"Immortality" Idea 9/15/10

An Allegory of Immortality
Giulio Romano c. 1540

Defined:

Immortality (n)

1) Immortality (or eternal life) is the concept of living in a physical or spiritual form for an infinite or inconceivably vast length of time.

Wiktionary

2) Perpetual life after death.

wordnetweb.princeton.edu

3) The condition of not being susceptible to death or aging.

Wiktionary

Quotations:

"Humbaba’s mouth is fire; his roar the floodwater;

his breath is death. Enlil made him guardian
of the Cedar Forest, to frighten off the mortal

who would venture there. But who would venture
there?"

The Epic of Gilgamesh
(http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/gilgamesh/quotes.html)

"Every artist wants his work to be permanent. But what is? The Aswan Dam covered some of the greatest art in the world. Venice is sinking. Great books and pictures were lost in the Florence floods. In the meantime we still enjoy butterflies.

Romare Bearden
(http://quote.robertgenn.com/getquotes.php?catid=145)

“Death is not the greatest of evils; it is worse to want to die, and not be able to”

Sophocles
(http://thinkexist.com/quotation/death_is_not_the_greatest_of_evils-it_is_worse_to/161831.html)

Annotated Bibliography

Stark, Andrew. "Forever--Or Not." Wilson Quarterly 30.1 (2006): 58-61. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 16 Sept. 2010.

This article discusses the possibilities of immortality offered by the internet. Stark notes that securing intellectual immortality is becoming much more "democratic" with the help of the World Wide Web. Before the internet and extended media, immortality was available only to "eminent artists or thinkers or public figures," recognized widely for their lives achievements. Now anyone with internet access can create accounts for blogging, social networking, personal websites which generally do not expire even after the individual dies. "Anyone can post material on the World Wide Web, and because the Web is impervious to the degradation that time inflicts on printed records, whatever it contains has the capacity to exist indefinitely in some form." From my own experience, I know Facebook suggests friendships with users who have passed, or advises active users to send inactive (dead) users messages, until someone with access to the dead users password gets on and deletes the page. This article was useful in my research of immortality because I am concerned with the type which may have been unsolicited and material, instead of intangible. The author was professional in writing style and seemingly unbiased.

Relates:

This topic relates to my work because I deal with taxidermy and ritualistic trophy hunting. The process of preserving an animal through taxidermy, for all intents and purposes, immortalizes the remains of the animal. Physically, the specimen will never naturally degrade since it has been removed from the organic life circle. Evolutionarily, the entire species is subsequently mortalized, in that hunting leads to changes in natural selection and ultimately endangers the species wholly. The ritual of hunting and stuffing the specimen to begin with stems from the need to immortalize the successful hunt for identity and display purposes. On the other end of the spectrum, my work deals with human sexuality, which in its more scientific application, pertains to sexual selection and immortality of a family or race.

Gilgamesh decides to embark on his epic journey to secure immortality for himself