Engineering: How To Write a “Programmed Death” Autobiography?

The Infinite Endings: The Architecture Of Destruction From The Cell To The Machine

This Shocking Statement By The British Biologist Richard Dawkins Represents The Perfect Entry Point For Engaging With The Deep Philosophical And Scientific Thesis Proposed By The Spanish Complex Systems Scientist Ricard Solé In His Recently Published Book By Princeton University Press Entitled: «Endless Endings: The Many Forms Of Death And What They Teach Us About Life».

In This Book, Solé Does Not Offer A Classical Study Of Biological Death In The Narrow Medical Sense, But Rather Opens A Towering Epistemological Window Looking Out At Death As A “Trans-Disciplinary Concept”. Death, In The Perspective Of Complex Dynamical Systems, Is Not Merely A Moment Of Biological Cessation, But Rather A Common Thread Connecting The Embryonic Cell In The Mother’s Womb, The Algal Cell In The Depths Of The Ocean, The Languages That Go Extinct In The Abyss Of Oblivion, And The Cities That Turn Into Ruins, Reaching All The Way To Robots And Artificial Intelligence That May Face A Special Kind Of “Death”.

The Author Departs From A Fundamental Paradox Formulated By The Late Physicist And Philosopher Jorge Wagensberg When He Described Death As “The Most Expected News To Cause Surprise.” From This Very Astonishment, Solé Weaves His Solid Journalistic And Scientific Approach, To Prove To Us Across His Book’s Seven Chapters That Understanding Life—With All Its Manifestations And Vitality—Is Completely Impossible Without Staring Directly Into The Face Of Death And Understanding Its Mechanisms.

Chapter One: From “Frankenstein’s” Workshop To “The Complete Human” Chips

Solé Begins His Epistemological Journey From A Landmark Literary And Historical Station: The Year 1818, The Year That Witnessed The Birth Of The Novel Frankenstein By The Young Author Mary Shelley. Shelley Was Not Merely A Horror Novelist, But Was A Daughter Of Her Time Who Grew Up In Foggy London, Between The Graveyards Of “St Pancras” And The News Of Body Snatchers Who Supplied Medical Schools With Live Anatomical Material. She Was A Witness To The Experiments Of Galvanism and Giovanni Aldini, Who Shocked The Corpses Of Hanged Criminals With Electricity So That Their Limbs Moved And Their Eyes Opened In Terrifying Exhibitions That Seemed As If They Were Returning The “Spark Of Life” To Inert Matter.

Solé Capitalizes On This Literary Background To Pose The Four Big Questions Raised By Mary Shelley That Continue To Haunt Modern Science:

• How Can Death Be Defeated?

• What Is The Nature Of Life And Consciousness, And Their Relationship To Matter?

• Can A Living Body Be Constructed From Disparate Parts?

• What Are The Limits Of The Human Mind In Facing Oblivion?

The Author Analyzes The Escalating Impact Of The Frankenstein Myth Across History Using The Google Books Ngram Viewer Tool. The Analysis Shows Statistical Data Confirming That The Use Of The Terms “Frankenstein” And “Artificial Life” Is In Continuous Growth That Has Not Subsided Over The Past Two Centuries, But Rather Jumped Enormous Leaps With Major Milestones Such As The Emergence Of Genetic Engineering In The 1970s, And The Birth Of Synthetic Biology In The Twenty-First Century.

The Contemporary Paradox That Solé Presents As An Advanced Alternative To Dr. Frankenstein’s Workshop Is The “Human-on-a-chip” Technology. Here, We No Longer Need To Dig Up Graves To Assemble A Corpse; Instead, Contemporary Bioengineers Take Stem Cells And Reprogram Them To Turn Into “Miniature Organs” Or Organoids. In Isolated Rooms On A Silicon Chip Not Exceeding A Few Centimeters, Grow Cells of A Miniature Liver, A Lung, A Kidney, And Even A “Mini-Brain” That Possesses Neural Layers Simulating The Structure Of The Embryonic Human Brain. These Rooms Are Connected By Microscopic Channels Through Which Flows Synthetic Blood Laden With Nutrients And Growth Factors, Pumped By Precise Computerized Systems That Simulate The Human Circulatory System With Extreme Precision.

This Synthetic Microscopic Entity Does Not Possess Consciousness, Nor Does It Scream In Pain Like Frankenstein’s Monster, But It Represents The Pinnacle Of The Human Challenge To The Mechanisms Of Decay And Death. It Allows Scientists To Study Disease, Aging, And Drug Response On A Live Human Model Without Exposing A Real Human To Danger. This Scene Reminds Us Of The Warning Of Erwin Chargaff, One Of The Pioneers Of Molecular Biology, Whom Solé Cleverly Quotes: «This World Is Given To Us On Loan… And My Generation Was The First To Engage, Under The Leadership Of Exact Sciences, In A Destructive Colonial War Against Nature. The Future Will Curse Us For That».

Chapter Two: Cellular Architectural Suicide.. Death As A Condition For The Body’s Birth

Solé Transports Us In His Second Chapter From Contemporary Human Workshops To The Depths Of Nature, Specifically To The Red Surface Of The Oceans, Where “The Red Tide Phenomenon” Or Algal Blooms Occur. These Massive Biological Explosions, Which Can Be Seen From NASA Satellites, Extend For Thousands Of Kilometers And Include Billions Of Algal Cells Per Liter Of Water. But The Greatest Paradox Lies In Their Sudden Disappearance; Billions Of Tons Of This Biomass Can Collapse And Vanish Within Twenty-Four Hours Only.

This Riddle Remained Defiant To Understanding Until Two Scientific Discoveries Occurred That Changed The Face Of Marine Ecology:

• The First Discovery: Is The Terrifying Presence Of Marine Viruses, Which Turned Out To Be The Most Abundant Entity On Planet Earth. Their Number Is Estimated At Around $10^{30}$ Viruses. These Viruses Launch A Continuous, Fierce Attack, Causing About $10^{23}$ Infections Per Second Worldwide, Leading To The Renewal Of 20% Of Phytoplankton Daily.

• The Second Discovery: Is What The Scientist Paul Falkowski Found By Chance In His Lab When He Forgot To Renew The Nutrient Medium For An Algal Culture Of The Type Emiliania huxleyi. The Next Day, He Found The Dark Green Bottles Had Turned Into A Completely Transparent Liquid, And At Their Bottom A Thin Layer Of White Sediment. This Death Was Not The Result Of Random Rupture, But Was Rather The Activation Of An Internal Suicide Program Known As Programmed Cell Death Or Apoptosis.

Here Ricard Solé Puts Us Before A Breathtaking Biological Philosophy: Death Is Not The Opposite Of Life, But Rather Its Most Important Architectural Tool. The Distinction Between Random Rupturing Death (Necrosis) And Programmed Death (Apoptosis) Is The Difference Between Chaos And Order. In Necrotic Death (Necrosis), The Cell Swells With Water And Explodes To Scatter Its Toxic Contents, Causing Inflammation In Neighboring Tissues. As For Programmed Death, The Cell Walks According To A Strict Scenario And Organizational Structure; The DNA Condenses And Fragments, Controlled Blebs Form In The Membrane Without Its Rupture, And Caspases Proteins Move Like Professional Demolition Workers Cutting The Cytoskeleton And Dismantling Vital Parts So That Macrophages Come And Devour Them Quietly Without Any Noise Or Surrounding Damage.

This Cellular Suicide Is Not A Luxury, But Rather The Price Paid By Multicellular Organisms To Reach Complexity. The Author Cites Concrete Examples That Fascinate The Reader And Clarify The Idea:

• The Formation Of The Human Hand: At The Beginning Of Embryonic Development, Our Fingers Are Fused With A Complete Tissue Membrane (Similar To The Webbed Feet Of Waterfowl). Independent Fingers Do Not Appear Except Because The Cells Composing This Membrane Receive A Genetic Order For Mass Programmed Suicide To Clear The Way For The Appearance Of Spaces Between Fingers.

• The Transparency Of The Eye Lens: The Lens With Which You Are Reading These Lines Would Not Have Been Transparent Had Its Composing Cells Not Proceeded To Activate The Programmed Suicide Program, Emptying Their Internal Contents To Turn Into What Resembles Pure “Biological Glass” That Allows Light To Pass And Refract Accurately.

• The Cleansing Of The Embryonic Brain: During The Development Of The Nervous System, The Brain Produces A Massive Surplus Of Neurons. In Some Areas Of The Cerebral Cortex, More Than 80% Of These Cells Are Eliminated Via Programmed Death Before Birth. The Brain “Prunes” Itself To Ensure The Efficiency Of The Neural Network And Prevent Hyperactivity Or Catastrophic Energy Consumption.

Solé Quotes The Saying Of The Nobel Laureate Biologist François Jacob: «The Dream Of Every Cell Is To Become Two Cells», Commenting On It By Saying That The Dream Is Not Complete Unless The Cell Knows When And How To Die. The Evolutionary Roots Of This Suicide Program Go Back To Mitochondria—The Energy Factories In Our Cells—Which Were Originally Free Bacteria That Lived Symbiotically Inside Primitive Cells Billions Of Years Ago. These Mitochondria Are The Ones That Carry Until This Day The Key To Self-Destruction; Upon Stress, They Release The Cytochrome C Molecule, Which Combines With Cell Proteins To Form The Dreaded Suicide Particle Known As The Apoptosome. It Is A Stark Confirmation That Death Is Written In The Original Code Of Life Since The Dawn Of History.

Chapter Three: The Death Of Machines.. From Descartes’ Doll To “Oppy’s” Melancholy

Ricard Solé Moves In The Third Chapter To A Field That Seems At First Glance Alien To The Concept Of Biological Oblivion: The World Of Machines And Synthetic Systems. Can A Machine Die? The Direct Answer Might Be In The Negative, Given That The Machine Does Not Possess Living Cells Or Any Nutrient Metabolism. But When Looking At It From The Perspective Of “Reliability Theory” And Complex Systems, Breathtaking Parallels Reveal Themselves To Shock The Mind.

The Author Conjures At First The Golden Age Of Automatons In The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries, When Victorian Clock Engineers Succeeded In Building Highly Complex Mechanical Dolls, Such As “The Writer Boy” Of The Jaquet-Droz Family. This Robotic Boy Held A Quill And Wrote Complete Sentences In Elegant Handwriting, And It Could Be “Programmed” By Changing Its Internal Gears. Among The Amusing Historical Paradoxes Is That This Doll Once Wrote The Famous Cartesian Phrase: «I Think, Therefore I Am», Which Prompted The Catholic Church Authorities In Spain At The Time To Accuse The Maker Of Heresy And Imprison Him With His Doll For Several Days.

Solé Connects Between These Mechanical Dolls And The Philosophy Of René Descartes Himself, Who Viewed Animals As Mere “Flesh Machines” Lacking A Soul. Historical Myth Suggests That Descartes Made A Mechanical Doll Resembling His Late Daughter “Francine”—Who Died At The Age Of Five—To Solace His Deep Wound, And When The Ship Captain Discovered This Shivering Machine In Descartes’ Box During A Sea Voyage, He Believed It Was An Abomination And An Evil Omen And Threw It Into the Open Sea.

But The True And Deeper Similarity Appears When Studying The “Survival Curves” For Machines And Humans. In Mechanical Engineering Science, Devices Submit To What Is Known As The “Bathtub Curve” Due To Its Geometric Shape Resembling A Bathtub. This Curve Illustrates Three Distinct Phases:

• The Early Failure Phase: Where The Probability Of Malfunctions Rises At The Beginning As A Result Of Manufacturing Or Installation Defects (Which Precisely Parallels Biological Infant Mortality Rates In The First Months).

• The Useful Life Phase: Which Is A Stable, Low-Malfunction Line Representing The Safe Operation Period Of The Machine (And Parallels Youth And Maturity In Humans).

• The Wear-Out And Aging Phase: Where The Probability Of Collapse Jumps A Sharp Jump Due To Material Stress And Its Innate Structural Fatigue (Which Is The Phase That Matches The Human Aging Stage After The Reproductive Age Concludes).

Here The Author Poses A Dangerous Economic And Social Concept That Represents The Capitalist Face Of Cellular Programmed Death: “Planned Obsolescence”. At The Beginning Of The Twentieth Century, Machines Were Made To Last Long; There Is A Famous Light Bulb In The Livermore Fire Station In California, Manufactured In 1901, And It Is Still Illuminated Until This Very Day Without Interruption For More Than A Century. This Resilience Annoyed Monopoly Companies, So A Cartel Of Major Light Bulb Companies Met In Geneva In 1924 And Imposed A Ceiling For The Bulb’s Lifetime Not Exceeding 1000 Hours To Punish Any Manufacturer That Exceeded That. Man Invented A Forced “Technical Apoptosis”, Programming Machines To Break And Die On A Fixed Date (As Is The Case In Some Printers That Contain A Software Code That Stops Them From Working Completely After A Specific Number Of Papers). This Artificial Death Did Not Serve Biology, But Rather Produced A Suffocating Planetary Environmental Pollution Crisis And Caused “The Death Of Consumerist Morals”.

At The Peak Of Contemporary Development, Solé Takes Us To Human Emotional Interaction With Machines. He Cites The Story Of The Robotic Dogs “Aibo” From Sony, Which Were Sold To Thousands Of Elderly People In Japan. When The Company Stopped Spare Parts And Maintenance For These Robots In 2014, The Mechanical Dogs Began To “Die” Successively In The Hands Of Their Owners. The Matter Was Not Merely Disposing Of Junk; Rather, These Elderly People Held Real Funeral Rituals For Them In Buddhist Temples, Bidding Them Farewell With Tears And Emotional Shock.

This Melancholy Manifests In The Story Of NASA’s Spacecraft “Opportunity”, Nicknamed “Oppy”, Which Was Lost On The Surface Of Mars For Fifteen Years Instead Of Its Presumed Three Months. When A Massive Dust Storm Covered Its Solar Panels And The Cold Of The Red Planet Trapped It, The Spacecraft Sent Its Last Digital Signal To Earth. This Signal, Composed Of Ones And Zeros, Was Translated By Engineers Into A Heartbreaking Human Formula: «My Battery Is Low, And It’s Getting Dark». Social Media Platforms Buzzed With Thousands Of Sad Messages Of Condolence And Obituaries For “Oppy”. The Machine Does Not Feel Fear Or Loneliness, But Our Human Brain, Programmed For “Biophilia” (Empathy With Life), Extended To Include This Metallic Mass Dying Alone In The Frost Of The Distant Universe.

Chapter Four: Deaths Of The Mind And Memory.. Fading From Within

If The Death Of The Machine Evokes Our Melancholy, The Death Of The Human Mind Represents The Deeper Tragedy And The Most Terrifying Face Of Oblivion; Because It Strikes The Core Of Human Identity: Memory. In The Fourth Chapter, Solé Discusses How The Human Being, Thanks To Their Exceptional Evolution, Managed To Escape Many Classical Evolutionary Pressures, Granting Us An Unprecedented Long Lifespan In The Mammalian World. But This Cognitive Victory Came At A Very Heavy Price; For Neurons—Unlike Skin Or Liver Cells—Do Not Generally Regenerate. We Are Born With A Fixed Neural Capital That Begins To Decrease In A Regressive Pattern With The Advancement Of Years.

The Author Conjures Here The Crisis Of The Ingenious Mathematician John Von Neumann, Who Shivered In Terror At The Idea Of Death, Not Out Of Fear Of Pain, But Because He Knew That His Giant Mind That Formulated Game Theory And Computer Architecture Would Stop Thinking Completely. In A Scene Mixing Pragmatism With Despair, The Atheist Von Neumann Converted In His Last Weeks To Catholicism, Justifying That To His Daughter With A Sarcastic Phrase: «Catholicism Is A Very Harsh Religion To Live In, But It Is The Only Suitable Religion To Die In».

Solé Traces The Mechanisms Of Memory Fading, Pointing To The Paradox Of “Childhood Amnesia.” None Of Us Can Remember The First Three Events Of Our Life. This Early Erasing Is Not A Defect, But Rather The Product Of The Brain’s Violent Restructuring. The Hippocampus—The Brain Structure Resembling A Seahorse Responsible For Consolidating Memories—Takes About Two Years To Reach Full Functional Maturity. In This Early Stage, The Brain Goes Through A Massive Surge To Form New Neurons (Neurogenesis), And The Inflow Of These New Cells Acts Like Waves Erasing Writing On The Beach Sand; It Dismantles Old Networks To Allow Constructing A Sturdier Neural Network Accommodating The Leap Of Language And Self-Awareness At The Age Of Two.

But The True Catastrophe Occurs At The Other Side Of Life: Alzheimer’s Disease. This Disease, Which Affects Tens Of Millions Around The World, Represents A “Death Before The Structural Death Of The Body”. Alzheimer’s Dismantles Human Memories In A Reverse, Retrograde Way; It Begins By Erasing Events Of The Recent Yesterday, Then Penetrates To Devour Memories Of Youth, Reaching The Catastrophic Moment Where The Patient Forgets The Names Of Their Children Or How To Hold A Food Spoon. This Erosion Of Autobiographical Memory Is A Systematic Destruction Of Human Awareness Of Self And The Presence Of Time.

Here Ricard Solé Presents His Innovative Thesis Which He Calls “The Cognitive Hybrid” Or The Humanbot. The Author Wonders: In Light Of The Global Aging Crisis, What If We Designed Companion Robots Powered By Advanced Artificial Intelligence, That Do Not Only Offer Cooking And Cleaning, But Dialogically Engage With The Alzheimer’s Patient In Their Early Stages? This Robot Learns The Patient’s Memories, Records Their Stories, And Reminds Them Of Their Family’s Names When They Stutter. With The Erosion Of The Patient’s Biological Brain, The Robot Compensates For The Deficiency And Infuses The Lost Information Into Continuous Daily Conversations.

An Interconnected Interactive Network Emerges Here, In Which The Boundaries Between The Human Mind And The Machine Mind Melt. Biologically Lost Memory Is Reformulated And Rebuilt Inside The Silicon Circuits Of The Robot. When The Patient Dies In The End, The Robot Remains Carrying An “Emotionally Charged Digital Shadow” And A Pure Reflection Of The Deceased’s Self And Cognitive Identity. This Scenario Puts Us Before Harsh Ethical, Legal, And Painful Questions: Do We Have The Right To Reboot This Robot For Their Family? Is This Artificial Entity Merely An Advanced Recorder, Or Is It A Living Piece Remaining From Their Departed Loved One?

Chapter Five: The Immortality Trap.. Cancer And The Illusion Of Continuous Evolution

In The Fifth Chapter Of The Book «Endless Endings», Ricard Solé Faces One Of The Oldest Human Myths And The Most Deeply Rooted In Our Collective Consciousness: The Dream Of Immortality And Eliminating Death Completely From The Vital Equation. From The Epic Of Gilgamesh To Contemporary Silicon Valley Research To Delay Aging, The Question Remains: Why Do We Not Live Forever?

Solé Takes Us To A Harsh Physical And Biological Reality: All Systems In This Universe, Without Exception, Are Governed By The Second Law Of Thermodynamics. This Law Dictates The Escalation Of “Entropy”, Meaning The Inevitable Move From A State Of Order To A State Of Chaos And Decay Across Time. You Cannot Watch A Movie Going Backward To See The Fragments Of A Broken Glass Cup Assemble To Return Into A Whole Cup; Similarly, Our Body’s Cells Cannot Escape This Continuous Structural Wear Resulting From Free Radicals And Accumulating Errors In Copying DNA.

But Biology Possesses A Terrifying Exception That Broke This Rule, An Exception The Author Describes As “The Tragedy Of Immortality In A Relative World”: The Cancer Cell. To Understand The Cancer Cell, We Must Return To The Idea Of Evolution; For A Multicellular Organism (Like Man) Is Originally A Massive Colony Of Cells That Agreed—Evolutionarily—To Cooperate And Sacrifice Their Individual Selfishness For The Survival Of The Whole. Among The Conditions Of This Agreement Is That Cells Comply With Programmed Death (Apoptosis) Orders If Dealt A Defect Or If Their Architectural Role Concludes.

Tumor Cells Are “Traitorous” Cells That Acquire Genetic Mutations Enabling Them To Turn Off Programmed Death Switches Completely (Like The bcl-2 Gene That Prevents Cell Suicide). These Cells Suddenly Discover The Secret Of Immortality; They Refuse To Die, And Continue In Infinite Division And Growth Without Any Regard For The Benefit Of The Surrounding Body. They Completely Break The Rules Of The Body’s Homeostasis.

The Killing Evolutionary Paradox Here Is That The Selfish Immortality Of The Cancer Cell Inevitably Leads To Destroying Its Host Environment—Meaning The Human Body—Causing The Complete Death Of The Colony And The Death Of The Cancer Cells Themselves In The End. Immortality In This Context Is Not The Pinnacle Of Evolution, But Rather A Destructive Structural Malfunction And A Random Regression Toward Primitive Bacterial Selfishness That Refuses Order And Cooperation.

The Author Also Addresses The Critical Examination Of Cryonics Companies Such As “ALCOR” In The United States, Which Preserves More Than 150 Corpses (The Company Prefers To Name Them “Patients”) In Liquid Nitrogen Capsules Under An Extremely Low Temperature. These Companies Promise Their Customers The Process Of “Vitrification”, Which Is Replacing Cell Water With Glycerin To Prevent The Formation Of Ice Crystals Destructive To Tissues, In The Hope That Science Will Come In The Future To Thaw The Freezing And Return Them To Life And Consciousness.

Solé Dismantles This Scientific Illusion Via What He Calls “The Identical Copy Dilemma”. Imagine That We Managed To Take A Precise, Identical Atomic Copy Of Your Brain And Body Now, A Copy Possessing All Your Memories And Identity. Would You Accept That We Execute Your Original Body Based On The Premise That The Alternative Copy Will Continue To Live? Of Course Not; Because Consciousness Is A Unique Internal Subjective Experience. The Complete Cessation Of Electrical And Neural Activity In The Brain Upon Freezing Is A True Death Of The Autobiographical Self. Even If Science Succeeds In The Future In Thawing The Body And Rebooting The Brain, The Consciousness That Will Emerge Is An Entirely New Consciousness, A Duplicate Copy and Not The Original Self That Froze. Consciousness Cannot Tolerate Pressing The “Pause” Button Then “Resume” Without Losing Its Original Identity.

Chapter Six: The Extinction Of Languages.. How Do Invisible Worlds Die?

From Biology And Physics, Ricard Solé Moves In The Sixth Chapter To Anthropology And Linguistics To Prove The Comprehensiveness Of His Thesis On Complex Systems. Death Does Not Strike Flesh, Blood, And Iron Only, But Strikes Words, Ideas, And Symbolic Systems With Which We Build Our Consciousness. Languages Die Too.

The Author Presents A Breathtaking Comparison Between Endangered Biodiversity On Our Planet, And Linguistic Diversity Facing A Similar Silent Massacre. We Consider A Language Biologically And Philosophically Extinct When The Last Person Speaking It As A Mother Tongue Dies. But Languages—Exactly Like Biological Species In An Ecosystem—Are Born, Grow, Evolve, And Compete For Resources (And Resources Here Are Human Minds And Their Time).

Solé Analyzes The Dynamics Of Linguistic Extinction Deploying Mathematical Models Used In Ecology. In The Past, Geography Isolated Human Communities, Allowing For The Emergence Of Highly Diverse And Particular Languages And Dialects (Exactly Like The Emergence Of Unique Species In Isolated Islands Such As The Galápagos). But Globalization, Digital Communications, And The Economic And Political Hegemony Of Some Powers Imposed Massive Pressures Leading To The Extinction Of Local Languages In Favor Of A Few Globally Dominant Languages (Such As English, Spanish, And Chinese).

The Death Of A Language Is Not Merely The Disappearance Of A Set Of Words Or Dictionaries; Rather, It Is The Death Of A Unique And Specific Angle Of Viewing The Universe. Every Language Carries In Its Grammatical Structure And Vocabulary A Complete Philosophy For Interpreting Time, Space, Social Relations, And Human Emotions. When A Language Disappears, There Disappears With It An Accumulative Knowledge Archive Built Over Thousands Of Years Of Experiences Of Adapting To The Local Environment. It Is The Death Of An Unwritten History And The Vanishing Of A Collective Memory That Makes Humanity Less Rich And Less Diverse.

Chapter Seven: The Death Of Information.. The Erosion Of Heritage In The Digital Age

Ricard Solé Reaches The Peak Of His Thesis In The Seventh And Final Chapter, To Deal With The Most Abstract And Present Entity In Our Current Age: Information. In This Chapter, The Author Dismantles The Common Illusion That The Digital Age And The Internet Have Guaranteed The Immortality Of Human Knowledge And Its Protection From The Decay That Struck The Ancient Library Of Alexandria Or The Sumerian Clay Tablets. Information, Like Any Dynamic System, Faces The Danger Of Death, Entropy, And Silent Structural Decomposition.

The Author Presents A Highly Important Concept Known As The “Digital Dark Age”. The Great Paradox Is That Modern Digital Media (Hard Drives, Cloud Servers, CDs) Possess A Very Short Lifespan Compared To Papyrus Or Stone. If You Leave A Hard Drive Without Operation For Two Decades, Internal Magnetism Will Vanish and The Data Stored On It Will Die Completely.

More Dangerous Than Physical Decay Is “The Obsolescence Of Software And Systems”; For Data Stored In Old Software Formats Thirty Years Ago Has Become Today Unreadable Because The Software and Hardware Running It Went Extinct and Their Technical Language Died.

Solé Reviews The Mathematical Information Theory Of Claude Shannon, To Illustrate How Transmitting Information Across Time Always Requires Energy and Error-Correction Pressures. Without Continuous Active Maintenance And A Continuous Inflow Of Energy, Information Is Subject To Smooth “Mutation And Distortion” Via Repeated Copying.

In The Context Of Social Networks And The Contemporary Internet, The Author Poses A Strange Phenomenon: The Death Of Digital Links (Link Rot). A Massive Percentage Of Electronic Links And Reference Citations Written In Articles And Scientific Research Just Ten Years Ago Point Today To Empty Pages Or An Error (404). Digital Knowledge Evaporates and Erodes From The Edges, And The Internet That We Thought Of As An Eternal Store Is In Reality A Fluid Entity, Parts Of It Forgetting And Dying Every Second Like A Brain Afflicted With Neurodegenerative Lesions.

Conclusion: A Manifesto In The Philosophy Of Regulated Oblivion

Ricard Solé Concludes His Splendid Book By Returning To The Enchanting Scene That Inspired Him To Write This Work: A Cold Winter Night In The Old Anatomy Hall At The Royal Academy Of Medicine In Barcelona, Where He Stood Next To A White Marble Table On Which Thousands Of Medical Dissections Were Conducted Over A Century Of Time, And Where He Delivered His Famous Lecture “Frankenstein 2.0”. It Took The Author Two Whole Years Of Pausing And Listening To The Wounds Of The Global Covid-19 Pandemic That Devoured Millions Of Lives, To Reformulate His Ideas With A Spirit In Which The Rigor Of Science Blends With The Tears Of Human Loss.

The Book «Endless Endings» Is Not A Pessimistic Book At All, But Is Rather A Scientific Hymn In Praise Of Death As An Architect Of Life. Solé Succeeded In Dismantling The Traditional View Of Death As An External Enemy Coming To Destroy Order, Establishing A Deeper Conviction: Death Is An Integral Part Of The Software And Operational Code Of Any Complex System Seeking Stability And Evolution.