The pursuit of immortality drove major scientific and technological advances

Evidence

WE HUMANS HAVE BEEN in dedicated pursuit of literal immortality since the birth of our species. Even if unsuccessful, such efforts have contributed mightily to human progress, technological development, and scientific discovery. Sophisticated mathematics began in ancient Greece, when Pythagoras attempted to find invariant aspects of life to confirm his belief that souls migrate from one body to another after death. The engineering skills necessary to construct the enormous stone pillars at Göbekli Tepe and the remarkable pyramids of Egypt were developed for religious purposes surrounding death. The search for a fountain of youth inspired epic treks to foreign lands and voyages across distant seas, leading to accurate accounts of the earth’s geography. Chemistry and physics sprang from the alchemists’ rigorous observation and measurement of metallic reactions; their experiments led to techniques for purifying water, producing modern drugs, and synthesizing plastics. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 391

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Demonstrates the same death-anxiety-begets-achievement mechanism that underlies construction in the sacrifice article: great works erected from mortuary motives.
• XREF: Connects to the Göbekli Tepe stone pillars, which resonate with the monumental-construction themes of the sacrifice article and of ritual sites generally. — connects to: Speed is modernity’s secular stand-in for eternal life — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 490

Related

• Humans pursue symbolic immortality through works, namesakes, and progeny (similarity 0.79)