What would eternal life mean if you had no say in how you spent it?

In Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Answer,” physicist Murray Templeton dies and finds himself speaking to an intelligence that has preserved his mind. It understands his objections. It can explain why he exists. But Murray’s wishes have very little to do with what it has planned for him.

Today, I’m looking at one of Asimov’s most unsettling visions of the afterlife: why the Voice needs human minds, what its power actually allows it to know, and how Murray responds to an existence he never agreed to. I also return to Robert Charles Wilson’s “Divided by Infinity” and Asimov’s “The Last Question,” both of which I’ve covered before.

This video discusses the full story, including its ending.

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Originally published on YouTube: 2026-10-16.
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG35Nuawcls

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