Request for Proposals

III. Research Questions

Our Big Questions, again, are: (1)“What does it mean to enhance life, including spiritual life?” (2)Correlatively, what are the “spiritual laws” for the strategies, social mechanisms, and technologies that enable us to enhance life in its many dimensions and in measurable ways?”

As mentioned above, The Enhancing Life Project explores several key assumptions that open up a large conceptual space for research. The following research questions are not exclusive, but provide some orientation and can guide the research topics in distinct areas of inquiry:

1. What are the forms of life in which the enhancement of life takes place?

2. What are the key aspirations, forces, and values that propel the enhancing of life?

3. What is the conceptual and empirical place of “the future” in enhancing life?

4. What types of “counter-worlds” challenge life in order to be enhanced?

5. What are the implied models of change in human attempts to enhance life?

6. What are the religious, cultural, and social resources used in order to imagine and plan the enhancement of life?

7. What are the various agents (persons, institutions, etc.) who facilitate the enhancing of life?

8. How do the various forms of life in which the enhancement of life takes place interact with each other?

9. To what extend is enhancing life connected to seemingly counterintuitive or even paradoxical laws, such as enhancing this life by enhancing a “counter-worldly” life, or by giving away life to enhance life?

10. What are our cultural, social, and religious resources to measure and assess the enhancement of life?