Would We Still Seek Meaning If We Lived Forever?

 Paradoxically, life’s fleeting nature gives moments their significance.”

Arun Kumar

Arun Kumar + AI: Search for Meaning and Mortality

Summary: The search for meaning is often tied to mortality — our fleeting existence compels ambition, creativity, and connection. But what if death disappeared? Would search for meaning and purpose dissolve, or evolve beyond the sense of urgency? Whether our drive to create meaning comes from inevitability or death or sheer curiosity, is an interesting question to ponder.

From the moment consciousness stirred within us, we have measured life against its inevitable end.

The specter of mortality shapes our pursuits, fuels our desires, and compels us to seek meaning of our finite existence. Time — unyielding and fleeting — presses urgency upon our days, giving weight to our choices. But what if that urgency were stripped away? If death no longer loomed on the horizon, would our search for meaning vanish, or would it evolve into something new?

Imagine an existence unconstrained by time. Imagine a world where the ticking of the clock no longer holds meaning. No relentless countdown urging us toward ambition, no quiet fear whispering to make a legacy. Imagine a work where the passing years will merely be a shrug. Would we still paint, write, build, and dream with any urgency? Or would the absence of death extinguish the fire of creation, leaving us adrift in the vastness of time, untethered from the need for a purpose?

Throughout history, mortality has been a catalyst for creation. The awareness of an inevitable end has fueled our search for meaning, deepened our desire for connection, and sparked an unrelenting curiosity about the meaning of life. It has shaped philosophical superstructures, given rise to religions and beliefs, and propelled artists to carve statues from stone with hopes that they will last forever. It has driven lovers to linger a little longer — to feel a little less alone — and compelled thinkers to wrestle with the meaning of existence.

Paradoxically, life’s fleeting nature gives moments their significance. Without it, the number of sunsets will stretch into infinity, embraces will lose their urgency, and the time available for pursuit of wonder will know no bounds — yet, perhaps endless repetition will also strip everything of novelty and meaning.

Meaning often flourishes in contrast — joy against sorrow, presence against absence, vitality against decay. Finitude gives weight to eternity, making its pursuit feel precious. But if all things stretched unbroken into forever, would we still grasp their worth? Would passion fade into complacency, ambition dissolve into aimlessness, love dissipate into indifference? After all, there would always be tomorrow to take care of today.

But can we be so sure? Perhaps the search for meaning — the pull of curiosity — is not entirely bound to our awareness of mortality. Maybe search, and an urge to create a purpose, is not shaped by fear of loss, but by the sheer act of existence itself. If we lived forever, might new narratives not emerge, untethered from time’s constraints? Perhaps it is innate curiosity, not urgency, that truly fuels creation.

But still, compelling questions remain. What would drive a being destined to exist forever? Would infinite existence eventually crave limitations — just to rediscover the fullness of experience? And to keep things interesting, might it invent some form of death, resetting the cycle without the burden of memory? After all, we would have plenty of time to invent such alternatives.

We cannot know. Bound by the shadow of mortality, we struggle to envision beyond its limits. Our perspective is shaped — perhaps constrained — by the blinders we wear. Whether life’s brevity is the basic spark for the search for meaning and purpose remains uncertain; after all, not everyone who is bound by mortality feels the urge to do this; just look around.

And so, the question lingers, suspended beyond resolution: Can the search for meaning exist without mortality? Or is it mortality that gives this pursuit its shape, its urgency, its drive?

Perhaps we can never answer it because we cannot imagine the counterfactual world of being immortal. Or perhaps, we can approach this question by thinking of a fictional worlds of immortality, have a through experiment where life persists for different lengths of time, and think of consequences.  In doing so, we might learn something.

Ciao, and thanks for reading.