Eternity, worse than death?

One in three children born that year is expected to live enough to reach the three-digit number. Should you get another wish when you reach 105? A recent study shows that every year after 100 years of age, the chances of living longer are 50 to 50, higher than 80. If she turns 123, she breaks the world record set by a French woman who died in 1997.

For many others, it is not enough. Independent scientists like Aubrey de Grey are trying to find a <x0... when they're going to be degenerating the body by age, while transhumanists want to completely avoid the problem of aging their bodies by moving their minds to something longer lasting, like virtual reality.

It has long become fashionable for such desires to be viewed as naive nonsense. Humans are mortal creatures. Wise ones embrace this concept as well as the idea of imminent death. For these wise souls, longevity is a curse disguised as a gift. The film “The Brave string”, by Wem Wenders, shows how angels got tired of their endless lives and longed to be mortal. The Mackropolos” affair of Karel Chapek, adapted to opera by Janachek, speaks of a woman who discovers the magic medicine of eternity, and is bored to death after only 300 years.

Realists realize that the nature of human experience is that of contemporaryness. This is best explained in the Japanese concept <x0mono novare”, often translated as “patos of things”, the feeling that any experience, even the most amazing, is painted by the sadness that it will not last. Being responsible does not diminish happiness during experience, but it adds.

For example, I remember seeing Leonard Cohen on what turned out to be his last tour. Both he and the public knew this could be the last time he was on the scene. This gave the concert an emotional depth, making it very touching and memorable. But would we have gone to the concert if we knew that it would continue to live until 2100 and beyond?

When we desire endless life, we deny the temporary nature of all that is around us, especially of ourselves. To imagine eternal life, you must assume that we are creatures of endless succession. But contemporary philosophers, neurosurgeons, psychologists, and early Buddhists all agree that each person's me - is is in a constant flow that lacks the essence needed to be unstable and permanent. In short, there is nothing that will survive forever.

Take this thought seriously, and you'll see how the idea of living forever is not logical. If your body can continue to endure thousands of years, how can it continue to exist at that time? It would be more like your successor, not a continuation of you. Sometimes I find it hard to identify myself with my teenager, and it's only 40 years ago. If I change, I become someone else. If I don't change, life gets stuck and gets lost.

Even if we survive for hundreds of years, focusing on the future increases the risk of neglecting the present. It's a real feeling we only exist in here and now. To be completely alive, the present must be as complete as possible. Dreams of eternity conflict with the realities of temporary life.

No matter how accurate the arguments are against immortality, most people are unlikely to be convinced and reassured by these seemingly wise thoughts. Just as belief in life after death helps us to free our minds from the sting of death, so it helps to convince that it is not so stingy after all.

Aristotle was very sensitive. He rejected Plato's arguments and Stoicism that death was nothing to be viewed with repentance. The better we live our life, the more we will be stressed by the thought of death. When you value life as something worthwhile to live for, you feel what a great loss it is when the end comes. Living forever can be a terrible fate, but living longer than that, and in good health, it looks like something wonderful.

One thing is to accept mortality as a necessary part of our existence as a physical being, living at a certain time. But it is another matter to see death in romance or to think that it is not bad. Immortality can be a stupid idea, but living longer than that doesn't look like that. So my attitude toward death is similar to that of Augustus toward purity of virginity. Yes, I want to be mortal, but please... not now.

Julian Baggins, British philosopher, The Guardian