Robert Lanza and his biocentrism - the bright side of death

Robert Lanza must be one hell of a great scientist in his domain, which, if I understand it correctly, is stem cell research. According to his site (that is, to my taste, a bit too heavy on self-aggrandizement) he is up there with toughest and greatest in modern biology, and more power to him.

However, in addition to his day job, Dr Lanza appears to have a hobby, and he has given this hobby a name: biocentrism. Dr Lanza has written a book with that title, but I am not planning to buy it, the linked article was enough for now. So what is in the article?

A curios mixture of good ole solipsism, some pretty muddled other philosophies, some heavily mangled physics and a lot of words stringed together to resemble a serious attempt at a popular science article. The learned author is not missing anything fashionable in the way of catchy buzzwords, like parallel universes, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (the poor man's sleep is certainly being unduly disturbed), quantum reality etc etc.

And the goal is to explain that "death may not be the terminal event we think". And that "Immortality doesn’t mean a perpetual existence in time, but resides outside of time altogether." You figure out what that means. And if you are, like I, a crusty, obstinate cynic that dares to demand proof for every scientific and (especially) for every quasi-scientific statement, your answer will be something like "Life has a non-linear dimensionality – it’s like a perennial flower that returns to bloom in the multiverse." Poetry where common sense doesn't work is a good line of defense.

Dr Lanza seems to have stumbled (consciously or not) upon the idea exploited with such success by all organized religions: a thinly veiled promise of (de-facto) eternal life, a promise that will be swallowed by many, without asking a whole lot of inconvenient questions. After all, what crusty, obstinate cynic wouldn't like to know that, while his used and abused body is attended by worms in this universe, he/she is attending to an appropriately chilled stein of beer in many other universes?  

Anyway, why a scientist of this (apparently) caliber will even attempt such an underhanded enterprise, filling the readers' minds with such trash is beyond me.

Oh well, I shall better go with that (truly eternal) one:



Now another interesting question is: why does Indie publish an article on that buffoonery in its "Science" rubric?

P.S. And, in the interest of scientific impartiality: of course, I could be terribly wrong, and if I am, believe me, even from another universe, I'll let you know. And you can take this promise to the bank.