A Consolation for Death by Means of a Pascalian Theory of the Everlasting Man's Sorrows

Abstract

A consolation for death is offered that may be attractive to people of a perhaps unusual character, linked to the unconditional desire to live forever. It is assumed that death is bad for one if it deprives one of something good. It is also assumed that death is infinitely bad for someone of such a character if it deprives him/her of an everlasting physical life. Moreover, it is argued that death appears to deprive us of precisely this, for it appears that in the future it will be technologically possible to prolong physical life indefinitely. The consolation is that a physical life prolonged by technological means would be unhappy for people of the mentioned character: they would permanently worry about losing something infinitely good -everlasting physical life. An argument similar to that of Pascal's wager even shows that all courses of action would have for these people an infinite expected badness.