I've seen a lot of death in my life. Just in the past two weeks, two people I have interacted with at some time have died. One was an old grandmother, the other was 28.

People I've actually known who have died in my life are Dad, my uncle, my aunt, my cousin's husband, my other uncle, my grandmother, my grandfather, my good friends Dave and Carol Turrietta, a friend who was one grade higher in elementary school, a guy I knew in junior high.

Death never seemed very natural or desirable to me. Some people I've talked to do want to die, and I think this bespeaks their level of happiness. I'm more like my surviving grandfather--I want to work through things. Life is pretty fantastic and wondrous.

I believe that the "souls" of people who die go somewhere. No, I'm not getting religious or anything, and my use of the word "soul" is what some people would call consciousness, but I think "soul" is a very descriptive word for something I've heard called "I-ness." The reason I think souls don't go away is that consciousness is something of a continuum, and it seems like that continuum is fairly constant. A constantly burning flame at the end of an infinite wick. It's independent of time, for I can go to sleep and my consciousness seems to "burn" very little through the night. Anyway, this whole idea stops holding as much water when I notice that my consciousness must have started somewhere, so maybe it can end.

Besides, I don't want to rely on any belief that some existing physical principle/advanced civilization/whatever will "save my soul" for me--I think it's within the capabilities of the human race to extend life indefinitely, in the near future, and we should head for that. The options I see are (in order of what seems easiest to what seems hardest): 1. Cure more and more problems through existing methods, increasing lifespan (but this won't make us immortal anytime soon). 2. Transfer of the "soul" into a computer somehow. 3. Create microscopic machines that can repair the human body and even make positive changes. 4. Clone our organs and replace defective parts. 5. Clone an entire body without growing a brain, and transfer the brain.

Another option is genetic engineering, which has the problem that it's hard to retrofit. On the other hand, maybe we'll figure out a reliable delivery mechanism for gene changes in vivo. At the very least it'd be nice to have children with immortal genetic code, but really in all honesty, what does that give me?

Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing with my life, do I have a mission? One worthwhile mission would be to extend the human lifespan. Maybe I'll embark on that one of these days.