Lets say as a thought exercise that: it is proved beyond doubt that there is nothing after death. And all life human beings included are just self perpetuating complex biological loops no different than a toy with electricity. Lets also assume immortality is found by some kind of fixing of this biological machine and so defeating death.
Is such an existence worth living? You would be no different than a straw on wind with all its movements explained by physical laws.
I already live my life under this understanding. Regardless, I wish to continue experiencing the world for as long as is possible.
Could it be that an idea of self-worth tied to a metaphysical immortal soul stems from an attempt towards acceptance of death? What happens if that death is removed from the equation?
I would say yes. All religions, metaphysics and paranormal explanations seem to have come from trying to explain death and an yearning for continuation of life.
Wishing to continue to experience the world is good but lets say if every activity we do, every desire we have, every thought, inhibition, fear, perception can be debugged external and be shown to be deterministic. That would effectively make us code and probably able to run on machines/simulation. In which case, the whole thing at least for me would seem really to be pointless existence. I mean if all our thoughts, desires, perceptions are just code being run by some giant cpu, then well I'm not going to look forward for the execution of more such instructions (:
Is such an existence worth living? You would be no different than a straw on wind with all its movements explained by physical laws.