Life Eternal

Who wants to live forever? I've thought about this on several occasions in my life, as I'm sure we all have, or will do sooner or later. For much of my youth I've had this conviction that life is essentially a cruel joke; being infected with an undying love for everything science fiction and fantasy at a young age, I always cursed who- or whatever is responsible for putting mankind in this universe for the ridiculously short lifespans we were given.

_{Image by Peter-Lomas - source: Pixabay}

I will never see the first fully immersive virtual reality machine; I'll never know what it is to experience a virtual world so real that there's a real danger of getting lost in there forever. I'll never know if we're not living in such a virtual reality right now. I'll never see humans settle on yet another planet, maybe even in another galaxy. I've never seen a dinosaur and I missed the Dark Ages altogether; it would have been great to meet someone from that time...

See what I'm getting at? Life is so terribly short; measured against any timescale a single human life is meaningless, we each get to experience so very little of the total human experience, and as a young man I thought this must be a cruel joke. I mean, we've done so many wonderful things and we're sure to go on and do even greater things... Young me didn't understand, didn't want to understand maybe. But I'm older now, I understand more now, and I would never want to live forever.

Not because I've suddenly lost interest in seeing mankind grow up to become the interstellar settlers I know we will become, if we don't kill ourselves first. I now see that our mortality is exactly what makes life worth living at all. It's what gives us a sense of urgency, makes us want to feel alive and accomplish things in the time we've been given. I even believe that IF we manage to conquer death, this might very well be the end of our evolution, as we would lose all sense of urgency; why do something today when we literally have all the time in the universe? Neil deGrasse Tyson said it well a few years ago in a Larry King interview:

_{Neil deGrasse Tyson: I Don't Fear Death | Larry King Now}

Having life eternal sounds good on the surface, but when you think about it, it also sounds unnatural; nothing in nature lives forever, dying is essential to life. If something cannot die, is it then alive in the first place? These special creatures are called zombies I believe... Or AI robots. But not alive. That's why we must know for sure that we'll die some day; it's what makes us feel alive in the first place. Without bad there's no good and without death there's no life. But still, I would like so much to know where this grand experiment of our species will go... So I brought you the next best thing. Beneath is a wonderful video from the Pursuit of Wonder YouTube channel; I can wholeheartedly recommend ALL their videos as they're all small pearls of wisdom. This one, "The Beginning & End of Humanity" touches on immortality, eternity and the meaning of life:

_{The Beginning & End of Humanity}

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