Eternal life, no thank you!

Comment published in New York Times online, reply to: “The men who want to live forever,” by Dara Horn, January 25, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/opinion/sunday/silicon-valley-immortality.html?comments (2 “recommend”):

It could be that the real question is not could we live forever and never die, but could re really want to? Would a life make sense on such terms? 

The fact that we will have to die gives a life a definite character, a sense of urgency, and a measure against which to evaluate what we do and do not do. Without death we might feel only pleasure and pain and not find that what we do has meaning or value. It would be a world without any necessity. In such a world, would anyone really care about anything? It would also be a world in which time as we know it would not exist. I suspect that such a world would be one with no passion, poetry, or love. A life that has no end would simply seem to go on and on meaninglessly. The joy of investing oneself in things that matter would be missed if it were remembered. 

What we need to understand is what these fantasies, whether projected onto the hopes of science or the myths of religion, really mean to us. (And why narcissistic rich men would invest in them--thinking of course mostly just of themselves).