Research = Immortality?

[LucidMind]

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Hi all!

For thousands of years human beings have been trying to attain "immortality". Kings and emperors have fought wars and destroyed civilizations to have their names live on throughout history. It can even be argued that having children is a form of immortality, as we are passing on our DNA, and often our personal anecdotes and life stories (although, those will undoubtedly last for only a generation or two before becoming lost).

Now...there are positive outcomes of conducting psychological research (the betterment of humankind or to alleviate the suffering of countless people). I had an interesting thought the other day about another result of conducting research; your name will be in psychological/medical literature until the end of time. I mean, there are exceptions of course (for example, if your research has been proven wrong or you falsified data). However, for the most part your name will be referenced for hundreds, possibly thousands of years. This is especially true if you are published in a high impact paper. Somewhere down the line in year 3500 some little psychology student may be writing his or her reference page and think "hmmm, I wonder who Dr. *insert your name* was". It's an interesting thought to consider! I was curious as to what this board would think about that idea.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I'd rather have a library or football stadium named after me.

 

[WisNeuro]

In my opinion, the novelty of seeing your name in print wears off pretty fast. That being said, I'll always do research along with my clinical work for the pure enjoyment of it.

 

[LucidMind]

I'd rather have a library or football stadium named after me.

haha very true! But...those can always be renamed or rebuilt. Having your name in a published paper will last much longer (especially in the internet era). That being said, a stadium being named after you would be a bit more salient 🙂

 

[Messler]

Do you think future RAs will get a good sense of your "personal anecdotes and life stories," the essence of your being, when they cut and paste your name into a paper?

 

[PHD12]

Hi all!

Now...there are positive outcomes of conducting psychological research (the betterment of humankind or to alleviate the suffering of countless people). I had an interesting thought the other day about another result of conducting research; your name will be in psychological/medical literature until the end of time. I mean, there are exceptions of course (for example, if your research has been proven wrong or you falsified data). However, for the most part your name will be referenced for hundreds, possibly thousands of years. This is especially true if you are published in a high impact paper. Somewhere down the line in year 3500 some little psychology student may be writing his or her reference page and think "hmmm, I wonder who Dr. *insert your name* was". It's an interesting thought to consider! I was curious as to what this board would think about that idea.

haha...sounds very grandoise. Whatever it takes to get you through graduate school. Most academic research though is too removed from the real world to have an impact. You would have way more of an impact by also publishing your work in a major magazine/newspaper (scientific american etc). I really like it when psychologists make their research accessible to the public. Psychologists like Martin Seligman do an excellent job of communicating their research to the public and having an impact on a larger scale. His research on resilience is widely used as a prevention for MH problems in the military etc.

 

[LucidMind]

Do you think future RAs will get a good sense of your "personal anecdotes and life stories," the essence of your being, when they cut and paste your name into a paper?

Sounds like a rhetorical question. But to clarify, I think that once you are dead, it doesn't matter what your anecdotes and life stories are. It's just having your name out there being referenced by thousands of people every year. Obviously it's on different level than how somebody like Julius Caesar or Napoleon will be remembered forever, but I still think it's something special in it's own right. think about how many billions of humans have lived and died without having their names attached to anything even some-what permanent.

 

[Doctor Eliza]

This may explain the reason that so many academics are raging narcissists. They became academics so that they will be immortal and everyone will know their name.

Dr. E

 

[paramour]

This may explain the reason that so many academics are raging narcissists. They became academics so that they will be immortal and everyone will know their name.

Dr. E

I could see that...

 

[beginner2011]

There's an interesting idea in Ernest Becker's Pulitzer Prize winning work "The Denial of Death" that you might be interested in. One of his observations was that it is very human to devote our energies to "immortality projects" -- things that are a reaction against death anxiety, anxiety about our own mortality. At the same time, this frantic subconscious desire for immortality serves to fuel suffering and evil in the world (the title of his follow-up work was "Escape from Evil").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death


Personally, I find that if we're talking about research, or the impact of our research being equivalent to immortality, then why limit the impact our life and action has had to research? Our very existence alters the world and leaves an everlasting impact on the face of what is. I see no compelling reason that the research we do is any more or less everlasting than the smile I offer a friend, or the cutting words I use with a family member. Everything affects everything else, and always will. This idea is more thoroughly described in Buddhist psychology/philosophy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratītyasamutpāda#The_principle_of_interdependent_causation

 

[FallenMind]

Technically, if you prescribe to the many worlds theory or some components of String Theory and Quantum Mechanics, you technically are immortal ;-)