John Martin Fischer’s Death, Immortality, and Meaning in Lifeoffers a brief yet in-depth introduction to the key philosophical issues and problems concerning death and immortality. In this wide-ranging and thoughtful conversation, Shermer and Fisher discuss:

meaning in life
meaning in death
the badness of death
different philosophical, religious, and scientific ideas on immortality
near-death experiences
extending life through medical technology
medical immortality vs. real immortality
the problem of identity for immortality (who or what becomes immortal?)
living for 100 years vs. 1000 years vs. forever
responding to the theistic argument that without God anything goes, there is no objective morality, and no meaning to life
If you don’t believe in God or the afterlife, what do you say to someone who is dying or has lost a loved one?
Is immortality, like existence, one thought too many?

John Martin Fischer is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, and a University Professor at the University of California. He is coauthor of Near-Death Experiences: Understanding Visions of the Afterlife (OUP, 2016), and coeditor of Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings(Eighth Edition, OUP, 2018). He was Project Leader of The Immortality Project (John Templeton Foundation).

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95. John Martin Fischer — Death, Immortality and Meaning in Life 01:34:40 Share

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95. John Martin Fischer — Death, Immortality and Meaning in Life