Nomads threaten to shoot Alori:
"'You do not understand,' Ilaloa stepped in front of the humans. 'Your kind is sundered from life, and bears within it the fear of death and the longing for death. We have neither. Throw down your guns." (p. 137)
The Alori do not fear death. Since death is part of life and is also inevitable, it makes sense to end or transcend the fear of it. Preservation of life for a practicable length of time, yes. Postponement of inevitable death for as long as possible, not necessarily.
In Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time, an alien visits the far future Earth with the message that the entire universe will soon end. He anticipates alarm. However, since the title characters have mastered their emotions, they are unconcerned and regard the alien's message as an anticlimax.
Sf gives us different perspectives.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Poul Anderson gave us speculations about how it might be possible to indefinitely postpone death in WORLD WITHOUT STARS, THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS, and FOR LOVE AND GLORY. In all of them one urgent problem was how to handle memory overload. WORLD WITHOUT STARS and FOR LOVE AND GLORY has technological means being used for that. The "immortals" of BOAT somehow suffered thru a lengthy period of derangement before their minds cleared.
One thing I recall about WORLD WITHOUT STARS is that most people on Earth eventually left sometime after gaining the antithanatic. They wanted to do something active with their "immortality," even engaging in dangerous jobs or careers, to show to themselves that they were worthy of such long life spans.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And, if it were possible to prolong lifespans indefinitely, then I would be interested but not on the basis of merely surviving at all costs.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I agree with that view of yours. Albeit, I remain skeptical of the possibility of such a thing as life spans prolonged indefinitely by medico/technological means happening.
Ad astra! Sean
We’re all descended from people who delayed death long enough to reproduce...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Very true, altho I had more in mind how likely or desirable it would be to indefinitely postpone death. I am skeptical things like the antithanatic of WORLD WITHOUT STARS would ever be practical. But it was fun to read Anderson's speculations about such ideas in books like WORLD or THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS.
And I strongly suspect some people are trying to reproduce by getting cloned right now, in our times.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment