A life worth living

In 2006, scientists found a quahog clam living off the coast of Iceland that, on examination, turned out to be over five hundred years old. They named the clam “Ming”, after the Chinese dynasty in place at the time of its birth. Ming was born when Henry VIII was around eight years old. To date, Ming’s is the longest individual animal life we know of. But was it a good life? As Thomas Nagel famously pointed out, we don’t even have a real sense of what it’s like to be a bat, let al...