Last Monday in class we watched a variety of people talking about conquering death or prolonging life indefinitely – cryonics, longevity treatments, nanotechnology and “uploading” consciousness into silicon constructs. Provoked some discussion in class.

Today I saw this Methuselah Man in which biogerentologist Aubrey de Grey predicts 5000 year life spans relatively “soon”. Answering a question he says,

My argument says that if you’re young enough, and we fix human aging soon enough, then we will be able to extend your lifetime to 150 years. Then basically we’re going to be able to get you out to infinity, depending on your not walking in front of buses and stuff like that.

We really don’t want to die, do we?

10 years on the people of Rwanda remember their own nightmare, their own terror.

BBC NEWS | In Depth | 2004 | Rwanda

A few doors up the road one of our neighbours sells fruit and vegetables at his front gate. Recently it’s included passionfruit which gets its name from Christ’s Passion for several reasons.

Jesuits in South America saw the hammer and nails of the crucifixion in the flower, St. Francis is said to have seen visions of the passion flower vine entwined around the cross, and early Spanish missionaries recorded accounts of seeing the flowers during church holiday seasons, especially during the Lent and Easter holidays.

Thinking about symbols for Antipodean Lent & Easter the passionfruit might be one that has a southern hemisphere “taste”. Passion Week might be “Passionfruit Week” with Easter eggs replaced with the new fruit of the vine.

Very busy day yesterday capping off a very busy month or two. Mark and Christopher’s soccer season started for the year, visitors dropped by for the afternoon unexpectedly (very nice to see them) and then we hosted a gathering of people for friends who graduated from BCNZ yesterday.

Would have been good to get to Palm Sunday service today but health-wise and energy-wise not a good idea for any of us. I wonder how the disciples and others felt that day. Several years of following Jesus around the countryside and then a big climactic entry into Jerusalem. I imagine once the hype died down the tiredness set in with a bang. Definitely “Hosanna” – “Save us”.

Lord, in this Passion Week may we be passionate about you no matter what our circumstance.

Spent an hour and a half this afternoon watching the documentary Synthetic Pleasures (1996) by Iara Lee as part of my research and also to get some discussion questions for Monday’s lecture on being or becoming human in Western technoculture. Couldn’t get hold of a copy in NZ so ordered it in from overseas post-haste.

IMDB’s plot summary says

Conceived as an electronic road movie, this documentary investigates cutting edge technologies and their influence on our culture as we approach the 21st century. It takes off from the idea that mankind’s effort to tap the power of Nature has been so successful that a new world is suddenly emerging, an artificial reality. Virtual Reality, digital and biotechnology, plastic surgery and mood-altering drugs promise seemingly unlimited powers to our bodies, and our selves. This film presents the implications of having access to such power as we all scramble to inhabit our latest science fictions.

That’s a fairly good summary. In places the movie drags a little and 8-9 years on it’s looking a little dated but there’s some really interesting material in there for discussion. What it means to be human, on the place/role of the body (consumer/consumed), on dreams of immortality and freedom from the flesh, as well as the bizarreness of people in general.
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