Gino De Dominicis, Lettera sull’immortalità

Rome, 10-4-1970

Dear... I do not believe that things exist. A glass, or a man, or a chicken, for example, are not in reality a glass, a man or a chicken: they are only proof of the possibility that a glass, a man or a chicken may exist. To have real existence, things should be eternal, immortal: this is the only state of affairs in which one could say that they exist, rather than being the mere evidence for certain possibilities. In fact "nature" makes use of objects by continually modifying them, evidencing by these transformations all the possibilities that they have. A chicken, for example, when it carries out its "natural duty" of laying an egg ceases to be a chicken and becomes the mere means by which "nature" evidences the possibility of the existence of an egg and hence the world of chickens. The same law applies when it comes to the problem of space, in terms of the macrocosm as well as the microcosm. In the expanding, or mobile, universe, the planets and stars, by moving, occupy and "verify" the existence of new areas of space, into which they fit dimensionally (if this were not the case, they would become modified or would disintegrate). Man, as well, has been motivated by the same "natural cause" to leave the Earth for new areas of space. One of the qualities that make an object such is the fact that its presence in a given place prevents other objects being in the same place. Since no object is capable of staying in the same place for eternity, there are no such things as objects, simply things that give evidence of certain spatial possibilities of energy. For objects the problem is a spatial one; for man the problem is one of time. When we carry out any sort of action, for example running, we are not really running, but only verifying the possibility of the existence of running, and we go through this experience bound by the laws of "nature". In fact, if one compares it with the length of time that the species man has existed, the length of time that we have during our lives to make use of this experience of ours is extremely limited. In order to exist in the real sense of the word, we should have to stop in time: then, finally, we should begin to live, to verify things by ourselves and for ourselves. In other eras man has not been in possession of the advanced technology and science that we have today, and this is one of the reasons why there was very much less possibility of facing up to death with a chance of beating it. Man has always talked in ideal terms about eternal life, and of course continues to do so now, but with the difference that there is now the possibility of achieving it. In fact, we ought to be turning all our efforts and all our skills (particularly in the sciences and technology) towards this single end. What were for man once only means (towards victory in the eternal struggle with nature) have now become ends; we have shaken off our initial diffidence and the spontaneous reactions that come with it, and we have become madmen chasing a ball floating in space. Poets, philosophers, religions and artists have al- ways exalted, or at least made use of, the fear of death, but this fear has never been faced up to with the necessary clarity of thought. Most of man's activities which today (as they perhaps always have been) are unjustified, would be logical as far as he was concerned only after he had achieved immortality. Only then could we permit ourselves the luxury of fantastic and irrational objectives designed only to give us pleasure (art, scientific research, etc.). On this earth the artist is, and always has been, the greatest exponent of the irrational ends of verification in nature, and in fact I believe that art is none other than a continual flow of intuitions about certain unthinkable possibilities. Though to a lesser degree, all the other sciences have also contributed towards the discovery of new possibilities. Biology has now finally caught a glimpse of the way to modify cells, which are basic to the deterioration of the human body, that process which leads to an inevitable death. But, when one thinks of the numbers of people who inhabit the earth, there are sadly few who are involved in these researches. We ought all of us to leave off doing other things, such us space flights, artistic research, arms manufacturing, etc. (an exception being made for activities which are necessary for our survival), and concentrate all our skills (or "inventing" other ones) towards this end. With the collective effort of al- most everybody, we could succeed in overcoming natural death in the to put stop to all births, until other planets or other possibilities of life on space of twenty years. Of course if we managed to do this we should have earth were found. All human wars and bad feelings have their origin in the knowledge of death and an unconscious fear of it, so that as a consequence it would be much easier for men to live in harmony, as the prospects for their lives would be immense. In my opinion, the truth about life, that has been the constant search of all poets, philosophers, artists and scientists, is to be able to find the time to discover it. Man began his evolution by defending himself from hostile circumstances and environment, and creating the means of defence himself. It is curious that from the time he managed to control the greatest catastrophes, he gradually got himself used to the idea that natural death was inevitable, and his concentration on the final danger, the final problem to be solved, decreased in proportion to his new interests. For every means of defence invented by man there has always been a parallel means of offence; this precarious balance still exists today, but with the difference that now the means of offence have the power to destroy completely every form of life on earth. So it is more than ever necessary now to concentrate all our resources on achieving an ideal outside the normal run of human impulses and aspirations. Having children is a way of achieving eternity (we allow other things to be born because we do not have the possibility of living for ever, but perhaps we do not have that possibility for the very reason that we allow other things to be born), but with the difference that it is a way of achieving eternity for the human race not for man. The knowledge that we ourselves are children ought to make us understand that we ourselves could make use of the experiences that we go through, that we ourselves could make use of them in the future. If we take the achievement of immortality as a point of reference, it is interesting to observe how everything man brought about at the beginning of his adventure on earth led one to predict more and more involvement in this problem, while as time passed there was less and less. For some time now I have been tending to show more interest in those personalities in the past that have been taken up in the consideration of this problem or that have recognised and interpreted man's absurd and incomprehensible situation on earth, in preference to those who have decried the beauties and certainties of life. One of the reasons for this is the fact that men have always understood that life was worth living. Throughout all its history humanity has created ideals to believe in, ideas that would manage to make sense of life; nearly always it was a question of pretexts which made it possible to unite certain people with others almost invariably against or in favour of yet other people which could even be a figment of the imagination. Man has al- ways illuded himself that these ideas were not invented by himself, and hence that they were inevitably controlled by nature rather than being completely in his power. These fatalistic ideas which he has always pretend- ed to believe in - blood, race, country, the religions - have never united him with the rest of his kind, for the very reason that it was his unconscious feeling that they were fantastic ideals, that as a man it would not be an easy matter to get real and lasting advantages out of them. Only a superior type of ideal, not fatalistic (though natural), can unite absolutely everybody in an effort to achieve it. Perhaps for the first time in his existence on earth, man, with an ideal such as this, could really and undisputedly differentiate himself from the other living species and achieve enormous progress vis-à-vis even the previous generations. If man were able to remain at an age in his life that he himself chose, interrupting thereby the process of aging, he would break out from the spell of the most mysterious of the dimensions that rule the universe: he would therefore take the first step towards the possibilitiy of a greater understanding of life and would thereby for the first time provide a universal and personal touch in the impassive universe. I hope that one day I shall be able to pick up a glass, fill it with wine and drink it, to take a chicken out for a walk - and to know that it is really I who am doing it.

Affectionately yours

Gino De Dominicis