I take Bernard Williams to make a disjunctive argument - *either* one would get bored, *or* one would change so much over the centuries that one isn’t really the same person any more, so it’s not true immortality. I suspect something like the second is right, but I don’t think that’s such a problem. There are already plenty of ways that I’m not the same person that I was as a ten year old, but that’s fine. None of the persons that have shared this body ever had to go through the pain of dying, or have their plans for the next five years interrupted by death. And it would be great if none of the future continuants do either, even if none of them ever get to see through a 400 year plan to completion either.
Arguments on the other side (eg, Bernard Williams) have always struck me as pure cope. Do whatever you gotta do to reconcile yourself to mortality, I guess.
Fascinating reflection, whose tentative conclusion I interpreted as partly written tongue in cheek. Am I wrong? Since I'm about your same age (a year older, I believe, but who's counting?), I too have been thinking about this question, but landing pretty clearly on the side of being glad I won't be around forever. To the extent I've thought about it in any rigorous way, I'm trying to be "realistic" (a word that sounds odd in this context.) What would life "really" be like if you lived forever? Would you get to choose the self in time that becomes eternal; i.e., eternal youth and vibrancy and curiosity, with its sense of energy and newness and discovery? I assume you wouldn't choose life as a Struldbrug, the immortal race that Gulliver discovers on the island of Luggnag, who live forever as decrepit elderly people? But speaking realistically, would you get to choose?
In the final decade of his career in medical science, my father turned to the study of aging (true to family values, before there was any money in it). Some years before he died at what retrospectively seems the young age of 71, he edited a book on the ethics of life-span extension. By far the best essay in it was by the philosopher @Peter Singer, who weighs in on the question with a predictably brilliant thought experiment that breaks the question into three parts--is it good for 1) individuals alive today; 2) individuals yet to be born; and 3) the species. To cut to the chase, he dismisses species as not having interests and argues that current individuals have a clear interest in extending their lifespans as long as they remain more or less able to enjoy it. The impact on future individuals is what tips the scales for Singer in the other direction, however.
Several years ago, I reached out to Singer with a quibble. Was he so sure about individuals alive today? (For the purposes of transparency, i had just watched my mother, a wonderfully vibrant person, spend her final 5+ years in a memory care facility descending ever-deeper into dementia. She finally died, thank god, at 94). To my surprise, Singer responded and said yes, reaffirming the point that it had to be under pretty good circumstances. I'll conclude by saying there is such a thing as being "condemned to life". I have seen it from afar, and hope it doesn't happen to me. Besides that, the point about future individuals is germane. Imagine a tree, not an evergreen, that doesn't shed its leaves, with the withering ones on the branches blocking the young fresh ones from bursting forth anew upon the world. Human progress is fueled by youth; eternal life, realistically speaking, would block progress at the root. My two cents on an important topic.
I think my horror at the prospect of immortality broadly falls under your second category: mortality makes our lives finite, creating the situation whereby you can only hope to accomplish or experience a handful of the useful, interesting or pleasurable things there potentially are to do in the world, and you engage in life by making choices under this constraint – choices that only have any stakes at all because you can't just do everything. For an immortal the answer to the question "should I do X or Y?", provided that they were both justifiable ways to spend one's time in other senses, would always be "who cares? there's always tomorrow."
I guess it's the same as, or analogous to, the argument that preciousness requires scarcity?
I did not realize until the footnote that your premise is that only YOU are going to be immortal (or only ME, which sounds even better). In that case, I suppose one other counter argument is that you are accumulating the regrets and sadnesses of multiple lifetimes. All your friends and lovers will die, and you won't. Of course it's also true that the hedonic treadmill probably means that pretty quickly you won't feel so bad, plus you have infinite do-overs. Just wondering...
Lets assume that the Flynn effect is a persistent phenomenon and continues for centuries in to the future. Do you really want to live in a world where you would be considered a simple 21st century savage :-)
I'm surprised that the argument of sorrow was not there. Not only will everyone you love die but you will also fear attaching to people since they keep dying.
Immortality sounds like a high class problem. Sure there are all the arguments against, boredom, lassitude yada yada.
But
There is so much to do and learn it could take a 1,000 years. The books, movies, music, nature, learning about, well everything. The ability to have more ex-wives. I am not in a rush.
I take Bernard Williams to make a disjunctive argument - *either* one would get bored, *or* one would change so much over the centuries that one isn’t really the same person any more, so it’s not true immortality. I suspect something like the second is right, but I don’t think that’s such a problem. There are already plenty of ways that I’m not the same person that I was as a ten year old, but that’s fine. None of the persons that have shared this body ever had to go through the pain of dying, or have their plans for the next five years interrupted by death. And it would be great if none of the future continuants do either, even if none of them ever get to see through a 400 year plan to completion either.
Arguments on the other side (eg, Bernard Williams) have always struck me as pure cope. Do whatever you gotta do to reconcile yourself to mortality, I guess.
Fascinating reflection, whose tentative conclusion I interpreted as partly written tongue in cheek. Am I wrong? Since I'm about your same age (a year older, I believe, but who's counting?), I too have been thinking about this question, but landing pretty clearly on the side of being glad I won't be around forever. To the extent I've thought about it in any rigorous way, I'm trying to be "realistic" (a word that sounds odd in this context.) What would life "really" be like if you lived forever? Would you get to choose the self in time that becomes eternal; i.e., eternal youth and vibrancy and curiosity, with its sense of energy and newness and discovery? I assume you wouldn't choose life as a Struldbrug, the immortal race that Gulliver discovers on the island of Luggnag, who live forever as decrepit elderly people? But speaking realistically, would you get to choose?
In the final decade of his career in medical science, my father turned to the study of aging (true to family values, before there was any money in it). Some years before he died at what retrospectively seems the young age of 71, he edited a book on the ethics of life-span extension. By far the best essay in it was by the philosopher @Peter Singer, who weighs in on the question with a predictably brilliant thought experiment that breaks the question into three parts--is it good for 1) individuals alive today; 2) individuals yet to be born; and 3) the species. To cut to the chase, he dismisses species as not having interests and argues that current individuals have a clear interest in extending their lifespans as long as they remain more or less able to enjoy it. The impact on future individuals is what tips the scales for Singer in the other direction, however.
Several years ago, I reached out to Singer with a quibble. Was he so sure about individuals alive today? (For the purposes of transparency, i had just watched my mother, a wonderfully vibrant person, spend her final 5+ years in a memory care facility descending ever-deeper into dementia. She finally died, thank god, at 94). To my surprise, Singer responded and said yes, reaffirming the point that it had to be under pretty good circumstances. I'll conclude by saying there is such a thing as being "condemned to life". I have seen it from afar, and hope it doesn't happen to me. Besides that, the point about future individuals is germane. Imagine a tree, not an evergreen, that doesn't shed its leaves, with the withering ones on the branches blocking the young fresh ones from bursting forth anew upon the world. Human progress is fueled by youth; eternal life, realistically speaking, would block progress at the root. My two cents on an important topic.
I think my horror at the prospect of immortality broadly falls under your second category: mortality makes our lives finite, creating the situation whereby you can only hope to accomplish or experience a handful of the useful, interesting or pleasurable things there potentially are to do in the world, and you engage in life by making choices under this constraint – choices that only have any stakes at all because you can't just do everything. For an immortal the answer to the question "should I do X or Y?", provided that they were both justifiable ways to spend one's time in other senses, would always be "who cares? there's always tomorrow."
I guess it's the same as, or analogous to, the argument that preciousness requires scarcity?
I did not realize until the footnote that your premise is that only YOU are going to be immortal (or only ME, which sounds even better). In that case, I suppose one other counter argument is that you are accumulating the regrets and sadnesses of multiple lifetimes. All your friends and lovers will die, and you won't. Of course it's also true that the hedonic treadmill probably means that pretty quickly you won't feel so bad, plus you have infinite do-overs. Just wondering...
Lets assume that the Flynn effect is a persistent phenomenon and continues for centuries in to the future. Do you really want to live in a world where you would be considered a simple 21st century savage :-)
May be of interest
https://aeon.co/essays/theres-a-big-problem-with-immortality-it-goes-on-and-on
I'm surprised that the argument of sorrow was not there. Not only will everyone you love die but you will also fear attaching to people since they keep dying.
Maybe I missed it?
Immortality sounds like a high class problem. Sure there are all the arguments against, boredom, lassitude yada yada.
But
There is so much to do and learn it could take a 1,000 years. The books, movies, music, nature, learning about, well everything. The ability to have more ex-wives. I am not in a rush.
If
have health and marbles.
Great song choice.