I have an envelope for you and in that envelope is a slip of paper with the 100% accurate date and time of your death. What do you do with the envelope?
Fill out the sweepstakes entry form and mail back it with the name and address of my old boss who deserves this sort of thing.
The question makes no sense - it’s not internally consistent.
If you indeed do have the details of my death on a slip of paper, you can predict the future and we must assume a deterministic universe. In that case, you can’t ask me to exercise my free will in choosing to accept or not accept the envelope - I have no free will in a deterministic universe, right ? Whether I accept or decline the envelope is predetermined.
Question refused as unanswerable.
S. Norman
We knew you’d say that, Norman.
I’d read it.
I treat every day like it might be my last anyhow.
My brother and father died before they reached my age, so I don’t figure the world owes me any set amount of more days.
beatle: I should have seen that coming. 
S. Norman
Hm. Tear it up. Why should I care? I’ll die when it’s time, why should I know what time?
I would read it, buy life insurance that would pay well based on the date, just in case it is right might as well help hubby. I would make sure i did nothing too embarassing that day, but not really expect to die.
Interesting question Tretiak. I’m not sure what I’d do.
One part of me say’s to just burn the envelope. That way, I don’t need to dread the upcoming date of my death. I can continue along as I would have before, hoping that the day I’m going to die is comfortably in the future.
On the other hand, I can also see the wisdom in AM/PM and Lees ideas. If you’re going to die anyway, why not prepare for it? Get the insurance you need to look after loved ones, make sure you say any goodbyes that need to be said, do the things you want to do now, instead of putting them off. Oh yeah, and make sure to wear clean underware that day too. In the end, I think I’d open the envelope.
Another question that occurs to me: If you did open the envelope, and knew when you would die, would you tell others? Would you tell your Significant Other? Your kids?
I’d open the envelope, tell others, and then get them to work like hell alongside me to extend my life. I’d also buy plenty of life insurance for that day, and I’d do all the things I’d been meaning to do. After all, once I’m dead I won’t be doing anything. When I got the letter, I’d ask you how I died. If you said I’d die by the rope, I might decide to go out and dance in a minefield that day. Something wholesome and not rope-related, you understand.
lee wrote:
Ah, but you don’t know the cause of death, only the date. What if it turns out you die by suicide? Life Insurance policies usually don’t pay out for suicides.
Life insurance policies do usually pay for suicides, as long as they don’t occur within a certain period of time (usually 1-2 years) of the date of purchase. If I buy a policy today and kill myself in 5 years, my beneficiaries are entitled to the entire death benefit.
Just to clarify: life insurance policies don’t pay for suicides; they pay a death benefit in the event of a suicide subject to the restrictions stated in my previous post.
I just know someone will point this out if I don’t first. 
Take it, read it, mark calendar:
Clean underwear a must today.
Tris
If the date is soon, they will treat me better.
If later, they will keep an eye on my spending, which is all to the good.
Read it.
Then drop my life insurance until near that date.
Do lots of risky things that I’d always been afraid to do. Heck, I know they’re not gonna kill me! (OK, I guess there is the possibility that they could put me into a coma until the day on the paper, but…)
Oh, and tell James Randi that I can win the million dollars by predicting the precise date and time of my death. Obviously, the prize would need to go to my estate.
That brings up another interseting (to me) question.
If the insurance company found out about the slip of paper, could they weasel out of paying?
Peace,
mangeorge
Oh, yeah, like any court would believe that somebody was going around handing out slips of paper that accurately give the exact time and date of death.
Umm, Heinline did a SF Novelette based on this idea. But I woudl read it. Makes planning for the future a snap.
How about a real world sorta version of this? One or both of your parents has Huntington’s disease(I think thats the name of it, bio was so long ago). It is inevitbaly fatal by the age of 40(bio and doctor type people feel free to correct me on the details). There’s a possibility you have it, a possibility you don’t. Would you get tested for it?