Would you like to be frozen when you die and wait for medical science to cure whatever illness you died of? Would you take the gamble that the future world is going to be a good place to wake up in? Simon Cowell, X factor judge, intends to have just this done to his body. He doesn't want to live forever, he just wants to delay drawing that final curtain!
My philosophy group has just been discussing this. We had lots of reasons for agreeing with, and disagreeing with, Simon's point of view. In the end, after reflecting on what we had said, we put it to a vote. There were 33 of us. These were our results: 1 agreed with Simon, a massive 25 disagreed, and there were 7 don't knows.
This was surprising, as there had been a balance of arguments for and against. Then one of the group, who had voted against, said, 'I may change my mind later, I want to wait and get more evidence for this and see if it works in future.....'
Try this discussion in your own philosophy group.
This issue connects to the branch of philosophy called Philosophy of Science.
(Source: First News Newspaper for Kids issue 145 27 Feb-5th March 2009)
