The Exhaustion of Science and the Tedium of Immortality

The Exhaustion of Science and the Tedium of Immortality Joseph Ulatowski and David Beisecker This is a DRAFT. Please do not cite without permission. Comments, criticisms, and suggestions welcome. (C) 2013 Joseph Ulatowski & Dave Beisecker. Abstract Responding to Bernard Williams’ (1973) argument that the Makropulos case shows a body­bound immortal life would be chronically boring, Donald Bruckner (2012) has argued that human ingenuity would continually open up new paths of inquiry and expression, and thus relieve Makropulos­like immortals from insufferable tedium. In this paper, we argue that body­bound immortality still could be chronically boring because we might reach a point at which efforts to engage in future inquiry is pointless. If those suspicions prove correct, then Bruckner’s argument from human ingenuity might be overly optimistic. Keywords: Well­being, Motivational Reasons, Immortality, Donald Bruckner, Bernard Williams The thought of living in Hawai’i seems quite appealing to those living on the United States mainland. Some native Hawai’ians, however, suffer from “Island Fever,” a chronic form of boredom caused by the realization that it is not possible to travel elsewhere easily. Island Fever is seemingly incomprehensible because of the idyllic aesthetic island living conjures up in our minds. Confinement to one place for an interminable amount of time might just be nightmarishly boring. Just as living on an island paradise could become insufferably tedious, living a life well beyond the 1 average expected lifespan could become a perpetual bore too. Bernard Williams (1973) reached this conclusion in his assessment of the case of Elina Makropulos (“EM”). Williams claims, “it can be a good thing not to live long” (Williams 1973, 83). Recently, Donald Bruckner (2012) has challenged Williams’ account. Bruckner has argued that a body­bound immortal life might be worth living after all, since human memories decay, our desires rejuvenate, and human ingenuity shows no signs of stopping or slowing down. In this paper, we aim to challenge Bruckner’s argument from human ingenuity. In effect, we will argue that perhaps Bruckner has adopted a mainlander’s view of human ingenuity. After summarizing Williams’ argument against the desirability of a body­bound immortal life and presenting Bruckner’s three replies, we will present some considerations in support of the possibility that fruitful inquiry might actually come to an end. Thus human ingenuity might not continue indefinitely, and so a body­bound immortal life might become chronically boring after all. 1. ‘Immortality’ and Bruckner’s Critique of Bernard Williams’ Makropulos Case Williams and Bruckner discuss a limited embodied form of “punctuated immortality” where we retain our own body for an indefinite or unbounded amount of time. The punctuated immortal life is one lived in a physical body that does not age or physically deteriorate. Despite the lack of change or alteration to one’s physical characteristics, a person’s psychological or mental life would continue to evolve. The limitations of punctuated immortality are similar to the limitations of human existence. Should the punctuated immortal person choose to jump from the Empire State Building or run in freeway traffic, the person may die from the injuries sustained one would expect when leaping from tall 2 buildings or playing in traffic. Moreover, in order to sustain the punctuated immortal life, the person will have drink an elixir every three hundred years. Bernard Williams (1973) argued that a punctuated immortal life with infinitely many relevantly similar experiences would be an insufferably tedious one that would not be worth living, and for which it is not at all unreasonable to end. “From facts about human desire and happiness and what a human life is, it follows both that immortality would be, where conceivable at all, intolerable,” writes Williams (1973, 82). By way of illustration, he presents the case of EM from The Makropoulus Secret, a play by Karel Čapek (1925). In the play EM possesses an elixir, a single dose of which is capable of extending her life by 300 years with no physical signs of aging. When we first encounter her, she is 342 years old, having taken a single dose at the biological age of 42, and is contemplating whether to drink the elixir another time. Williams tells us that EM’s life has become boring, indifferent, and cold. On Williams’ view, two conditions must be satisfied for immortality to be appealing. First, the future person must be identical to the person as they are now. Second, the life of the future person must be attractive to the person as they are now. These two conditions lead to a dilemma. Either EM’s character remains the same over time, or it changes. If it remains the same over time, then indefinitely many experiences will lead to detachment or boredom. If EM’s character changes, then it is unclear whether the second condition is satisfied because it is unclear how to assess the new projects and goals in light of the old ones. According to Williams, neither horn seems particularly appealing, thus we should conclude that EM should not drink the elixir. By way of reply, Bruckner tells us that for a punctuated immortal life to be desirable, it is sufficient for life to “contain enough variety of activities to keep life interesting,” that it “cannot necessarily result in chronic, habitual, or perpetual boredom,” and that it “is something that others would rationally desire to 3 live eternally as well” (Bruckner forthcoming, 4). Bruckner advances three considerations suggesting that, pace Williams, embodied immortality might nevertheless be worth living: the argument from memory decay, the argument from the rejuvenation of desires, and the argument from human ingenuity. First, Bruckner has argued that memories decay to an extent significant enough that the memory of what that experience was like will be forgotten at some future time. If an agent forgets what an experience was like, then undertaking the same endeavor in the future would seem fresh and new to the agent. Bruckner writes: [R]epeating similar experiences would not be boring. For example, if one did not read philosophy for, say, 1000 years, my guess is that after all that time one would indeed forget to a large degree what that experience was like. Similarly, if one had 20 careers of 40 years each, it seems easy to believe that one would completely or almost completely forget what the first career felt like after 760 years had passed since that first career was finished. (Bruckner 2012, 630) When something is fresh and new, life remains interesting. An interesting life is worth living. Given that our memories would decay and our lives would remain interesting, we would desire to take the elixir and continue living a punctuated immortal life.1 1 We need to be careful about how we understand what kind of memory is in play. It is not the memory of having the experience that Bruckner is addressing but the memory of what the experience was like. For instance, it is not the memory of having bred and raised fainting goats that matters most but the memory of what it was like to tend to the rigid critters. 4 Bruckner’s second argument has it that desire stagnation is not an inevitability. Desires would not stagnate in a punctuated immortal life because we could leave one endeavor for another and not return to the first until a sufficient amount of time has passed when our desire for it has been rejuvenated. Bruckner’s defense of this view comes from an analogy with episodic boredom. Just as episodic boredom with an activity can be cured by a break of a relatively short duration from that activity, so too can chronic boredom with one sort of life, career, or long­term pursuit be cured by a break of a longer duration from that life, career, or long­term pursuit... In this way, we can extrapolate, from our common experience of episodic boredom in our short lives, to the way things would be if we were to live immortal lives. (Bruckner 2012, 631) When we suffer from episodic boredom, we just need to stop doing what we are doing and return to it later after our desire for it has been rejuvenated. Episodic boredom is the kind of boredom one experienced as a child. A child who has become bored playing with Legos can decide to play with Barbie dolls if the child finds that more desirable. When the child is bored by the Barbie dolls, the child might return to playing with Legos. The short break from playing with Legos helps rejuvenate the child’s desire to play with them. When we rejuvenate our desires, life is worth living again. We are able to curb chronic boredom by not engaging in some activities for an extended amount of time. The third argument uses human ingenuity to argue that body­bound immortals will not become chronically bored. The argument from human ingenuity challenges the view that “there are only finitely many classes of relevantly similar things to do, lives to lead, and experiences to have” (Bruckner 5 forthcoming, passim). According to the human ingenuity argument, the options available to agents over time is constantly evolving and changing sometimes resulting in entirely new similarity classes. The reason for change in an individual’s options is “that human ingenuity changes them and creates new ones” (Bruckner 2012, 632f [his emphasis]). Bruckner has employed a few examples to clarify what he means by the change in or creation of new available options. Crop farming in 2012 is relevantly different from crop farming in 1612. A crop farmer living in 1612 would find farming practices in 2012 nearly unrecognizable from the ones used in 1612, and (potentially) vice versa. Because crop farming has changed in 400 years, crop farmers of 1612 would find the practices of 2012 new and interesting enough to keep them sufficiently interested in crop farming. Likewise, 2012 crop farmers may discover that the practices of 1612 crop farming so relevantly different from their own that they choose to set aside the technology of twenty­first century farming. Overcoming the threat of chronic boredom would be a matter of embracing new technology or of returning to a simpler way of life. Equally helpful to Bruckner’s argument from human ingenuity is the example of an occupation that did not exist very long ago but exists now. In the mid­1980s, for example, no one would know what website designers are. The occupation did not exist at that time. Today almost all companies hire a website designer to provide online interactive content for business. Human invention has changed “the nature of existing human activities and create[s] new human activities” (Bruckner 2012, 634).2 Because 2 There are obsolete occupations no one would consider reintroducing and probably would not consider trying. For instance, we should perhaps hesitate to reintroduce gong farmers, gladiators, or “resurrectionists” (body snatchers). Similarly, it’s hard to imagine that “breaker boys” or “grooms of the stool” would be a way to make a living. More recently, no one employs “elevator operators,” 6 of this, the class of relevantly dissimilar activities that keep chronic boredom at bay would be very large. Thus we have Bruckner’s three considerations against Williams’ view that punctuated immortality would be chronically boring. Bruckner has argued that because (i) our memories decay significantly over time, (ii) because our desires for some activity will be refreshed after a time apart from it, and (iii) because human invention and ingenuity will lead to the alteration of some common activity or an entirely new domain of interests, the probability is very low that we will become chronically bored after living many hundreds or thousands of years. In the next section, we will offer a criticism of the argument from human ingenuity. This criticism will show how Bruckner has either overlooked or downplayed the possibility of a point at which human ingenuity peters out. If so, then the spectre of tedium reemerges all over again. 2. Too Pollyannaish Williams’ argument against living a punctuated immortal life depends on there being a high probability that our desires will not be rejuvenated, our memory will not decay, and new inventions will not appear rapidly enough to hold our interest for a very long time. Bruckner has offered three arguments employing these criteria to oppose Williams’ view. We suspect that Bruckner’s response overlooks or too quickly dismisses the possibility that there will be an effective end to worthwhile “(bowling) pin setters,” “lamplighters,” “icemen,” “telephone switchboard operators,” or “milk men.” Some prominent occupations may soon join the ranks of obsolete occupations: “umpires” and “referees,” “travel agents,” “librarians,” and “supermarket cashiers.” New technology occasionally snuffs out occupations once considered a lucrative and profitable profession. 7 inquiry, scientific or otherwise. Thus we wonder whether Bruckner’s faith in the never­ending progress of inquiry just might be too pollyannaish. Let us take as an analogy the extraction of natural resources like crude oil and other carbon­based energy sources. At first, there seemed an abundance of fossil fuels, and the prospects of exhausting them seemed slim. As our demand for oil outstripped that which was available in our initial sources in Western Pennsylvania, we turned to easily­obtained sources in California and Texas, and then to the petroleum rich Arab States, such as Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. But as we all know too well, even those rich deposits are finite. The low­hanging fruits have been picked, forcing us to pursue riskier, harder­to­obtain sources. Think of our felt need to pursue ever­deeper gulf deposits that spawned the Deep Water Horizon disaster and the current controversy over harvesting Canadian shale­oil. The end of the carbon economy is now seemingly in sight. And it is not exactly that we will have exhausted all the crude that can be extracted; rather, the cost of such extraction will far outweigh the gain. But this is not a paper warning us about the dire environmental consequences of continuing our present­day addiction to fossil fuels. Frankly, we are optimistic that we will eventually break that addiction, and confident that future technological advances will usher us into a new, more sustainable energy economy. For ours is an age of scientific confidence, an age in which scientific and technological advances come relatively easy. There are still plenty of good ideas just waiting to be had “out there,” ripe for the picking and articulation. Instead, we worry that Bruckner might just be a product of that very same age, and that he projects the confidence of this age too far. Any end to scientific inquiry is nowhere near in sight. As we just mentioned, we will run out of easily­obtainable oil far before we run out of worthy scientific ideas. Still, 8 it is apparent that scientific inquiry is becoming increasingly intensive in terms of resources and human capital. The days of great discovery by isolated researchers working alone in their labs with minimal support are vanishing, as such discoveries seem increasingly fewer and far­between. The vision of The Nutty Professor discovering flubber is now as quaint as that of the lone prospector searching the hills for the mother lode. Instead, advances in science and technology are now the products of increasingly larger teams collaborating with the backing of ever­larger research budgets. Whereas it seems that Bruckner has supported a view of human ingenuity that will continue to make discoveries at a similar or ever­increasing rate, we think instead that it is entirely conceivable that new scientific discoveries will either level off or begin to diminish. The rate of new and interesting discoveries leading to other discoveries will begin to ebb and decline more rapidly as time passes (see Figure 1). 9 We believe the view that new scientific discoveries will begin to ebb is a “maturing” of the scientific enterprise. While scientific advances still occur at an astonishing rate, the new discovery pipeline may begin to show signs of overuse. The once lucrative, rich scientific landscape will give way to deserted landscapes. There will come a time at which production begins to decline, as the easily worked out ideas garner full attention and treatment. Future “Scientific Revolutions,” to employ Thomas Kuhn’s terminology, would occur less and less frequently producing fewer and fewer paradigm shifts. According to Kuhn, “the successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual pattern characteristic of mature science” (Kuhn 1970, 12). The transition from Ptolemaic to Copernican cosmology or the acceptance of non­Euclidean geometry as equipollent with Euclidean geometry are examples of paradigm shifts in the natural sciences. There is a time when the “low­hanging” paradigms (those easily reached) all get taken, to an extent that we no longer seriously hold out any reasonable hope of their being more interesting discoveries to be had. For those who hold out hope for more discoveries will soon find themselves amid tremendously complex and daunting tasks. Paradigms themselves may become increasingly more difficult to articulate. Essentially, what we reach is an “end” of science, although one that looks far more depressing than the “ideal” end of science envisioned by those following in the wake of Peirce (1992, 1998). If we think of science in terms of a social exchange of ideas and if we permit that many scientists drink the elixir of punctuated immortal life, then very little inquiry remains after all the low­hanging fruit has been picked. “OK, now what?,” the scientists would ask. We can imagine laboratories filled with chemists transfixed by beakers void of content, with physicists paralyzed by calculators no longer in need of 10 input, or, even worse, with scientists everywhere just staring at one another. Could we go further and extract more scientific knowledge out of further natural investigation? Yes. But do we? No, because the rewards of doing so are just not worth the investment and hassle. We are not saying that such an age is inevitable, only that it seems possible, and that optimists like Bruckner should not overlook this possibility. Indeed, in our really dark heart of hearts, we worry that such resource boundaries may be reached by other, more “humanistic” inquiries as well: that we just might come to an end of art, of philosophy, of literature and poetry, indeed, an end of history itself. This is a vision of the apocalypse coming, not with a bang, but rather a long wimper. One might well despair to live in such an age, let alone to be forced to live through it in eternity. Let’s pray the zombies take us first! 3. Puckering up, not petering out Bruckner has anticipated our criticism (Bruckner 2012, 635f). His response has one central thesis: a punctuated immortal life would not become boring even if human ingenuity “peters out.” According to Bruckner, there is no end to the amount of complexity involved in any existing activity, so we would never become chronically bored. Bruckner writes: I am confident that if I tried to reinvent the internal combustion engine, doing so would keep me occupied and non­bored for a long while. We find something similar with individuals who find joy in doing things in old­fashioned ways, such as woodworking with non­powered hand tools, hunting with primitive weapons, baking bread in their 11 own kitchens, or raising sheep for fibers to spin, weave, dye, and fashion into garments. These activities are justified mostly by their intrinsic value and hardly at all by their instrumental value, for there are much more efficient ways of producing furniture, meat, bread, and garments. (Bruckner 2012, 636) As Civil War re­enactors, we can empathise with this response. There is indeed something intrinsically endearing about challenging ourselves by doing things in antiquated, old­fashioned ways. However, such recycling of activities also has its limits. Any given activity ­ coopering or 17th­century farming, for instance ­ is only going to keep us occupied and engaged for so long, and there is only so many such worthy pursuits anyway. Indeed, after engaging in a satisfying variety of such activities, it seems perfectly reasonable to suspect that we would get bored of continually doing things in old­fashioned manners.3 Our response to Bruckner’s counterclaim is to echo what Williams originally argued. Williams argued that boredom would result from even the most interesting endeavors. His example was intellectual pursuits. And, according to Williams, even those pursuits would become vapid after some duration of time. He writes: 3 Our argument in some ways may be analogous with Elijah Millgram’s (2004) criticism of Harry Frankfurt. In contrast with Frankfurt’s claim that having final ends necessarily would not result in any kind of boredom, Millgram has argued that agents can have final ends but still be bored. Millgram’s disagreement with Frankfurt focuses upon the right explanation for the centrality of ends in forestalling boredom. 12 Some philosophers have pictured an eternal existence as occupied in something like intense intellectual enquiry. [...] The activity is engrossing, self­justifying, affords, as it may appear, endless new perspectives, and by being engrossing enables one to lose oneself. It is that last feature that supposedly makes boredom unthinkable, by providing something that is... at every moment totally absorbing. [...] For looking at such a person as he now is, it seems quite unreasonable to suppose that those activities would have the fulfilling or liberating character that they do have for him... . If they are genuinely fulfilling, and do not operate (as they can) merely as compulsive diversion, then the ground and shape of the satisfactions that the intellectual enquiry offers him, will relate to him, and not just to the enquiry. The Platonic introjection, seeing the satisfactions of studying what is timeless and impersonal as being themselves timeless and impersonal, may be a deep illusion, but it is certainly an illusion. (Williams 1973, 96) We would be fundamentally mistaken to believe that any endeavor would turn out to be interesting for us after having done it, or after having done something similar to it, for an extended time. Here, Williams seems to raise a concern over the nature of ‘enquiry’ itself. If we set aside the content of our intellectual pursuits and focus squarely upon what it is we are doing, namely intellectual investigations, then we will discover that it is the source of our despair. The very nature of our intellectual curiosity would bore us to death. Bruckner has thought that our objection has been foiled by a principle he inherits from Rawls. That some endeavors are intrinsically valuable depends on Rawls’ general principle of human motivation he called the “Aristotelian principle.” Rawls’ Aristotelian principle states that: 13 [O]ther things equal, human beings enjoy the exercise of their realized capacities (their innate or trained abilities), and this enjoyment increases the more the capacity is realized, or the greater its complexity. (Rawls 1999, 374) Complex activities are accompanied by greater satisfaction “because they satisfy the desire for variety and novelty of experience, and leave room for feats of ingenuity and invention” (Ibid.). Rawls’ Aristotelian Principle suggests that some endeavors are intrinsically valuable. So, for Bruckner’s counterargument to work, he must show that some activity is valuable for its own sake. He has argued: The metaphorical mousetrap has gotten so good that further advances in mousetrap effectiveness do not justify the investment of time and energy that would be needed to make those advances. But this is just to say that the instrumental value of mousetrap research is insufficient to justify the research. The research itself, however, because it satisfies Rawls’ Aristotelian Principle ­ designing a better mousetrap is, after all, exceedingly difficult and complex ­ may be intrinsically valuable. (Bruckner 2012, 635) An intrinsically valuable activity might be a futile endeavor. A critical component of asking complex questions is to know which questions are important and ought to be explored. Not all questions deserve our attention. For those questions that may not be highly coveted, we must ask: Do we have reason to do something that is futile? Bruckner owes us an argument showing that intrinsic value trumps 14 the futility of some activities. We believe it remains an open questions whether we would be justified in engaging in such futile activity. Perhaps Bruckner can defend his view by arguing that some things we do to fill the time in order to forgo boredom are intrinsically valuable.4 A person may respond to a period of boredom by adopting maieutic ends, a kind of second­order end. A second­order end is an end whose content consists of having other ends or desires. Maieutic ends fill up affective space with ends. Think of the following: going for a walk in the park just for something to do. I walk in the park in order to relieve boredom. One might believe that when we say that agent S ψs in order to φ, S has to be reasoning instrumentally. But that is not necessarily the case with maieutic ends. ψ­ing and φ­ing might be constitutively connected, rather than instrumentally linked.5 A parallel case is one we might call a “pastime.” A pastime serves to amuse and make the time pass agreeably. We might skip rocks across a pond just to pass the time when I am lonely or bored. The way we pass the time might be futile, but it is not worthless because it fills the void created by the lack of having anything else to do. There is only so much time we can do before the pastimes we pursue to fill the time become terribly boring. Skipping rocks across the pond or taking a walk might relieve a person’s boredom for a short time, but we can imagine that that person will become terribly bored by these activities after a longer period of time. No one skips rocks across the pond day after day after day; instead, rock­skipping is employed so as to offset waiting for the carne adovada stuffed sopapilla. Doing something to fill one’s time with futile activities might seem like it will relieve boredom. But, even if activities such as skipping rocks or doodling are an effective means of forswearing episodic boredom, these activities will not 4 We are grateful for conversations and correspondence with Donald Bruckner about this point. 5 Cf. Schimidtz 1994. 15 assuage chronic boredom. Reminding ourselves of a point we made earlier, groups of scientists would just stare at one another to pass the time because the resources required to continue their activities would be too great. This is just the sort of moment that reflects life has become chronically boring. Second, it is entirely possible that we find nothing intrinsically valuable about going for a walk in the park or for skipping rocks across the pond. Not only that but we would not value any endeavor that we could do in order not to be bored. There are plenty of instances we have experienced where we would not mind just passing the time having a beer while watching a football game or sitting in a park reading the latest thriller by Norwegian queen of crime fiction Karin Fossum. Nothing we do to fill­in­the­blanks of life could forestall the onset of chronic boredom. The Hawai’ian islanders we spoke of at the outset of this paper are a good example of what we mean here. They are ­­ quite literally ­­ trapped in paradise. Whatever they do, whether it is something in which they have great interest or passing the time by attending yet another luau, they are stuck. The only way out is to escape the island. Just as in the islander’s case, the only way out of this chronically boring state for these punctuated immortals is death. 4. Contending Briefly with the Rejuvenation of Desire & Memory Decay The three arguments Bruckner advanced in his paper were not meant to be mutually exclusive. We have addressed one of these arguments, the argument from human ingenuity, without contending with the other two arguments. In this section, we would like to briefly address these other two arguments.6 6 We do not believe (even for a second) that our criticisms are the final word on Bruckner’s argument; instead, we believe that what we have argued here is an opening volley in a discussion about the 16 Even if inquiry is good “for its own sake,” it might still become tedious. We could offset our boredom by twiddling our thumbs, snapping our fingers, skipping rocks across a pond, or whatever way we do to pass the time. If the argument from human ingenuity fails to help agents out of chronic boredom, then Bruckner might expect that his arguments from memory decay or the rejuvenation of desire helps his case. A person’s desire might rejuvenate after some time away from it, or a person might forget what a felt experience was like and want to do it again. It is possible that one’s desires for some pursuit fails to rejuvenate. There were lots of things we did as children we have no desire to do now; moreover, our desire to do that activity does not rejuvenate. Grown women do not have a playdate for barbie dolls, or men for playing with Star Wars action figures. A critic might argue that the same thing is not true of adult activities. There is nothing against any of our desires for an adult activity to rejuvenate. We believe, however, that a phenomenon similar to that of our childhood activities can occur with adult activities. Sometimes we take up an activity to become as good at it as we can. When we reach a state where we can improve no more, we stop doing that activity. We become bored by doing it any longer, and we see no reason why we should return to it.7 In this case, our desire for the worthiness (or lack thereof) of an immortal life. The literature on subjective well­being and the meaning of life has become quite active in the last few years. So, we would like to think that this paper, like Bruckner’s paper, has opened new avenues of philosophically important topics that should be addressed, even if the avenues ultimately ­­ perhaps after several years of intensive exploration ­­ may lead to a dead end. 7 One of us (Joe) has a colleague who has admitted to engaging in a particular activity for about six or seven years and then quitting it because he has become bored by it. Also, when asked whether he has any desire to take up an activity he left several years ago, he said that he had no desire to take it up 17 activity fail to rejuvenate, regardless of whether we found the experience of performing that activity to be thrilling. The argument from memory decay would have us believe that the memories of what an experience was like would decay to a point where we would find performing an activity we put down many years earlier more appealing now. It is easy to forget what an experience was like. Nevertheless, we have vague memories of things we have done. What comes along with these memories is something like the following, “I remember that I have done this before, I liked it when I was doing it, and then I became bored by doing it.” This is not exactly remembering what the experience is like, but we do use memories like this to avoid doing things we know bored us. We fear that the same activities will bore us again. If we fear that doing the same things again, though what the experience is like might be appealing, we would not have a reason to take up these same activities again. Thus, rescuing Bruckner from our objection will require more argumentation than what either the argument from desire rejuvenation or memory decay can afford. Bruckner’s response seems to miss the point ­ that the mere pursuit of inquiry might itself become too tediously complex to be worth the effort. 5. Conclusion We have suggested that Bruckner’s view of human ingenuity is too pollyannish. And, if our vision is correct, then it is possible that the body­bound immortal life might just be chronically boring after all. We have argued there is a high probability that scientific discoveries become fewer in number and that again and could foresee no future time at which he would want to do so. 18 investing our intellectual capital in further experimentation would be far too costly. Then, we contended with Bruckner’s response to such an objection by showing that intrinsic value of certain endeavors cannot be possible when these exercises are futile. Consequently, the undying life just might not be worth living. 19 References Bruckner, D. (2012). Against the tedium of immortality. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 20.5: 623­644. Čapek, Karel. The Makropoulos Secret. Branden Pub Co, 1925. Kuhn, T. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2d edition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Millgram, E. (2004). On being bored out of your mind. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 104, 165­186. Peirce, C.S. (1992). The Essential Peirce: Volume 1, Selected Philosophical Writings (1867­1893). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Peirce, C.S. (1998). The Essential Peirce: Volume 2, Selected Philosophical Writings (1893­1913). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Rawls, J. (1999). A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University. 20 Shmidtz, D. (1994). Choosing ends. Ethics 104, 226­251. Williams, B. (1973). The Makropulos case: reflections on the tedium of immortality. Problems of the Self, 82­100. 21