Stephen Cave/ John Gray
Wednesday 30 May 2012, 6.30 – 8pm
Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE
Stephen Cave, philosopher and writer. He is the author of Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilisation
John Gray, Emeritus Professor of European Thought, LSE. He is the author of The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death
Chair: Simon Glendinning, Reader in European Philosophy, European Institute, LSE and Director of the Forum for European Philosophy
Every human culture has claimed some way of defeating death, whether through mummification, reincarnation, or resurrection when the last trumpet sounds. In our age of failed ideologies and empty churches, many now hope science will provide the route to everlasting life. Can it? Should we even want it to? And is the will to live forever, which has so shaped the human story, a blessing or a curse?