Google founders, Larry Page and Serge Brin, are both in the wars healthwise. Page has revealed that he has a nerve disease that has partially paralysed his vocal cords, while Brin has announced he could have Parkinson’s Disease.
According to Mic Wright on Telegraph Blogs they are cooperating with a man from Apple to start a new company, Calico, specialising in preserving the body after death prior to “reawakening” it when the technology is available to cure their afflictions.
Well, good luck with that. What the Googlers should know, however, is that the very essence of them — the soul — leaves the body at death with only the physical shell left behind.
If the bodies were “brought back” to life by advanced technology, they would have no sense of self or remembrance of things past. They would be human-shaped lumps of flesh, with no intelligence or consciousness of the world: Zombies, in fact.
Not even the whizz-kids of Silicon Valley can cheat death. Technology is not the answer to everything.
The general consensus on the Lib Dem conference is that it displayed a new maturity arising from three years in government; Nick Clegg is the master of all he surveys and his persistent rival, Vince Cable, made a fool of himself by continuing to project his dotty desire to be leader.
That may be so. My impression, watching occasionally on television, was how sparse the audience was, and how tepid the applause in response to the tired confection of platitudes from the speakers.
Next week we can look forward to another shouty display of wishful thinking and bad acting from Ed Miliband — I’ve often wondered why last year’s wooden speech was so well received.
Then comes the finale. David Cameron, Prime Minister of these “small islands”, addresses the nation with what could signal the beginning of the General Election campaign.
I don’t get the sense that the country is in the mood for more of a Continental style coalition, each party cancelling out the other’s most distinctive policies. I think they will vote decisively one way or t’other.
The wild card is next year’s Scottish referendum on independence. A Yes vote would alter everything, turmoil rapidly following and all bets off.
Labour would lose many seats, as it has a decisive advantage among Scottish voters, although it’s not clear when the first Scottish election would be. The Tories could well be punished by their own supporters for organising the demise of the United Kingdom.
Cameron would emerge as a weak leader for allowing Alex Salmond to sell him a pup. It would be much too late to replace him for the May, 2015 election.
The Conservatives would go into it with a lame duck leader that everyone knew wouldn’t last long after the votes are counted. Nemesis is waiting in the wings.
If you enjoy political turbulence, stand by, your desires may be about to come true.
There’s a lot of chatter going on about what Frank Sinatra called “the final curtain”.
Death is the topic of the moment: Eleanor Mills had a recent column in The Sunday Times and Giles Fraser had a go on Thought for the Day this morning. Everybody’s at it.
I like to think my recent book The Eternal Quest for Immortality, plus all the follow-up pieces on this site had something to do with it. But there’s a much simpler reason: the advance guard of the Baby Boomers are reaching a certain age when it becomes plain that life no longer goes on forever.
Even the movers and shakers of Silicon Valley are preparing cryogenic graves for themselves (see above). The Boomers never did anything by halves. They are not going to go quietly.
I fervently hope that the next generation will be less of a handful than we have been.
John Evans
… who is the author of The Eternal Quest for Immortality: Is it staring you in the face? Available from Amazon and all good booksellers.
Coming soon: Mystology: A different way of looking at the world. Also a website, mystology.com.