This ancient question is as topical as ever. But are we wise to wish for immortality? What would it mean for each of us as individuals, for society, and for the planet?

Stephen Cave is the Director of the Institute for Technology and Humanity at the University of Cambridge, UK. His other books include Immortality (Crown, 2012), AI Narratives (with Sarah Dillon and Kanta Dihal, Oxford UP, 2020), and Imagining AI (with Kanta Dihal, Oxford UP, 2023). He also advises governments around the world on the ethics of technology and has served as a British diplomat.

John Martin Fischer is a Distinguished Professor in Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, and in 2017 he was appointed a University Professor in the University of California, one of twenty-two in the ten-campus system, and the only philosopher. He has published widely on the topics of this debate, including: The Metaphysics of Death (Stanford UP, 1993), Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death, and Free Will (Oxford UP, 2009), and Death, Immortality, and Meaning in Life (Oxford UP, 2019). From 2012 to 2015, he was the Project Leader of The Immortality Project, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Lord Martin Rees is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He is the fifteenth Astronomer Royal, appointed in 1995, and was Master of Trinity College at Cambridge University, from 2004 to 2012, and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010.

Foreword Part 1: Opening Statements 1. Why You Should Not Choose to Live Forever (Stephen Cave) 2. Why You Should Choose to Live Forever (John Martin Fischer) Part 2: First Round of Replies 3. Reply to John Martin Fischer (Steven Cave) 4. Reply to Stephen Cave (John Martin Fischer) Part 3: Second Round of Replies 5. Reply to John Martin Fischer's Reply (Stephen Cave) 6. Reply to Steven Cave's Second Essay (John Martin Fischer) Further Readings Glossary References Index