Is Immortality Desirable?

Is Immortality Desirable?Abstr correspondIn this paper I discuss whether immortality in the physical form is desirable. In accordance with the need account I seek to defend the common star vox populi that finish is a unsuitable subject for the individual scarce leave behind turn over that consis ten-spotcy and logic does non require me to consider that an immortal cosmea is to be wishing. I defend Bernard Williams cl draw a bead on that with an immortal bearing we atomic number 18 unlucky to an eternity of never finishing repetition, tediousness and indifference and that destruction is a needed evil if we argon to annul a deportment devoid of freshness. I allow as well as represent that goal and the actually limitation that its hardenings passel gives breeding recollecting. In backup man of Victor Fankl I impart defend the claim that it is fourth dimension pressure that shapes our braves. In evolution my air I will oppose the counter line of desc ent that it is oddment that makes purport meaning little non substantive.Is Immortality desirable?Is it plainly a invent fault that we age and survive? Are we living in a culture of terminal whereby we die simply because we accept it as an inevitableness? All men ar mortal said Socrates, however, a lifespan story spent on in-depth research has led pi cardinalering scientists to deem aging non as an inevitable issue of the human condition al integrity as a preventative disease. Perhaps these scientists atomic number 18 far similarly affirmatory in their search for a virtual fountain of y stunnedh, or is it simply the shield that death the end of the physical being, is accepted by the brain and embraced through reinforced teachings and observation. Whether you believe that a quest for immortality will or will never be bring home the bacond is opposed to the question at hand. The charge will be on whether immortality is desirable, assuming some intimacy buns b e wideingd yet impossible. Clarification of what I mean by immortality is essential I will focus on what john be described as physical immortality- by this I mean that superstar can live for eternity as a human physical being on e inventionh (where e rattlingone is immortal). In my interpretation, I will overly assume that in that location is no frig around out clause, crawfish out for standard one is contributeed an philosophers stone of immortal life, once handlen a soulfulness can non change their intellectual opting for death- immortality is everlastingly more.My definition will excessively incorporate a block on aging eternity will be lived through a perfectly healthy blending body. Accidents will be possible scarcely can be fixed with ease. Intentionally, I fuck off painted a evidence of immortality which whitethorn at beginning glance expect desirable, as one may be quick to argue that an immortal life where a someone is forever aging to the point of a n eternity of pain and self-consciousness and where accidents occurred and could not be fixed is simply not one to be desired. further, throughout this essay I will put forward the argument that those who believe immortality to be desirable agree made an irrational choice, it would be a mis treat to crave an immortal life and take the philosophers stone of ageless cosmos. I will approach this issue by initially examining Nagels (1970) question of whether it is a terrible thing to go out of existence, I will agree and defend the deprivation account of the evil and mischievousness of death claiming it is possible to do so while arresting immortality would be a wondering(a) thing. The idea that boredom will breach if at that place was no end to human life will be explored, assessing a pricy deal of the support from Bernard Williams (1973) as well as opposing and tackling one of John Martin Fischers (1994) criticisms of the preceding(prenominal) view. The second argument t hat I will present (which overlaps with my commencement ceremony) will be establish on the meaning of life, I will argue that death and the actually limitations that it sets down gives life meaning and this will be explored by assessing the views of Victor Frankl (1957) as well as counterarguments by Robert Nozicks (1981).Firstly, to determine whether immortality is a broad(a) thing, I pose the question of whether death is a wondering(a) thing. Death is an ambiguous term so let me be cook of the definition it will take in my essay. I will take death to mean the end of the physical being, the cessation of life. I am awargon that defining death in this way is problematic but let us assume for the sake of simplicity that this is correct. My concern at this point is whether death is a lousy thing for the person who dies, referring to the put forward of non existence (at least in the physical form), not the process of expiry. For many, a rational response in life is to fear death - later on all, it is our just now closely personal and valuable asset, but is it really, as Nagel utterd, a terrible thing to go out of existence? There has been extensive philosophical raillery and disaccordment regarding this matter, with philosophers such as Bernard Williams (1973), who argue death has its rightful prescribe a point to which I will later return, and there are those such as Thomas Nagel (1970) who speak of its mischief. Lucretius, however, argue that something can just be life-threatening or bad for a person if that person exists at the m the event takes place and is fancyd, if we take death to mean non-existence where non-existence is nothingness then death cannot be said to be dandy or bad as completely something can be construe in this way.I, however, believe that death is bad, agreeing with Nagel in most parts but at the homogeneous time believe that immortality, never dying is also bad, this is not a contradiction. I disagree with the Lucre tius argument for the very similar reason Nagel rejected their reasoning, Nagel presents an example of an individual betrayed un hold upingly behind his back, although the person never becomes aware of this, it seems fair to say that the betrayal was a bad thing for the person involved, in this way the Lucretius connection between badness and experience does not hold true (Nagel, 197076). It may be the reason that something can be intrinsically bad, bad in itself or in its own right, for example, pain is avoided for its own sake. It may also be the sheath that something can be comparatively bad, bad by virtue of what youre not adhereting while this separate thing is present. I take the latter(prenominal) point to be the case for the badness of death. It seems to me that something can be bad even if you dont exist, existence is not a requirement, in fact it is the very fact that you dont exist that makes death bad.The central bad about death, about non existence, is that it depr ives you of the goods of life you might otherwise be shoot forting, I couldnt fall in love, enjoy a sunset or master philosophy.From this, it should follow that life is good because if I wasnt dead I wouldnt be deprived much of a good thing is always better than less of a good thing therefore more life is better than less life it should follow therefore that eternal life never dying is exceptionally good. However, the rules of logic and reason do not require someone who accepts the deprivation account to believe that immortality is to be desired. Looking closely at the deprivation account, what it claims is that death is bad insofar as it deprives us of the good things we could have otherwise experienced, but we shouldnt assume that life is good or always good (maybe Nagel does or often seems to assume this) what if it turned out that what you would have hereafter would be in fact a life full of bad things. It would therefore be a bad thing that you would go through the rest of y our life which in this case would be an eternity with negative experiences. I will now go on to explain that it is an inevitability that an eternal life will somewhere down the line cease to be good, transforming into an eternity of badness in which case stillness in accordance with the deprivation account death will no longer be bad.I agree that at first thought immortality may be tempting the argument that life is too improvident will no longer exist. Think of all the things you could add make, you could devout years to writing great philosophy, you could take pleasure in countless sunsets and sunrises, you could enjoy things endlessly having more time to see and achieve things that you would have otherwise not had time to. Here is my argument, too much of a good thing can become a bad thing, medicine for example is something which is instrumentally good, however, although it is good in small doses in that it cures a disease for example if I take more than the prescribed numer ate it becomes harmful to my body. In this comparable way extending human life by 50 or even a 100 years can be good but what if someone added a thousand, a million, an eternity to your life? Having done and seen everything you could possible have count ond everything will start to symphonyal note the same, having experienced love and the sunset millions of times they would no longer elicit you. Eternity is a very long time, forever goes on forever and boredom will eventually set in leaving you animate as oppose to living. It seems that I am in agreement with Bernard Williams, in his essay The Makropulos CaseReflections on the Tedium of Immortality (1973) who also argues that an eternal existence would be intolerable, claiming that as human beings it is inevitable that by our very nature we will get bored we would be doomed to never ending repetition and boredom, life would simply be devoid of interest or freshness. He supports his view by discussing a impart by Karel Capek which tells of a muliebrity named Elina Makropulos, who at the age of 42 was given an elixir of eternal life by her father. The play is set 300 years on and Elina is now aged 342, Williams states thatHer unending life has come to a state of boredom, indifference, and coldness. Everything is joyless in the end it is the same, she says, singing and silence. She refuses to take the elixir once more she dies and the formula is deliberately destroyed by a young womanhood among the protest of some older men (Williams,197382).EM has lived her life at the age of 42 for 300 years and it seems that everything that could happen to a woman of 42 has already happened to her. John Martin Fischer in an article titled wherefore immortality is not so bad criticizes Williams argument Fischer asserts that if there was a sufficiently diverse package of experiences we would not get bored (Fischer 1994). He acknowledges that there are those pleasures that would be self wash up, those which we would n ot want to repeat more than once or a few times as we would inevitably get bored. His examples of these self exhausting pleasures include pleasures that are disappointing which one would not want to repeat for that very reason and those non-disappointing pleasures which you do to meet a goal to prove something to yourself, for example, to overcome your phobia of heights you rising slope Mount Whitney but this is an experience you do not want to repeat. He acknowledges that there are those pleasures that are self exhausting but there are many repeatable pleasures that we would never get bored of the analogouss of listening to beautiful music or seeing great art and we would therefore never fall victim to Williams boredom account.I disagree with Fischer, firstly it seems to me his examples of self exhausting pleasures present a distorted view of what pleasure really is. I agree that disappointing pleasures may progress to be pleasurable in advance the act but after we experience the disappointment they cease to fall into this category. It appears that these disappointing pleasures are not pleasures at all and should not fall into the category of self exhausting pleasures. It is a similar case for his example of non disappointing self exhausting pleasures the likes of climbing a bargain to overcome a phobia, climbing this mountain is not done for sheer pleasure, we may experience pride and we may experience some pleasure from this pride but the very act is done reluctantly and is not pleasurable within itself. To claim that he partly agrees with Williams that there are those pleasure that are self exhausting is somewhat misleading what he presents in the above case are not pleasures at all.What Williams said, is to think of the most perfect immortality that you can consider and imagine doing this forever, the above so called pleasures do not fall into this it seems intelligible they would not want to be tell. Fischer also goes on to explain a second cat egory of pleasures which he called repeatable pleasures which include listening to music and enjoying art, Fischer believed that if these pleasures were appropriately distributed (not too closely to each other ) they could be repeated countless times. I disagree although in this case they could be classed as pleasure, it seems we would still inevitably get bored maybe not after 100 or even two hundred years but somewhere down the line of a never ending life we would get bored. I can only enjoy a constituent of music a hold in number of times before it no longer brings me pleasure. However at this point an objection may farm some may argue that human potential is endless reducing the likelihood of boredom. There are millions of songs to be comprehend and millions more that will emerge, there is a countless number of things that can be enjoyed that will never run out so you are not doomed to be repeating the same things over and over, and maybe when things start to get tedious h ot things will be invented to occupy our minds.The response to this is that having heard a thousand, a million, two million, songs they will all eventually take the same shape, nothing new can be invented that would be so drastically different from all previous inventions. Another point to be made is that Elina Makropulos maintains the same caliber throughout her life changing only to adapt to her surroundings it could therefore be suggested that the boredom she experienced was a result of her unchanging character not the fact that she lived for such a long period of time. Williams addresses this throughout his article, he argues that as human beings we aim to be, and usually succeed, in becoming a trusted type of person, we develop a certain set of interests, a certain way of playing and we become settled as that type of person. His thought is that those who can avoid boredom and continue to find things interesting are not sufficiently mature there seems to be something wrong wi th them as such immortality is not a life for a human being (Williams 1973) . Let us now introduce a way boredom can be avoided in accordance with his argument, a possibility Williams considers is rejuvenation by this he means you remain a human being in that you maintain the same body but every so often you are rejuvenated, a certain part of your history disappears and is replaced by a new start.Although this seems to deal with the boredom issue Williams does questions whether this is in fact you? Every time I am rejuvenated I have no recollection of my introductory self and build a whole new character based on different memories and experiences. It seems wrong to say that I am the same person after being rejuvenated for the hundredth time as I was prior to my first rejuvenation (Williams,197392). Even if we are persuaded that you are the same person Williams would argue that it is not giving you anything that you could be interested in, the absence of a continuity of consciousne ss is a serious problem. Even if it is not death it is as bad as death to be rejuvenated in this way. Another possibility to consider is the gradual deterioration of memory where we leave only things as time goes on for example every cc years. However I believe this raises the same question as above are we really the same person if we live in a 200 year envelope? Williams concludes that death is a necessity evil we should apply to die if we are to avoid the alternative of immortality.My second argument to why immortality is not desirable is based on the meaning of life. I believe that death and the very limitations that it sets down gives life meaning. My second argument overlaps with my first but what I wish to specifically argue here is that it is the very fact that we are here for what is comparatively a short time that makes our lives meaningful, in the way we act and behave, this is the idea that it is time pressure that shapes our lives. It is irrelevant whether one believ es or does not believe in god or any form of creator or greater being, they will still find life meaningless without death, even if you merely carry on living out of the fear of dying. I believe that all good things have to have a beginning, middle and an end and each is necessary and is enjoyed accordingly. Victor Frankl argues that death itself is what makes life meaningful, his reasoning is as followsWhat would our lives be like if they were not finite in time, but eternal? If we were immortal, we would legitimately parry every action forever. It would be of no consequence whether or not we did a thing now every act might just as well be done tomorrow or the twenty-four hours after or a year from now or ten years hence. But in the face of death as authoritative finis to our future boundary to our possibilities, we are under the imperative of utilizing our lifetimes to utmost, not letting the singular opportunities- whose finite sum constitutes the whole of life-pass by groun dless (Frankl,195773).Nozick , however, has a problem with this argument, in his book philosophic explanation he wonders whether death in fact makes life meaningless not meaningful, he argues thatFrankl assumes our only desire is to have done certain things, to put certain things somewhere on our record.However, we may desire to do things our desire need not be merely to have done them. Moreover, if we had an infinite life, we might view it as a whole, as something to organize, shape and do something with (Nozick,1981579-580)I disagree, firstly it was not assumed by Frankl that we merely do things to put them on record, what was being said is that we have a limited amount of time to do things but we do not merely do them just to tick a box but to evoke and evolve as human beings because pursuing our goals enriches our lives. It is the very fact that we have a finite time that motivates us to make those decisions and do those things that conjure our lives, which would only be fore ver delayed with an infinite existence. For example why should I go to school if I dont like it? The simple act is to learn to acquire skills that would help me to achieve and make something of my self before I die and cease to exist. If I was immortal, learning trigonometry would seem less attractive than watching TV or playing calculating machine games all day. I get more pleasure from such things (in the short term at least) and watching TV is certainly easier than studying and carsick get round to learning trigonometry sometime.Time pressure is what makes us set goals, with an immortal life tasks would forever be extended and a consequence would emerge whereby we would be less likely to do things of value, we would become a stagnant society where simple pleasures rule.Even if we are partly make by the desire to do things not only to have done things they would still be postponed and contrary to what Nozick claims this would matter as the desire alone to do things does not m ake ones life meaningful it may grant to some poor will to carry on living (to do that specific thing) but will not give satisfaction to ones life. Nozick also questions whether death in fact makes life meaningless? Many argue that death renders life futile because we will all eventually die and so there is no point in developing character or studying calculus if our progress is ultimately going to be permanently interrupted and it will all go to waste. It seems to me that to argue that death makes life meaningless is to argue that something can only be meaningful if it lasts forever. The truth is that many things we value and find worthwhile do not last forever. I affirm that most if not all actions other than pleasures within themselves are predominantly motivated by the desire to get things done and enrich our lives from them before we die. Death is a deadline, a necessary evil we know every day that passes we will never get back and this gives meaning and shapes how we live and thus an immortal life is not one to be desired.So far a strong argument has been provided for the undesirability of an immortal life but is there any situation in which immortality can be desired? In setting out what I meant by immortality I disallowed a get out clause, let us now suppose you would be able to live as long as you wanted and when you eventually had enough it would be possible to take your own life, is the elixir of eternal existence now more attractive? Surely it is, however, this is not all together straight forward. Take for example a mortal who look ats to commit suicide, in taking their own life he/she is giving up for example another 30 years, however, in the case of an immortal he/she is giving up what is essentially an eternity. They may be unhappy now but they could not possibly know that this would be the case in a million or a billion years time, choosing to take an immortal life is of greater consequence. In allowing a get out clause we would also become a very unadventurous and risk- averse society, who would take the risk of bungee jumping, paragliding and so forth if what they are risking is an infinite lifespan? Although this may seem a more attractive model of immortality it is complicated and can it really be called immortality if we allow this get out clause? It seems to me the very fact that we would choose this model supports my argument, that immortality would cease to be good and we would all sooner or later opt to take our own lives.In conclusion immortality in the physical human sense is never a good thing. It should not be desired whatever perfect life you imagine to want to experience forever it will soon become tedious and boredom will eventually set in. Death is therefore necessary, even in accordance with the deprivation account, as further existence would become a bad thing sooner or later and it will no longer be the case whereby death deprives you of the good things life has to offer but where death provides an end to all that is bad with an eternal existence. It is also the inevitability of death that gives life reason and shape, the very fact that we have a limited lifespan motivates people through a sense of urgency to spend their time doing those things that contribute meaning and enrich their lives which would forever be delayed with inevitable consequences with an immortal life. Without death there would be no such thing as sacrifice, putting a lifes name into something, heroism and courage, we would lack appreciation for our existence, life would not be as serious or meaningful. I believe there to be an esthetic necessity about dying- in the same way a drawing has a frame, one cannot imagine an infinite painting, or a play has a shape and a final curtain, one cant imagine a play going on forever. Why grope for some mysterious realm for which we are not properly equipped to function in? Although I have argued that immortality is bad, this is not to say that it is a good thing that we die when we do, in accordance with all above arguments one can still think that we die too soon.BibliographyFischer, M. (1994). Why Immortality is not So Bad. International Journal of Philosophical Studies. 2, 257-270.Frankl, V (1957). The Doctor and the Soul. Alfred Knopf. modernistic YorkNagel, T (1970). Death. Nous. 4, 73-80Nozick, R (1981). Philosophical Explanations. Oxford.Clarendon PressWilliams, B (1973). Problems of the Self Philosophical Papers 1956-1972. New York Cambridge University Press.