John Gray – The Immortalization Commission – The Strange Quest to Cheat Death

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Book Review, Consciousness, Human evolution, John Gray, Philosophy of Mind, Spiritualism, The Immortalization Commission

‘The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns’,

The Immortalization Commission is a fascinating and well written account of attempts made, either through using scientific investigation, or through scientific means, to either prove the existence of `the immortal soul’ or to cheat bodily death or the death of consciousness.

I knew a fair amount about the spiritualist movement, (the subject of the first section) and the attempts made to prove that individual consciousness survived via the use of cross correspondence and mediums – the attempt to set up a scientific method to prove survival. Despite their sometimes messy and tangled personal/sexual lives, Myers, Sedgewick et al seem models of perhaps naïve idealism, anxious to prove the survival of personal consciousness, because of course it is the loss of those we love which is perhaps harder to live with than the idea which we can barely imagine, of our own demise – our consciousness cannot really use itself to abstract itself from itself, but the loss of other is experienced by all, and explains the rise of the search of proof of survival through spiritualism, particularly after the great War.

I was most interested in what was unknown to me – that scientific endeavour was used in Soviet Russia because it accorded with a belief that the dead could be raised by scientific means – particularly of course the `good and great’ (sic) dead. Unlike the well meaning spiritualists, the upper echelons of the Communist Party – Lenin and on, were less concerned with proving the survival of individual consciousness (except I assume trying for their own) more with the idea that the role of science is to create a super human, to advance and quicken evolution of the human race to a perfectibility which will become immortal. Curiously, this seems much more evidence of `magical thinking’ than Myers et als endeavours. Not to mention, dark, appalling and inhumane, since the individual life of the common man and woman at that time counted for nought against the golden lure of the future super ideal. Whereas the spiritualists so passionately value individual human consciousness that they find the idea of its negation too appalling to contemplate, here we have the idea of expendable `human units’ – the present individual in their thousands to be sacrificed on the alter of a potential superhuman future.

Gray is impressed neither with the quest for individual immortality of the spiritualists, nor with the ends-justifies-the-means approach of `The Immortalisation Commission’ and also looks askance at the possible future attempts of science to produce a technological immortality, whether through cryogenics or other means. His view is rather that the cessation of consciousness, rather than immortality, is something to be accepted. Serenity in the face of the inevitable.

My only cavil with this interesting, beautifully written and complex book, is that Gray has structured it more like a novel than a factual book. There is no index. We meet a complex cast of characters and cross references, but there is no way to jog your memory..’now who was..?..again – as you can’t search for a prior reference. Rather than use footnotes within the text itself – or even a numbered footnote which can refer to an end of the text Harvard style reference, he plumps instead for a sequence of notes on pages 1-15, 16-30 etc at the end – but doesn’t link this at all to specific quotes within the text. So at times its only by reference to the general notes that you may find something within the text was a quotation. I found this curious, and unhelpful

The Immortalization Commission Amazon UK
The Immortalization Commission Amazon USA

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Mark Rowlands – The Philosopher and The Wolf

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Autobiography, Book Review, Ethics, Mark Rowlands, Philosophy of Mind, Science and nature, The Philosopher and The Wolf

This story of the relationship between Dr of Philosophy Mark Rowlands, and a wolf he bought as a cub, whilst a very young lecturer in Arizona in the 1990s, is fascinating, touching, meditative, troubled, thought provoking and as heartbreaking at times as it is amusing at others.

Rowlands was, as he admits, on one level quite a troubled individual – misanthropic, intensely reflective but not particularly comfortable with himself or other members of his own species, and veering into a relationship, far less instructive and elevating than his relationship with a wolf or part wolf part dog – with the bottle. The ability to drink a couple of litres of spirit in agonised despair on one particular, heartbreaking night, as he recounts, is clear evidence of hardened heavy drinking.

This book is part a loving recount of an 11 year relationship with Brenin, but, as importantly, a reflection on what it is to be human – or, as Rowlands, in disgust puts it ‘ape’ or ‘simian’, by contrast with what it means to be a lupine, vulpine or canine animal.

There is much which fascinatingly turns our own perception of ourselves as fine and advanced, on its head – Rowlands marks all our achievements down, from the highest to the lowest, as based on the evolutionary road which started in other primates, before homo sapiens, namely, the ability to work an advantage in deceiving each other, carried forward in speech, to grandiose mendacity, to ourselves as well as others, and, in order that the deceived do not lose evolutionary advantages, the development of the ability to read each other, see through lies and deceptions, and the never ending content between deceivers and deceived which then goes on permanently. And of course, the fact that each of us is both, simultaneously.

He contrasts the colder, cleaner concept of relationships built on loyalty within the pack of non-primate social species, with the sort of tricky behaviour (so similar to our own) which can be observed by animal behaviourists who study primate tribes over years in the wild.

I very much appreciated the debunking of arrogant superiority which we are prone to, as a species, but, increasingly, as I read, I could not help but be reminded, again and again, that the insistance, almost, on our innate debased nature, in comparison to a more noble non-human animal nature, seemed as flawed as those who believe we are the pinnacle, and the rest, dumb beasts.

Much of the book seemed to inhabit a place of self-loathing – and that loathing was projected outwards to the species as a whole of which the author seemed to be a reluctant and repulsed member.

Man, like wolf, is neither wholly flawed nor wholly perfect and part of our ape-ish evolution also leads to that very ability to self-reflect, even at times to be brutally honest in our self-reflection and attempt to see the world through another’s eyes.

Yes, for all I know non-primates may indeed be able to try and empathise with what it might mean to be lupine or avian, or even to try to perceive the world through cockroach or evergreen tree perspective, but I think this is definitely a pronounced human characteristic – and one which, if developed, can work to overturn the undoubtedly also present duplicity of simian development.

At times I very much was in 5 star territory with this book, as it made me think and ponder deeply, but I got pulled back to 4 star because some of the arguments really felt due to the fact Rowlands’ own nature made him often peer at the world through ordure-tinted spectacles. Which, in the end may be just as partial in view as rose-tinted ones
The Philosopher and The Wolf Amazon UK
The Philosopher and The Wolf Amazon USA