Editor's Note
Who Wants to Live Forever?

_____AI pioneer Marvin Minsky, in writing for the World Question Center of the Edge Foundation, states that he found most people reacted negatively to his suggestion that forthcoming technology will extend the human lifespan by thousands of years. Responses he received included such lines as “what would you do with all that time?” and “wouldn't one's life become terribly boring?” His friends in the scientific community seemed to feel differently, however. “There are countless things that I want to find out, and so many problems I want to solve, that I could use many centuries” (http://www.edge.org/q2007/q07_16.html#minsky).
_____Taking those thoughts into consideration, let’s think about meaning and the way one leads one’s life. Most people seem to lead meaningless lives, wandering about, searching for something to distract themselves with until they die. Not to completely decry entertainment, whether in the form of media or psychotropics, but when such things are pursued to a degree that they consume most of one’s free time or are the only hope amongst a hated profession, then of course an extended lifespan will seem horrific.
_____The different religions have their own slightly varied perspectives on meaning, so the adherents to them already know what purposes to dedicate their time to. For the rest (with the exception of the nihilistic), there is the existentialist syllogism that if life has no inherent meaning, we are then free to create our own meaning (even if the universe is deterministic, we still seem to have free will and can at least live with the illusion of it). If the spirit is denied, then it is through creativity and exploration, through art and science, that we can find meaning in our lives. There will always be information to apprehend, to convert into and apply as knowledge and the ability to reshape that information based on one’s experience and project it for others to comprehend. When one is dedicated to projects and long term goals that one draws satisfaction from, eternity becomes not boring but enriched with opportunity. There will always be worlds to discover, art to create.
_____And should such technology not come to fruition and we are doomed to several short decades of life, then those decades should be spent full of purpose and desire to accomplish, not boredom and distraction. Stop “vegging” and go create, explore, find a reason to live.

John Zaharick