Symbolic Immortality

Space Egg - The Future for Symbolic Immortality

Thales of Miletus, the ancient Greek philosopher who lived between 642 BD and 546BC is often credited as the father of Western philosophy. One of his big ideas was to break with earlier mythological understanding of the world, and instead deal with the ‘real existence of things’. For him, dealing with the real phenomena which make up the natural world was the foundation for this new view of life. And for him, this real world was defined by a unity of all things – understanding that everything is connected to everything else. For Thales, water was the ultimate metaphor for this unity, for the idea that we are all part of something beyond our limited sense of self. And this offered the possibility of a much bigger way of seeing and living in the world through these connections with everything else.

But Greek philosophy, along with some Eastern traditions, also gave us the Atomists. Democritus first held the view that the real world was made up of atoms - indivisible bits of matter, the real bits which make us all and the rest of the world. The particular configuration of atoms which makes you is unique to you, it is what gives you your real existence. Since then, modern science has shown us much more about this real existence of things. But the fundamental connection to the ideas of Thales and Democritus remains. When you drink a glass of water, you are drinking - literally taking into your body - atoms of oxygen and hydrogen that were formed during the Big Bang. And these oxygen and hydrogen atoms then become part of your body itself. Water still signifies the intimate connections between you and the cosmos. Still stands as a metaphor that we are all made from a bigger unity. You, me, all of us are literally made from star dust. By booking your flight on one of our spacecraft you are now able to make the return journey.

You are now able to send the particular configuration of star dust which is you back on the return journey, back into the cosmos from which it came. Space Egg offers you the chance to express your own version of that connection back to everything that is beyond your life as it is now.

But it does even more.

Since the Ancient Greeks, a fundamental distinction has run through philosophy – the distinction between the Materialists and the Idealists. Materialists see as fundamental the material world of atoms, of physical matter which makes everything as it is. For them, everything flows from this world of physical matter. The Idealists on the other hand put more emphasis on our human life - our rich life of language and culture, our sense of ourselves, our felt experiences of others. So it puts the famous ‘realm of ideas’ more at the central of human consciousness, and argues that our perception of the real world is but a reflection of those ideas. And we all live with these ideas. As we take part in the real existence of things, perhaps the most powerful ideas we must all live with is the knowledge of our own end. We all know that we have only have a limited future, that the particular configuration of things that is ‘me’ will not last forever.

Symbolic Immortality.

This general existential quandary brings us to symbolic immortality. In their book The Broken Connection (9179), the Harvard psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton, MD and his colleague Eric Olsen discuss the notion of symbolic immortality, when they write The idea of immortality is the answer to a profound human question or really, the answer to two such questions. The first question is, What happens to a person after death? The second is, How can a person live without overwhelming anxiety in the face of the certainty of death?

Due to our inherent capacity to be aware of our own impending death, we can all become subject to the fear of it. But this same capacity for self-awareness and self-consciousness brings us our symbolic self, as we generate our sense of identity, our image of ourselves, which we can imaging continuing after our death as part of the legacy we leave within the lives of our loved ones. So the idea of symbolic immortality helps our symbolic self to reduce existential angst, and indeed seek to accomplish more before our deaths safe in the knowledge that we can leave such a legacy. Most people hope for some kind of future immortality in this way – it helps reduce our fears, it adds to our capacities to live fully, it feeds our souls imagination concerning what we are capable of whilst we are alive. Symbolic immortality speaks to the materialist philosophy referred to above because it is partly about the material aspects of our legacy - what we have created, the children we have brought into the world. But it also speaks to the more ephemeral, idealist philosophy from above - our values, our friendships, our acts of kindness - all the memories of us which persist in the minds of others.

But symbolic immortality can come in various forms. In its biologic, people seek immortality in the hearts and minds of others, - we live on within the rest of humankind.

The possibility of theological immortality is offered by beliefs in an afterlife sanctioned by the higher authority of religious institutions and spiritual practices – we live on in some form of ‘heaven’. The prospect of creative symbolic immortality is suggested by leaving a legacy through our creative acts, our art works, our writing, our scientific discoveries. But it is also suggested by the more humble acts of benevolence and kindness to others – we live on through the ‘good works’ we have passed down, and the differences we have made. Finally, according to the orthodox view, the possibility of symbolic immortality is offered by our relationship to Nature.

Despite all the things which might befall us as individuals, we take comfort from the certainty that Nature, that life on earth in all its forms will carry on – we live on in the mountains, the rivers, the trees of the forest and the sky.

Space Egg offers a new, technological symbolic immortality by enabling our memories, our creative works, our relationships to the world and our very DNA to become symbolically immortal – with Space Egg we live on through all these aspects of our life and have a much more expanded relationship with Nature as we travel through space.

With Space Egg, we are able to live with and through the awareness of our symbolic immortality whilst we are here, alive on Earth, and face the prospect of our death, or the death of a loved one, safe in the knowledge that there is now something we can do to actively ensure we symbolically transcend death.

Now, Space Egg puts within your reach a way of controlling your own feelings of ‘death anxiety’, and enables you to actively do something to ensure immortality for yourself and those you love. Now for the first time, your own symbolic immortality is in your own hands, not in the hands of other social institutions. In the end, as Lifton and Olsen (2017) write, Death anxiety becomes overwhelming when one has to confront it in isolation. Societies and social institutions – when one believes in them – are able to aid in mastering death anxiety by generating shared images of continuity beyond the life of each single person. The capacity to live with death is generated by available social forms as well as by forms made available by one’s own life. (Lifton and Olsen 2017 p. 39)

But by using Space Egg, you are now able to send an imprint of yourself back to the cosmos in a way which overcomes this dread, what the Existentialist bemoaned as the lack of ‘transcendental guarantees’.

You can send a version of yourself back to the cosmos with the idea, the knowledge, indeed with the enjoyment of that very experience. You can live with the self-aware idea that you are also out there, beyond your own end.

You can take part in the real existence of things in a much bigger, more expanded way, beyond the limits of your place on just one planet, within just one lifespan.

Using Space Egg enables you to truly take part in the real existence of things, now and forever.