Michael E. Gruen

If resurrection becomes permissible, would reanimating legends diminish their utility?

Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, Ben Franklin, and other pioneers all had measurable impact in our world. Their contributions continue to resonate through time; but, if we had the power to bring them back, I’m skeptical that their intellectual currency kept pace with inflation—perhaps they work best in our memory.

Let’s draw an example:

It’s often said by baseball pundits that Babe Ruth, arguably the best player of all time, couldn’t hold a candle to modern major leaguers. They argue that these days, it’s hard to fathom him edging-out stars who’ve been trained in highly-competitive talent development leagues since diapers.

If Babe Ruth—The Great Bambino—were to miraculously return to baseball, we’d be risking what he means to baseball, possibly tainting what he is to so many people. (Just ask any three-year-old who the best baseball player of all time is.)

In this way, Babe’s most useful as an ideal, not as a player.

Reanimating the thinkers and doers first mentioned in this entry could have a similar effect: it’s not that restoring Albert Einstein wouldn’t be beneficial to science and mankind; it’s that in all likelihood, he’s no smarter or able than modern scientists who have followed in his footsteps.

A living Einstein couldn’t possibly create the edifice as a dead one could; much less could he meet demand for his time. Likely, his active involvement in the scientific community would be lackluster compared with the great expectations for him; and, likely, he’d on-par with the rest of the active community.

Like Babe, Einstein’s most useful as an ideal, not as a player. To further the risk, if Einstein proved not to be a modern-day Einstein, his reanimation could detract from his story.

Perhaps this is true for living legends as well.

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Though, as an afterthought, a postmortem comeback to the top would be an impressive feat, one that would create a new benchmark for legend; but, we do need to recognize the possible (and likely) deleterious effects associated with returning the idea of a specific person—an idealistic person—into human form. Having it be a net benefit would be a long-shot, one pragmatism should prohibit in almost all circumstances.

I don’t think human beings are capable of original thought.

In essence, the brain is a pattern machine. Thoughts and ideas are stored in neurons in the cerebral cortex as a nest of patterns, patterns established on physical limitations (the body) and on the environment. Emotion, circumstance, and social interaction help dictate the patterns the brain understands and values—and only that follows.

I’m not meaning to say we don’t think. (Or, at least I think we think.) What we call thought is (I think) our brains’ attempt to pattern-match our lifetimes’ worth of experiences onto whatever problem, circumstance, or question confronts us. Racking our own brains, we turn to research and randomness.

By way of example, recall Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the scene where primates discovered tool use by bludgeoning skulls with a loose femur. The act of banging was behavioral, its proximity to skulls coincidental, and thus its use random. Skulls, the primates knew, once belonged to live animals, and thus they concluded: the femur could be used against other primates. A novel idea, translated from random happenstance.

Similarly, the major leaps of man are random acts of pattern discovery: patterns observed, learned, and translated into other situations. In this sense, original thought is nothing more than discovery and translational application.

This is also not to say humans are incapable of complex thought, quantum leaps, or extraordinary thinking—I’m only suggesting that those leaps and complexities are based on a systems that we know or that we happened upon: our imaginations are limited to our experiences and the patterns we innately understand on circumstance of being human.

Consciousness is our gift. Pure creation is not. (Insert your preferred dogmatic implications here.)

Which, if I’m right, is rather frustrating… if I’m right, I never really came up with this idea—it just happened upon me.