Abstract
We know we do not want to die! But do we know what to do with eternity? Immortality on Earth might be possible in the not too distant future. But should we want it? If the desire for immortality is just to avoid death we might be missing the point. If we want earthly immortality, we should be thinking hard about what such immortality would mean. Yet very little investigation is made of this topic. This chapter sets the scene for what follows, and points out that not only philosophers but all of us should address the desirability and morality of immortality.
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Notes
- 1.
See the eponymous book by Soeren Kierkegaard.
- 2.
The idea of light, the most ephemeral of phenomena, as a messenger of the eternal is full of tension, yet it is beautifully fitting that the immediacy of the moment should be the harbinger of an immediacy of the eternal.
- 3.
And there is more than a little tension in the idea that immortality is achieved through the portal of mortality. In German the tension becomes acute, durch Sterben zu Unsterblichkeit (through death to deathlessness)!
- 4.
The Sound of Music.
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Hulsroj, P. (2015). Immortality Again?. In: What If We Don't Die?. Springer Praxis Books(). Copernicus, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19093-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19093-8_1
Publisher Name: Copernicus, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-19092-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-19093-8
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