merely improving medical treatment.  The 
ideas are related, to be sure, and perhaps some are 
causally connected.  But again, they are sufficiently 
different that using them invites a digression.


Maybe it's just personal taste, but I'd much rather 
avoid TechoSquished words like:

	TechHeaven
	
	BioImmortal
	
	TechnoImmortal

not only becuase TechnoSquish is cliche, but also 
because such words are identified with the TechnoCommunity.  
'Nothing against the Geeks, but I'd like to broaden the 
base into the medical community and others, if possible.  


I suspect that some obscure Latin-sounding word would 
do better, in part because when someone says "huh?", you 
have a chance to give a definition with a full sentence 
or two.  If you just use "biological immortality", you've 
brought up the i-word without telling what you mean by 
it, and that can cause confusion.  The vagueness of the 
term invites debate, and debate all too often means 
taking a position and then defending it.  I suspect that 
having a good defintion on hand will better your odds of 
giving a cogent description of how you personally 
interpret the idea.  This will hopefully let the other 
person get into the "listen" mode instead of the "now 
wait a minute" mode, and you can defuse or side-step 
problems before they start.  


One possibility is:

	asenesence

(not sure if I spelled that right).  It just means "the 
absense of senesence" (spelling?), which if I recall 
correctly is the medical term for for what most of us 
call the process of old age.  One problem is that it 
ties us to the word senesence, and some may argue that 
what were talking about is not the mere opposite of 
senesence, which triggers a debate over the word 
senesence.  A relatively new word may do better.  


Eric Drexler did pretty well, I think, with "eutactic", 
a word meaning "well-ordered" that refers to the idea 
that every atom is in specific place, like machinery.  
It's coined in a fashion that is commonplace in the 
scientific world, it has a solid meaning, it's well- 
connected to the original language, and it sounds good.  
I suspect that it will catch on quite nicely (it's 
starting to already).  


Anybody know some Latin, or Greek, or Hebrew or 
Hungarian or something?  Any ideas or suggestions?  


For this to work, it will have to catch on in various 
communities, such as cryonics, life extension, nanotech, 
and even science fiction.  So we need to make it a 
well-chosen word, and start promoting it.  


--Will (yes, this is my real name) Dye

      William L. Dye     \   My Terror Legions invaded 
       \   Earth and all I got was 
  \   this lousy .sig quote.

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