More than once, I've had a conversation roughly similar to the following:
Me: "I want to live forever, of course; but even if I don't, I'd still like for some sort of sapience to keep on living."
Someone else: "Yeah, so? You'll be dead, so how/why should you care?"
I've tried describing how it's the me-of-the-present who's caring about which sort of future comes to pass, but I haven't been able to do so in a way that doesn't fall flat. Might you have any thoughts on how to better frame this idea?
Perhaps there is difference in understanding the subject matter. People intuitively have preferences about things related personally to them: about their friends and relatives (and enemies), about the impact of their work, about their city or nation. But when you say 'some sort of sapience to keep on living', it is naturally interpreted as relating to very distant future (1) when nothing of that which they care about exists any more. You may, of course, have preferences relating to such a distant future when humanity is replaced by 'some sort of sapience', but many people don't have (2).
In short, I suspect that "you'll be dead" isn't the true reason of their disagreement. It's rather "nothing you care about now will exist".
Footnotes:
(1) Distant doesn't necessarily mean many centuries after present. It's the amount of change to the world which matters.
(2) Me neither. I can't "understand" (for lack of a better word) your preferences on the gut level, but I understand that there is no phase transition between your and my preferences, they are in the same class, yours being more general.