Man As God: 'Frankenstein' Turns 200

The scientist had gone too far in his invention, "mocking" God's power by recreating life: Man as God. Shelly seems to be self-healing here, trying to let go of her daughter's loss, abandoning the hope of some science-based resuscitation. Death must be accepted as final; the creature is not truly human but a phantasm, hovering between human and god-like, all-powerful and profoundly lonely. Fast-forward 200 years, and the cutting-edge science of our time is now a combination of electricity, digital technology, and genetics. Much has changed since Galvani and Volta -- but not the hope of so many to use science to go beyond death, acquiring some sort of immortality by transcending the weakness of the flesh. Transhumanists firmly believe that science will be able to do this, and fairly soon. Possibly, through genetic manipulation and the cloning of oneself, or through a "brain dump," the transfer of your very own neuronal code into machines capable of storing it and of reigniting the synaptic connections so that you can become "pure spirit" so to speak, a digital disembodied creature, transferable from machine to machine like a piece of software: a modern version of the Resurrection.