The above graph displays the frequency of each response to the question “Would you like to live forever?”
The above graph displays the amount of times that reoccurring concerns emerged about an infinite life.
When questioning the role death plays in our search for meaning, it is important to consider the finite nature of our lives. By asking the question “Would you like to live forever,” we can begin to assess precisely what we value in life and whether not living forever would be beneficial for us.
The top three themes that were present in the survey responses are
- An eternal life would have to lack pain and suffering to be desirable.
- An eternal life on Earth would not be satisfactory. An eternal life in some sort of heaven or other afterlife would be desirable.
- An eternal life in which you are the only immortal person would be a bad and lonely life. There must be other people who experience the same condition for immortality to be desirable.
Knowing that these three responses were of the most concern to those that took the survey, we will examine these concerns more in depth.
Lack of Pain and Suffering
Can You Get Paid for Pain and Suffering in Florida Car or Truck Crash?
This logic is similar to that of the deprivation account, which is mentioned in Chapter 11 of Shelly Kagan’s book Death. The Chapter is solely focused on the concept of immortality and whether or not it would be good for humans to live forever. The deprivation account states that death is bad when it prevents you from experiencing any potential future good things that you would have experienced if you had lived instead. This logic can be applied to an imaginary scenario in which one is hit by a truck and dies. We say that death is bad in this case because that person was “robbed,” so to speak, of the opportunity of experiencing other good things if they were still alive. The deprivation account still holds true if we imagine an elderly person who dies of natural causes. We might say they lived a good life; however, we still mourn their loss because they could have experienced more good things if they were still alive.
It seems that by following this logic, it is implied that death will always be bad and that immortality might be the best thing for humanity. This is not necessarily the case. Imagine that life itself, like any other enjoyable thing (music, film, food, travel) might be good only in certain quantities. After listening to music for so long or eating so much candy, we begin to become dissatisfied with the experience. If we imagine life itself in this fashion, there would eventually come a point at which we would become a dissatisfying experience. If such a point were ever to occur, the deprivation account would then imply that death would be a good thing, since life is no longer desirable.
As expressed in the results, several people had qualms about the notion of immortality because the terms and conditions are unclear. The most common result is that people would not want to be immortal if that life included pain and suffering (presumably caused by old age). Their concerns express some of the same concerns from the deprivation account.
A Need for an Afterlife or Heaven
http://ipost.christianpost.com/post/what-is-heaven-like-is-there-animals-will-we-know-more-it-will-tell-you
Tied in second place for the most common response to the question of an eternal life is the notion that an eternal life in some sort of afterlife or heaven is the most attractive version of immortality. The vast majority of those who expressed interest in this type of immortal life often referenced the Judeo-Christian God’s plan, claiming that they live to serve him and will spend eternity with the creator. In this notion of immortality, the worries of the pain and suffering are most often addressed by establishing that there will be none in this afterlife or heaven. The data from the survey shows that several people have qualms about immortality if the conditions are unclear. We want an immortal life to be a pleasant and enjoyable one, considering it is… well, forever! By choosing an afterlife or heaven as the means of immortality, it is promised that the life will be a pleasant and enjoyable one, spent with lost loved ones and the Creator.
Kagan has a problem with this notion of immortality. He acknowledges that the most desirable immortality imaginable is some sort of heaven or afterlife. His problem with spending eternity in heaven is that the conditions of heavenly activities are rather vague. He believes that further inspection of this type of immortality reveals it to be just as undesirable as any other type of immortality. He believes that any type of immortality is undesirable because any life would eventually become “excruciatingly unpleasant” after so long. He furthers his claim by stating that there is no type of activity, from playing sports to singing psalms at services, which he would want to engage or participate in for eternity. He believes that the concept of eternity is too easily underestimated; that dissatisfaction with existing is inevitable, if one lives long enough.
Solo vs. Group Immortality
http://newamericamedia.org/2012/04/perils-and-pleasures-of-living-alone-in-india.php
The third most popular response to the question of an eternal life is the question “Would anyone else be immortal too?” While there wasn’t any individual author or article we read that specifically discussed this issue, it has been discussed in an indirect way. Samuel Scheffler wrote an article for The New York Times entitled The Importance of the Afterlife. Seriously. In this article, he claims that it is generally assumed that humanity will continue on for a while after our own individual deaths. He says that if we somehow knew that humanity would cease to exist soon after or before your death, we might lose motivation to accomplish certain tasks in our lives such as work, parenting, or studying. He believes it is important to notice that there is a distinction between this loss of purpose with the knowledge of the death of humanity and the knowledge of our own deaths. We don’t lose purpose in our lives by acknowledging that we will die; however, if we knew that humanity itself would soon die, we might lose the will to continue leading our normal lives. This thought experiment is the basis for the Doomsday Scenario, a hypothesis of how people would react upon learning that humanity would soon be extinct.
This thought experiment allows us to recognize the importance that others have in providing a sense of purpose or meaning to our lives. Humans are social creatures by nature, and as such we highly value connection with those around us. Those who expressed worry in the survey about being the only immortal person seem to express similar concerns to what was brought up within class discussions. Several of us in the class believed that being the only immortal person in a mortal population would be highly undesirable. Something just seems wrong about the only one to experience something. Most people said they would hate losing their loved ones so frequently, and might eventually get to a point where they no longer form relationships to avoid the pain associated with losing someone to death. People do not want to live a life in which their social capacities are obstructed, including an immortal life.
Conclusion
The responses to this survey were an excellent way to provide some points of view that might have been absent in our class. Several concerns with an immortal life were common both in the survey and within our classroom. The idea of heaven being the most desirable form was much more frequent in the survey than in the classroom. Within both the classroom and the survey, there appeared to be a strong hesitance to give a direct answer as to whether or not they would enjoy being immortal. This might be because the concept of immortality is too abstract and does not provide concrete conditions of what an immortal life would entail. Hopefully by discussing immortality more in depth, it helps each individual gain insight on whether or not they believe immortality would be desirable.