A cottage industry has been built up around the prospect of achieving human immortality. Far be it from me to point out the folly of this endeavor, or to point out any number of intractable problems that will surely arise as a result of this fabled achievement (e.g., compounding of stress effects on resource scarcity); rather, I must point out that the problem of immortality has already been solved, the puzzle cracked, many eons ago by the power of Natural Selection. Indeed, none of this hand-wringing, civilization-building, awe-inspiring economic, scientific, technological prowess could be brought to bear on this singular question without immortality via Natural Selection.* We just don’t like the solution. We, more specifically, the I of the ego, find our future immortality quite disturbing precisely because 1) the I/Ego has been left entirely out of the solution and 2) current fitness can not guarantee future success. Thus, my objection is more of a quibble, perhaps semantic, but nevertheless important if we are to grasp what it is we are trying to achieve. An altogether different kind of immortality, grafted on to the current one, one aimed as preservation, stasis, and dare we say, a living death? But what kind of future is this? A mausoleum or hall of animatronics? One imagines future AI robots powering us up to play the old hits, pre-recorded scenes from earlier times. Death comes because we have served our function. Our purpose is this: the immortal world we leave behind.

* A qualified immortality, of course. We can always aim a Death Star at our planet, or simply die by accidental causes. But this qualified immortality would exist even if science extends the lives of individuals indefinitely.