Arguing Once More Against "Death Gives Life Meaning"
Deathism is a label of convenience for any philosophy or outlook that regards death as a good thing. These worldviews also tend to be in favor of both degenerative aging and the involuntary nature of death - that we are forced to die regardless of what we might think on the subject. A deathist is someone who holds such a viewpoint. One of the more sensible comments I've seen on deathism in general is this:
Such is human nature, that if we were all hit on the head with a baseball bat once a week, philosophers would soon discover many amazing benefits of being hit on the head with a baseball bat: It toughens us, renders us less fearful of lesser pains, makes bat-free days all the sweeter. But if people are not currently being hit with baseball bats, they will not volunteer for it. Modern literature about [death and the prospects for radical life extension through medical science] is written primarily by authors who expect to die, and their grapes are accordingly sour.
One of the hoary old arguments put out by near everyone in favor of unavoidable death is that "death gives life meaning." The conceit here is that life is somehow meaningless until you can draw a line under it and assess, or perhaps that no-one would do anything if they didn't have a timer counting down their own personal extinction. I've never been able to grasp the essence of the first point, which just seems so much nonsense to me: why draw the line on death? Why not somewhere else? The past at any point is fixed and up for evaluation, but why draw lines at all for that matter?
The second point can be thrown out on the grounds that humans with an adult life expectancy of 80 behave remarkably similarly to humans with an adult life expectancy of 40-something, as any exploratory expedition through the better-recorded sections of Roman history will demonstrate. Where differences exist they certainly don't involve people lazying around as the expectation of additional years grows, but are rather changes in the nature of the tasks that people busy themselves with. A longer time horizon means that you can undertake better, more ambitious, more profitable projects by virtue of having longer in which to complete them. Competition if nothing else drives that process.
Since various deathists persist in arguing that involuntary death (without or without the suffering and pain of aging) is necessary to give life meaning, there is a steady flow of articles from the radical life extension advocacy community to point out just how ridiculous the deathist position is. Here is one of the more recent examples:
One common argument against indefinite lifespans is that a definitive limit to one's life - that is, death - provides some essential baseline reference, and that it is only in contrast to this limiting factor that life has any meaning at all. In this article I refute the argument's underlying premises, and then argue that even if such premises were taken as true, its conclusion - that eradicating death would negate the "limiting factor" that legitimizes life - is also invalid, because the ever-changing state of self and of world can constitute such a limiting factor just as well as death can, which can be seen lucidly in the simple fact that opportunities once here are now gone, and that it is not death but life itself that is responsible for that.Culture is in constant upheaval, with new opportunity's opening up(ward) all the time. Thus the changing state of culture and humanity's upheaved hump through time could act as this "limiting factor" just as well as death or the changing self could. What is available today may be gone tomorrow. We've missed our chance to see the Roman Empire at its highest point, to witness the first Moon landing, to pioneer a new idea now old. Opportunities appear and vanish all the time.
Indeed, these last two points - that the changing state of self and society, together or singly, could constitute such a limiting factor just as effectively as death could - serve to undermine another common argument against the desirability of limitless life: boredom. Too often is this rather baseless claim bandied about as a reason to forestall indefinitely-extended lifespans - that longer life will lead to increased boredom. That self and society are in a constant state of change means that boredom should become increasingly harder to maintain.
It is such a crackpot argument. If anything, of course, the opposite is true - the inevitability of death renders every experience or achievement or struggle utterly and ultimately pointless. If there is a way to correct this insanity it needs taking.
This blog takes a libertarian perspective on life extension.
However, proponents of radical anti-aging technology need to speak the language of their ideological opponents if they're going to succeed on a timely schedule.
For liberals this means adopting the language of care and compassion.
Life extension advocates need to tell liberals how they are in fact against the lack of compassion and sympathy we show to the aged, in allowing them to suffer and die or nay, to even celebrate that suffering and death, instead of working towards expanding the horizon of human longevity.
Anyone that believes that death is needed to give life meaning is not going to be persuaded any logical argument to the contrary.
you're insane! No one has yet been able to bifurcate life from death. Yes, you can delay a tad, but no matter they will merge. If you're immortal nothing has any meaning: not love, not time, not work, not sickness..etc cuz none of them can apply.
Your ideas are greatly flawed. What is the point of care,unity, compassion, and equality if we'll all just live on and not have to worry about the suffering of others because we know they can never attempt escape and end themselves. What's the point of waking up if you always have tomorrow. There is no source of motivation if you don't have any form of time limit to get it done. Human nature is far more flawed than you can ever imagine to. Concepts such as immortality and no escape cause people to go insane knowing that they can never exit the pains they face. They will be excessively more and more reliant and lazy without any form of time limit. I could go on and on but unless over time we genticially breed the perfect human whose mentality and physical health won't deteriorate and has an infinite amount of altruism and motivation, immortality would be hell on earth. Immortal suffering. Until man has no flaws, death will have meaning
The point being made here is this - death has no value in and off itself. No one is putting a ball and chain on your life. You can leave whenever you like.
To be honest, your logic is the flawed one. The motivation to do something isn't a time limit - the motivation is you wanting to do it, and even more importantly you wanting to do it in a certain way. If you endlessly procrastinate on an activity, then you simply lack the motivation to do it, having less time doesn't mean you will gain motivation. You might be pressed to do something out of necessity - but you will still be unmotivated to do it. And you will do a bad job.
I've realize a long time ago people are terrified of longer lifespans because they realize - maybe even on conscious level - that they'll run out of generic "everyone does it so I should too" activities pretty fast. And when that happens, boy oh boy, now you have to think about what you ACTUALLY like doing. And guess what, it might not be what other people like doing - you weirdo - in the end, this is the same old, same old, human urge to comply to society.
Let me end my post with this, I severely doubt a person who doesn't like doing anything truly exists - but if he does and that person does become bored of life - well then you are free to leave. Though I'm not sure why you haven't realized you are bored already.
So... the point of caring for people is not alleviating their suffering but your feeling good by caring for then? What a selfish and sadistic point of view!
And how sad that your only motivation for doing things is not the passion for doing something you like or care about, but the rush of having a time limit.
If you weren't always in such a rush, maybe you could see how flawed your arguments are.
As I was typing my first post I had to go to the toilet and like most great realizations I came to it while doing my impersonation of Le Penseur (more commonly known as The Thinker).
Is there any validity in the claim that people do things because they have a time limit?
The more I think about it. The more unlikely it becomes.
Humans work for more than 50% of their waking life once they reach adulthood. And most people work well into their 70s and beyond if they so wish to. A lot of them do it until their death. And in developed countries it is quite possible to work less than that if you wished to and still survive.
With that information there can be two possibilities for why that is:
1. They enjoy their work - their motivation to use up so much of their limited time is the love for their work. Here the motivation is the work itself.
I intimately understand this "problem" - that is, the problem of having foresight and intelligence which results in me acquiring a job I enjoy. What a curse. /sarcasm
2. They don't enjoy their work - but they need to work to survive. In this case the motivation for working is survival.
Time has no bearing on 50% of your life so far.
OK.
What about the rest. Only pointing out the main motivations.
Entertainment - the motivation here is the activity itself.
Food - the motivation is survival but also the activity itself. As you can see from the millions of food bloggers and their followers, people do get enjoyment out of it
Social activities - including sex of course - the activity itself
Sport - the activity itself
This is a slice of the life of a normal person. So far the motivation for no activity is time.
I could go on, but I see no point to it.
I'm not sure how a longer lifespan or indeed an indefinite one would force you to do only one activity... or no activity at all. Care to elaborate?