If you had the chance to be immortal, would you take it? - Sarah Stroud and Michael Vazquez — Transcript

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1. 0:07While cleaning out your eccentric uncle's attic,
2. 0:10you find a chest with a sparkling potion.
3. 0:14The attached tag declares drinking this liquid will make you immortal.
4. 0:20Your body will be frozen at its current age,
5. 0:23and you'll become immune to disease and serious injuries.
6. 0:28These effects would be final and irreversible,
7. 0:31guaranteeing your existence at least until the heat death of the universe.
8. 0:36So, the instructions are clear—
9. 0:38the only question is, do you drink the potion?
10. 0:42Generally, people consider death to be bad—
11. 0:45so bad, in fact, that our lives are filled with precautions against it.
12. 0:51We often avoid overtly dangerous activities,
13. 0:54and we willingly accept inconveniences to further reduce our chances of dying.
14. 1:00But if you were immortal, you could live as dangerously as you like.
15. 1:05You could pursue any goal on as long a timeline as you need.
16. 1:10You’d be free to enjoy a boundless horizon
17. 1:13of exploration, pleasure, fulfillment, and novelty,
18. 1:17all without the fear of death hanging over you.
19. 1:21Despite this, British ethicist Bernard Williams
20. 1:26thinks there are plenty of reasons not to drink,
21. 1:29most notably because an immortal life would be unbearably boring.
22. 1:35Think of how your favorite things can become less enjoyable
23. 1:38with frequent repetition.
24. 1:40Your 16th chocolate truffle doesn't bring as much pleasure as the first,
25. 1:46and you might grow sick of truffles altogether if you ate them every day.
26. 1:51Following this logic,
27. 1:52Williams argues that repeating the same activities for all eternity
28. 1:57would be horribly monotonous.
29. 2:00On the other hand, philosopher John Martin Fischer
30. 2:03argues that while some pleasurable experiences do have diminishing returns,
31. 2:08others don’t.
32. 2:10Surely watching a beautiful sunset would remain fresh,
33. 2:13even after thousands of years?
34. 2:15And since we already tend to forget things in our human lifespan,
35. 2:20it seems reasonable that after several centuries
36. 2:23you could enjoy a previously exhausted experience.
37. 2:27Besides, even if some pleasures fade,
38. 2:29the pursuit of certain goals could last forever.
39. 2:33Fischer and Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin point out that even an immortal
40. 2:38couldn’t read every novel ever written while keeping up with new releases.
41. 2:44And J.J. Wisnewski imagines an immortal musician
42. 2:47who learns all existing instruments and any new ones that are invented.
43. 2:52And those are just personal goals—
44. 2:54an immortal dedicated to advancing various social causes
45. 2:58would likely find their hands busy
46. 3:00navigating a constantly shifting cultural landscape.
47. 3:04Alternatively, perhaps the novelty sustaining your immortal life
48. 3:09could come from within,
49. 3:10as you change what you value and pursue.
50. 3:13After decades of painting,
51. 3:15you might decide to become an astronaut or a chef or a farmer,
52. 3:19each transformation opening up new experiences.
53. 3:23However, Williams questions if anyone would actually want to live
54. 3:27such an ever-changing lifestyle.
55. 3:30Sampling every experience life has to offer
56. 3:33would require living untethered to a core set of values or ambitions.
57. 3:38And not only would this be profoundly destabilizing to your sense of self,
58. 3:43over a long enough timeline
59. 3:45you’d probably come into conflict with your past selves.
60. 3:49In such a situation, would you even care about your continued survival?
61. 3:54Immortality skeptics often cite the painful prospect of outliving loved ones
62. 4:00as a reason to remain mortal.
63. 4:02But what about knowing that the current version of yourself
64. 4:06could effectively die by morphing into someone totally different?
65. 4:11Williams argues that living within the constraints
66. 4:14of our own individual character
67. 4:17is part of what makes life meaningful.
68. 4:20Thinking about what makes life meaningful is very relevant here.
69. 4:24After all, the ideal outcome of immortality
70. 4:27is the ability to maximize life and the good things it contains.
71. 4:33But philosopher Samuel Scheffler argues that temporal scarcity—
72. 4:37meaning the lack of time— is essential to our valuing anything.
73. 4:42It’s precisely the fact that our time on Earth is limited
74. 4:47that forces us to form our values,
75. 4:49and determine what things are worth doing with the time we have.
76. 4:54For Scheffler, immortality undermines the very possibility
77. 4:58of a meaningful life.
78. 5:00For these reasons, and many more,
79. 5:02some theorists consider eternal life more of a curse than a blessing.
80. 5:08Then again, a couple of centuries of learning, loving, and chocolate truffles
81. 5:13doesn’t sound that bad, does it?
82. 5:15So, will you drink your uncle’s potion?