Brem 1 Connor Brem Mrs.

Tighe Honors British Literature, 3 23 March 2011 Much throwing about of brains: Hamlet and the Radical Ideas of Artificial Immortality Cars are interesting things. Theyre quite well built, which makes sense when one considers how much wear a typical car will sustain over its lifetime. Eventually, however, there comes a time when even the best-made cars must succumb to their accumulated damage and cease to work that is, if they are not maintained. On the other hand, if a car is not just initially well-built, but kept at this initial quality by careful use and regular maintenance, it can be kept running for much longer than its manufacturers intended it to run in fact, it can run indefinitely. After all, every car, regardless of its complexity, is only made of a set number of parts, which can be replaced by identical parts for as long as the cars owner wishes to keep it alive. Any accident, any wear to the car, can be made as if it had never happened with adequate cleaning or replacement of the parts involved with enough work, a car can survive a hundred years of use, just as it can survive the most horrific of accidents. Then why cant humans? At present, our inability to repair ourselves and stay running indefinitely seems to be limited by only one factor: technology. The human body contains more parts than we can imagine, and most of these parts have yet to be catalogued or fully understood. However, thats not to say that the human body is made up of an infinite number of parts rather, just like a car, every human is made of a finite number of parts which require only a finite amount of knowledge to master. With enough technology, it should be possible to track the locations and conditions of every single one of these parts at all times also, it should be possible to replicate any one of these parts and replace it when it begins to fail. Currently, this promise of technological mastery over the human body and the related promise of vintage-car-esque artificial immortality seems like a fantasy. However, humans are only made of cells, and these cells are only made of molecules, and molecules are very quickly coming under mankinds control through the advancement of chemistry. Likewise, the immense (though not infinite) amount of computing power that would be necessary to control these molecules on the scale, and with the precision, required to track or to perfectly replicate such minute body parts is distant but always coming closer. If computing power continues to increase exponentially, as it has since computers were first invented in the early twentieth century, the replication in one computer of the think power of the entire human race is theoretically less than a century away. Therefore, artificial immortality, though still thousands of intellectual achievements away, is within the realm of scientific possibility, and likely even that of scientific probability. Now, while immortality still seems foreign and fantastical, is an excellent time to consider the implications for humanity if immortality were to become a reality. Into this fray of bizarre and disturbing possibilities for the future, enter Hamlet: Hamlet, in whose Denmark not control over ones own body, but helplessness at the hands of fate, is the prevalent theme. As Maynard Mack points out, in its depictions of Hamlet, Claudius, the nation of Denmark, and others, Hamlet makes it painfully obvious that, from any blemish, perhaps not even the victims fault, a mans whole character may take corruption(Mack 247): Hamlet is consumed by his desire to avenge his father, and Claudius brings about the demise of Denmarks monarchy and its fall to Fortinbras through what is meant to be an isolated political killing. To be

Brem 2 a good Aristotelian tragedy, however, Hamlet cannot limit itself to describing the breaking apart of a specific royal family because of their blemishes rather, it should argue that mankind in general is vulnerable to such blemish, that not just traitors like Claudius, but upstanding citizens too, may fall victim to the imposture of much wealth and peace,/ That inward breaks and shows no cause without/ why the man dies(Ham. 4.4.28-30). For hundreds of years, Hamlet has delivered on this obligation and maintained an almost mythic statusas a paradigm of the life of man(Mack 236). However, with artificial immortality very possibly on the horizon, Hamlets significance may be threatened. After all, would Hamlets sympathy for Yorick be shared by someone for whom death not artificially immortality was only a distant fantasy? Would a tale about death stemming from small blemishes mean anything to a society whose immortality is based on their near-perfect ability to remove blemishes from the body as quickly as they can appear? Though the advent of artificial immortality may be chronologically close, it is so intellectually far-off that its potential effect on humanity and on Hamlet can only be guessed at all that we know for sure is that change will be inevitable, as the world were now but to begin,/ Antiquity forgot, custom not known(Ham. 4.5.113-4). I. Literature has a Place in Futurism Before we explore how Hamlets significance would fair in this possible, we must establish what it, and the humans who would inhabit it, might be like. Again, it is impossible to say exactly what this new future would be like, as the wide-availability would create what many futurists today call a singularity, a point beyond which the laws of human relations as we know them break down. However, when singularity is used in the context of futurism, it does not refer to an absolute rewriting of human nature (in contrast to when it is used in physics within a black holes singularity, the laws of physics as humanity knows them truly do break down absolutely) rather, such a technological singularity requires only a near-absolute rewriting. For example, the discovery of fire can be considered to be such a singularity, as were the domestication of animals and the establishment of agriculture. Though each of these events drastically changed the requirements for human survival, none of them occurred instantly, and a few of the same aspects of society that existed before these discoveries continued afterward. For a similar reason, though it is difficult to say exactly how humans will live on if artificial immortality is achieved, and even more difficult to say how the will live on in the more distant future, it is at least possible to guess. Enough knowledge about the human condition and about humanitys relationship with technology exists to make this guess however, since the human condition is such a broad idea and an essentially meaningless term on its own, it must be condensed, in one way or another, for one to think effectively about the possibilities of artificial immortality. Futurists would likely be quick to suggest the application of statistics and mathematics to both historical and contemporary human development in fact, Ray Kurzweil has, in this manner, determined that that the power of computers grows exponentially, and predicts that by 2045, a single computer will have intelligence equal to that of the entire current human race (Grossman 45). These results are profoundly informative, but, alas, Andrew Hayes would undoubtedly agree that they are not truly math, and are therefore not definite. Therefore, I propose that statistics are not necessarily a more useful tool than literature for condensing the human condition and predicting future technological development. Once this is established, what better concise representation of the human condition exists in literature than Hamlet? I believe that Hamlet can act as a lens (certainly not the lens, though) for current ideas in futurism and a source for more it can challenge the idealism of some ideas, add to some current ethical

Brem 3 debates, and ultimately provide a fresh prospective in a field which, though built on often exhaustive research, is ultimately speculative. II. Can Perfection be Achieved Through Technology? Hamlets murder of Polonius comes as one of the greatest shocks in the play, and it is certainly a turning point for Hamlets sanity, as well as for his idealistic perception of his revenge as being justified and an effective solution to Denmarks problems. [Hamlet] had never meant to dirty himself with those things, but from the moment of the ghosts challenge to act, this dirtying was inevitable(Mack 252). In many ways, the prospect of artificial immortality may be vulnerable to dirtying. To some, a world in which humans lived indefinitely would be a paradise, a residence like that of the immortal elves in J. R. R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings. However, Hamlet challenges this by suggesting that there are darkness and imperfection inherent to humans which would prevent such a utopia from ever being established, regardless of how astronomically far technology progresses (for, as Kurzweil says, the rate at which computing power is currently growing is so massive, that we're not evolved to think in terms of the technological gains that should happen in even the next few decades (Grossman 46)). Maynard Mack sums up this shortcomings, which he identifies as emphasis on human weakness, on the instability of human purpose, when he dubs them the aspect of the failure of man(Mack 247). The first possible shortcoming the inherent imperfection and weakness of humans is wellposed in Hamlet, but is likely the easier shortcoming to refute. The play suggests, most prominently through Hamlets failure to plan perfectly and to expect Claudiuss attack on his life at the fencing match, that humans can never know everything or create fool-proof plans, that there are too many variables, too many unpredictable slings and arrows(Ham. 3.1.66) constantly being thrown by fate, for humanity to ever truly perfect itself. However, in a future in which technology has progressed far enough to give the possibility of indefinitely life, this argument likely breaks down. Humans who live indefinitely would have time to plan adequately for any undertaking if they wished to do so, and more importantly, humans in this world would likely not have to do their own planning this planning could be done by the unbelievably intelligent computers predicted by Kurzweil. Also, as current science seems to suggest that the universe contains as astronomically astronomical number of variables (but, importantly, not an infinite number), it might even be possible, eventually, for such computers to make truly optimal plans. Therefore, some intrinsic human weakness is not the problem facing the establishment of a utopia. As much as the play emphasizes disease and weakness, Mack says, another interpretation exists: We must not, however, neglect to add to this what another student of Shakespeares imagery has noticed that the infection in Denmark is presented alternatively as poison(Mack 248). The real problem would likely not be a human predisposition to becoming infected, but to willingly infecting other human. In more definite terms, this could be called humanitys interpersonal instability, while the first failure of man presented by Hamlet the failure which seems to break down past the singularity could be called intrapersonal instability. Now, there are many reasons to think that the arrival of artificial immortality would cause even this interpersonal instability to break down: for example, one could argue that when death ceases to be an inevitability (and when, with hyper-intelligent computers, humans can either make or simulate anything that they want whenever they want it), humans well no long feel pressured to cram as much pleasure as possible into their limited lives, and will cease to harm other humans for the sake of gaining such pleasure. However, this argument is less than

Brem 4 consoling, for, as the Cold War and countless other conflicts have shown us, however quickly human defenses evolve (technological defenses against death, for the sake of this paper), human offenses evolve just as quickly. Therefore, even after defenses evolve to the point where they can effectively counter any attack from microorganisms or from a humans own body (e.g. cancer), they will still be unable to unfailingly counter human attacks. And, if there exists the possibility for humans to attack each other, such attacks will almost certainly happen over a long enough period of time. First of all, it seems inevitable that some humans will not be willing to wait for the point that technology can satisfy all their needs, and will want more even faster than constantly increasing technological need satisfaction can give it to them. These people will use the powerful (but not perfect) technology available to them to continue to take what they want from others. They will ride the wave of growing technological Fortune, the harlot goddess in whose secret parts men like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern live and thrive(Mack 247), but instead of using this Fortune to produce even greater technology and greater Fortune, they will act in the short-term and use mediocre technology to grab what they want as soon as it becomes grab-able. By doing so, these Rosencrantzes and Guildensterns will both stunt technological progress and greatly increase the danger of human death. The second reason that humans will continue to attack each other lies not in the Rosencrantzes and Guildensterns of the world, but in the vengeful Hamlets. Even when technology reaches a point (beyond the technology of the Rs and Gs) where all imaginable wants can be satisfied without hurting another person, these Hamlets may still want to hurt people if the hurting would be a solution not to a personal want, but to an interpersonal conflict. And, though it would likely be possible for such a revenge-hurting to be simulated, any human who still had contact with reality would know that, regardless of how good a revenge simulation was, they were not actually hurting the person who they meant to. Especially if a future Hamlet believed that the person they wished to hurt was truly deserving of revenge and that the world will be a better place if they were hurt, the Hamlet would almost certainly prefer real revenge to its simulated equivalent. However, in truth, this argument is imperfect, for with indefinite time to contemplate others wrongs and near-infinite resources available to satisfy ones wants, there is the possibility that even interpersonal conflict will become irrelevant in the far-enough future all my argumentation about the Cold War shows only that, because of the co-evolution of attacks and defenses, interpersonal conflict will remain a threat after intrapersonal threats fizzle out; all the following argument about revenge suggests is that these interpersonal dangers will persist even longer than one would expect from simply judging technology, because humans, at least as we know them today, are motivated by their emotions. However, there still remains one attack against the argument that, with infinite time and power of creation, humans will be able to achieve a utopia: as long as the progress-slowing effects of human attacks and of human emotions fight strongly enough against this utopia, humans may never be able to reach a point in time that is stable enough for them to even begin their quest for emotional perfection (perfection which would allow them to shrug off any offense, and even to see that these offenses are not logical in the first place). If humans continue to throw slings and arrows at each other for long enough, the progress, the leap, to realizing that these slings and arrows are self-destructive, may never be able to happen, and humans will not continue to steadily approach eternal peace. After all, as Hamlet shows, even seemingly straightforward acts of revenge (even acts against what is thought to be the last things humans will ever have to take revenge against) can spiral out of control, eventually creating much more destruction than they were originally meant to avenge.

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III. Overpopulation and Humanitys Right to Overpopulate There is no reason that philosophical problems such as this should prevent humanity from endlessly striving for this utopia. However, before artificial immortality can even begin to come up against philosophical problems, mountains upon mountains of technological and logistical problems must be faced. One of the leading practical problems facing a deathless utopia is that of overpopulation. If nobody dies, the world will simply fill up with humans. Of course, if science is allowed to progress far enough, it should eventually become an easy task to set up colonies on other planets to absorb the greatly increasing number of humans. However, this method faces two challenges, one in the very long term, and the other in the relatively short term. The longterm challenge is this: humanity can continue to expand to other planets, but, as enormously enormous as the universe is, it contains only a finite amount of matter for making humans, for moving them around, and for otherwise making human life enjoyable. With the human population increasing exponentially, it is entirely feasible that, within enough time, humans, like Von Neumann machines with emotions, would run out of universe to work with the problem of overpopulation could not be avoided indefinitely. However, in the time that it would take for such expansion to happen, it is very likely that other solutions to overpopulation like, as Kurzweil suggests, the ability to transfer our minds to sturdier vessels such as computers and robots(Grossman 48) would arise. The more likely reason that relocating humans off-planet would fail the short-term reason is that, currently, artificial immortality seems closer than permanently transporting people to other planets or star-systems. Therefore, as was the case with the interpersonal conflict described above, the problem does not lie in the lack of a solution it lies in the fact that this solution cannot come soon enough, and problem may become too large to handle before it arrives. Therefore, critics as well as supporters of the pursuit of artificial immortality acknowledge, if people stop dying, we will have to be much more careful about people being born. Theoretical biologist and futurist Aubrey de Grey says: The question of overpopulation comes up a great deal when we talk about life expectancy, and rightly so, because its an important question. But ultimately, lets face it that, you know, people dont just spontaneously become two people they do it on purpose. Births have to happen, and they only happen when we want them to happen. So, ultimately, its a matter of choice, a matter of do we want to continue our youthful lives among the people who are already alive, or do we want to have a turnover of people dying, and of course not just dying, but dying rather horribly because aging, lets face it, isnt very much fun and being replaced by people who are being born? (Sykes, Do You Want to Live Forever?) While the problem of overpopulation seems like it must be acknowledged, and is in fact acknowledge by many, de Greys supposedly simple solution to the problem that humans will make that right choice if given the chance to live or allow someone else to be born, and therefore should be given this choice is much more disputed. One could say that de Greys solution is a ethically difficult but useful quick-fix that should be implemented just as long as humans must remain on Earth that once people can be moved to other planets, the ethical questions of overpopulation can be pushed to the side (until we start running low on universe, that is). However, once one considers what de Greys proposition would imply, even for the relatively short time that it would need to be enacted, it becomes clear that the debate is not over whether we should use de Greys solution just this

Brem 6 once; rather, the debate is over whether de Greys goals are worth making any ethical compromises at all for. The question becomes not just how should humans choose between their own lives and creating new life? but should humans live long enough to even be able to choose between their own life and a new one? Furthermore, if expanding to the stars is indeed a necessary part of a world in which people live indefinitely, do humans have a right to use resources beyond Earth? The latter two questions boil down to one: relative to humans who lived before them, humans who are not yet alive, and to nature, how much are currently living humans worth? Hamlet appears to directly address the first, less broad question (how should humans choose between their lives and new lives?) when Hamlet, possibly insane or just as possibly pretending to be, tells Ophelia, Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be/ a breeder of sinners?(Ham. 3.1.131-2) and then later adds, I say we will have/ no more marriage. Those that are married already,/ all but one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are(Ham. 3.1.159-61). A quick read of these statements might give the impression that Hamlet wishes the world to stay as it already is and to stay populated by the people who already populate it therefore, shouldnt he support the abolition of the turnover between those already living and those not yet alive? This may be true, but he would support this stagnancy of population for a wholly different reason that de Grey does so. de Grey, and other supporters of a future immortal society, stress (according to one of de Greys ideological opponents), that The most basic right any human has is to live as long as he wants to, providing the technology exists to keep him alive(Sykes, Do You Want to Live Forever?). de Grey believes that humans are inherently good enough, or at least inherently possessing of enough natural rights, to deserve to determine their own life spans. In Hamlets view, however, those lucky few who shall live (were he ever to put his much exaggerated plan into action) would retain their lives not because of any special privilege, but simply because this would allow the human race to be ended by old age and would not require Hamlet to directly kill any humans. More importantly, de Greys plan gives to the lucky, current humans much greater privilege that any humans who have been forced to die rather horribly before them as well as any future humans to whom the current population may choose not to give birth. de Grey claims that these humans are simply lucky and that their privilege is not anything that they have earned, but something that they have been arbitrarily assigned to receive by humanitys constant technological development. de Grey does not wish to play favorites, and yet the humans who would be given the option of living forever would be the clear winners. In Hamlets scenario, the last members of the human race would be no more lucky than those who died before them, for nobody would, in the end, live forever rather, Hamlets winners would be those who were never born, for Hamlet claims that we do not prolong our lives because we enjoy them, but simply because we are afraid to end them (Ay, theres the rub,/ For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,/Must give us pause(Ham. 3.1.73-4, 76)). However, while Hamlets personal position is thought-provoking, it is unclear whether he is, at the time, truly insane, pretending insanity, or perfectly rational therefore, it is similarly unclear as to whether Shakespeare means for us to regard Hamlets opinions as the truth within the play, as Shakespeares own ideas, or simply as the products of broken and extreme logic. Where Hamlets attitude towards humanity seems to be more in line with the plays themes and thesis is in his answer to the broader question, which follows the question of birth: what are humans worth?

Brem 7 This question is directly and famously addressed in the graveyard scene. This scene addresses many aspects of death, but it persistently points out the fact that dead bodies are no more human than rocks, and therefore should not be treated as if they were alive. The Gravedigger illustrates this point very literally, for he is just as quick to toss skulls out of graves as he is clumps of dirt. Horatio suggests that Custom hath made [grave-digging] in him a property of/ easiness (Ham. 5.1.69-70), but in this instance, it seems that even learned Horatio is wrong, or at least resisting the philosophical message of the scene instead of furthering it. In the context of the earlier exchange about whether or not Ophelia deserves Christian burial, it seems that the Gravediggers actions here are not inhuman or irreverent, but rational exceptions to the irrational devotion with which all the other characters, even Horatio and possibly Hamlet, regard the dead. The discussion over Ophelias Christian burial effectively breaks down the reasons for her burial until it becomes clear that it has Christian or moral basis rather than being decided based on her manner of death, her manner of burial is heavily dependent on her social position (If this had not been/ a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o/ Christian burial(Ham. 5.1.24-6)). Furthermore, it becomes obvious that her manner of burial is ultimately arbitrary, for it cannot possibly be based on her manner of death, as it is impossible for the living to ever know what this manner of death was (If the man go to/ this water and drown himself, it is (will he, nill he)/ he goes/ mark you that. But if the water come to him/ and drown him, he drowns not himself(Ham. 5.1.16-9)). From the Gravediggers confusion, Ornstein says, The perceptive reader understands that the form of Ophelias burial matters more to the living than the dead(Ornstein 264). Her burial is based solely on tradition and is indicative of no eternal respect owed by the living to the bodies of the dead. Judging only from this scene, one might expect that Hamlet as a whole (not just as the opinions of its title character) encourages the living to seek whatever prosperity they can with little regard for the dead. However, when the entire play is taken into account, it becomes clear that this is not the case. Hamlet argues that the bodies of the dead deserve no special consideration, but also that the bodies of the dead must be considered separately from the souls. On the question of whether these souls deserve respect, the play is much more ambivalent. The Ghost is a very literal representation of the souls of the dead and of the obligation of the living to keep their wishes and their worth in mind long after their bodies become irrelevant. In Ornsteins words, the Ghost brings the shattering command that the living owe the dead the obligation of vengeance, of taking arms against a world that destroys virtue(Ornstein 262). However, the wording of Ornsteins evaluation of the Ghost reveals the shortcoming of the argument that the living must avenge the dead, and that the Ghost represents this necessity of vengeance. When Ornstein describes vengeance as taking arms against a world that destroys virtue, not simply as taking arms against those who destroyed the virtue of the dead, he admits that one can never be certain that acts of vengeance are completely in line with the wishes of the original offended (dead) individual rather, in an attempt to avenge this dead individual, the avenger must broadly attack something that destroys virtue and hope that the original offense if covered in one way or another. Also, his suggestion that one must take arms against the world in general seems to contain an admission that the singular punishment of the original offender is not enough, simply because no amount of vengeance can change the reality that the dead person is lost. This said, vengeance is portrayed in Hamlet as, at best, an idealistic and ultimately uncertain potshot and, at worst, a front behind which people who are aware of its ambiguity can pursue more selfish goals. Since Hamlet presents the living as having no obligation to the bodies of the dead but does not make a definitive judgment on the obligation of the living to their souls, it is difficult to

Brem 8 extract from the play any objective commentary (not to be confused with Hamlets very exaggerated and opinionative commentary) on the livings worth. The plays position on this worth can be effectively judged, I believe, only relative to the worth of other living creatures and of nature as a whole. Hamlets depiction of humanitys relationship with nature is an unsettling one. According to Hamlet, the flow of energy between organisms can be summarized in the idea that we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots(Ham. 4.3.24-6). This time, this view is not simply Hamlets personal opinion, but a major theme the plays character-crossing and scene-spanning obsession with the decay that follows death makes this clear. If the play presents this view of humanitys position in nature, one might assume that the play presents humans very existentially, as maggot fodder which has somehow become selfaware, and which because of its triumph of self-awareness, has earned the right to selfdetermine at the expense of all the other maggot-fodder which is still lifeless. However, interestingly enough, this view is the overly-positive, species-ist side of the coin. To understand the coins other side, one must consider opinions like that of Sherwin Nuland, one of de Grey detractors, who argues against the indefinite life of humans on the grounds that, as an animal on this planet, one stays alive a particular length of time which is related to how long other species stay alive(Sykes, Do You Want to Live Forever?). Nuland does not see maggots and think mankind superior to them because mankind can build cities and travel to the Moon he does not identify mankind as that which thinks and disregard all else, maggots and dirt alike, as that which doesnt think. Rather, while he acknowledges that dirt does not think, and that the humanity may not have an obligation to preserve the chunk of rock and water that is the Earth, he lumps all species of the Earth, human and maggot alike, into one category. He emphasizes that, though maggots may not think much, they share their life with humans, and therefore deserve to have their right to self-determination respected by humans. This, I believe, is a more accurate conclusion to draw from Hamlets remarks about humanitys place in the world: humanity does not have an abstract obligation to the dead, but it does have an obligation to all living creature with which it currently cohabits the very real reality in which the dead once lived. Humans, Hamlet says, are truly the quintessence of dust(Ham. 2.2.332), and should regard their mysterious status (as dust which has become conscious) not as a license to exploit all the non-conscious parts of the universe, but recognize it for the anomalous gift that it is and respect all other organisms that posses similar consciousness in any quantity at all. Accordingly, aggressive expansion over Earth and then throughout the cosmos, which necessitates the sapping of resources that could be used by other organisms (even infant strains of alien biology, which might one day develop into highly intelligent life forms), can be regarded as neither humanitys intended role in the universe nor a morally acceptable alternative. If humanity is to adhere to this Hamlet-ian morality and to live as though it were not superior even to maggots, only one solution to the overpopulation dilemma exists: humans must not allow their population to grow recklessly, even if this growth continues only until the ability to live within a machine is achieved. However, once (really, I should say if) this space-less, hyper-efficient state of being (that is, transferring our consciousnesses into computers) becomes a reality, Shakespeare and the characters of Hamlet would likely have no moral problem with humans taking advantage of it and procreating to yield unbelievable numbers of digital consciousnesses. However, another worry would likely take its place: this time, instead of worrying for humanitys moral state, Hamlet and company would worry for humanitys humanity.

Brem 9 IV. Hamlets Worth to Future Humans Regardless of how much profound thought and exhaustive research goes into it, futurism of which my guessing at the future of artificial immortality is certain a part will always be a throwing about of brains(Ham. 2.2.381-2), for it will always rely on ultimately improvable theories (for what can be truly proven about beings that have never lived operating in an environment that has never existed?) and speculative technologies which have yet to exist outside the throwing about of others brains. However, with Hamlet as our reference for human nature, human aspirations and failures, and opinions on humanitys place among all other aspects of nature, a host of possibilities if not actualities for that state of humanity in both the near and distant future have been fleshed out. All these possibilities hinge upon one assumption: if our ability to understand the human body and to alter it with technology continues to progress at the rate that it does today, we will eventually reach a point where all that knowable about the body is known, and all that is changeable can be changed to yield a specific, desired result. If this assumption holds true even for only the next few centuries (or, if futurists like Kurzweil can be trusted, only these next few decades are necessary), then humans should gain access to effective immortality through medicine. If this indeed happens, Hamlet predicts a world which, despite being populated by many individuals rendered sage-like and slow to anger by their long stays on earth, may never free itself from momentary spurts of human darkness, vengeful action, and selfishness. Additionally, as long as ideas persist like those in Hamlet about humanitys place in nature, those seeking to take advantage of the artificial immortality will face strong opposition from supporters of a less transcendental lifestyle; and, even after these critics die off (for, unless they are hypocrites, they are guaranteed to die before the acceptors of immortality), the surviving immortals still have to face the question of whether they are developing at the expense of all other aspects of nature. For humans living in a world apparently so fundamentally different from ours, and even more so from Shakespeares, would Hamlet be of any value? There seems to be two obvious answers to this question, each of which seems very valid and even intuitive when presented individually however, when they are presented side-by-side, it becomes apparent that both cannot be completely true. The first answer, which should be infinitely more repugnant to English teachers everywhere, is a simple no, not at all. Hamlet is, after all, a play about humans, and a very good one at that Mack praises Hamlet for its position closer to the illogical logic of life than Shakespeares other tragedies(Mack 236), and the character of Hamlet is regarded by many as the absolute glass of fashion and the mold of form(3.1.167). But, one must take into account that all this praise, all this identification with characters and plot elements, come from critics who are very human in the modern sense of the word. As future beings more and more redefine what it means to be human, will Hamlet gradually lose its appeal as a startling look into the readers own heart? After all, if these indefinitely living beings have any interest at all in the arts (which they likely will, for math and science will almost certainly become the work of robots and computers) it will not be long before they channel their multiple lifetimes worth of experience into works of art much more enjoyable and well-made than Hamlet and if this occurs in addition to Hamlets human appeal being lost on beings with an entirely different sense of humanity, there is no reason that Hamlet shouldnt fade into obscurity. One could say that Hamlet predicts his own doom when he explains that playings end, both at the first and/ now, was and is to hold, as twere, the mirror up to/ nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her/ own image, and the very age and body of the time/ his form and pressure(Ham. 3.2.22-6) and concludes that any play that fails to do

Brem 10 this (or, in Hamlets possible future case, ceases to do so), though it makes the unskillful laugh,/ cannot but make the judicious grieve(Ham. 3.2.27-8). The second possible answer, more idealistic than the first and also best understood as a response to it, is of course, Shakespeare is timeless! Upon closer inspection, this idea is not as flighty as it sounds. Where proponents of the first answer might argue we dont read books written by Neanderthals, so why should some unbelievably advanced beings care about Shakespeare?, proponents of this second could very effectively counter but were constantly uncovering cave art and pottery and similar artifacts and even works in modern mediums, like Gilgamesh and were constantly impressed by the capabilities of the civilizations that these come from. However, an even more convincing argument for this second answer exists: it may be possible, one could say, for future beings to actually stay human despite their separation from death, but only if they stay in touch with death by reading what Hamlet and similar literary relics have to say about the subject. To future beings, Hamlets detached meditations on death(Ornstein 263) could provoke, as Ornstein claims they do for Hamlet, a reevaluation of the strange gift that is consciousness and a new dedication to life(263). By this argument, we could be saving the humanity of future humans preventing them from becoming beings that would appear as if some of natures journeymen had made men, and not made them well(Ham. 3.2.35-7) by promoting present-day study of Hamlet. This second answer is compelling, but it has one major weakness: its chrono-centricity. It claims that, if we can keep future humans in line with our present idea of what it means to be human, we will save them. This assumes that, in this past half-millennium or so (the time period in which we live, Shakespeare lived, and western culture developed), we have lived exactly as humans were meant to it assumes that we a paragons of humanity, that we possess some sacred knowledge that all peoples past should have conformed to and all future peoples would do well to conform to. On the contrary, if people from millennia ago knew how we would live today, they would likely be disgusted, or at least shocked, by how totally we separate ourselves from nature and the wilderness. We would seem to them to be as deeply in violation of what it means to be human and organic and real and we believe immortal being in the future would be. In short, it seems arrogant to think that our relatively sparse knowledge of life and death holds any timeless truth that future beings would positively need to know it even seems nave to think that our knowledge could be of any use at all to beings with indefinitely more time than us to study the world around them and come by knowledge on their own. However, thankfully, I believe that the second part of this idea (future beings would have use no at all for our knowledge), is only partially true. The assumption that we have knowledge that we would do well to give to future beings needs revision we cannot assume that we will be smarter or wiser than these being, even if their lives are fundamentally different than ours. However, it does not need to be done away with entirely rather, it can be revised into while we do not have enough foresight or knowledge to know what to give future beings, they can certainly take parts of our knowledge as they need them. These parts would be pieces of our thoughts on death. Though future beings would not need to know about death to be correctly human, it is true that they would have next to no knowledge of how death worked or how previous humans felt about it, and for their own intellectual purposes, they might see fit to fill these holes in their understanding with depictions of death and its contemplation like Hamlet. When read in this manner, Hamlet would fail to hold its status as an Aristotelian tragedy death would likely be so far-removed and reversible for these beings, that they would not feel anything even remotely like the fear half of the fear and pity that Aristotle described. However, this is

Brem 11 not to say that all of its meaning would leave in such a reading. Mack says, Great plays, as we know, do present us with something that can be called a world, a microcosm a world like our own in being made of people, actions, situations, thoughts, feelings, and much more, but unlike our own in being perfectlysignificant and coherent(Mack 234). Though Hamlet might present to future beings a microcosm filled with very foreign-seeming people, thoughts, and feelings, it still present, as it does to us today, a microcosm which is internally consistent. As the fantasy worlds like those in Star Wars, Beowulf, and countless other works have proven, the mechanics of a microcosm need not be the same as the mechanics of the readers world for the reader to drawn real meaning from the fantasy world. Likewise, if future beings read Hamlet, they will not see the world filled with normal emotions and social interactions that we see, and they will have little use for the truth within that we think they need but they will take something (though we cannot guess what) from reading the play, for our society from the distant past will be just as foreign to them as the worlds first civilizations are to us now, and solely because of the foreignness of our ideas, especially because of our ability to write material inspired by something as strange and barely comprehensible as death, these future beings will find in our literature fascinating perspectives and seeds for their own elegant thoughts.

Brem 12 Works Cited Do You Want to Live Forever? Dir. Christopher Sykes. Perf. Aubrey de Grey and Sherwin Nuland. 2007. Grossman, Lev. "2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal." TIME 21 February 2011: 43-9. Mack, Maynard. "The World of "Hamlet"." The Yale Review XLI (1952): 502-23. Ornstein, Robert. The Moral Vision of Jacobean Tragedy. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1960. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Pocket Books, 1992.