I don’t believe that living forever is desirable, but dying prematurely is very clearly un-desirable; I’d like the chance to live in good health for as long as I continue to enjoy the experience (which will certainly be longer than the 70-90 years that currently seems likely).

What? And this from a geek who spends more time on the internet gathering info than me?

Learning is a never-ending process: the older you get, the more you realise how little you know, and the more you *want* to know (at least, if you’re like me, admittedly). I fail to see the allure of reaching a certain, rather random, level of intelligence and knowledge, and then either staying there, or kicking the bucket.

Why not keep improving? Especially as information is getting multitudes easier to access. Why stop learning? It’s what keeps you young and flexible. Knowing the gaps in my knowledge I could study for centuries and not catch up.

Also, good artists/scientist/writers don’t necessarily create to a deadline (even a very *literal* one): they also create because of — to quote Richard Feynman — “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out”.

Dying so prematurely seems a bit like a child dying after it has barely learned how to speak, and thinks it already knows everything about expression. It has no idea about the myriad ways in which language can be expressed (prose, poetry, audio, song, and much more) and in which it can interact with so many other things.

I’m already strapped for time: give me longevity (I think immortality is a theoretical entity like infinity and eternity) and I’ll be even more strapped for time: but enjoying the hell out of it.