"Suppose we lived forever"

One practical problem if everyone born never dies and if people keep making babies then earth's population will rapidly outstrip the resources to support it. So the day we stop dying must also be the day we find another orb to accommodate our overproduction of air-breathing humans. This need for extra planets will never cease. But the universe is vast, and just in our small sector of the galaxy the catalogs are now rising through 5 000 known exoplanets. We just need to invent terraforming technologies in either Warp Drives or Wormhole transportation systems, and all will be fine.

But why do we long to live forever? we want to live forever because we fear death. We fear death because we are born knowing only life. Yet we don't fear having never been born. While it's surely better to be alive than dead, it's even better to be alive at all than to not ever exist. Religion through the ages has offered detailed accounts for what happens after death. For some it includes what happened before you were born, a basic tenet of reincarnation. Science doesn't have much to say about Valhalla or Elysium or Hades or Heaven or Hell or the spirits of your ancestors. The methods and tools of science do however make cold concrete statements about what happens when you die. Upon death there is no evidence that you experience the consciousness you enjoyed while alive.

The electrochemical source of all your thoughts, feelings and sensory awareness of the universe, your Brain. Which normally lights up an MRI, becomes starved of oxygen. We know that's you disappearing because people who experience a series of ultimately fatal strokes tragically and systematically lose function of their mind and body as they descend into a state of non-existence. That's not as odd as it sounds! Were you conscious before you were conceived? did you complain? where am I? how come I'm not on Earth? No. You simply didn't exist, and if you're lucky to be born, your non-existence before life bookends your non-existence after death.

Consider that humans are typically conceived in the single most intimate act of human affection. We then gestate in utero for nine months, suckle for another 12 months and require continual care through our toddler years. Afterward humans attend elementary school to learn reading writing and arithmetic. In middle school and high school we also learned biology chemistry maybe physics. We read works of literature we learn history and the arts might even play sports. Lifelong friendships germinate from these activities. We may also learn languages spoken by other humans around the world. We participate in all the seasonal rituals that we retain in modern society as a binding force that brings us together. Adulthood arrives. 21 years go by. At a speed of 30 kilometers per second Earth completed 21 orbits around the Sun. A total of 20 billion kilometers through space. All along, humans, invent refine and perfect anti-personnel weapons such as land mines, assault rifles, missiles and bombs. Any one of which can end a life in an instant. Wars have taken a staggering and tragic toll on human life since pre-civilization. Yet even excluding organized armed conflict humans find reasons to murder other humans at a rate that exceeds 400, 000 per year. Yes, worldwide humans commit homicide more than a thousand times per day.

Do you know? do you really know how precious life is? The total number of people who have ever been born is about 100 billion, yet the genetic code that generates viable versions of us is capable of at least 10 to the 30th variations that astronomically huge number is a 1 followed by 30 zeros (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) providing a million trillion trillion possible souls. Run through them all and eventually we end up with you again or at least your twin. But that won't happen anytime soon. So far our branch of the tree of life has produced no more than 0.00000000000000001% of all possible humans. Forcing the conclusion, that most people who could ever exist will never even be conceived, each of us, for all practical purposes is unique in the universe, NOW and FOREVER.

Being alive is the time to celebrate. Being alive every waking moment. All along the way why not strive to make the world a better place today than yesterday? Simply for the privileged of having lived in it. On my deathbed I'd be sad to miss the clever inventions and discoveries that arise from our collective human ingenuity. Presuming the systems that foster such advances remain intact. That's what fueled the exponential growth of science and technology in my lifetime. I'd further wonder whether civilization's arc of social progress will continue. With all its fits and starts and thus reward any time traveler from the oppressed spectrum of humanity who chose to visit the future rather than the past.

On the whole I don't fear death. Instead I fear a life where I could have accomplished more. An epitaph worthy of a tombstone comes from the 19th century educator Horace Mann, “I beseech you to treasure up in your Hearts” these my parting words. Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. Our primal urge to keep looking up is surely greater than our primal urge to keep killing one another. If so then human curiosity and wonder the twin chariots of cosmic discovery will ensure that starry messages continue to arrive. These insights compel us for our short time on earth to become better shepherds of our own civilization. Yes life is better than death, life is also better than having never been born. But each of us is alive against stupendous odds. We won the lottery only once. We get to invoke our faculties of reason to figure out how the world works. We also get to smell the flowers We get to bask in divine sunsets and sunrises. And gaze deeply into the night skies they cradle. We get to live and ultimately die in this glorious UNIVERSE.

Fin