6 - Living longer
Summary
Caelum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt.
(Horace, Epistle 1.11)Fuelled by recent scientific advances in biogerontology, the prospect of slowing down or even arresting the process of ageing and thus indefinitely extending our maximum lifespans has led an increasing number of writers to jump on the bandwagon of life extension and to argue that virtual immortality is a good thing and we should do everything in our power to attain it. It is assumed that any significant extension of our lifespans would turn us into better humans, in the sense that we would be better off than we are now. The reasoning applied here is relatively simple and intuitively plausible: we all appreciate being alive, and no one wants to be dead (unless something bad has happened to them or nothing good is likely to happen ever again, so that life has lost its meaning or worth). We do not normally care very much for the idea of dying, and try to hold on to our lives as long as possible. So all things considered, we tend to regard life as a good and death as an evil. Given this universal and strong preference for life over death, how could we not regard indefinite life extension and virtual immortality as a good thing? How then could we not see it as an improvement of human nature? It would seem irrational not to do so.
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- Information
- Better Humans?Understanding the Enhancement Project, pp. 89 - 114Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2013