The Postmortal Condition: From the Biomedical Deconstruction of Death to the Extension of Longevity

Abstract

Deferring death, addressing its causes, altering its boundaries, controlling all of its parameters and understanding its process in order to prolong life as long as possible or even surpass the temporal limits of human existence—such is the objective that the scientific and political authorities are pursuing so doggedly that health has become one of our societies' major concerns. Starting with the biomedical deconstruction of death, this article will look at the new technoscientific representations of death and longevity. In the theoretical extension of the theses on biopower and bioeconomics, particular attention will be paid to the issue of the perfectibility and the reengineering of the body, as expressed in the life extension movement and in discourses accompanying biomedical advances. This permeates the theoretical debates surrounding genetic immortality, the development of regenerative medicine and of nanomedicine, artificial prolongation of life and cryonics. Drawing a parallel between the status of older people and biomedical advances' fight against ageing, this article will investigate the social and ethical consequences of this marked desire to conquer death scientifically, to live without ageing and even to extend life indefinitely.

Keywords:

• Death
• ageing
• biopower
• life extension
• biomedicine
• technoscience
• individualism

Notes

The concept of the ‘biomedical deconstruction of death’ harks back to the historical process through which medical science perceives death as a natural phenomenon that can be combated. Thus death is deconstructed into a series of causes and risk factors. According to this logic, ageing in itself is a disease that can be fought. This concept also harks back to the transformations of the bodily and biological boundaries of death (cerebral death) that followed the development of biomedical technology. Finally, ‘the biomedical deconstruction of death’ corresponds to current research in molecular biology, genetic engineering and the field of regenerative medicine that aims to extend human life indefinitely.

The privatization of death corresponds to the historical process through which death, starting in the nineteenth century, became a private medical phenomenon. The hospitalization of the dying patient and his social isolation give a concrete example of this process (Ariès, 1977).

The Immortality Institute is a non-profit organization the mission of which is ‘to conquer the blight of involuntary death’. It assembles researchers from various disciplines in the objective of scientifically overcoming death. See the Institute's website at: http://www.imminst.org/ (accessed 23 October 2007).

The term ‘amortality’, created by sociologist Edgar Morin, refers to the possibility of extending the life of an individual indefinitely through the use of technoscience. The individual remains mortal in theory, but he has the possibility of living a terrestrial life indefinitely (Morin, [1951] 2002).

A summary examination of the websites of organizations dedicated to life extension, nanomedicine, transhumanism and cryonics shows that it is often the same individuals who sit on the scientific committees of many organizations with varying vocations. For example, Ralph C. Merkle, the director of the Foresight Institute, which is focused on the promotion and development of research in the nanotechnologies, is also the director of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Furthermore, he is also a member of several serious scientific associations, including the American Chemical Society. The same goes for Marvin Minsky, professor at the MIT Media Lab and member of the scientific committee at Alcor.

Created and managed by Aubrey de Grey and David Gobel, The Methuselah Mouse Prize is intended to compensate and accelerate research on life extension through experiments on mice. In 2006, this prize was worth 3.6 million dollars (Maestrutti, 2007, p. 185).