[jogger08152]

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If science continues to progress exponentially, there will certainly come a time where people no longer have to die of natural causes. Science as of today can extend people's lives, and will continue to be able to extend them as it progresses. It's definitely a possibility that if science manages to progress faster than people deteriorate, people's lives can be extended long enough to reach point X (where death by natural causes can be avoided).

Now assume that living forever will result in infinite gain. (not necessarily so, but at least there's a significant chance of this, whereas there probably isn't a significant chance that it will result in infinite loss, as you can just kill yourself anytime you want)

You see where I'm going. There's a slim chance that you have an infinite gain, out of a finite loss, so you should (rationally) put all your efforts towards this objective.

As I see it, this objective needs 2 things: 1) That you stay alive long enough. and 2) That science progresses fast enough.

So you should put all your efforts towards maximizing your health, minimizing your chances of dying and making world science progress as fast as possible.

Then again, we're not wholly rational beings, so I can understand that many of us (myself included), after being presented with this argument and finding it correct, still don't dedicate their whole lives to this end.

Anyway, if you find a hole in this argument please report it.

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This reminds me of Zeno's paradox of the racetrack: there is no way to cross the finish line in a finite period of time because you always have to traverse half the distance first, and there are infinite halves.

The value of infinite life might well be infinite, but if the likelihood of achieving it is infinitely small, it may not help us.