Pickover - A beginners guide to immortality extraordinary people, alien brains, and quantum resurrection

I thank Teja Kraek, Mark Nandor, Graham Cleverley, Mark Ganson, Dennis Gordon, Ray Ben Erskins, Jennifer Franklin Elrod, John Oakes, William Strachan, and members of the Clifford Pickover Think Tank (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CliffordPickover/) for useful comments and suggestions.

Reference sources are listed at the end of the book. Several books were of particular value to me, including Michael Shermers Science Friction, David Jay Browns Conversations at the Edge of the Apocalypse, Stephen Mitchells Gilgamesh, Glenn Yeffeths Taking the Red Pill, A. J. Jacobs TheKnow-It-All, and Richard Metzgers Book of Lies. I describe some of the ideas of high-tech philosophers Nick Bostrom, Ray Kurzweil, and Robin Hanson in Chapter 4. For further reading on the fine line between genius and madness, see my book Strange Brains and Genius:The Secret Lives of Eccentric Scientists and Madmen. Several sections of the current book discuss powerful, illegal drugs, and I do not advocate or suggest that readers break any laws or try these drugs.

There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we dont know we dont know.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,
February 12, 2002, news briefing

Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities.We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and theonly answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of theunreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope seesa star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.

Robert G. Ingersoll, The Ghosts and Other Lectures

Chameleons. Such exceptional creatures. The way they change color.Red. Yellow. Lime. Pink. Lavender. And did you know they are veryfond of music?

Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons

After you die, will the world remember anything you did? Most of us rarely leave marks, except on our immediate family or a few friends. Well never have our lives illuminated in a New York Times obituary or discussed by a TV news anchorperson. Even your immediate family will know nothing of you within four generations. Your great-grandchildren may carry some vestigial memory of you, but that will fade like a burning ember when they dieand you will be extinguished and forgotten.