My struggle with immortality
Last weekend I was challenged to an idea: wouldn't it be great to live forever? The argument goes: if and when we discover the cure to aging and can live naturally protracted (if not infinite) lives, this will be heralded as a great thing given that nobody really wants to die. I couldn't explain why my gut reaction was one of mild repulsion and discomfort, so I spent the week trying to unravel why I felt this way. And it threw me, quite unsurprisingly, back into the familiar lap of a crisis of meaning. So here follows my arguments with myself - a short philosophical foreplay - on the subject. Let's first acknowledge that there are a lot of practical issues to overcome. Obviously it's not a gift that would be evenly distributed, and likely to benefit the rich and privileged. Plus there are some people out there whom the rest of us would not want around forever (mean dictators etc.) However, life is not fair to begin with and this doesn...