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Essays on Infinite Lifespans
Marc Geddes
extropian transhumanist Max More would disagree, regarding
the concept of self as perfectly meaningful. [5] The philoso-
phy and science of the mind is currently not advanced enough
to provide an answer to the question of the self. So long as a
living being retains memories of his past, there is a connection
between its past and present selves which may be sufficient for
it to retain the same sense of self. In order to remember our
past, our current self has to be backwards compatible with
all our past selves.
A related worry is that an extremely long-lived person would
somehow cease to be human. Yet human nature itself is not
fixed. Human beings have constantly re-invented them-
selves through cultural change and new technology argues
Transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom. [6] Even if it
would be true that someone who lived hundreds of years
started to change into a different entity, why should this be
feared? After all, a man at 20 years is rather different to a man
at 5 years, just as the man at 60 years is rather different to
the man at 20. But the potential for change is precisely what
makes life exciting and creates the opportunity for something
better to come along. And consider the alternative: death.
Did we not agree that life is generally better than death? Better
to evolve than die!
RELIGION
Some people may object to the quest for immortality on
religious grounds. It is argued that extremely long life is some-
how un- natural, that it is against Gods plan. Yet some of the
strongest allies of the quest for immortality may come from
those of Jewish faith. In Judaism the primary metaphor for
God is that God is Life. Judaism may be the religion most