Trends In Attitudes Toward Life, Death, and Progress - Introduction

Introduction * Part 1 * Part 2 * Part 3 *

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees (out of a
--Those dying generations -- at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

From, Sailing to Byzantium, William Butler Yeats (1927)

Is the modern world still "no country for old men"? Is it still almost universally believed that if one desires to find life, one must look to the cycles of birth, animation, and decay that characterize the unaltered natural world?

Like Yeats, many would probably still suggest that permanence (or at least a semblance of it) is only achieved in the creation and appreciation of objects and structures not subject to the sort of aging that biological bodies are.

And while Yeats makes no apparent apology for bodily senescence in Sailing to Byzantium (in fact, one might even argue that the poem ends on a rather transcendent note), he does not question its inevitability, either. And no wonder: the prospect of real, non-metaphorical, empirically-demonstrable means of intervening in the aging process is so new that at times it seems trapped somewhere in the shadows between science and mythology. Over the past few years, however, the increased visibility of key players in longevity science as well as successful and highly public fundraising efforts have helped draw the international longevity discussion further and further toward the "science" side of things.

While some today probably still believe unquestioningly that humans will continue to live to a maximum of no more than 120 years or so into the indefinite future, more and more are beginning to see the shadow of aging's destructive, clockwork inevitability fade. Effective longevity medicine may not yet exist, however, there have been some promising results in the area of calorie restriction), as well as mainstream attention to the potential for humans to live to unprecedented ages.

Clearly, the attitudes of individuals (and, by extension, cultures) toward death and mortality are facing the prospect of requiring extensive adjustment. Modern psychology, for instance, has plenty to say on the matter of existential dread and the various paths one can take toward managing it -- as well as on the various pathologies that can supposedly emerge as part of the ego's defense against ideas of personal nonexistence. From the "circle of life" cliches one finds in popular articles on explaining death to children, to academic treatises on Terror Management Theory, humans demonstrate a clear and obvious fixation on mortality awareness and its implications. And as a result of unmistakable longevity gains over the past few generations in the developed world, the questions at hand are many.

What sorts of attitudes are developing as emerging technologies make it possible for more and more people to live longer, healthier lives? Are people holding unyieldingly to old, possibly outmoded attitudes, or adopting new ones? What sorts of news items and/or scientific breakthroughs help to shape people's attitudes regarding how long they might live, and what they imagine the shape of their future will be?

A Small Survey of Attitudes

The intent of the informal Existence is Wonderful Death Poll was to examine some of the precursor attitudes to these emerging questions. The poll surveyed various attitudes toward death and longevity research -- both in terms of desirability (of either eventual death or of longevity medicine) and in terms of feasibility (e.g., are we likely to achieve marked levels of life and health extension, and if so, will this occur within "our" lifetime?).

While this was not a scientific poll, its results still proved very interesting, and will be taken into account in considering future philosophical writings and advocacy efforts. In any advocacy movement, it is important for the movement to self-examine continuously in order to avoid ideological "tunnel vision" and alienation of newcomers or persons unfamiliar with the idea of healthy life extension. Hence, as well as considering a primary respondent demographic of pro-longevity individuals, the poll also included several items deliberately intended to prompt responses from those not necessarily in favor of life extension. It was thought that in this way, a maximally representative sample pool could be obtained -- one consisting of people likely to read about longevity research and advocacy, or who are at least willing to follow links to sites that discuss these topics.

The poll asked:

Which of the following statements (you can choose more than one) most closely match your thoughts on the subject of death?

Responents were provided with the following options (from which they could choose as many as applied to their position):

1. Death is natural. Death is as much a part of life as being born is. Therefore, it is something to be respected and not necessarily fought.

2. Death is an outrage -- it destroys people, no matter what the cause, and is therefore obviously something to be challenged and resisted. I fully support all serious scientific research efforts devoted to helping usher in longer, healthier lives for all.

3. I don't really think about death much -- I just try to live my life and figure that if I do die at some point, it doesn't matter because I'll never know it anyway.

4. I believe in a supernatural afterlife, and that when I die I will enter this afterlife and exist there for all eternity.

5. I have never liked the idea of death, but I am very reluctant to even let myself think that it might be possible to do something about it.

6. Death is something that we all have to come to terms with -- people who can't or won't accept their inevitable mortality are just living in a fantasy world.

7. I don't think people should have to die, and I am in favor of research to arrest the aging process, but I am firmly convinced that my generation was born too soon.

8. I think that there are many social problems we ought to think about trying to fix before considering radical longevity to be a worthwhile pursuit.

9. I do not consider it farfetched to imagine that someone alive today might live to be 200 years or older in reasonable health.

10. I DO consider it farfetched to imagine that someone alive today might live to be 200 years or older in reasonable health.

Results are summarized in Figure 1.

Respondents were allowed to choose as many of the statements as they felt applied to them and their views. Note that the total number of votes for all options (which was 393 at the close of the poll) does not refer to the number of individuals who answered the survey, but rather, to the total number of votes received for all poll items combined. The per-item vote count is shown in red for each item in Figure 1; comparison of these individual vote counts allows for an overall picture of which items in the poll were most and least frequently selected.


Figure 1 - Click Image to Enlarge

A more detailed analysis of respondent demographics was obtained through evaluation of the response sets of 116 individual poll respondents (1). A response set is defined for the purposes of this analysis as a single respondent's answers to the poll. Some respondents chose only one item, however, the vast majority chose multiple items. The three-part series of writings to follow will examine the patterns revealed by these representative response sets as well as the implications of these patterns.

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(1)The total number of responses was greater than 116, however, some of the details regarding the first few responses were lost due to technical difficulties with the response notifications, which were provided via e-mail by the polling service. Additionally, one response set was discarded from the individual-response analysis set because mutually-exclusive poll items 9 and 10 were both marked.