Project 50
MEMORANDUM  50
 
 
1. My son , do not forget my law, but let your  
heart keep my commands;
2. For length jf days and long life and peace  
they will add to you...
5. Trust in the lord with all your heart,and lean  
not on your own understanding;
6. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and  
He shall direct your paths.
7. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the  
Lord and abstain from evil.
Proverbs. Chapter 3.
         It is a common belief that man has always dreamed of individual immortality. Is the threashold of the III millennium not the right time and place for trying to achieve it? Having this possibility in mind, let us then make an attempt to consider and evaluate the structure of our personality, i.e. the essence of our ego.
     Today there is sufficient ground to believe that its two major components are biological and informational. If this is a true assumption, the problem of individual immortality could be reduced to preserving these components  for the time being, and when the science advances permit, merging them into structural unity.
     Is it possible to preserve the biological basis of our  ego in time? The positive answer to this  question  seems to be evident. Given the advances of cloning, today the necessary biological material can be selected from any man, and upon being preserved under specific and accessible conditions for an unlimited period of time serve the substance for cloning a genetically identical creature.
     In August 1996 people from Biverton  research center, USA, succeeded in cloning Resus monkeys (the order of primates), whose picture was all over mass media.
     The world-known scientist Stephen Hawking nicknamed  a modern Cassandra has recently stated in his lecture delivered in The White House that, like it or lump it, gene engineering of man is going to happen in the comming millennium. Which means that man cloning can become common practice soon enough.
     We all are aware yet that a clonized double cannot be identfied to the ego that had served the original biological material, the reason being the exclusive psychological features pertaining to every personality. These include such abillities of ours as memory, thinking, and intellect, plus our emotional and affective areas as well as our unique life experience, the  whole of which being a volume of extremely specific information.
     Professor A.Bolonkin, an authority in the field of electronic intellect, believes that as soon as we manage to model all neurons, there will be a chance to record the information into chips thus making man immortal with his existence continued in electronic  dimension. He is optimistic enough to suppose that in the 20th thirties  humanity will have such an opportunity.
     Noteworthy is a recent report in the Russian press from a lab that used to be entirely covert in consideration of its confidentiality, about human biological field research which had led to an opportunity to read parameters of information from certain objects and then transmit them to man. This paper is very essential since biological field parameters along with the findings of cernain modern neuro- physiological research are likely to be those critically important individual information components  that are preservable in time.

     There seem to exist some other considerations to be taken into account.

    1. The age at which biological material sampling is done for man cloning means a lot wnen the goal is to achieve individual immortality. A hypothesis based on Lamark’s theory about inheriting acquired symptoms holds that two cloned species formed with biological material taken from the same donnor but at different age will have certain phenotypical difference resulting from some additional information  presented in the genetic material and accumulated during the donnor’s life. (Lamark’s theory is nowadays considered attractive by a number of serious researchers, who do not oppose it to the theory of Darvin, but find the two theories contributing one to another.) If the hypothesis is true, then besides its general meaning for the idea of individual immortality, it specifically means that the older is the  donnor of biological material the better.
Provided that the future grants the opportunity to integrate both genetic and informational components in a structural entity, there arises a problem of qualitative and quantitative assessment of the combination of the donnors’ individual psychological properties , whicn are determined not only by natural characteristics, but also by their social life conditions.
     Today we have sufficiently elaborated methods of psychological diagnostics that allow us to select and estimate the major integral, or so called system forming , personality qualities such as motivation, self-consciousness, and a number of other individual features that determine a person’s behavior,condition and feeling within the system of interpersonal relations.
     Thus even today we can obtain and preserve in time both the ego’s biological component and  certain information about its psycho-physiology parametres. There is no doubt that time will come when mankind will be able to unify these cjmponents in a structural entity, which will probably solve the problem of individual immortality.
     A question remains however whether the information we are able to obtain and preserve so far, is sufficient for fulfilling the task. In case the answer is positive, the audacious dream of man can turn feasible during the life of the present generation. It is an open question for the time being. But is there any harm in trying?

P.S. We still cannot deny the liklihood ofthe existence of some other and irrarional component that makes our  ego absolutely irreproductive whatsoever by means of scientific approach. Then we can only rely on the Will of Lord .
 
     A question arises however whether the above-said is consistent to the most common and widely spread religious perceptions of appropriate thinking and action of man, and with his approach to life and relationship with The Most High. In other words is the setting up the problem of individual immortality not  sheer heresy, and therefore absolutely unacceptable for a righteous man?
     Let us try considering the problem from the point of view of those who stand by monotheism. Here is a brief account of how they perceive the surrounding world, the duty of man to The Most High, and what is our soul.
     Our inner assumption being that relation of man with God is highly personal, connection of each unique individual to his or her Creator is profoundly intimate. God is beyond our conceiving.
     The world we live in is called the world of action. Its lower part  is the physical world of action where the law of nature dominates. Above it exists the world of spiritual action.
     In the world of action the spiritual is subordinated to the material as the law of nature determines the image and structure of all things, and directs all development. In this world Spirit can only reveal Itself on the solid ground of what we call the forces of nature. The mission of man and his duty to The Most High is continue creation of this world. I will take up the cup of salvation... (Psalms, 116:13.)
     Each man is designated to fulfill his unique task, and his share of duty to God. Man reaches the goal of his own by the path of his own on the call of his own heart. The soul of man is to continuously develop during its Earth existence.
     Soul ought to be understood as a continuous line of spiritual existence originating from the Source of all souls connected by this line with the soul of a certain man rather than as a definite thing enveloped in a body, or some immaterial substance. Each soul is unique in terms of its abilities and the tasks it is appointed to fulfill. The main goal of the soul is to be attained not outside the physical world, but inside it among the living beings and in contact with the matter. At its first level the soul conveys vital energy to the body, gives it ability of thinking and contemplating. At a higher level the soul determines man’s consciousness and abilities to create. The point where the soul contacts Divinity is located at the highest level.
     The human soul utilizes the body as a tool for its functioning in this world. Being clad in flesh, it thinks, percepts, feels and reacts. Existing in reality  it fulfills a dual task of perfecting the outer world and raising itself to a higher level. Upon leaving the material world a soul that has attained its goal awaits the time when the world will achieve  the ultimate perfection. If a soul does not fulfill its spiritual mission, after the man’s death it remains restless, and eventually returns to another body to make one more attempt and to right the wrong it did to itself and the world during its previous life on Earth.
     The struggle of each soul for achieving its individual goal is at the same time the struggle of the whole world for salvation. Coming back to the matter in order to improve both the matter and itself, the soul eventually  reaches the summit of perfection accessible to it.
     A thorough analysis of this very superficial and primitive account of religious views, and its comparison with the purposes of Project 50 allow us to conclude that they are not utterly inconsistent. Moreover they even contribute to each other. Implementation of Project 50 may result in producing certain biological and informative matrix that would be the basis for recreating the human soul for it to reenter the material world and fulfill its spiritual mission.
 

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