Hey Bill.
Do you ever think about your mortality?
Does it ever bother you to think that one
day you just won't exist?
I know you're not religious but do you think
anything happens when we die or is it just
over, no thoughts, nothing like that?
And if given the choice to live longer in
an artificial body would you take that or
not?
Thanks.
Bye.
What a question.
That was Josh?
Josh, fabulous question.
Yes I think about mortality continually man.
I won't say constantly but everyday.
So I'd like to just give you something to
think about.
If you lived to be 82 and seven weeks, depends
on leap years as to the exact number of weeks,
you get 30,000 days on earth, 30,000.
When you're in kindergarten 30,000 sounds
like a lot, almost an unimaginably big number.
When you are my age, I'm 61, you start to
see that 30,000 really isn't that many.
And to show you it's not that many I encourage
you to imagine a National Football League
stadium.
They typically hold way more than 70,000 people,
certainly way more than 60,000 people.
So imagine sitting in a different seat every
day of your life and watching your life take
place down on the field, imagine this.
Sit in a different seat everyday.
Day-to-day it looks about the same right?
But with 30,000 you don't get halfway around,
halfway around and you're dead.
It sucks man.
So it's why it's important to do your best
to live your life as best as you can every
day.
This doesn't mean you become a hedonist and
just have a joyride everyday, you're working
too big goals but no one appreciate that everybody
is going to die.
I have never met anyone who is not going to
die.
I've never met anyone who's of a certain age
who is not already dead.
It sucks.
Now here's the evidence for why I don't believe
in an afterlife.
It would be a fine thing if I could have the
capabilities athletically that I had when
I was say 23 with the life experience and
intellect that I have right now.
That would be fantastic and then live forever,
I say bring it on.
But my beloved grandmother, who was brilliant,
didn't have that happen.
She faded away losing her faculties as she
went.
People my age have a lot of grandparents and
parents who are not as sharp, certainly not
as athletically capable or physically capable
as they were when they were younger.
And so watching ourselves die is to me overwhelming
evidence that there is no life after death.
There doesn't seem to be any reason to think
that when you die you go back to your optimum
age at your optimum athletic ability and your
optimum intellectual sharpness.
And if it turns out that that's true, that
you do die and have all this intellectual
sharpness and athletic ability, cool.
Bring it on.
That will be great, but what would you do
differently?
What would you do differently if you knew
for sure that you were going to be immortal
when you died somehow?
Would you start committing crimes?
Would you jump off a cliff so that you can
hurry to your immortality optimal state?
I just don't think so.
Instead, the finite length of our life is
what drives us, it's what makes us go and
it's what makes you try to accomplish things
or decide to have kids or not have kids or
decided to live in another country on another
continent or not or decide how to invest your
money or what you're going to do with your
resources.
All this is driven by the limited length of
life we have.
So furthermore, if evolution is in fact how
the world works, and it absolutely sure seems
to be from my point of view, one of the fundamental
things about evolution that is so troubling
is this whole idea of survival of the fittest.
That's really a 19th century usage, a British
usage of that expression fit-est.
It doesn't mean that you're able to do the
most weightlifting or run the fastest 1500
meters or something, it means you fit in the
best.
And the troubling, troubling consequence of
this is you don't have to be perfect or super
person, you just have to be good enough from
an evolutionary standpoint.
You just have to be good enough to pass your
genes on.
After that evolution, if it were an entity,
doesn't really care about you man.
You had your kids, your genes are passed on
and you expire, you lose your faculties as
you run out of steam and that's just how it
is.
Evolution, certain diseases catch up with
you, certain auto immune problems show up,
certain viruses and bacteria, parasites get
you.
Nature doesn't care.
You were good enough.
And so I encourage you to live your life as
best you can everyday.
And as far as putting my brain in an electronic
receptacle for all time it sounds great, but
I will valuate it on a case-by-case basis.
Do you want to be stuck in an Apple product
the rest of your life or do you want to be
stuck in a Microsoft product?
That's a tough call.
I'm sure books will be written.
We'll see.
Great question.
Carry on.
