Frankenstein, AI, and the Question of Human Immortality

Introduction: Man, Monster, and the Danger of Playing God

If Shelley's Frankenstein taught us anything, it was that man should not play God. Victor Frankenstein — Enlightenment Man personified — is enamored of science in the gothic novel and obsessed with recreating, or rather reanimating, life. He succeeds, but fails to plan for his creation's soul. The monster's soul yearns for companionship, well-being, and even God — and yet all avenues to these goals seem cut off to him, one by one. Instead of peace, he ends up pursuing revenge, murdering the wife of his creator and ultimately leading Frankenstein into the Arctic, where the two are lost in a figurative icy Hell.

The ideas underlying Frankenstein are that human life is precious and that it is endowed with a soul by a Creator. Indeed, the essence of the novel is that God exists, that man is not God, and that God has a purpose in mind for man. Though the novel does not expressly reveal this purpose, history does provide some insights — especially the history of the Christian West. For believing Christians, the purpose of life is to know, love, and serve God so that we may be happy with Him in the next world. Various cultures have expressed this same view in different ways: Hindus express it in the idea of reincarnation; Buddhists in the idea of Nirvana. The point that these cultures, religions, and philosophies make is that life has a purpose.

Christianity explicitly states, moreover, that this mortal life on Earth is not an end in and of itself but rather a beginning — the prelude to eternity, which is found on the other side of the grave. Choosing which eternity we will possess depends upon our disposition: we may choose ourselves and go to Hell, or we may choose Christ and go to Heaven.

Kurzweil's Vision and the Christian Understanding of Death

For the Christian, death is not something to be avoided but rather a punishment for sin — for Original Sin — that which makes human nature fallen. Ray Kurzweil, as he has made clear in his writings and public statements, sees artificial intelligence as a way to avoid death, to escape the debt that the Christian God has placed on all creation. For Kurzweil, the myths of religion are most likely not something he genuinely feels compelled to regard as important. His interests are in science, in nanotechnology, and in "the law of accelerating returns," as he calls it (Casti 663).

Not everyone believes as he does, however. Those who still maintain the traditional views of the past — and of the Old World in particular — are more inclined to abstain from venturing too far into a contemplation of playing God, of obtaining immortality without Him. Too many myths from ancient times (those of the Greeks and Romans, for example) tell what happens when presumptuous man flies too close to the sun. Kurzweil appears to be daring us to do just that. His vision is certainly bold — but it also seems to discount the whole of human history in the sense that human nature is what it is. For those who believe that God has created man, man's spirit is not evolutionary. It, in fact, belongs to God and is called to return to God. This return is a humbling experience, as man's pride ever since the Fall — according to the Christian narrative — is his own worst enemy, constantly leading man to consider himself an end in himself, his own passions and interests the only ones that matter. In his pride, he fails to consider how he must look to an infinite Judge Who is really the source of all things.

Faith, Skepticism, and the Limits of Technological Immortality

None of this matters, of course, if the world chooses to embrace the vision offered by Kurzweil. Many may seek to obtain the kind of "immortality" that machines can give, so long as those machines are maintained. It is unlikely that all will, however. Faith of some form will continue into the future, and some humans will continue to believe that God alone suffices and can complete one's happiness. Immortality without God is what Hell is. Kurzweil could very well be promoting Hell on Earth.

Not everyone will believe that — but some will, and some have already voiced skepticism of one kind or another. There are those who have likened his vision to the apocalyptic nightmare of The Terminator or any other science-fiction film of recent memory — such as Ex Machina, Blade Runner, and others. And not everyone is interested in "learning a lesson" from literature or film. Some are more fascinated, as Ian Malcolm suggests in Jurassic Park, with finding out what can be done, and not so much with finding out what should be done.

Conclusion: An Immortal Soul Already

Should man strive to be immortal? The question is valid. But perhaps man already is immortal. Perhaps man already possesses an immortal soul that will never die. Perhaps the better question is how to facilitate that soul in its yearning for the kind of rest, peace, and happiness that even the ancient Greeks sought to obtain through a life of lived virtue.

Kurzweil may be correct in his assertion that man and machines will one day merge in the near future. This will not be of interest to everyone, though. Some people will think it of no importance whatsoever — those who seek their end in God, who seek their peace, their shanti shanti shanti as Eliot called it in The Waste Land — the peace that passeth understanding — are more likely to spend their time preparing themselves for death so that they may meet their Creator on the other side, with a clean conscience and hope for eternal happiness there in Heaven. This thought is surely no more far-fetched than Kurzweil's.

Works Cited

Casti, John. "Exit Homo sapiens, stage left." Nature, vol. 397 (Feb. 1999): 663–664.

Eliot, T. S. "The Waste Land." Web.

Laux, John. Church History. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1943.

Tucker, Patrick. "The Cinematic Singularitarian." The Futurist (Sept.–Oct. 2009): 60–61.