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For ever and ever 追求永生 Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How ItDrives Civilisation. 《永生：对长命百岁的追求及这是如何影响文明》 IMMORTALITY is an age-old obsession. Plentyof literature deals with the subject, from theSumerian Epic of Gilgamish to the poems of Homerand the writings of the Old Testament. The quest to live for ever has motivated medievalalchemists, modern techno-Utopians and mystics through the centuries. 永生是人们亘古不变的追求。不论是苏美尔人的《《吉尔迦美什史诗》，还是荷马的诗歌，亦或是《旧约》，大量的文学作品都以此为主题。历经了数个世纪，人们都追求着永生，这种观点激励着中世纪炼金术士，现代的技术乌托邦主义者，神秘主义者。 In his survey of the subject, Stephen Cave, a British philosopher, argues that mansvarious tales of immortality can be boiled down into four basic narratives. The first is thesimplest, in theory at least: do what the medieval alchemists never managed and discoveran elixir to simply avoid dying. The second concerns resurrection, or coming back to life afterdying, a belief found in all three of the Abrahamic religions. The idea of an immaterial soulthat can persist through death dates back, in a formal form, at least to Plato, and forms MrCaves third narrative. His fourth narrative deals with immortality through achievement,by becoming so famous that ones name lives on through the ages. | 
