 Do any of these quotes sound familiar to you? Mortality gives meaning to human life, Captain. Death is what gives life meaning to know your days are numbered. Your time is short. It's our mortality that defines us, Sollin. It's part of the truth of our existence. You've probably heard these and many similar things before. The idea that death or mortality is what gives life meaning is not particularly new and it has been presented in all sorts of variations in movies, literature, philosophy, you name it. The basic idea is that no matter how much we might fear it, death is necessary to give life meaning and even make things enjoyable. It's such an old and well established trope that it has become common wisdom. It sounds deep and wise. It's the kind of stuff you can slap on the picture of a sunset, share it on your social media and get showered with likes. Fine, but is it true? Does death give life meaning? Welcome to X10, your one-stop YouTube show on all things life extension. Have you subscribed to our channel yet? If not, please consider doing it and if you do subscribe, ring the bell and choose all notifications so that YouTube will let you know when we publish a new episode. Now, back to our question. Before we can answer it, we should agree on what meaning, you know, means. I guess it's obvious, but just to be on the same page, the meaning we are talking about is not a message you want to convey with words or actions, but rather it's something that is important to you. Something worthwhile that gives you a sense of purpose. So people looking for the meaning of life are looking for something that makes it worth living, that makes it worth their while. Something that gives them purpose, satisfaction, happiness, a reason to be. You get the idea. When you put it like that, saying that death gives life meaning immediately sounds super weird. If you told me that death gave your life purpose, satisfaction, happiness and a reason to be, frankly, I'd think you were a serial killer and called the police and you're right away. Seriously though, the fact one day you will no longer exist is what makes your existence right now worthwhile? That's the kind of stuff I would say about a movie I really hated. The good thing about it is that is going to end eventually. I know, I know. The point is supposed to be that knowing that you only have so much time available motivates you to make the best of it. I totally completely disagree with that and I'll explain why in a minute, but this leads me to a very important point. There is no such thing as the meaning of life and there are no specific things that can make everybody's life meaningful. That's because meaning is not a property of anything. People see meaning in things and different people can see different meaning in different things or even none at all. Some might find that free climbing or having children or being a political activist or going to church give meaning to their lives while others might not find any of these things meaningful at all. I don't for example and similarly, there must be tons of people who would find no meaning whatsoever in what I find meaningful. That's not a problem, it's perfectly all right, but it does mean that there is no such thing as the true meaning of life and it's kind of arrogant to say that death or anything else really is in general what gives life its meaning. This quote is BS, sorry about that, but I can totally see why it can be meaningful to do things whose benefits are for others and not ourselves, and it's meaningful to me too, but that's not the true meaning of life because there isn't one. We each have our own meaning of life and many different things, not just one, can give meaning to our lives. However, if different things can give meaning to the lives of different people, then maybe somebody does find a death gives meaning to their life. Sure, that's possible and I can't argue with that for the same reason that there is no true meaning of life. It depends on the observer, so if you say the death gives meaning to your life, I can't dispute it. Maybe it's true for you. I can't be skeptical that it's true though, and I am. Here's why. We are all painfully aware of our mortality. We all learn fairly early on that we exist for some time and then know more that all the people we love will be gone one day. Humanity itself has been aware of death from its own early days. We had to deal with the horror of our own non-existence from the beginning, and we had to find ways to cope with it, because as far as we knew, death was inevitable. And what's the best way to cope with something horrible and inevitable? Sugarcoating, which is just a form of denial. It's sad that you and everybody you know will die, but you cheer up by telling yourself that if life never ended, you couldn't really appreciate it or that it would become meaningless. Except you don't really know if it's true, because there are no examples of people who lived forever or even centuries unfound that life had lost its meaning. So we made up stories. Stories of immortal people whose eternal lives only brought the misery and afflictions. Paradoxically, we also made up stories about different kinds of afterlife. Places where you go after death and can live forever in some form. This is just my opinion, of course, but to me these things screen that nobody actually likes death or finds that it gives life meaning. We just tell ourselves otherwise to feel better. We are very much whistling through the graveyard. Imported detour. The thought that death might be inevitable is what makes some people think that medicine against aging, which is the main subject of this channel, is pointless. Why bother if you're going to die anyway? Well, because dying later is better than dying sooner, especially if you're imperfect health for longer. There are other reasons why I think that the idea of death or mortality giving meaning to life makes no sense. Have a look at this clip from Star Trek Picard. So, if you're mortal, all those things are precious and life is meaningful, but if you're immortal, they're not. Say you made some kind of troll genie who kept turning you from mortal to immortal and vice versa. Would you also keep changing your mind with every switch about how meaningful your life was? Jokes apart, I think data's got it totally backwards. Peace, love and friendship are not precious because we know they can not last but because they make us feel good. They give us somebody to rely on to spend time with, somebody who understands us, whom we can have fun with and so on and frankly, the longer I could have those things, the better. I don't like my friends because they're mortal. I like them because we get along well. And I don't see why we wouldn't if we weren't mortal and could be friends literally forever. In my opinion, people and things that make your life meaningful have qualities that others don't and that are important to you. That's why they give meaning to your life, not because they might not last. Of course, people and things can change in such a way that they might no longer be meaningful to you, but others may come along and you'd find new meaning. If people that gave your life meaning die, death just took meaning away from your life. If you die, everything and everyone that gave meaning to your life will be taken away from you or rather you from them. But anyway, the way I see it, death deprives life of meaning. It doesn't give it any and frankly, to say otherwise belittles the good things in our life. It's kind of like when children want to play with a toy, not because they actually like it, but because you just took it away from them. Meaning your life aside, I mentioned before how I also disagreed that death may at least be necessary to motivate people to make the best of life. This concept was expressed by Neil deGrasse Tyson in this interview with Larry King. If you could live forever, would you? Yes. No, okay, sure, that's an attractive idea. But the way I look at it is, it is the knowledge that I'm going to die that creates the focus that I bring to being alive. The urgency of accomplishment, the need to express love now, not later. If we live forever, why ever even get out of bed in the morning because you always have tomorrow. But why don't you fear not being around? I fear living a life where I could have accomplished something and didn't. That's what I fear. I don't fear death. You don't fear the unknown. I love the unknown. Honestly, I was shocked that a scientist of all people needs the thought of his own death to motivate him to do science. What about passion, interest, thirst for knowledge? Aren't they reason enough to get out of bed every day and do science or whatever it is that you love doing? The question is not why get out of bed in the morning if there's always tomorrow to do things. The question is why postpone to tomorrow things that you love doing. Hey, guess what? Does it really take the boogaboo of death for you to feel the need to express love now rather than later? Oh, honey, I really love you. But if we weren't mortals, I wouldn't have any reason to tell you. That's instant breakup material right there. And this is not just about people. This is Waffles. Here's my dog. He's cute, sweet, affectionate and funny. And he has his quirks. I love waking him up early in the morning to go for a walk because he's especially sweet and cuddly at the time. Yes, I wake up my dog, not vice versa. I did tell you he has his quirks. He drives me mad sometimes, but I love him anyway. And that's why I go and rub his belly, play games with him and train him and so on. It's most definitely not because we're both mortal. The thought that one day he might die doesn't make him any more or less dear to me than he already is. And in fact, I am petrified to think that I might lose him one day. Right now he's still young, but the clock is ticking for him too. I really hope that the guys working on the dog-aging project make significant progress soon because it's Waffles's existence that adds meaning to my life, not his mortality nor his death. As a side note, the dog-aging project is a really cool research initiative to study aging in pet animals so that we can hopefully slow it down or reverse it. This is definitely worth a future episode, but for now you'll find links in the description below. Also, when Neil deGrasse Tyson was asked by Larry King if he doesn't fear the unknown, he kind of interpreted the question to mean what is yet to discover rather than death, which is what Larry King obviously meant. That allowed him to move away from the subject of death, which in my opinion, betrays how he's afraid of it even though he says he's not. That, or when he said he loves the unknown, he actually meant he loves death, which would be a lot worse. I really don't buy it when people say they don't fear death. If they really don't, I suppose they shouldn't be afraid of a painless lethal injection, and yet, something tells me that they'd rightfully freak out at the thought. The mantra that death shouldn't be feared is just a universal bluff, and there is a silent agreement not to call each other out on it. And speaking of bluffing, what better example of it is there than Doctor Who? First, he said this, and in the very next episode, He's talking about regeneration, something that individuals of his species are able to do to escape death. Yeah, I suppose he's totally not afraid of death, and totally convinced that the time doesn't matter. He'd just like his own to be a little, you know, longer. Oh, and he also said this. One lifetime's been too short for me to do everything I'd like. How much more I get done in two, or three, or four? Doesn't work like that. Yes, it does. That's precisely how it works. You have more time, you can do more things. Whether you will is a different story, but you certainly could if you had extra time and good health, which is exactly the goal of rejuvenation therapies. It doesn't work like that, please. Well, of course, the guy the doctor was talking to in the clip turns into a horrible monster after entering his own fanciful rejuvenation machine because, you know, only bad people want to extend their lives. Wink, wink. But thankfully, in the real world, cliches don't take the place of the laws of physics. All we can expect from rejuvenation treatments is better health and longer lives, to fill with whatever meaning we see fit. No monsters involved. All right, that's about all I had to share with you for this episode. I realized this was basically just me telling you my opinion for a good 15 minutes, so now I'd like to hear yours. What is it that gives meaning to your life? Do you think death adds any? Let me know in the comments below. If you liked this episode or found it interesting, you can help X-10 make more videos like this one as well as science videos where we go into the biology of aging and rejuvenation, social aspects of life extension and more. You can help by doing the usual YouTube stuff, like, share, and subscribe, which would be very much appreciated. Or you can go the extra mile and become a lifespan hero. 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