ABSTRACT
A complete examination of the desirability of immortality demands a consideration of forms of immortality/extension beyond the personal sort. Humans have long had the more metaphorical notion of immortality via the legacy and artifacts that “live on” without us, but scholars from various disciplines have begun commenting in recent years on how easy it is now for many people to leave something remarkably durable and detailed behind—an online presence. While some people take comfort in the idea that their images, thoughts, and even their life stories can be preserved indefinitely, there are good reasons to question how comforting this really is. Relying on Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenology of absence and account of the defenselessness of the dead, Søren Kierkegaard’s sense of duties to the dead, and Martin Heidegger’s critique of technology, this chapter argues that there is a risk of distortion that should temper enthusiasm for such developments, while simultaneously making personal immortality appear more attractive. One concern is that if we are not careful, we might get wrapped up in replacing the dead instead of remembering them. The relatively new relationship between the dead and ever-evolving means of online preservation has yet to be thoroughly explored by philosophers.
