WEBVTT 00:00:00.378 --> 00:00:02.271 I have a question: 00:00:02.271 --> 00:00:05.648 Who here remembers when they first realized 00:00:05.648 --> 00:00:09.071 they were going to die? NOTE Paragraph 00:00:09.071 --> 00:00:11.573 I do. I was a young boy, 00:00:11.573 --> 00:00:14.628 and my grandfather had just died, 00:00:14.628 --> 00:00:18.546 and I remember a few days later lying in bed at night 00:00:18.546 --> 00:00:22.180 trying to make sense of what had happened. 00:00:22.180 --> 00:00:24.815 What did it mean that he was dead? 00:00:24.815 --> 00:00:26.599 Where had he gone? 00:00:26.599 --> 00:00:30.021 It was like a hole in reality had opened up 00:00:30.021 --> 00:00:32.156 and swallowed him. 00:00:32.156 --> 00:00:34.958 But then the really shocking question occurred to me: 00:00:34.958 --> 00:00:38.448 If he could die, could it happen to me too? 00:00:38.448 --> 00:00:41.747 Could that hole in reality open up and swallow me? 00:00:41.747 --> 00:00:43.537 Would it open up beneath my bed 00:00:43.537 --> 00:00:46.771 and swallow me as I slept? 00:00:46.771 --> 00:00:50.959 Well, at some point, all children become aware of death. 00:00:50.959 --> 00:00:52.864 It can happen in different ways, of course, 00:00:52.864 --> 00:00:54.697 and usually comes in stages. 00:00:54.697 --> 00:00:58.210 Our idea of death develops as we grow older. 00:00:58.210 --> 00:01:00.939 And if you reach back into the dark corners 00:01:00.939 --> 00:01:02.636 of your memory, 00:01:02.636 --> 00:01:05.639 you might remember something like what I felt 00:01:05.639 --> 00:01:08.894 when my grandfather died and when I realized 00:01:08.894 --> 00:01:10.844 it could happen to me too, 00:01:10.844 --> 00:01:13.423 that sense that behind all of this 00:01:13.423 --> 00:01:16.760 the void is waiting. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:16.760 --> 00:01:19.037 And this development in childhood 00:01:19.037 --> 00:01:21.858 reflects the development of our species. 00:01:21.858 --> 00:01:25.173 Just as there was a point in your development 00:01:25.173 --> 00:01:28.699 as a child when your sense of self and of time 00:01:28.699 --> 00:01:30.798 became sophisticated enough 00:01:30.798 --> 00:01:34.720 for you to realize you were mortal, 00:01:34.720 --> 00:01:38.426 so at some point in the evolution of our species, 00:01:38.426 --> 00:01:41.441 some early human's sense of self and of time 00:01:41.441 --> 00:01:43.684 became sophisticated enough 00:01:43.684 --> 00:01:46.799 for them to become the first human to realize, 00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:50.232 "I'm going to die." 00:01:50.232 --> 00:01:52.451 This is, if you like, our curse. 00:01:52.451 --> 00:01:56.494 It's the price we pay for being so damn clever. 00:01:56.494 --> 00:01:58.593 We have to live in the knowledge 00:01:58.593 --> 00:02:01.254 that the worst thing that can possibly happen 00:02:01.254 --> 00:02:02.878 one day surely will, 00:02:02.878 --> 00:02:04.384 the end of all our projects, 00:02:04.384 --> 00:02:07.848 our hopes, our dreams, of our individual world. 00:02:07.848 --> 00:02:11.029 We each live in the shadow of a personal 00:02:11.029 --> 00:02:13.018 apocalypse. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:13.018 --> 00:02:15.522 And that's frightening. It's terrifying. 00:02:15.522 --> 00:02:17.982 And so we look for a way out. 00:02:17.982 --> 00:02:21.263 And in my case, as I was about five years old, 00:02:21.263 --> 00:02:24.258 this meant asking my mum. 00:02:24.258 --> 00:02:26.720 Now when I first started asking 00:02:26.720 --> 00:02:28.501 what happens when we die, 00:02:28.501 --> 00:02:30.593 the grown-ups around me at the time 00:02:30.593 --> 00:02:33.796 answered with a typical English mix of awkwardness 00:02:33.796 --> 00:02:36.783 and half-hearted Christianity, 00:02:36.783 --> 00:02:38.727 and the phrase I heard most often 00:02:38.727 --> 00:02:40.286 was that granddad was now 00:02:40.286 --> 00:02:42.750 "up there looking down on us," 00:02:42.750 --> 00:02:45.715 and if I should die too, which wouldn't happen of course, 00:02:45.715 --> 00:02:48.511 then I too would go up there, 00:02:48.511 --> 00:02:50.561 which made death sound a lot like 00:02:50.561 --> 00:02:53.215 an existential elevator. 00:02:53.215 --> 00:02:56.333 Now this didn't sound very plausible. 00:02:56.333 --> 00:02:59.236 I used to watch a children's news program at the time, 00:02:59.236 --> 00:03:01.676 and this was the era of space exploration. 00:03:01.676 --> 00:03:03.850 There were always rockets going up into the sky, 00:03:03.850 --> 00:03:06.546 up into space, going up there. 00:03:06.546 --> 00:03:08.875 But none of the astronauts when they came back 00:03:08.875 --> 00:03:12.107 ever mentioned having met my granddad 00:03:12.107 --> 00:03:14.566 or any other dead people. 00:03:14.566 --> 00:03:15.869 But I was scared, 00:03:15.869 --> 00:03:18.309 and the idea of taking the existential elevator 00:03:18.309 --> 00:03:19.915 to see my granddad 00:03:19.915 --> 00:03:21.330 sounded a lot better than being swallowed 00:03:21.330 --> 00:03:24.401 by the void while I slept. 00:03:24.401 --> 00:03:26.670 And so I believed it anyway, 00:03:26.670 --> 00:03:29.341 even though it didn't make much sense. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:29.341 --> 00:03:31.583 And this thought process that I went through 00:03:31.583 --> 00:03:34.114 as a child, and have been through many times since, 00:03:34.114 --> 00:03:36.024 including as a grown-up, 00:03:36.024 --> 00:03:38.471 is a product of what psychologists call 00:03:38.471 --> 00:03:39.935 a bias. 00:03:39.935 --> 00:03:43.209 Now a bias is a way in which we systematically 00:03:43.209 --> 00:03:44.927 get things wrong, 00:03:44.927 --> 00:03:47.611 ways in which we miscalculate, misjudge, 00:03:47.611 --> 00:03:51.200 distort reality, or see what we want to see, 00:03:51.200 --> 00:03:53.432 and the bias I'm talking about 00:03:53.432 --> 00:03:54.870 works like this: 00:03:54.870 --> 00:03:57.105 Confront someone with the fact 00:03:57.105 --> 00:03:58.652 that they are going to die 00:03:58.652 --> 00:04:01.685 and they will believe just about any story 00:04:01.685 --> 00:04:03.543 that tells them it isn't true 00:04:03.543 --> 00:04:05.957 and they can, instead, live forever, 00:04:05.957 --> 00:04:10.042 even if it means taking the existential elevator. 00:04:10.042 --> 00:04:14.470 Now we can see this as the biggest bias of all. 00:04:14.470 --> 00:04:17.345 It has been demonstrated in over 400 00:04:17.345 --> 00:04:19.026 empirical studies. 00:04:19.026 --> 00:04:21.535 Now these studies are ingenious, but they're simple. 00:04:21.535 --> 00:04:23.470 They work like this. 00:04:23.470 --> 00:04:24.960 You take two groups of people 00:04:24.960 --> 00:04:27.743 who are similar in all relevant respects, 00:04:27.743 --> 00:04:30.432 and you remind one group that they're going to die 00:04:30.432 --> 00:04:33.061 but not the other, then you compare their behavior. 00:04:33.061 --> 00:04:36.934 So you're observing how it biases behavior 00:04:36.934 --> 00:04:40.688 when people become aware of their mortality. 00:04:40.688 --> 00:04:43.600 And every time, you get the same result: 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:46.687 People who are made aware of their mortality 00:04:46.687 --> 00:04:48.698 are more willing to believe stories 00:04:48.698 --> 00:04:50.561 that tell them they can escape death 00:04:50.561 --> 00:04:52.333 and live forever. 00:04:52.333 --> 00:04:54.622 So here's an example: One recent study 00:04:54.622 --> 00:04:57.392 took two groups of agnostics, 00:04:57.392 --> 00:04:58.988 that is people who are undecided 00:04:58.988 --> 00:05:01.503 in their religious beliefs. 00:05:01.503 --> 00:05:05.087 Now, one group was asked to think about being dead. 00:05:05.087 --> 00:05:06.732 The other group was asked to think about 00:05:06.732 --> 00:05:08.565 being lonely. 00:05:08.565 --> 00:05:11.381 They were then asked again about their religious beliefs. 00:05:11.381 --> 00:05:14.245 Those who had been asked to think about being dead 00:05:14.245 --> 00:05:17.818 were afterwards twice as likely to express faith 00:05:17.818 --> 00:05:19.478 in God and Jesus. 00:05:19.478 --> 00:05:21.256 Twice as likely. 00:05:21.256 --> 00:05:23.964 Even though the before they were all equally agnostic. 00:05:23.964 --> 00:05:25.725 But put the fear of death in them, 00:05:25.725 --> 00:05:29.584 and they run to Jesus. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:29.584 --> 00:05:33.096 Now, this shows that reminding people of death 00:05:33.111 --> 00:05:36.341 biases them to believe, regardless of the evidence, 00:05:36.341 --> 00:05:38.366 and it works not just for religion, 00:05:38.366 --> 00:05:40.603 but for any kind of belief system 00:05:40.603 --> 00:05:44.063 that promises immortality in some form, 00:05:44.063 --> 00:05:45.868 whether it's becoming famous 00:05:45.868 --> 00:05:47.282 or having children 00:05:47.282 --> 00:05:48.629 or even nationalism, 00:05:48.629 --> 00:05:51.902 which promises you can live on as part of a greater whole. 00:05:51.902 --> 00:05:53.833 This is a bias that has shaped 00:05:53.833 --> 00:05:57.172 the course of human history. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:57.172 --> 00:05:59.439 Now, the theory behind this bias 00:05:59.439 --> 00:06:01.176 in the over 400 studies 00:06:01.176 --> 00:06:03.305 is called terror management theory, 00:06:03.305 --> 00:06:05.655 and the idea is simple. It's just this. 00:06:05.655 --> 00:06:08.204 We develop our worldviews, 00:06:08.204 --> 00:06:10.361 that is, the stories we tell ourselves 00:06:10.361 --> 00:06:13.097 about the world and our place in it, 00:06:13.097 --> 00:06:15.379 in order to help us manage 00:06:15.379 --> 00:06:18.293 the terror of death. 00:06:18.293 --> 00:06:20.092 And these immortality stories 00:06:20.092 --> 00:06:23.089 have thousands of different manifestations, 00:06:23.089 --> 00:06:26.673 but I believe that behind the apparent diversity 00:06:26.673 --> 00:06:29.372 there are actually just four basic forms 00:06:29.372 --> 00:06:32.883 that these immortality stories can take. 00:06:32.883 --> 00:06:34.688 And we can see them repeating themselves 00:06:34.688 --> 00:06:37.858 throughout history, just with slight variations 00:06:37.858 --> 00:06:40.623 to reflect the vocabulary of the day. 00:06:40.623 --> 00:06:43.131 Now I'm going to briefly introduce these four 00:06:43.131 --> 00:06:45.384 basic forms of immortality story, 00:06:45.384 --> 00:06:46.954 and I want to try to give you some sense 00:06:46.954 --> 00:06:49.267 of the way in which they're retold by each culture 00:06:49.267 --> 00:06:51.034 or generation 00:06:51.034 --> 00:06:53.206 using the vocabulary of their day. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:53.206 --> 00:06:55.845 Now, the first story is the simplest. 00:06:55.845 --> 00:06:57.998 We want to avoid death, 00:06:57.998 --> 00:07:00.423 and the dream of doing that in this body 00:07:00.423 --> 00:07:01.783 in this world forever 00:07:01.783 --> 00:07:05.074 is the first and simplest kind of immortality story, 00:07:05.074 --> 00:07:07.533 and it might at first sound implausible, 00:07:07.533 --> 00:07:11.514 but actually, almost every culture in human history 00:07:11.514 --> 00:07:13.576 has had some myth or legend 00:07:13.576 --> 00:07:16.337 of an elixir of life or a fountain of youth 00:07:16.337 --> 00:07:19.316 or something that promises to keep us going 00:07:19.316 --> 00:07:22.453 forever. 00:07:22.453 --> 00:07:24.046 Ancient Egypt had such myths, 00:07:24.046 --> 00:07:26.414 ancient Babylon, ancient India. 00:07:26.414 --> 00:07:29.266 Throughout European history, we find them in the work of the alchemists, 00:07:29.266 --> 00:07:32.060 and of course we still believe this today, 00:07:32.060 --> 00:07:34.623 only we tell this story using the vocabulary 00:07:34.623 --> 00:07:36.279 of science. 00:07:36.279 --> 00:07:37.885 So 100 years ago, 00:07:37.885 --> 00:07:39.704 hormones had just been discovered, 00:07:39.704 --> 00:07:41.356 and people hoped that hormone treatments 00:07:41.356 --> 00:07:44.055 were going to cure aging and disease, 00:07:44.055 --> 00:07:46.908 and now instead we set our hopes on stem cells, 00:07:46.908 --> 00:07:49.203 genetic engineering, and nanotechnology. 00:07:49.203 --> 00:07:53.161 But the idea that science can cure death 00:07:53.161 --> 00:07:55.502 is just one more chapter in the story 00:07:55.502 --> 00:07:57.735 of the magical elixir, 00:07:57.735 --> 00:08:02.171 a story that is as old as civilization. 00:08:02.171 --> 00:08:04.951 But betting everything on the idea of finding the elixir 00:08:04.951 --> 00:08:06.354 and staying alive forever 00:08:06.354 --> 00:08:08.155 is a risky strategy. 00:08:08.155 --> 00:08:10.395 When we look back through history 00:08:10.395 --> 00:08:13.179 at all those who have sought an elixir in the past, 00:08:13.179 --> 00:08:15.008 the one thing they now have in common 00:08:15.008 --> 00:08:17.638 is that they're all dead. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:17.638 --> 00:08:21.376 So we need a backup plan, and exactly this kind of plan B 00:08:21.376 --> 00:08:24.947 is what the second kind of immortality story offers, 00:08:24.947 --> 00:08:26.702 and that's resurrection. 00:08:26.702 --> 00:08:29.076 And it stays with the idea that I am this body, 00:08:29.076 --> 00:08:31.051 I am this physical organism. 00:08:31.051 --> 00:08:33.219 It accepts that I'm going to have to die 00:08:33.219 --> 00:08:34.593 but says, despite that, 00:08:34.593 --> 00:08:37.096 I can rise up and I can live again. 00:08:37.096 --> 00:08:39.714 In other words, I can do what Jesus did. 00:08:39.714 --> 00:08:41.759 Jesus died, he was three days in the [tomb], 00:08:41.759 --> 00:08:44.870 and then he rose up and lived again. 00:08:44.870 --> 00:08:47.989 And the idea that we can all be resurrected to live again 00:08:47.989 --> 00:08:50.277 is orthodox believe, not just for Christians 00:08:50.277 --> 00:08:52.980 but also Jews and Muslims. 00:08:52.980 --> 00:08:55.144 But our desire to believe this story 00:08:55.144 --> 00:08:57.154 is so deeply embedded 00:08:57.154 --> 00:08:59.252 that we are reinventing it again 00:08:59.252 --> 00:09:00.744 for the scientific age, 00:09:00.744 --> 00:09:03.567 for example, with the idea of cryonics. 00:09:03.567 --> 00:09:05.157 That's the idea that when you die, 00:09:05.157 --> 00:09:07.156 you can have yourself frozen, 00:09:07.156 --> 00:09:09.545 and then, at some point when technology 00:09:09.545 --> 00:09:10.756 has advanced enough, 00:09:10.756 --> 00:09:12.876 you can be thawed out and repaired and revived 00:09:12.876 --> 00:09:14.165 and so resurrected. 00:09:14.165 --> 00:09:17.013 And so some people believe an omnipotent god 00:09:17.013 --> 00:09:18.892 will resurrect them to live again, 00:09:18.892 --> 00:09:23.035 and other people believe an omnipotent scientist will do it. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:23.035 --> 00:09:25.749 But for others, the whole idea of resurrection, 00:09:25.749 --> 00:09:27.752 of climbing out of the grave, 00:09:27.752 --> 00:09:30.471 it's just too much like a bad zombie movie. 00:09:30.471 --> 00:09:33.262 They find the body too messy, too unreliable 00:09:33.262 --> 00:09:35.410 to guarantee eternal life, 00:09:35.410 --> 00:09:38.501 and so they set their hopes on the third, 00:09:38.501 --> 00:09:40.618 more spiritual immortality story, 00:09:40.618 --> 00:09:42.954 the idea that we can leave our body behind 00:09:42.954 --> 00:09:45.251 and live on as a soul. 00:09:45.251 --> 00:09:47.240 Now, the majority of people on Earth 00:09:47.240 --> 00:09:49.013 believe they have a soul, 00:09:49.013 --> 00:09:51.423 and the idea is central to many religions. 00:09:51.423 --> 00:09:53.737 But even though, in its current form, 00:09:53.737 --> 00:09:55.652 in its traditional form, 00:09:55.652 --> 00:09:57.815 the idea of the soul is still hugely popular, 00:09:57.815 --> 00:09:59.247 nonetheless we are again 00:09:59.247 --> 00:10:01.471 reinventing it for the digital age, 00:10:01.471 --> 00:10:02.948 for example with the idea 00:10:02.948 --> 00:10:04.938 that you can leave your body behind 00:10:04.938 --> 00:10:07.184 by uploading your mind, your essence, 00:10:07.184 --> 00:10:09.140 the real you, onto a computer, 00:10:09.140 --> 00:10:13.752 and so live on as an avatar in the ether. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:13.752 --> 00:10:15.775 But of course there are skeptics who say 00:10:15.775 --> 00:10:17.619 if we look at the evidence of science, 00:10:17.619 --> 00:10:19.263 particularly neuroscience, 00:10:19.263 --> 00:10:21.092 it suggests that your mind, 00:10:21.092 --> 00:10:22.672 your essence, the real you, 00:10:22.672 --> 00:10:25.085 is very much dependent on a particular part 00:10:25.085 --> 00:10:27.306 of your body, that is, your brain. 00:10:27.306 --> 00:10:29.827 And such skeptics can find comfort 00:10:29.827 --> 00:10:32.085 in the fourth kind of immortality story, 00:10:32.085 --> 00:10:34.442 and that is legacy, 00:10:34.442 --> 00:10:35.922 the idea that you can live on 00:10:35.922 --> 00:10:38.173 through the echo you leave in the world, 00:10:38.173 --> 00:10:40.522 like the great Greek warrior Achilles, 00:10:40.522 --> 00:10:43.151 who sacrificed his life fighting at Troy 00:10:43.151 --> 00:10:46.204 so that he might win immortal fame. 00:10:46.204 --> 00:10:48.470 And the pursuit of fame is as widespread 00:10:48.470 --> 00:10:50.611 and popular now as it ever was, 00:10:50.611 --> 00:10:52.190 and in our digital age, 00:10:52.190 --> 00:10:53.718 it's even easier to achieve. 00:10:53.718 --> 00:10:56.042 You don't need to be a great warrior like Achilles 00:10:56.042 --> 00:10:57.735 or a great king or hero. 00:10:57.735 --> 00:11:02.558 All you need is an Internet connection and a funny cat. (Laughter) 00:11:02.558 --> 00:11:05.021 But some people prefer to leave a more tangible, 00:11:05.021 --> 00:11:07.865 biological legacy -- children, for example. 00:11:07.865 --> 00:11:10.141 Or they like, they hope, to live on 00:11:10.141 --> 00:11:11.858 as part of some greater whole, 00:11:11.858 --> 00:11:14.307 a nation or a family or a tribe, 00:11:14.307 --> 00:11:16.773 their gene pool. 00:11:16.773 --> 00:11:18.286 But again, there are skeptics 00:11:18.286 --> 00:11:19.999 who doubt whether legacy 00:11:19.999 --> 00:11:21.974 really is immortality. 00:11:21.974 --> 00:11:24.051 Woody Allen, for example, who said, 00:11:24.051 --> 00:11:26.547 "I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen. 00:11:26.547 --> 00:11:28.744 I want to live on in my apartment." NOTE Paragraph 00:11:28.744 --> 00:11:30.511 So those are the four 00:11:30.511 --> 00:11:32.694 basic kinds of immortality stories, 00:11:32.694 --> 00:11:34.336 and I've tried to give just some sense 00:11:34.336 --> 00:11:36.629 of how they're retold by each generation 00:11:36.629 --> 00:11:38.216 with just slight variations 00:11:38.216 --> 00:11:40.521 to fit the fashions of the day. 00:11:40.521 --> 00:11:44.010 And the fact that they recur in this way, 00:11:44.010 --> 00:11:46.998 in such a similar form but in such different belief systems, 00:11:46.998 --> 00:11:48.576 suggests, I think, 00:11:48.576 --> 00:11:50.978 that we should be skeptical of the truth 00:11:50.978 --> 00:11:54.739 of any particular version of these stories. 00:11:54.739 --> 00:11:56.850 The fact that some people believe 00:11:56.850 --> 00:11:59.515 an omnipotent god will resurrect them to live again 00:11:59.515 --> 00:12:03.216 and others believe an omnipotent scientist will do it 00:12:03.216 --> 00:12:06.254 suggests that neither are really believing this 00:12:06.254 --> 00:12:08.924 on the strength of the evidence. 00:12:08.924 --> 00:12:11.350 Rather, we believe these stories 00:12:11.350 --> 00:12:13.333 because we are biased to believe them, 00:12:13.333 --> 00:12:15.161 and we are biased to believe them 00:12:15.161 --> 00:12:19.431 because we are so afraid of death. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:19.431 --> 00:12:21.486 So the question is, 00:12:21.486 --> 00:12:24.958 are we doomed to lead the one life we have 00:12:24.958 --> 00:12:28.651 in a way that is shaped by fear and denial, 00:12:28.651 --> 00:12:31.726 or can we overcome this bias? 00:12:31.726 --> 00:12:34.193 Well the Greek philosopher Epicurus 00:12:34.193 --> 00:12:35.921 thought we could. 00:12:35.921 --> 00:12:39.469 He argued that the fear of death is natural, 00:12:39.469 --> 00:12:41.884 but it is not rational. 00:12:41.884 --> 00:12:44.542 "Death," he said, "is nothing to us, 00:12:44.542 --> 00:12:47.392 because when we are here, death is not, 00:12:47.392 --> 00:12:51.145 and when death is here, we are gone." 00:12:51.145 --> 00:12:52.943 Now this is often quoted, but it's difficult 00:12:52.943 --> 00:12:55.265 to really grasp, to really internalize, 00:12:55.265 --> 00:12:57.428 because exactly this idea of being gone 00:12:57.428 --> 00:12:59.567 is so difficult to imagine. 00:12:59.567 --> 00:13:01.798 So 2,000 years later, another philosopher, 00:13:01.798 --> 00:13:05.255 Ludwig Wittgenstein, put it like this: 00:13:05.255 --> 00:13:08.199 "Death is not an event in life: 00:13:08.199 --> 00:13:11.841 We do not live to experience death. 00:13:11.841 --> 00:13:13.035 And so," he added, 00:13:13.035 --> 00:13:15.970 "in this sense, life has no end." NOTE Paragraph 00:13:15.970 --> 00:13:19.146 So it was natural for me as a child 00:13:19.146 --> 00:13:21.513 to fear being swallowed by the void, 00:13:21.513 --> 00:13:23.392 but it wasn't rational, 00:13:23.392 --> 00:13:25.377 because being swallowed by the void 00:13:25.377 --> 00:13:27.455 is not something that any of us 00:13:27.455 --> 00:13:30.725 will ever live to experience. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:30.725 --> 00:13:33.254 Now, overcoming this bias is not easy because 00:13:33.254 --> 00:13:36.213 the fear of death is so deeply embedded in us, 00:13:36.213 --> 00:13:40.695 yet when we see that the fear itself is not rational, 00:13:40.695 --> 00:13:42.825 and when we bring out into the open 00:13:42.825 --> 00:13:45.523 the ways in which it can unconsciously bias us, 00:13:45.523 --> 00:13:47.374 then we can at least start 00:13:47.374 --> 00:13:50.008 to try to minimize the influence it has 00:13:50.008 --> 00:13:51.891 on our lives. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:51.891 --> 00:13:54.709 Now, I find it helps to see life 00:13:54.709 --> 00:13:56.553 as being like a book: 00:13:56.553 --> 00:13:59.021 Just as a book is bounded by its covers, 00:13:59.021 --> 00:14:00.298 by beginning and end, 00:14:00.298 --> 00:14:04.036 so our lives are bounded by birth and death, 00:14:04.036 --> 00:14:07.551 and even though a book is limited by beginning and end, 00:14:07.551 --> 00:14:09.687 it can encompass distant landscapes, 00:14:09.687 --> 00:14:12.917 exotic figures, fantastic adventures. 00:14:12.917 --> 00:14:16.266 And even though a book is limited by beginning and end, 00:14:16.266 --> 00:14:18.089 the characters within it 00:14:18.089 --> 00:14:20.931 know no horizons. 00:14:20.931 --> 00:14:24.088 They only know the moments that make up their story, 00:14:24.088 --> 00:14:27.028 even when the book is closed. 00:14:27.028 --> 00:14:29.164 And so the characters of a book 00:14:29.164 --> 00:14:32.646 are not afraid of reaching the last page. 00:14:32.646 --> 00:14:34.924 Long John Silver is not afraid of you 00:14:34.924 --> 00:14:37.759 finishing your copy of "Treasure Island." 00:14:37.759 --> 00:14:39.459 And so it should be with us. 00:14:39.459 --> 00:14:41.603 Imagine the book of your life, 00:14:41.603 --> 00:14:44.387 its covers, its beginning and end, and your birth and your death. 00:14:44.387 --> 00:14:46.564 You can only know the moments in between, 00:14:46.564 --> 00:14:48.499 the moments that make up your life. 00:14:48.499 --> 00:14:50.446 It makes no sense for you to fear 00:14:50.446 --> 00:14:52.536 what is outside of those covers, 00:14:52.536 --> 00:14:54.006 whether before your birth 00:14:54.006 --> 00:14:55.982 or after your death. 00:14:55.982 --> 00:14:58.511 And you needn't worry how long the book is, 00:14:58.511 --> 00:15:01.984 or whether it's a comic strip or an epic. 00:15:01.984 --> 00:15:03.526 The only thing that matters 00:15:03.526 --> 00:15:07.024 is that you make it a good story. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:07.024 --> 00:15:09.244 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:09.244 --> 00:15:13.429 (Applause)