One question that arises is a fundamental issue of motivation. Is it rational, for example, to have a list of "things to do before I die"? Especially if you believe that it is likely that you will not remember whether you did them or not, after you die? If you find out you're going to die in a couple of years, does it make sense to try to cram as many items from your list as possible in that limited time? What would be the point? Indeed, what is the point of any action?
Ultimately, what is the source of our motivation, if we know that after we die we won't remember what happened? It's one thing when death is off in a nebulous future, but when it is relatively soon and immediate, there is going to be little or no time to enjoy an accomplishment.
It seems reminiscent of the difference between the iterated and one-shot prisoner's dilemma. A long and somewhat indefinite life span is like the iterated PD, in that we expect to experience a wide range of effects and impacts from our actions. A short and more definite life span is like the one-shot PD, with only limited and short-term effects. Perhaps another way to think of it is that our normal actions affect our future selves, while with terminal illness, there are no future selves to worry about.
Is it rational, for example, to have a list of "things to do before I die"? Especially if you believe that it is likely that you will not remember whether you did them or not, after you die?
It is rational to have a list of things to do before you die if you have preferences over configurations of external reality outside the small part of external reality that causes your internal experiences.
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