begin quote from:https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortalit%C3%A9

then Translated into English from French

Immortality

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Help page on homonymyFor homonymous articles, see Immortal .
Immortality ahead of Time ,allegorical sculpture of Georges Récipon in 1900, roofs of the Grand Palais of Paris .
Pantheon of the Great Men of Paris( Allegorical Memorial "  dedicated to all the gods  ") cenotaphs among others Voltaire , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Victor Hugo , Louis Braille , Sadi Carnot , Emile Zola , Jean Jaurès, Jean Moulin "  and his terrible procession  » 1 , Jean Monnet , Pierreand Marie Curie , André Malraux , Alexandre Dumas ...
L'Eternel Printemps , an allegorical sculpture of love and eternal youth , byAuguste Rodin around 1884, Besançon Museum of Fine Arts and Archeology .
The immortality or eternal life implies the notion of form of life beyond the death , or life after death , physical and / or spiritual of the minds and souls ( mind-body problem ), order natural , divine , allegorical , memory , or other ... It is one of the major controversial themes of the history of Humanity , anthropology , medicine , science, metaphysics , philosophy , psychology , mythology , religious faith , and the arts , literature , and culture ...

History [ edit | change the code ]

The god of the gods of Greek and Roman Mythology Zeus / Jupiter with eagle , fed to the Ambrosia (food of the gods which ensures their Immortality) on the Island of Roses of Lake Starnberg in Bavaria .
According to the views, beliefs , and times in various religions , immortality can concern the soul , the body or both. It can be considered in its figurative (posthumous) or clean (earthly) sense. The origin of this concept is not certain.
The men of Cro-magnon [ réf.  desired] and even Neanderthal buried their dead with flowers or tools 2 and the presence of ocher in the burials of Cro-magnon was found. Even if this thesis has been exposed, there is nothing to determine whether these objects were placed there thinking of a possible beyond or whether they were simply posthumous marks of affection in the same way that we bloom. graves of our dead.
One of the earliest records of immortality ( amrita ) (between 5000 and 1500 BC) is in the 10 th Mandala of Rig-Veda 3 .
The Egypt of the Pharaohs had his Osiris , weighing the good and the bad of the life of the dead to determine where to guide him. Immortality is initially reserved for the only pharaohs, supposed to be able to benefit the members of their entourage 4 . According to the ARTE documentary in reference, it ends up being hoped even by members of the people.
Hebe and the Eagle of Jupiter ,allegorical sculpture of Immortality byFrançois Rude , around 1857, at theMuseum of Fine Arts in Dijon .
The bricks used to build the Tower of Babel ( Etemenanki ) - actually a ziggurat - the vi th  century  BC. AD, bearing the following inscription, which was engraved in their mold: "I, Nebuchadnezzar , son of Nabopolassar , have this tower erected in tribute to the god Marduk . Lord Marduk, grant us eternal life " 5 . In the same cultural sphere, the Gilgamesh Epicdescribes the quest for a hero seeking immortality following the death of his friend Enkidu. He will not obtain it, only the gods being immortal, and will be condemned to die too, and to lie down in the sleep of death.
Allegorical symbolic representation of the mystery of the creation of the world , of life , and of humanity , by Michelangelo ( The Creation of Adam , 1511, Sistine Chapel of the Vatican in Rome ).
In the iv th  century  BC. J.-C. , Plato writes his philosophical remarks on the immortality of the soul (cf Phaedo ).
According to the philologist Ernest Renan , the majority of the Hebrew people worship the God of their fathers without hoping for the slightest reward in the hereafter, or even the existence of an afterlife. Although it is not forbidden to believe in it, nor is it a physical resurrection (Daniel 6 Chapter 12), religion itself does not commit itself to this. The Ecclesiastes , for example, says that the dead see nothing and feel nothing . The Pharisees, however, later believe in the immortality of the soul , unlike the Sadducees , according to the historian Flavius ​​Josephus. The book of Tobit ( ii th  century BC) mentions a life after death , although that of Job mentions just the trials of this consolation in his lifetime. If the dead no longer hope in life here below, it is considered conceivable to awaken them and question them, since the God of the Old Testament explicitly forbids his faithful to do so.
Immortality of Garrick , James Caldwall, National Portrait Gallery , London .
The European and Byzantine Middle Ages are aligned with the Nicene symbol (first Creed , established by the Council of Nicaea in 325 - subsequently amended) which mentions "I believe in the resurrection of the flesh". This affirmation of Nicaea innovated with respect to the Greco-Roman religion promising at most a posthumous existence in Pluto (Hades), which in principle left no member of his force to return to Earth. Only had the right to do it his "occasional visitors" ( Orpheus , Telemachus ) and, six months a year, his wife Proserpine ( Persephone ).
In the xix th  century spiritualism developed a doctrine based solely on the immortality of the spirit and affirms communicate with spirits of the dead. If Bertrand Russell does not reject a priori this phenomenon, it nevertheless recalls 7 that even checked it "would indicate that we survive, but in any case we survive forever." He adds two other restrictions, one of which is related to our difficulty to testify objectively when powerful affects are at stake, the other to the need for defined protocols to validate the possible phenomenon of survival of the personality after the cessation of the vital functions of the body, which he considers personally improbable.
Papyrus of Ani of the ancient Egyptian describing the journey of life after death in the Beyond the ancient Egypt of the Egyptian mythology of the Book of Ancient Egyptians died in the twelfth century BC. AD .

Immortality of the soul and religious traditions [ edit | change the code ]

Main article: Life after death .

In antiquity [ edit | change the code ]

At least since the Egypt of the pharaohs, many religions envisage a post-mortem life whose conditions depend on a divine judgment, and which would compensate the injustices committed or undergone during the terrestrial life. To date, there is no scientific evidence to confirm or even assume the possibility of a subsistence of life after the destruction of the brain, except in the very particular sense, without any idea of ​​personal survival, of life "in the memory of his relatives".

In Buddhism [ edit | change the code ]

Buddhism  : Wheel of karmic existence , of Reincarnation of Saṃsāra , and Nirvana .
The Buddhism is planning a cycle of birth, death and rebirth acting according to the actions of an individual. This cycle ( saṃsāra ) being considered painful, wearying and leading to nothing, the wise man aims to extract himself from it to join nirvana , which is the state of non-need ( The Tibetan Book of Life and Death , Synthesis of Lama Tibetin Sogyal Rinpoche , 1992)
The Dalai Lama, however, simply explained in an interview with BBC in the 1990s that "if science were to show that reincarnation is impossible", while Buddhism simply abandon this belief " 8 .

In Taoism [ edit | change the code ]

Immortals riding the dragons.
The Taoist aspirant has sometimes been described in ancient times as an "accomplished man" (zhenren 真人) who, after spiritual and physical exercises, was mutated, became light to the point of being able to rise in the clouds and to ride the dragons. Ge Hong in the iv th  century, will defend the idea that achieving immortality request "feed the vital principle" yangsheng养生(gymnastic practices, diet, breathing techniques, etc.) But mainly manufacture and decision an elixir of immortality.
"Those who once became immortals sometimes saw wings grow on their bodies. They metamorphosed and flew away, giving up what they had to humans and taking a new form " (Baopuzi, chap.3, translation of Che 9 ).
In a rather unique way in the history of religions, the ideal of zhenren or xian仙 (immortal) has associated spiritual liberation and physical immortality.
Main article: Taoist immortal .

Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) [ edit | change the code ]

In the Abrahamic religion , the original sin of the Book of Genesis is the cause of the test of death inflicted by God on Humanity , then the conditional theological salvation of souls , according to the episode of the War of the Angels of Apocalypse ( symbolic allegory of the final victory, at the end of the world , of the Good (religion) on the Evil , and of the establishment for the Eternity of the Kingdom of God in the Universe).
Tree of life of a medal of 1160, allegorical symbol of the original Immortality of the Book of the Genesisof the Abrahamic religion .
The Last Judgment , the weighing of souls , and the salvation of the soulsof the Bible Christian , of Rogier van der Weyden , the Hospices de Beaune( xv th  century ).
The Paradise of Islam of the Prophet Muhammad ( Jannah ) Persian miniature of the National Library of France in Paris .

In Christianity [ edit | change the code ]

Christianity introduces a different concept of life after death: the resurrection of bodies , in harmony with Ezekiel's vision of men reconstituting themselves from their bones. Unlike Platonism, Christianity does not seem to be particularly interested in a soul separated from the body: it is the reconstitution of the body that doctrine promises to its deserving believers, inscribed in the Creed that summarizes the fundamental points.
The postmortem sequence is complex, particular judgment , last judgment , heaven , hell , purgatory subsequently introduced in consideration of venial sins do not deserve eternal punishment, but must nevertheless be expiated, Limbo for unbaptized children ( Pelagius will refuse to admit them and will be excommunicated, Benedict XVI will however remove them from the dogma), and finally resurrection .

In Islam [ edit | change the code ]

The Muslim paradise of Islam of the Abrahamic religion ( Jannah ) is described as a pleasant place (3.15 "For the pious ones, there are gardens under their Lord under which streams flow, to abide therein forever"; 29.58 "Those who believe and do good deeds, We will certainly set them on the floor in the Paradise under which streams flow, to abide therein forever." 47.15 "This is the image of Paradise promised to believers: it will flow there. streams with water always pure and limpid, streams of unalterable milk, streams of a delicious wine to drink, streams of pure honey and distilled ").
The Hell is described as a place of torture ( "those who disbelieve in Our revelations, We shall burn property in the fire. Whenever their skins are roasted through, We shall change them for other skins, so that they taste the punishment "[Qur'an 4:56], but nevertheless apparent also in purgatory Christianbecause Allah is mentioned as pulling that it wants when it sees fit [ ref.  desired] .

In Mormonism [ edit | change the code ]

In the plan of salvation of the Mormons , every man after death is routed to one of three degrees of glory  : celestial, terrestrial , or telestial
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Immortality of the body, contemporary perception [ change | change the code ]

Observation in the animal kingdom [ edit | change the code ]

Fountain of Eternal Life  (in) (fountain of eternal life ) from Clevelandto US 10 .
Biological forms have limitations that man dreams to overcome through medical interventions or engineering, or a cell rejuvenation 11 or cell reprogramming 12 , 13 .
A natural selection has developed a biological immortality in at least one species, the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula 14 . There are indeed living beings whose very simple biological structure and the particular mode of reproduction allow them to be considered immortal. From the simplest to the most complex including bacteria , certain types of yeasts , Hydra and some very primitive jellyfish like Turritopsis nutricula or Turritopsis dohrnii which is currently the only known multicellular being with a reversible life cycle.
Special cases: the animal pluricellular being most resistant to any form of external destruction terrestrial or not is for the moment considered as the tardigrade , branch of species in its own right. The oldest trees in the world can hope to live for five millennia individually. The oldest animal exceeds 400 years, some reptiles 190 . The human being officially passed 120 years of longevity in 1995 with Jeanne Calment . Finally, some animals with neoteny (or Peter Pan syndrome) die without having physiologically aged, such as axolotl , the opposite phenomenon resulting in progeria ).
Turritopsis nutricula would escape the normal aging process of cells, and even reverse its growth process (which is conceivable, the structure of a jellyfish being much less complex than that of a vertebrate)
"Often evolving in deep waters, and since they can scarcely or not die, these jellyfish are developing their presence in the waters of the world, and not only in the waters of the Caribbean where they were originally . And Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute explains "We are witnessing a worldwide silent invasion" 15 .
Pills of immortality ( humorous charlatan pot , pharmacopoeia of simple medicines of apothecary of the Middle Ages )

Prospects for the human race [ edit | change the code ]

In a book named Death of Death , Dr. Laurent Alexandre, founder of the site Doctissimo , draws attention to the collapse of the cost of genetic sequencing in humans, much faster than for example the progress due to the law of Moore , and that should allow early preventive actions (in 2013, the actress Angelina Jolie asked for a mammectomy when she had no breast cancer 16 , because of a risk suggested by its gene BRCA 1), and effective. According to him, "the prospect of a life expectancy of 200 years at the end of this century is perhaps a conservative hypothesis", even "the first man who will live 1000 years is perhaps already born! " 17 , which approximates its position from that of de Gray . If it is not yet properly speaking immortality, the foreseeable progress of medicine during such periods can let hope, at least technically.
There is a rare genetic disorder for which the body does not seem to age at the same rate, unlike progeria . Doctors, who have not yet invented a name for this syndrome, speak of biological immortality . In four cases in the world, their process of aging is slowed with a development almost five times longer than for a normal person 18 .

Immortality in literature and research [ edit | change the code ]

Related article: Prolongation of human life .

Alexis Carrel [ change | change the code ]

Phoenix of Greek mythology , symbol of long life and infinite resurrection capacity .
The Prince Hamlet , Horatio , and the skull of Yorick in the cemetery by Eugene Delacroix . "  To be or not to be, To be, or not to be , That is the Question" Act III, Scene I, Hamlet , of William Shakespeare ( xvii th  century ).
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), scientistand philosopher , and his famous Pari Pascal on the bet of the existence not scientifically demonstrated of God of the Christian religion .
Mathematical symbols of the Infinite.
The Nobel Prize for medicine in 1912 Alexis Carrel managed to keep alive in vitro a chicken heart during a period in which the estimates vary, depending on the source of 28 years to 37 years 19 . But the typical life of a chicken is 5 years. This experiment led to the question whether the longevity of an organism was really limited only by that of its components or whether it was necessary to look for another cause, internal, to the mortality process. However no scientist has been able to fully replicate his experience, and has since been proven by biologist Leonard Hayflickthat the original cells would die well after the beginning of the cultivation, and that Carrel added (intentionally or not) by feeding them with a preparation based on crushed tissue 20 .

Jean Rostand [ change | change the code ]

The biologist Jean Rostand (1894-1977) states in an interview that "we do not know if the man is a flower or a chair" and explains this provocative: the chair is potentially eternal when it is treated with care and repaired regularly. The flower, on the contrary, already carries with it the program of its own destruction. In both cases, men can hope to one day discover physical immortality: an interview is usually a simple matter of technique and discipline; a program, it can probably deteriorate at the level of the gene. For Rostand, "the most urgent thing is to see more clearly in order to know which of the two directions to work".
In the evening of his life, Rostand will say to himself that "if all the sums devoted to the military budgets of all countries had been devoted to biological research, the question of immortality or at least eternal youth would already be settled. » .

Hayflick limit [ edit | change the code ]

In 1961 , the biologist Leonard Hayflick discovers that some specialized cells seem to be able to divide only about 50 times in succession. Better: if they divide 30 times, then they are put at rest for a long time, a resumption of the reproductions will limit them to 20 successive divisions: these cells thus seem to have a kind of internal countdown . His peers give him the name of Hayflick's term . It is later discovered that this limit is due to incomplete reproduction of the ends of the DNA strand ( telomeres ). This reproduction is complete with regard to the sexual cells. Agents inhibiting these telomerasesare discovered. However, in making cells immortal, care must be taken not to make them cancerous (see Henrietta Lacks and his HeLa cell line of "immortal cells"). In addition, there is the problem of treating all the cells of a living organism.

Robert Ettinger [ change | change the code ]

In 1964 , Robert Ettinger published his book entitled The Man Is He Immortal? . This book 21 contains fourteen thought experiments on the theme of identity. His concern is to identify what are the transformations of an individual that we consider acceptable (cryogenization included) to consider that he is always himself . The question arises with even greater acuteness if a remote copy of an individual is created (thought experiment): "can one then without problem of conscience destroy the original and consider that the individual was simply teleported  ? "
Ettinger's ideas gave rise to societies that conserve organisms - sometimes mere human brains - through cryogenics . A 1986 article by Professors Goldanskii and Vitalii 22 , however, warns that even at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, tunneling chemical reactions continue to occur as the months go by, increasingly damaging the organisms involved.

Gamow and Hofstadter [ change | change the code ]

In Mr. Tompkins explores himself (unpublished work), the physicist George Gamow questions the question of where is located the "me" in an individual. He imagines by thought a population of virginly conserved clones (no matter how) and in which he could be transferred by a given process all the knowledge and habits of an individual as well as his tastes. Once the mind has been transferred to the new individual, "can we consider that the person has changed his body" and simply get rid of the old? " It is difficult to answer this question, adjacent to the previous one.
Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett , passionate about this question of cognition and identity , decide to establish a kind of state of the art to create a compilation of the most interesting articles, according to them, written on the subject. It will be The Mind's I , translated into French as "Views of Mind". Many thought experiments, including one that suggests that the "me" may well be "relocated in many places" if the communications follow ( "Where am I?" ) (See also the article noosphere ).

Gordon Bell and the Mylifebits Project [ edit | change the code ]

In the immediate future , Gordon Bell believes that one [Who?] Must be able to store a very large part of a person's experience on one or more terabytes , and have direct access to it through the hyperlink process devised by Vannevar Bush . It is especially here an auxiliary memory and in principle perfect, but if the memory constitutes the foundation of the identity , then perhaps there would be in this kind of backup something to reconstitute in a way at least virtual a individual. Completed in 2007, this project MyLifeBits research was funded by the company Microsoft 23. The result of this experiment is reported in the Jim Gemmel and Gordon Bell book Total Recall published in January 2011 at Flammarion 24 . On this basis, transhumanists envisage uploading an individual's personality to a non-biological digital medium by means of mind-loading 25 .
This approach is controversial because it does not take into account the reality of the psychological "I". Namely, if the copy is made from an original to a duplicate, which of the two will house the original "I". In short, if we make multiple copies of myself, in which of these copies I will continue to exist? Could not each of these copies be a new copy of myself with my story and my memory believing each of them to continue my life?

Kurzweil [ change | change the code ]

Kurzweil 26 takes up the example of progressive substitution also exposed by Bruno Marchal 27 in his thesis:
  • If ONE neuron is replaced by its functional equivalent, the behavior of the individual will be in all respects similar.
  • By replacing them all one by one, the result would be a complete individual, functionally identical to the previous one, in electronic form. For Kurzweil, this is the way in which man has the greatest chance of attaining, if not immortality, at least a hope of prolonging his conscious life by a factor of 10 or even 100 ... as long as the Political and economic stability makes it possible to maintain machines and pay their electricity bill. This theme is echoed by author Greg Egan in his novel The City of Permutants ( Permutation City ).
In practical terms, the problem is for Kurzweil in three phases:
  1. It should firstly be X-rayed the brain not with a resolution of tenths of a millimeter as permitted methods for medical imaging by nuclear magnetic resonance , but rather get information on each cell where it is located. Kurzweil recalls that there is something "happening everywhere" in the brain: blood flow. His reasoned bet is that some millions of microscopic nanotechnology- based machines could set off to discover the terrain, transmit information immediately (which they could not store), and it could be collated by computer.
  2. The process can not be instantaneous , and it may not be complete. We do not know how long a scan would last (probably between a few dozen hours and a few years), and in the meantime our opinions on a number of subjects would have changed, as well as our "me". Kurzweil does not worry too much about the question: during a night's sleep, our "ego" also changes slightly 28 , without our being particularly anxious (except for the very young children, then in the middle of learning); moreover, it happens to us during our life to forget some old or recent knowledge without much damage to our mental integrity.
  3. More complex will be the reconstruction of the mental state scanned (with very strong redundancies since a place will be analyzed over time by amounts of microsensors), the representation of each neuron and glial cell , and finally the engraving of everything in the silicon or reconstitution on information processing machines with one type or another . However, this third phase can be delayed if need be several decades, the first two alone having to be carried out during the lifetime of the person concerned.
It is important to remember that all this remains for the moment speculative, in other words theoretically possible , but by no means certain .
The company Imagination engines 29 (a start-up created by former Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT) claims to work on a project of this kind called "InItsImage" 30 which is detailed on its website.
In 2015, Kurzweil refines its forecast and announces immortality for the end of the century, explaining why 31 . But Rupert Sheldrake concerned that these ideas are not wrongly based on a concept of resort classic, just as physical demented in some cases 32 as the experience of Alain Aspect .

Étienne-Émile Baulieu and DHEA [ change | change the code ]

A specialist in steroid hormones , he is known worldwide for the development in 1981 of the anti- progesterone RU 486 , or abortion pill.
But he is also known, since 1963, for his work on DHEA secreted by the adrenal glands , and has highlighted some of its properties, particularly in relation to some secondary aspects of aging (skin improvement, increased bone density and libido in the menopausal woman).
The DHEA is an androgen which is renowned for its effects anti-aging . The effectiveness of DHEA remains controversial. It has been established most often through animal studies or studies performed in comparison with placebo (notably the DHEAge study). DHEA is currently (2011) not over-the-counter in France , the French health authorities (AFSSAPS) having decided to continue its evaluation before giving its marketing authorization . It is however possible to obtain it by prescription or on the Internet in countries like the United States(without guarantee of purity) where it has been marketed since the 1990s as a simple dietary supplement .

Aubrey de Gray [ edit | change the code ]

The aim of SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence ( 2002 )) 33 is to radically extend life expectancy (and youth) through medical procedures designed to counteract organ dysfunction.
For example, the ambitious and innovative WILT sub-project plans to block telomere repair in the body by banning telomerase synthesis (to make cancer impossible) while periodically repopulating the body with healthy stem cells. (Since the telomeres of these stem cells are intact, the Hayflick limit is no longer a problem).
The financing strategy is based on the Methuselah Mouse Prize ( price of the Methuselah Mouse ). William Haseltine, the pioneer of sequencing the human genome, said: "There is no effort comparable to this one, and it has already significantly contributed to the realization that regenerative medicine is a very real thing. close, not a hypothesis.

Professor Skulachev [ edit | change the code ]

In September 2010, Professor Vladimir Skulachev, from Moscow University ( Russia ), announces that he stopped aging in mice with an antioxidant [Which one?] That penetrates the entire body and is harmless to its organs. vital. Oxygen is normally transformed into water by the vital processes, but a small percentage turns into free radicals dangerous for DNA and it is them that this pill is supposed to stop. 1999 Nobel Laureate Günter Blobel confirms the seriousness of this discovery, and Aubrey de Gray went to Moscow to examine these candidates for the Methuselah mouseproject .
This claim is in line with a similar one by a British laboratory 34 a few months earlier and, in the early 1990s, the announcement of beneficial effects of DHEA by Professor Beaulieu . However, it is only ads and a few years will be necessary to confirm or deny their effectiveness on the one hand, their real safety and their generalization to the general public on the other hand.

Regenerative Medicine [ edit | change the code ]

In a totally opposite approach to organ transplants, regenerative medicine seeks to use stem cells to regenerate organs in situ ideally in a perfect state of freshness. Progress in this regard was awarded by a Nobel Prize in Medicine to Shinya Yamanaka and John Gurdon in 2012 35 .

Professor Christopher Jaeger [ change | change the code ]

The professor of Jaeger, a geriatrician doctor specializing in human longevity 36 presented at TEDx Montpellier 2013 a presentation summarizing the state of the art on aging, its prevention, and non-cancerous cellular immortality 37 , named "We are not not made to die. " He also explores the family, societal and international aspects of stopping or slowing down aging.

Points of view and quotes [ edit | change the code ]

  • Paul Valéry believes in Tel Quel that "just as men need to change their clothes, ideas need to change people": the renewal of generations avoids in his opinion that society does not sclerose.
  • Georges Wolinski , in an episode of The Complicated Life of George the Killer , indirectly responds to Cavanna's preoccupation with immortality by explaining that "an immortal eternally puts offwhat he does not want to do," and that therefore it is on the whole the certainty (or almost) of death that drives man to act.
  • Robert Ettinger mentions the generous opinion of people who refuse immortality because it is necessary to make room for future generations , while finding this suspicious philanthropy when it comes from people "who do not even give to charities the 1 % deductible from their income ".
  • Albert Camus in La Peste believes that "[...] since the order of the world is regulated by death, perhaps it is better for God that we do not believe in him and that we struggle with all his forces against death, without looking up to the sky where he is silent . "
  • Ernest Renan , a scholar of both religious and positivist cultures, ventures into a possible synthesis: "The infinity of the future drowns many difficulties. If God exists, he must be good, and he will end up being just. Man would thus be immortal in the infinite, to infinity. The two main postulates of human life, God and the immortality of the soul, free at the point of view of the finished where we live, may be true at the limit of infinity 38  "
  • Various quotes on immortality [ archive ]

In popular culture [ edit | change the code ]

Espace François Mitterrand of Chateau-Chinon in the Morvan . Place of memory of the President of the French Republic François Mitterrand(1916-1996), with "  Laser Crypt , Hall of Exchanges", allegorical sculpture in metal to symbolize the domination of the Spirit on the Matter .

Personalities and Historic Places [ edit | change the code ]

Folktales [ change | change the code ]

Literature [ edit | change the code ]

  • 1845  : Eugene Sue  : The Wandering Jew  : Can immortality be a calamity for those who have it? This idea will be repeated in Highlander
  • 1862  : Edmond About , The man with the broken ear  : the resuscitation during the Second Empire of a frozen grunt during the retreat of Russia, and some related problems.
  • 1891  : Oscar Wilde , The Picture of Dorian Gray ( The Picture of Dorian Gray ) in Victorian England, a man retains his youth while his portrait grows old in his place.
  • 1897  : Bram Stoker , Dracula  : Historical character rendered immortal by a curse.
  • 1939  : Aldous Huxley , Jouvence (" After Many Summer "), essay on eternal youth
  • 1946  : Simone de Beauvoir , All the men are mortal  : novel about a man, the count Fosca who, once become immortal, realizes to his costs that the immortality kills ... the spirit, the will, the love, the desire to live ...
  • 1947  : Jorge Luis Borges , The immortal  : a news on the vanity of the quest for immortality since the engine that motivates each one of us is to know that we are mortal. A Roman who served in the armies of Caesar finds a river that gives him immortality, then spend centuries looking for the stream that can make him deadly again.
  • 1976  : François Cavanna , Stop-crève  : test on the official lack of interest of the public authorities on the subject.
  • 1976  : Anne Rice , Interview with a vampire
  • 2005  : Michel Houellebecq , The Possibility of an Island  : he tackles the subject of cloning and the artificial creation of a new species while continuing the author's reflection on contemporary society, in particular on relations between men and women.
  • 2005: Doctor Who, television series broadcast in France on channel 14 (France 4): The doctor is (a priori) the last Lord of Time, extraterrestrial race coming from the planet Galifrey, able to regenerate itself in a new body of an adult on the verge of death, so the only way he can die is to restrain himself by blocking the revitalization process when he begins.
  • 2007  : In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , if someone unites the relics of death he will become the master of death, which means immortality or rather invulnerability.
  • 2009  : Herbot Lothey, A Practical Guide to Immortality, Infallible Tricks and True Stories to Make Sure for Posterity , Pearson, Paris 2009.

Science fiction [ edit | change the code ]

  • 1950  : AE van Vogt , the Eternal House  : Avoiding aging by protecting oneself from cosmic radiation, sources of change.
  • 1956  : John Wyndham , The Grass living ( The seeds of time ) what criteria ethical decide to consume, or otherwise keep to increase the number, a rare plant species net blocking the aging process?
  • 1963  : Vladimir Volkoff , Metro for Hell  : survive forever ... but at what price!
  • 1960s  : "The Immortal of Delos", and its "cellular activators", delivered to Perry Rhodan , Reginald Bull and other Atlan ...
  • 1967  : Clifford D. Simak , Eterna  : The cryogenation of Ettinger became a way of life, the goal of an existence, the grail of everyone.
  • 1969  : Norman Spinrad , Jack Barron and Eternity  : Sociological Aspects of Blackmail to Immortality.
  • 1973  : René Barjavel , The Great Secret  : Jeanne and Roland love each other but one day Roland disappears suddenly. Jeanne will discover that he is on an island under high surveillance where there is only a group of humans with a highly contagious virus making it immortal.
  • 1974  : Philippe Curval , The Man backwards  : On Earth X, opposition between Immortals and Mystics who prefer the "absurd" finitude of the "animal".
  • 1978  : David Rorvik , In His Image  : A multinational leader, not unlike Thomas J. Watson , is cloned to have a son in his image; Is his clone "him"?
  • 1989 : Joe Haldeman , Immortality for sale : In the xxi th  century Stilemenan Enterprise sells immortality for every 10 years ...
  • 1995  : Greg Egan , Permutation City  : Paul Durham offers a few billionaires xxi th  century to live forever through computer copies of themselves. Original title: Permutation city . 1996 for the translation.
  • 2001: Clifford D. Simak, At the crossroads of the stars: the character Enoch Wallace seems to be immortal, which triggers the investigation of an intelligence agent.
  • 2007  : Raymond Khoury , Eternalis : A bloody quest for immortality around the Ouroboros .
  • 2018: Jérémy Lasseaux, ab origine fidelis , in the new "Tempus edax rerum": Vivien first sees his immortality as an advantage and then as a curse.

Film & Animation [ change | change the code ]

The grail of eternal life , the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade by Steven Spielberg in 1989.
Philosopher's Stone of eternal lifethe Grand alchemical work , the film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone of Chris Columbus in 2001.
Phoenix eternal life of the film Harry Potter , the film studio Harry Potter's London Tour of Warner Bros.

Movies [ edit | change the code ]

Documentary [ edit | change the code ]

TV series [ edit | change the code ]

  • TV series Highlander (1992/1998)
  • Ad Vitam, the whole society can rejuvenate indefinitely (2018)
  • Angel character from Buffy's Vampire and Angel series
  • Jack Harkness character from the Doctor Who and Torchwood series , 2005.
  • Damon Salvatore and Stefan Salvatore , characters from the Vampire Diaries series .
  • Helen Magnus and Nikola Tesla , characters from the Sanctuary series .
  • Claire Bennet and Sylar from the Heroes series , 2005.
  • Nathan of the Misfits series, 2009.
  • Baccano! , a Japanese anime telling the epics, in the 1930s of Mafia America, various characters, some of which become immortal as a result of ingestion of an elixir or have been for several centuries already.
  • Ajin , In the near future, are discovered in the world of Ajin, immortal human beings, very rare and thus hunted by the governments to study them. After he died in a car accident, Ken Nagai resuscitated and discovered he was also a ajin, forced to flee if he did not want to end up inhuman experiences.
  • Forever , American television series created by Matt Miller, released since. The D r Henry Morgan is immortal. Over 200 years old, he considers his condition a curse. Every time he dies, he is reborn in the water and naked, which does not fail to cause him some problems.
  • New Amsterdam , an eight-episode, 43-minute American television series created by Allan Coeb and Christian Taylor and broadcast between March 4, 2008 and April 14, 2008 on the FOX network. John Amsterdam, inspector of the New York Criminal Brigade will be mortal again only when he finds his true love. He was born Johann van der Zee onin Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Amsterdam is only the last of the names that John used, he changes every decade.

By topic [ edit | change the code ]

Stop aging
  • Peter Pan , several movies since 1924.
  • The man who deceived death , 1959
  • The Drum , 1979.
  • The Great Secret  : Jeanne and Roland love each other but one day Roland disappears suddenly. Jeanne will discover that he is on an island under high surveillance where there is only a group of humans with a highly contagious virus making it immortal. 1989
  • Time Out , 2011
Rejuvenation
Back to life

Comic Strips [ edit | change the code ]

Video game [ edit | change the code ]

In many games, there is a cheat code to make the player immortal and thus help him finish the game more easily.

Bibliography [ edit | change the code ]