Honestly, I don't want to die. Sorry this response is clipped, I'm tired so I figured I'd just post that. I'm banking on immortality being invented. I can't stand the idea of ceasing.
It's so sad isn't it, the thought? Personally I've got a peculiar view on mortality. This isn't anything new to people who like #futurology or #philosophy, but it's mind-boggling to most people. What makes us, us? The answer to the age old question of self-identity is not so much our makeup, not so much our body, but our memories. Every decision we make, our entire personality and lifestyle, is based on our memories and experiences. As such, if there was, say, a teleportation machine that worked by destroying your body and reconstructing your atomic makeup completely 1:1, that person would still be you. "You'd" be "dead", but at the same time "You're" not "dead". In actuality you're not dead at all. Now onto the actual point I have to make, there's not going to be an actual immortality pill in the future. There's going to be the ability to backup you're entire life and experiences. Making an 'image' in computer terms that you can flash onto a blank body. That'd be you, and you'd be 'immortal'. Haha, but this isn't #futurology, so there's that. 80 day later edit: I've spend many an hour reading about self-identity philosophy.. I read until my head hurts.
Have you seen the film 'Transcendent Man' by any chance? It's a documentary on the very subject of immortality.
An excellent documentary as well. Informative, and interesting. Seeing Kurzweil talk about reviving his dead father through a computer was one of the oddest, saddest things I've seen in film. He's a man who literally believes he can bring his father back from the dead--amazing. Another part of the film I found extremely interesting was where one of the interviewees talk about how doomsday, religious end of days, or singularity predictors all seem to place their predictions within their lifetime--an example I've heard a lot about is Mormon prophert Joseph Smith predicting the second coming of Jesus in the mid 1800s (during which Smith would have been alive had he not been killed). It creates an interesting emotional level to Kurzweil's science--is he drawing conclusions from data that doesn't point to what he says it does, holding out for his father's reincarnation?
I agree. The only time I can even consider the thought of dying is if everyone I know and love dies as well--I wouldn't have much left to live for, and I may even feel a sense of completion and willingness to die. However, at any given moment I can think of a thousand reasons to keep living, so that may never happen.
If I died and went to hell, I wouldn't mind that because the last thing I'd have is consciousness. If the punishment I experienced in hell was the severance of my consciousness, I might as well not be in hell, right? That's what I'm afraid of, the dissolving of my consciousness.