What Does It Mean To Be Human

The deprivation account of death can illustrate the opposing view, which death is bad if the person who is to die loses out on the “good” things in life. This idea of deprivation brings us back to E.M. and her long life of boredom. Williams uses the term categorical desires to describe those accomplishments in life that one typically strives for, usually through inherently motivating factors. This is contrasted by contingent desires, those ephemeral or fleeting desires that are sought to achieve immediate gratification. One reason E.M. may have been entirely dissatisfied with her only three hundred and forty two years life (short lived when discussing immortality) could be that she subconsciously decided she no longer held desires that life could provide. Death was not “bad” for her because she had already accomplished all she had wanted to, and had no more desires to fulfill that death would interrupt. If anything, this confirms that death is relatively good if one has run out of entertaining prospects in their life. The inverse is true as well under the deprivation account: that death is bad if one is still in the process of achieving desires. Pushing the idea further, it does appear that immortality is a positive thing when an

At some point in time we have all wondered what it means to human, and what we are supposed to do with our lives. Throughout the centuries, there have been gradual changes in what it means to be human. Through Pico della Mirandola we will how man became the measure and took the place of God, through Charles Darwin we will see how nature and science began to take the place of man, and through the art of Friedrich we can visually see all of these changes.

This is greatly illustrated in the book "Monkey" where the Monkey King mentions his desire to live forever at numerous points.

Throughout history, the human race has always had constants in how the world functions; love, hate, war, life, death, and at the base of it all, free will. Without free will, life would have no meaning, there would be nothing special about anyone on this earth and the fact that every single person on this earth has a say in everything that they do is what makes life itself beautiful. Elie Wiesel once stated, “…action is the only remedy for indifference: the most insidious danger of them all.” Mr. Wiesel’s statement is true when he says that indifference is a danger and that taking action is a good way to fix it, but his statement is also wrong because it does not take into account human free will and that when people

This too, implies and explains that God has absolute sovereignty over the universe, alluding to him being the controller of time. In the quote “Short was our time, for in his prime our youthful flower was cropped: We died in youth, before full growth, so was our purpose stopped” (Wigglesworth 247). This means that God ends lives, or does anything in general, because he sees it fit, even though people may be seen as too young. God decides when people are supposed to do anything, including when they are supposed to live. The purpose that God has for everything is determined by him alone because of his absolute

The discussion of immortality went all the way back to Adam and Eve because ever since they took from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were banished from the Garden of Eden. Being banished from the Garden of Eden put them out of reach of the Tree of Life, which would make them immortal and god-like. Chappell explained how the Tree of Life is a metaphor for human mortality. Humans can use science and innovation to prolong life, but they will forever be out of reach of immortality. Immortality, according to Chappell, is possibly a modern-day myth. Scientific possibly leading to immortal life is something that humans can only hope for much like finding the Fountain of Youth. However, this desire to find a way to live forever is something that only exists in the minds of human beings. I believe that animals do not have the same awareness levels that humans do, which can often leave humans jealous because animals most likely do not have the same fears of dying or growing old that humans possess.

Why would someone want to be immortal if they cannot share their life with others? Sharing with others is what life is about. Making connections and relationships

Human beings revolve around time and base their lives off of it. Although a person has the capability to use time as little or a lot to plan out their life, time’s presence can have a different impact for everyone. In sonnet “73” when talking about someone coming to the end of their life Shakespeare says, “In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire that on the ashes of his youth doth die”

This is due to the consistency of their individual characteristics remaining the same for so many years. Problematically, Williams asserts the immortal life would be undesirable, or unlivable since we will inevitably exhaust our categorical desires.

Humans experience such incredible amounts of sorrow, happiness, pain, and love, that over time, wears down the most powerful thing in people, the heart. As people get older there becomes less will to survive, as they run out of vitality. The walls they built have been broken down; they've opened up and closed their heart time after time, and in doing so exposed themselves to wear and tear. They’ve been through so much that their ‘powerhouse’ is now beaten down and is too hard to rebuild. In the words of Doyle, “...all hearts are finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by the force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall.” (Doyle) So, some people may spend their life trying to protect against the attacks, only in the end to find they're done trying to rebuild. The heart has given its best and vitality is worn down, proving that the participation in what life has to offer determines the amount of time people can

There are plenty of other moments of time, they reason, when that person is alive. Therefore, death can be overlooked as a chronological inconvenience.

With this, we no longer can answer the important questions that ask “what” of our lives. We begin to care only about chasing after what we find pleasure or survival in.

Whereas, Fischer denies Williams’ dilemma, because his argument is too narrow in thinking, because Williams asserts the agent would possess only one categorical desire. However, Fischer denies Williams’ assertion, because the immortal agent would not be pursuing only one interest. Fischer questions Williams’ mode of reasoning on why the agent must pursue only one interest; Fischer proposes that the individual would possess a package of categorical desires, which would enable the agent to move in to their immortal future without succumbing to eternal boredom. “Certainly, an immortal life could consist in a certain mix of activities, possibly including friendship, love, family, intellectual, artistic and athletic activity, sensual delights, and so forth” (216). Rather relentlessly pursuing one good, the packages of categorical desires enable the agent to move between pleasures and keep themselves busy. Furthermore, Fischer rejects Williams’ assertion that the immortal agent cannot undergo any form of boredom, and that they must constantly be absorbed in their environment. Fischer asserts all mortal lives consists of temporary moments of boredom/pains, which enable the agent to proceed to mentally stimulating environment/goods (261). Furthermore, the possible issue that the agent

We create our own plot line. And that plot line soon turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy” (Sheehy, p. 169). By creating our own life plot lines, we can control the outcomes to be either progressive or degenerative. Erikson’s theory has only three stages that address the ages of 21-65 years and older, whereas Sheehy believes that the first adulthood stage ends around the mid-forties and the second adulthood begins. There is a change in the mind of people entering this stage and they will either progress through the stage and be ready to be reborn or they will have some struggles they will have to overcome. Even though Erikson’s stages have individual’s fulfill their stages in one way or another, Sheehy’s stage of second adulthood is based more on the ways we create our life path and how fulfilled we make our

No one living on this earth will live forever. It comes a point in time when we all must go. Our bodies are not made that way and