Inching toward immortality

Kaiser Health News reports on medical research -- funded, albeit minisculey, by the ACA -- that taps into longstanding dreams:

Imagine if scientists could recreate you---or at least part of you---on a chip.

That might help doctors identify drugs that would help you heal faster, bypassing the sometimes painful trial-and-error process and hefty health care costs that accompany arriving at the right treatment.

Right now, at the University of California, Berkeley, researchers in bioengineer Kevin Healy's lab are working to make that happen. Funded under a provision of the health law, they're trying to grow human organ tissue, like heart and liver, on tiny chips.

Science fiction writers  have long envisioned variations on this theme-- e.g.. organ banks, rejuvenation via replacement of body parts. transfer of a individual consciousness into a spare body.  Back in the disk drive era, I put a less physical imagining into a children's poem:

A Good Dream

I dreamed I saved my sister on disk--
brother, was I relieved.
If any harm should come to her
she could be retrieved.

The unbearable lightness of me-ing

Thinking for a moment about a writer whose work I don't particularly enjoy though others whom I do like to read praise it highly, I started reflexively marshaling reasons for my dislike. Then I thought, why do this? Is it because I think that those who enjoy this work are seriously in error? No: I haven't paid it enough attention to ensure that my reasons are consistent or based in fact.  And why should I? If this person were promulgating serious errors of fact or logic or a depraved sensibility, a contra might be worthwhile.

But what's really behind this impulse, at least in this case, is something unsavory: a rooted belief that one's every preference is significant, worth broadcasting, cause for pride...a sign of one's superior sensibility or perception.  How can anyone like Brussels sprouts? They taste like condensed garbage.  Etc etc.  This impulse is evident on the playground: ew, you like Barney?

While writing this, I've really just been transposing a line of thought wonderfully dramatized and dissected by Milan Kundera in his novel Immortality:

An unfamiliar young woman entered the sauna and the moment she walked through the door began to order everyone about; she made them all sit closer together, then she picked up a pitcher and poured water on the stones. With much hissing, hot, steam started to rise, making the woman sitting next to Agnes wince with pain and cover her face. The newcomer noticed it, declared, "I like hot steam; it gives me that real sauna feeling," squeezed herself between two naked bodies, and at once began to talk about yesterday's television talk show featuring a famous biologist who had just published his memoirs. "He was terrific," she said.

Another woman nodded in agreement. "Oh yes! And how modest!

The newcomer said, "Modest? Didn't you realize how extremely proud that man was? But I like that kind of pride! I adore proud people!" She turned to Agnes: "Did you find him modest?"

Agnes said that she hadn't seen the program. As if interpreting this remark as veiled disagreement, the newcomer repeated very loudly, looking Agnes straight in the eye: "I detest modesty! Modest is hypocrisy!"

Agnes shrugged, and the newcomer said, "In a sauna, I've got to feel real heat.  I've got to work up a good sweat. But then I must have a cold shower. A cold shower! I adore that!  Actually I like my showers cold even in the morning. I find hot showers disgusting."