This article explores whether eternal life can bring true happiness to mankind, assuming that the development of science and technology can bring eternal life to mankind. It also discusses the value of a finite life, and reflects on the nature and conditions of happiness from various perspectives.
Humanity has benefited from the development of science and technology. However, if science and technology can bring us eternal life, will we be happier? If someone asks me, “If you could live forever without dying, would you be happy?” my answer is no. I am a being who is bound to die. I am a being that must die. In my time, death is inevitable, no matter how much technology advances. At best, I can be frozen in a freezer, or I can live twice as long as everyone else. So if I could live forever, would I be happy? I don’t think I would be happy, because I believe that most of the pleasure in life comes from finitude. If I never die and my existence is infinite, will I really value this moment? The trials I am going through now are both growing me and causing me pain. I feel truly alive when I feel pain rather than visible growth.
On a long run, the first kilometer or two is the hardest. I’m out of breath and my legs feel heavy. But once you get past this point, everything feels light and effortless. And then the sweat starts to pour like rain, which is the most enjoyable moment. It’s not a pleasure that comes from improved cardiorespiratory capacity or endurance. Similarly, I prefer life with trials. Like running up a hill, the moments of trial are painful, but I derive great meaning and satisfaction from them. This satisfaction comes not from whether I finish or not, but from the fact that I am challenging myself. And crucially, it’s the finitude of life that drives me to take the first step to run. Because life is not infinite, I always have to make choices, and I’m always going to be tested in the process of putting those choices into action. So if my life wasn’t finite, I wouldn’t bother to run in the first place, which would lead to a loss of purpose and laziness. Above all, I would feel little anxiety, which would bring temporary satisfaction, but not absolute satisfaction, because I believe that all happiness comes from anxiety. And this anxiety is gradually disappearing with the development of science and technology.
If we divide happiness into two main categories, we can consider the biological response, commonly referred to as pleasure, and the more abstract true value of life. The direct biological response has been well researched, as Yuval Noah Harari wrote in Sapiens. So I’m going to look at happiness in a more abstract way. We need to think about the conditions of happiness as they are defined in modern society today. The first is money, or material abundance. In fact, this is the most considered aspect of our society. It“s usually linked to one”s job, and nowadays, material abundance also determines social class. First of all, material conditions are necessary to a certain extent. If you don’t have food to eat and a place to sleep, you’re unlikely to starve to death in today’s society, but you’ll be physically tired from day to day, and you won’t be mentally satisfied. Therefore, you need to adapt to the times and society so that you don’t have to worry about eating and sleeping. Once you have these minimum conditions, material conditions don’t matter as much. On the contrary, being in a materially ambiguous position can lead to a bigger dilemma. One of the most popular theories is that of social class based on parental wealth. The comparison between an ordinary office worker and a building owner is a classic example, and it’s one of the easiest ways to make yourself unhappy.
Next are things like honor, popularity, social position, etc. This is the biggest part of evaluating yourself, especially in comparison to others. This can range from people who have the attention of a few thousand people to people who have the attention of millions or tens of millions. However, my rule of thumb for this is that it’s much more satisfying to be recognized by the one person you want to be recognized by than by billions of people you don’t know. This is just my personal opinion, but if a person really needs attention, a life with lots of it will be more satisfying for that person.
Religious happiness is also a big part of life. However, it is important to distinguish between religious happiness and the aesthetics of omission. You need to know if the satisfaction you get from your religious activities is really an act of advancing your ideas, or if you’re simply pushing yourself to avoid doing something bad. So to truly find happiness in religion, you need to wrestle with your anxiety with all your reason. If you simply belong to a religious community and live by its customs, you’re only going to suffer more when you’re older and approaching death.
In my opinion, the most important thing to be happy is the will and practice to find your own existence. I think it all starts with the will to think and the action to act. Beyond relying on God, being accepted by others, or enjoying physical pleasures, I only exist when I act to find my existence. No matter how advanced technology becomes, if it focuses on emotional pleasure, it will not fill the unique emptiness that humans feel, because it cannot decisively help us find the meaning of our own existence. Therefore, rather than getting lost in the latest and greatest technology of our time, we should stop everything and redefine ourselves. So, religion and science aside, to be happy, we need to contemplate, enjoy solitude, and face our anxieties. That anxiety comes from death, so we should always be thinking about death. If you don’t think about death and just follow the social conventions in front of you, your life will be worth less than a grain of sand, so to avoid that, you should pursue something worthwhile that makes you question the meaning of your existence. That said, the days of hiding in the mountains and becoming a sage are long gone. Even if science and technology cannot find the meaning of life, they can be helpful as a less intimate companion than religion. Therefore, rather than rejecting science and technology unconditionally, we should carry out this process while enjoying the benefits of science and technology in moderation. And we should try to find our true meaning in a life that does not contradict this age. To do this, we must always think deeply about the timeless and common problems that our ancestors and sages have pondered in the past. And since the most difficult of those issues is the idea of death, we should always be thinking about it. What makes us think about it is our own will and practice, unshaken by the visible conditions around us. In the end, in order to answer the question, “Was I distinct as a being?” in the process of dying, I must not be swayed by other people, religion, society, and the development of science. I must think of myself as an agent of my own firm will, and put that process into practice throughout my life.
In Napoleon Bonaparte’s time, soldiers were poorly equipped compared to today. In battle, the two armies would march in single file to the sound of a military band to a certain range, then stand in line facing each other and take turns firing. Today, with the advances in technology, soldiers are often killed by sniper bullets that fly by unaware. While the soldiers of Napoleon’s time may have been more terrified, they were better prepared for death, so it’s hard to say that today’s soldiers who die suddenly in war are better off. It is difficult to say that the satisfaction of human life will increase in proportion to the development of science and technology, and even if humanity enjoys eternal life through science and technology, there will be a reaction, as there has always been, and the majority will not be happy. On the contrary, if we lose the value of finitude in preparation for death, the tower of reason that we have built will collapse. In that case, it is difficult to be sure that we will be able to find the value of happiness in a completely different way in the new infinite life. Therefore, even if humanity can live forever through science and technology, we will not be happy, and if we want to be happy, we must find the meaning of existence by ourselves.
