X-Message-Number: 23054 Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 14:19:50 -0500 Subject: Re: The Immortal's Dilemma: Deconstructing Eternal Life From: Allan Randall <> Scott: I posted a critique to this article in their feedback section, which I reproduce below for anyone interested. Thanks for bringing the article to our attention! Allan ===== George Hart's defence of mortalism seems rather empty to me... he tries to reduce the field to a small number of possibilities where there are actually a vast number, and then tries to convince us that there is some dilemma in only being able to choose from this small number of possibilities that he has picked out for us. It is a rigged game. A few specific comments: (1) There is no reason to discount the possibility of living forever and never wanting to die. The result would not need to be anything like "eternal bliss"... it could even contain moments of extreme sadness. But there is no inconsistency in imagining an infinite life with no moments of suicidal thoughts. Suicide simply might not be in such a person's nature. I'm not saying that this would be the case for me, but thus far in life I've never had a suicidal thought, and I see no reason to *assume* given an infinite life that I would have any such thoughts, let alone some unacceptable number of them. The infinite sequence "01001000100001000001..." contains no two consecutive 1's. If we imagine "living" this sequence, perhaps we would have to admit the "possibility" of two consecutive ones (since we never have proof that the sequence won't suddenly produce two of them), but that does not mean that this "possibility" implies that the two 1's will *certainly* show up. "Possible" in actual use does not always mean "actually physically possible"... it more often means "possible given my current state of ignorance". If Hart thinks it means "actually physically possible" (as in "will definitely happen given enough time"), then this is not a warranted assumption with respect to suicide or suicidal thoughts, nor one for which eternal bliss is the only alternative. (2) Hart says that "the option of termination, to be an option, must mean that it is both logically and empirically possible to exercise the option". In the "actually physically possible" sense that he means this, I think this is a bit of a stretch. An option can still be an option with respect to human choice and freedom, even if it is not in that person's nature to exercise the option. I can be free to do that which is not in my nature to do, and which I will therefore never actually do. I am still *free* to do it. At least, this is what people ordinarily mean by "being free to choose". If Hart means something else by having the "option", then his point becomes rather mundane and, well, pointless. The upshot of all this is that there is no inconsistency or dilemma involved in the idea of living forever, while being free to opt out, but never actually choosing to do so. (3) Hart seems to assume that a total infinite amount of time spent wishing death is unacceptable. He neglects the fact that if such time is tiny compared to the amount of time spent loving life, then it could be perfectly acceptable. Life for an immortal will *never be* a completed infinity. We will never have experienced an infinite amount of suicidal thinking. The infinite sequence "00001000010000100001..." contains only about 1/5th the number of 1's as 0's after any large but finite time period. True, "after an infinite time" it will contain the same number of 1's and 0's... but "after an infinite time" is not really a meaningful notion. If I am "living" this sequence, I will never experience infinite time. I will always have lived a finite amount of time... forever. So I will always, forever, be experiencing an overall average of 1/5th of the time spent in "1". By analogy, if 1/1000000th of my time in eternity is spent being unhappy, even contemplating suicide, this seems quite acceptable to me. Life is not perfectly happy. Why should I require eternal absolute bliss to make eternal life worth living? I do not require 100% satisfaction with life to make it worth living now, when it is finite, so why should it be any different when it is infinite? (4) Harts says that even if we experience an infinite number of blissful moments through eternity, then "eventually the experiences must become repetitive. And in eternity the repetition must be infinite." By his own admission, this assumes that there is a finite limit to mental or neurological capacity. But this is not a valid assumption. Note that to allow the possibility of no limit to mental capacity does *not* mean we must allow the possibility of infinite mental capacity. If I live forever, with my mental capacity growing without limit, and the variety of my potential experience growing with it exponentially, I will still only ever have a finite neurological capacity at any given time. My brain will never become infinite. (5) Hart argues that if one's mental capacity increases to allow one to remember enough of one's life to make immortality meaningful, then one will necessarily become so different as to not be oneself anymore. Hence, one will eventually become essentially a different person, anyway, given enough time, if one does not actually die or just fade away. But he provides no real argument for this... it is just a bald assertion. Right now I am very different from when I was 5, but I still feel a strong sense of ego-coherence with that 5 year old. To some extent, self-identity is an "illusion" anyway, but then so are all our mental constructs to some extent. If I feel after a trillion trillion years (or whatever) that I am the same person, and I self-identify with this past self, having legitimate memories of being that self, then who is Hart to say I have become a "different" person due solely to the extent of my change? Personal growth and change is already part of the human equation, and we don't think it makes us "mortal", just because we have changed alot from when we were 5! Keep in mind, that if our minds are expanding as time goes on, our ability to maintain ego-coherence in the face of passing time might also expand. This is very speculative, of course, but no more so than Hart's claim that the ego will necessarily decohere. We need a better theory of consciousness and self-identity to really answer such questions, I think. (6) Hart says that "over time, each experience becomes less significant, literally to an infinitesimal degree". But even if we accept his mathematical model of "experience significance", the state of "infinitesimal significance" will never actually be reached. Each of an ever-expanding list of experiences could each still maintain some degree of significance. But quite aside from this, his model is arbitrary. If our capacity expands, our ability to place significance on individual events in the face of an increasing number of memories might well expand as well. Again, this increasing mental capacity in no way implies any point in time at which we have infinite capacity, or an infinite number of experiences to deal with. (7) The oft-repeated statement that it is mortality that "frames" life and gives it meaning is, of course, a value statement, based on personal aesthetics, and not really open to rational debate, at least not at this time. One might argue, of course, that the immortalist is just kidding himself, and if actually presented with immortality, would find his life losing much of its meaning just as the mortalist had claimed. But, until some sort of immortality becomes a reality, this is pure speculation. Likewise, the immortalist might claim that, once presented with the real possibility of immortality, the mortalist would actually grab it with gusto, and it would end up enhancing the meaning in his life, and that his mortalism will turn out to have been simply sour grapes all along. Again, however, this is equally speculative. My own opinion is that such mortalists are playing the sour grapes game... but that is just a hunch and one I cannot back up. Certainly, Hart's feeling that the thought of a trillion or trillion trillion years of life is "mind-numbing and nauseating" is a personal aesthetic I don't share. I love life, do not want it to end, and think a trillion years of it would likely be not only meaningful and intensely fulfilling, but quite a lot of fun! A "trillion trillion" years I have a harder time conceiving of in my imagination, as it is such a vast span of time, but I see no reason to presume that it could not also be fulfilling and happy, perhaps in ways I cannot currently conceive of. (8) Hart does not outright state, but comes close to assuming in places, that a belief or hope in immortality implies a belief that mortal life is meaningless. Just to be clear: not everyone who believes in or hopes for immortality believes that a mortal life is meaningless. I hope for immortality, but would still consider a mortal life of 75 years to be shot through with meaning, and potentially very fulfilling. It is because I find mortal life so meaningful and fulfilling that I would like to extend it as much as possible, and make it that much more meaningful and fulfilling. Death would be a tragic end to a meaningful life, and thus something to be avoided, but not something that robs life of any meaning at all. Hart says "Yet it appears when it is all said and done, there is no version of personal immortality that can supply a meaningful life that a mortal existence could not also supply." I think he has failed to show why immortality might not provide a *more* meaningful and fulfilling life. But I'd agree with him if all he means is that life can be meaningful even in the face of death (although his piece seems generally much more pro-death than just that). (9) "It is our mortality that makes life precious and intentional killing especially wrong." Hart stays away from ethics for the most part, but this brief reference to it I find the most bizarre part of the essay. Why would the ability to live forever make life less precious or less worth preserving or murder any less heinous (presuming it were still possible)? He does not elaborate or defend the remark to any significant extent, so I can only puzzle over why he would believe such a thing. (10) A note on terminology: many people consider that immortality with the option of opting out is still "immortality", even if the person does eventually opt out. The word "immortal" does not have the absolute connotations that "eternal life" has, of necessarily meaning absolutely infinite life. It often allows for more limited notions like "at least as long as the universe itself exists", or "as long as the person chooses" or even just "with no definite time limit". Hart, for much of his essay, seems to be addressing an extremely absolutist idea of immortality, so it might be clearer to say that he is talking about the concept of "eternal life" rather than "immortality". On the other hand, his closing comments do seem to me to place value on a known and definable time limit to life. Hart does provide an interesting and articulate initial set of positions for the immortalist to argue against. But I do not think he succeeds as yet in actually arguing very far for most of them. -- Allan Randall, , http://www.elea.org/ "Whatever can be thought of or spoken of necessarily IS, since it is possible for it to be, but it is not possible for NOTHING to be." -- Parmenides of Elea, c. 475 B.C. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23054