Daniel James Sharp, 21/2/1996-3/2/2060
Last night, I watched Countdown. No, not the game show with Anne Robinson; the 2019 horror movie. It wasn’t very good and I hadn’t expected it to be (I sometimes like to watch crap just to switch off) but it did prompt me to look up the date of my death.
Let me explain. In Countdown, the characters download an app that tells them the exact timing of their death (and if they try to avoid their fate, a demon comes after them—yes, as I said, crap). But, bored as I was last night, it inspired me to ask Google when I am going to die. I took three tests, the results of which are supposedly based on statistical averages (depending on the facts you enter about yourself). Of course, these tests are all nonsense, even if they are based on real data, since they don’t take into account lifestyle changes, chance, and plenty of other variables.
Anyway, the tests all turned out roughly similar. One actually gave me a specific date: February 3rd, 2060. So I’m putting it out there publicly. Call it an experiment. If I die on that date, maybe there’s something to these tests. Obviously, I won’t be around to verify the accuracy of the tests if they are indeed accurate, so I leave the task up to digital archaeologists. The maths is beyond me, but I suspect that even if I did die on that date, coincidence would be a more probable explanation than the predictive power of the test (let alone the curse of a demon).
Now, if I did die on February 3rd, 2060, that would mean I’d reach the grand old age of…63. Is it spooky that I’d be just a few weeks shy of my 64th birthday, considering that my father died when he was 64? No, of course it isn’t, but the conjunction does tickle the irrational part of my mind.1 In fact, one could argue that this adds legitimacy to the test: perhaps if I continue with my current lifestyle, which is similar to my father’s, then it’s quite possible that I’d die around the same age as he did. Perhaps there’s a genetic element, too. Then again, that just means that the test would give the same result to my father when he was my age if he was living as I do now, so we’re back to the starting position: is the test’s use of statistical averages, based mostly on lifestyle factors, accurate?
The answer to that question is also beyond me. What I will say is that even if it could give a ballpark of when I’m going to die based on solid data, it almost certainly couldn’t predict the specific day and month, perhaps not even the year, of my death. So, if I continue living as I do, maybe I do only have until around 2060, or between 35 and 40 more years, to live.
Never mind all that, though. I’m taking the test more seriously than it deserves just to be perverse. What is more interesting is that age-old question: what would I do if I did actually know the exact time of my death? Assuming I believed the test results, that I’m going to die on February 3rd, 2060, what then?
I don’t think the question is answerable without actually believing that one knows the time of one’s death, even if one is wrong. It would require me to actually have that experience, to believe that I possess such knowledge, to know what I would do in that situation. Another way to put it is: what would I do if I was given a terminal diagnosis, with about a year to live? That I have thought about. I think I’d smoke and drink and fuck as much as I could before killing myself relatively painlessly. This hypothetical is easier to answer because it gives a more immediate timeframe, whereas knowing that I’ll die in 30-odd years wouldn’t necessarily turn me into (any more of) a hedonist. But again, even though it is easier to answer, I still feel that I can’t answer it with any certainty without actually being in the position required by the question.
And then again, would such hypotheticals change much in my life? When Christopher Hitchens was told he would soon die of cancer, he was philosophical about it: what difference is there really, when we all know we’re going to die anyway, that our time is finite, and that disaster could strike at any moment? And, frankly, forgetting the test, and putting aside disasters and flukes of genetic luck, if I do continue living as I am now, between 35 and 40 years is probably a good guess as to my remaining lifespan. I’ve long been well aware of that, but, the occasional attempt at dieting and exercise and restraint aside, it hasn’t affected me all that much. Would that change if I knew for certain? I don’t know. Perhaps I’m still blinded by the youthful illusion of invincibility. Ask me again when I pass that terrifying frontier: the age of 30.
So, even if I believed the 2060 result, I’d still have to wrestle with the same question that everyone has always had to ask: How best to live? In fact, the hypotheticals above ultimately come down to that question, which is one that requires a lengthier answer than I can provide here. I’ll just say that as with mortality, so too with ethics: we’re all in precisely the same position, for better or for worse, till death do us part.
Incidentally, note that this is the same psychological frailty psychics and the like prey on: if they give you a piece of information they claim to have acquired through supernatural powers, say, “your uncle, whose name begins with B, wants to speak with you,” and you respond that while you have no dead uncles whose names began with B but you do have one whose middle name began with B, the psychic will take advantage of that. Your willingness to twist true information to fit, somehow, with the psychic’s statement is a boon to the fraud industry. I’m doing the same thing above: my dad died at 64, and my test result would have me die at 63, just weeks before I’d turn 64, therefore it must be valid! See? Psychics and online tests don’t even need to be accidentally right: we’re already willing to contort things to fit whatever they say, even if it means adding new information that was previously outside their reach.