Envisioning postmortal futures: six archetypes on future societal approaches to seeking immortality

Death is a core feature of the human experience and main driver civilisational endeavours. Attempts to transcend it have propelled emergence postmortal society in twenty-first century, where people looked into various possibilities achieve some form immortality. While research on futures death examined social practices for transcendence present outlined future, discussion remains rare ways this quest immortality can reconfigure societal worldviews, institutions practices. By analysing data obtained from literature review sociology death, an expert roundtable 18 semi-structured interviews, six archetypal were developed: Digital Recreation, Transhumanism, Memorialisation-based Postmortality, Biological Life-extension, Back Earthly Realm, Unity with Cosmos. This article argues that paradigmatic changes shape immortality-seeking emerge given spatiotemporal context. The future-oriented perspective contributes by discussing both how may increase inequalities pursuit these futures, as whole, represent future attitudes towards death.