His Master's Voice by Stanisław Lem

How would humanity’s best minds do to decode a message sent from outer space? What would they do with the information they decode? Is it even a message? Lem approaches these questions from a philosophical perspective, exploring existential and cosmological themes with a satirical touch. A bit of a dense read in parts but a novel worth reading if you are interested in first contact, decoding and seeing great minds working (or not) together.

The Way We Die Now by Seamus O'Mahony

An excellent, easy to read and interesting read. O'Mahony is a physician and has worked in the UKs NHS and in Ireland. In this book he relates how death happens in reality, and shares his thoughts on how it should happen.

O'Mahony states that in our (western) societies we hide from death, we pretend it happens to other people but not us. We do not talk about it and therefore are ignorant of all its implications.

Although the author is a physician, he does not rely solely on medicine, science and technology particularly when dealing with death. He advocates "death with dignity" meaning away as possible from busy and noisy hospitals, from tubes, pipes and any other invasive tools; but close to home and the people who care for us.

Through the book O'Mahony explains how people nowadays rely so much in medicine to the extent that they believe it can treat anything. But it can't. When there is nothing else medicine can do, it is better to accept death and live our last days as best as possible.

Homework: when the time comes, you are frail and dying, would you like to be taken to a hospital to attempt messy resuscitation or would you prefer to leave it as it is and accept your fate?

This might be a difficult topic for some people but I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in what really happens when people die and how we can make it better for ourselves.

Samurai Leyendas vol 1 & 2 by Di Giorgio, Mormile and Genêt

French comic about 3 female, bad-ass warriors. A fun, solid read. It is a spin-off series of the main "Samurai" series (which I haven't read) by the same writer. There are 5 french albums in these two Spanish volumes. They are not sequential stories but overall explain the origins of the three sisters of the shadow (who also appear in the main series). Samurai legends has a samurai setup with a supernatural kick. There are sword fights which are excellent with much movement and action. There is female nudity . Actually too much female nudity and very little male nudity. Amazing art thought. Nice graphic narrative, my favourite those large landscapes with smaller panels on top.

Farewell, my lovely by Raymond Chandler

Classic hardboiled novel. Written in 1940, it treats non-white characters in an appalling way by today standard's. Chandler's dehumanisation of non-whites, I guess, is part of his depiction of corruption in police and the same private detective, who is the protagonist. A well written and engaging novel, nevertheless.

The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker

A book on the fear of death from a psychoanalytic and philosophical perspective. A bit too dense in parts. There were sections where I felt every sentence was giving an important message and I needed time to process. I also felt some messages were a bit too repetitive. I struggled to get to the end of the book and didn’t quite get everything, but here my take:

We humans are the only conscious animals, the only ones who understand our mortality. We are a duality, part physical (and mortal), part spiritual/intellectual/conscientious which imagines way beyond our physical world and which cannot cope with the knowledge that everything has to end at some point. This knowledge translates into fear of death and affects every aspect of our lives even if we do not know it consciously. From childhood when we discover everything about our bodies to adulthood when we know the clock is ticking. 

We make up and construct concepts or institutions which are defences “against the knowledge that we are mortal beings.” Religion is one of them. Cities and culture are too. However the most discussed was science. One problem in our days is that science is taking religion’s place explaining what reality is about. This is giving us anxiety as science, so blunt on our faces, tells us how mortal we are and how even the universe will have an end. (This book was written in 1973 and does not mention any scientific research on transhumanism.)

Something I enjoyed reading was the discussion on Sigmund Freud's life and work. Especially the references to his death anxiety which made an interesting read. Becker however did not agree with Freud's view of sex as driver for human behaviour. Instead, Becker drew heavily on work by Carl Jung and mostly Otto Rank to argue that not sex but fear of death was our main motivation for everything.

Come with me by Ronald Malfi

I grabbed this novel from the library when I saw it was a Stoker award finalist. Gripping and fun to read, but not horror. It was a well written crime mystery with some rather ambiguous fantastic elements which you could interpret as supernatural or psychological (as happening in the protagonist's head). I went the psychological way and enjoyed the ride.

Mindscan: Transcending and Enhancing the Human Brain by Susan Schneider

I recently read Mindscan by Robert J. Sawyer, which is about a man who decides to upload his consciousness into an artificial body to avoid certain death. This essay, by Schneider, uses this story to explore about how the idea of uploading our minds would realistically (or not) help us become immortal. The essay starts discussing the topic of transhumanism and its philosophy. Transhumanists believe that humans can enhance all aspects of themselves (intelligence, illness free, etc.) using technology. But if we can improve (change) every aspect of ourselves, would we be still the same person? To explore this, Schneider discusses the psychological continuity theory “according to which the holding of some psychological relation is necessary or sufficient (or both) to persist” (In Personal Identity, Olson, 2010,). The psychological continuity theory is related to Kurzweil’s “Patternism”. Kurzweil (2005) states that “we are a pattern of matter and energy that persists overtime.” In the introduction of this book Schneider also explains that “this pattern is construed in computational terms: the pattern is the pattern of information-processing that your brain engages in  - the particular numerical values and nodes characterizing your neural network down to the last detail.”   

This essay raises important questions about the beliefs of transhumanists, particularly about the compatibility (or incompatibility) between “patternism” and transhuman “enhancement”. As the novel Mindscan shows, a person could make a “copy” of themselves and as a result both copies would share the same pattern. What then, could make any of them unique, an individual person? 

Super interesting and thought provoking read.