Forever Young

We are machines, and our genes live off us with the sole purpose of replicating, of growing, and of being passed on. What Dawkins argues in this chapter is that our genes are what keep us alive. When we die, all we will have left to remind others of our existence is what traits and characteristics we pass on to our future generations. This gives us some kind of comfort, for it somehow makes safe that existence. Knowing that a part of us will still live within someone else helps us make the process of dying away slightly more bearable. We are all afraid of being forgotten, and our genes make us believe that can somehow be avoided. Our genes are “the replicators” they will not die out, they will live forever, and this is what we so desperately want, to live forever.