约翰和肯试图确定下一个小时他们要讨论的永生是什么类型的:是许多宗教中描述的那种永生的来世，还是通过我们的成就和思想活下去，或者只是以他们今天的生活方式永远活着。他们决定了最后一个概念，因为生活是美好的，多一点似乎比少一点好。约翰感到困扰的是，在我们死去的时候，我们留下了我们深爱的人和我们深爱的事情，却没有了解他们的故事或决心，知道这一点感觉很糟糕和空虚——就像看一部我们知道自己会在结局前离开的电影。肯认为，我们对来生的大多数概念实际上都源自约翰所描述的那种感觉，并被创造出来作为一种错觉，以缓解我们不能尽善尽美这一令人沮丧的事实。

Ken introduces Anne Ashbaugh, Professor of Philosophy at Colgate University and she begins by describing the difficulty of disproving the afterlife--we have to show a negative, that there is no afterlife, with absolutely no experience after death. John asks Anne to discuss the wide range of conceptions of immortality, and she mentions the interesting way in which religious views on immortality have filtered into science and scientific advancement. Ken tries to paint this influence in a more positive note, reminding everyone that the impulse for immortality is a fundamentally logical one--life is good, why allow it to end? Isn't the most important medical advancement possible the one that gives us all infinite life spans? Though
Anne agrees on some level she also uses a comparison with ice cream to show that the initial intuition that more is better may be misleading.

Ken and Anne discuss the tragedy of mortality, and Anne points out that the tragedy may not necessarily be that we do not get enough life, but that we go on wanting more and more of it, and in some ways allow this desire to make the time we have less enjoyable. John discusses this in terms of David Hume's famous deathbed interview, and questions whether or not there's something a bit perverse about wanting immortality. John, Ken, and Anne discuss the different types of immortality, whether an afterlife or earthbound immortality or some sort of reincarnation is the most satisfying answer to the problem or tragedy of mortality.

Callers weigh in on their personal religious and secular beliefs about the afterlife, mortality, and living on through children, legacies, and good deeds, while Ken continues to underline the predicament of mortality and Anne attempts to treat death the way we all relate to birth.

• Roving Philosophical Reporter(Seek to 4:21): Zoe Corneli learns the differing religious views on the afterlife from members of a Mosque, a Zen Buddhist teacher, a Rabbi, and a Pastor.
  
• Sixty-Second Philosopher (Seek to 49:34): Ian Shoales speeds through the story and life of Hercules, famous Greek hero whose infamous deeds were never fully portrayed in the Disney cartoons, and whose immortality may not be entirely enviable.