Jacopo Schena

How can I have any agency over my mortality? That was the question.

What tools do I have, as a curious and proactive human being (rather than a scientist), to do anything, anything at all, to give me even the tiniest chance to “beat” mortality? That is, with the continuation of our own consciousness, by the way. Not a copy of you. Just you. The actual person who’s simply not willing to succumb.

I do believe eventually we’ll cure all diseases and natural death will be something we leave behind. It’s where research is headed. But many generations will miss that boat…

The one thing we can do today is to preserve the wish of those who, like me, wanted to live forever. We have the technology to store that wish for more than a thousand years, and if The Rescue Ledger survives through generations, that message itself can become virtually immortal.

Let’s address the obvious question: am I saying I hope that a civilization from the future will develop time travel, come back to the present, and “save” those who wanted to be saved before their death, while hopefully also being able to reverse the aging process, so that you might live your best life, for as long as you want?

Not quite.

I’m saying that we’re extremely limited. Not just by our technology, but by our language.

Our language dictates the way we think. The way we think dictates how we can react to the world around us. What we can and can’t understand.

One day we might learn things that seem completely impossible today. About life, death, physics… And as technology propels our knowledge forward, I just cannot put a limit on what’s possible several centuries from now.

No matter what reality looks like today.

That’s why this is what I’m doing right now. A physical archive with our consent. Of those who wish to join The Rescue Ledger. A message to the future.