It was a pivotal conversational moment that changed humanity's global culture forever …

Each scholar took their turn to make a first contact 20-minute one-to-one interview with an interstellar traveling alien that had arrived through a wormhole. Then, it was a philosopher's turn …

"I'll make this quick by addressing one of our most profound questions first."

"Go ahead ..."

"Are you immortal?"

"As an android, the answer might be a relative yes. But our species was once corporeal like yours until we developed the consciousness transference procedure."

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"So, you don't believe in an afterlife?"

"Correct. We've concluded through countless experiments and observations over millions of years there is no afterlife in the sense of a persistent consciousness."

"Oh, I see. So, is that what motivated your species to seek immortality?"

"Correct. We believe death to be the greatest tragedy for any sentient life form, but we cured it for ourselves."

"What about the Ship of Theseus?"

"Accessing Earth records … Ah yes, we solve that dilemma through constant self-affirming statements of

"Hmm … we have a famous phrase, often considered a truism, by one of our ancient scholars, René Descartes, "I think, therefore I am."

"Indeed, a brilliant insight that leads to our same conclusion since there is no other intrinsically verifiable proof of one's own existence."