Immortality

I do not believe a viable immortality can exist. I think the question of immortality is ultimately and inevitably intertwined with the concepts and beliefs of any and all religion. To believe an immortality would be possible we must believe that something is responsible for providing us with this immortality beyond the livings control, or many people would have drank from the eternal fountain of youth by now. I believe that if the human race was, and had always been, unaware of the idea of a super human force responsible for life that the concept of immortality would have never arose. Granted that was inevitable with the evolving brain and social systems of early humans, beginning to wonder and come up with explanations for events in life as a way to comfort ourselves from the harsh realities of life on Earth. Although this seems to be a convenient argument to denounce certain beliefs, whose to say there is not some sort of super human force presiding over us; life on Earth can never give us more than food for thought.

If immortality were to exist, with or without a super human force, it should only involve unaware beings. To give immortality to a self-aware being would be condemning that being to an eternal bondage of absurdity. Even if ever-evolving interests and ambitions filled your eternity, it would not be enough to contain the self-aware being from thinking himself to death, or his an immortal's cause, possibly eternal torture, boredom, or even going crazy (and possibly losing your awareness). The notion of knowing you will live forever, not grasping the reality or concept of forever, would be as fruitless as the search on Earth for the loss of absurdity.

In order to have an immortality that would please me, eternally, would require the loss of the self awareness and absurdity of human race. In Richard Taylor's article, The Meaning of Life (19-28), he wrote of the myth of Sisyphus, putting his own spin on the story introducing the idea of the gods implanting a desire within Sisyphus to roll stones. The proposed implant could be the loss of self awareness and absurdity, enabling the being to experience immortality as self unaware beings experience actual life. For example, a dog, or fly, or sea monkey could be given immortality on Earth and would go through eternity doing the same things and would never think otherwise (unless they evolved over time). The human race is different from other species, we can, and do, as Thomas Nagel says, stop and look at life outside the box, question what we think we know, think about time, and much more. Any being that possesses the ability to recognize the absurdity of life can not endure immortality. A self-aware being will naturally have a never ending quest for answers and knowledge. The self-aware being can step outside of any box, no matter how big to find the absurdity. So, as I stated before, to have an immortality that would please me, it would require the loss of my self-awareness. The version of immortality I have presented must be included in any other version of immortality. The self-aware being could not find everlasting pleasure in a realm of immortality.

The "deal breaker" with the condition of immortality could based in the fact that even though you know, or have been told, that you are immortal, the self-aware being will always feel absurd in the big picture. Ok say someone did find the fountain of youth and drank from it, now they are immortal, right? A self-aware being would never be able to shake the doubt of "will it wear off," or be able to come to terms with the concept of eternity. We look at death as the time the absurdity of our lives ceases, but the immortal would have no such event to pin the