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[speculawyer]

I just wanna live long enough to witness a star go supernova...

/checks how long that could be

Well, damn. 200,000ish years? Why not :lol

Just get a big enough telescope and you can watch them all the time.

 

[RevDM]

not possible

/thread

 

[Herbspiceguy]

There is no space & time. Being immortal is our normal state of being.

 

[Kodiak]

Personally hoping that once I die my spirit will float up to a big green life stream and it feels like a 24 hour drug-enhanced orgasm.


Either that or I get to see my life replayed from the viewpoint of a really fucked up Japanese highschool.

 

[Melfice7]

would be awesome T_T

also watch this movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/

 

[HisshouBuraiKen]

Problem is, you live long enough eventually you're going to get caught in a mudslide, earthquake, hurricane, whirlpool, tunnel collapse, cave-in...SOME kind of disaster, and waste decades doomed to sit there trapped waiting for the land to erode and/or claw your way out.

I would settle for getting reincarnated, or redoing my life over again with just enough subconscious vestigal knowledge to make some different choices and see how it turns out.

 

[The Technomancer]

Problem also is that progression in society is based on the older generations dying off, since humans are notoriously clingy to their old ways, even those of us who now think of ourselves as progressive. It shows up over and over.

 

[TL4E]

Problem also is that progression in society is based on the older generations dying off, since humans are notoriously clingy to their old ways, even those of us who now think of ourselves as progressive. It shows up over and over.

Re-plasticizing the brain won't be that hard.

 

[TheExodu5]

If we were immortal we would probably be unproductive as fuck.

 

[Mana Sin]

I suppose one of my motives for wanting immortality is that I do not have any religious or spiritual faith, and believe that there is no life after death. An afterlife just cannot exist, in my opinion. A loss of consciousness, the brain dies, and we, as in our personalities, are gone for good. I happen to enjoy consciousness, so I want to live forever. I'm also very curious to see if we'll ever reach a limit with technology and science, and if so.. where will it end? I want to explore the universe and enjoy taking me sweet ass time doing whatever I want.

Eternal health, youth (mid-20's-30's). I must have it.

Invulnerability seems unrealistic. It would be tricky to try and heal from a head-shot, when your brain is scrambled, possibly costing you your memories and personality, even if you somehow healed... but as was previously posted: Nano-machines might someday help our healing and more.

How about backing up your mind to a super computer and having nano-machines copy the data into your brain after repairing it?

It would be interesting to take a peak into the future. How can we know if we're being completely unrealistic or not, when we have no idea what will be possible a hundred years from now? The internet is a fairly recent invention compared to something like the light bulb, and in the time where light bulbs were new, ideas like the internet would probably have been seen as a bit crazy/impossible.

I need to become immortal. I don't want to die; I enjoy he beauty of death daily when I wash my hair and when I clean my fingernails. That's good enough for me. Living forever is much more appealing to me than having more death to appreciate.

 

[Barberetti]

Yep, sign me up for immortality please. I want to live long enough to see Mankind reach the nearest stars at least.

 

[Nemo]

Not gonna lie, I'd take it but only for about 1500 years. Then I could die

 

[Angelus Errare]

I wouldn't want eternal life, but I wouldn't mind an extended life span. Say 300 years, forever just sounds like it would get boring.

And having to work for all those years? fuuuck that! This isn't the vampire love story where magically you become some business savvy mofo and land a fortune.

 

[Dorrin]

I think I'm rather have the ability to shift myself into another person's body. You know get old grab the wrist of the doctor, now I'm the doctor etc.

Regardless though you would of course go insane.

 

[Phoenix]

Yes, I'd be interested in this.

 

[Seanspeed]

I've been given the opportunity to live and I would love for it to continue forever.

I also dont buy that things become more meaningful due to life's finiteness. Perhaps its cuz I'm still kinda young, but I really dont think about death or anything like that. My interests, my loves, my time spent doing whatever all seems meaningful because these are things I enjoy, not because I know that I'm probably gonna die 50 years from now and I have to cherish these moments.

I'll take immortality anyday. Life is just so interesting and each and every one of us is so lucky to be alive considering the odds. Not choosing immortality is like winning the lottery and choosing to only take $100,000 instead of the full ten million. I mean, couldn't you argue that each of those dollars becomes more 'meaningful' when there's only 100,000 of them rather than 10,000,000?

I dont ever want to die. There's just so much in this world to see and do.

 

[Yeef]

I'd prefer reincarnation to immortality. Especially if you remembered your past lives once you hit a certain age. Plain immortality sounds boring.

Also:

 

[the_log_ride]

Just get a big enough telescope and you can watch them all the time.

I should've been more specific. I want to be able to witness it from Earth.

 

[FairyD]

So what are the chances that some other alien/lizard race has already achieved immortality?

 

[TL4E]

:lol I think deGrey is guilty of this.

 

[Seanspeed]

So what are the chances that some other alien/lizard race has already achieved immortality?

12.4:1

 

[Easy_D]

I wouldn't want eternal life, but I wouldn't mind an extended life span. Say 300 years, forever just sounds like it would get boring.

And having to work for all those years? fuuuck that! This isn't the vampire love story where magically you become some business savvy mofo and land a fortune.

What's to stop you from becoming a business savvy mofo when you're immortal? All the time in the world to become one.

 

[sinxtanx]

I'll take immortality any day of the week.

I like to think, and want to keep on doing that.

Coping with losses as an immortal is just like coping with losses as a mortal. One at a time.
Eventually and become a great source of wisdom for other people.

 

[Jeramii]

if age doesn't get you... something else will.

 

[Ri'Orius]

"What would you do with eternity, Harry?"

Harry took a deep breath. "Meet all the interesting people in the world, read all the good books and then write something even better, celebrate my first grandchild's tenth birthday party on the Moon, celebrate my first great-great-great grandchild's hundredth birthday party around the Rings of Saturn, learn the deepest and final rules of Nature, understand the nature of consciousness, find out why anything exists in the first place, visit other stars, discover aliens, create aliens, rendezvous with everyone for a party on the other side of the Milky Way once we've explored the whole thing, meet up with everyone else who was born on Old Earth to watch the Sun finally go out, and I used to worry about finding a way to escape this universe before it ran out of negentropy but I'm a lot more hopeful now that I've discovered the so-called laws of physics are just optional guidelines."

(from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality)

Immortality? Yes, please.

But I imagine we'll get the kind where you upload your mind to a computer simulation. Seems like reverse-engineering the human brain would be easier than maintaining the wetware indefinitely.

 

[StuBurns]

We will not be extending life for any notable length in the near future, and living thousands of years is still infinitely less than being immortal. I would like immortality if it also came with God like abilities, otherwise I would have to spend eternity in a cold life-less universe just waiting for every proton to slowly decay until there was nothing. Which would suck hard.

 

[The Technomancer]

Re-plasticizing the brain won't be that hard.

Actually, my solution is just to leave each older generation or two to their own planet, where they can stagnate, as each new generation explores a new frontier. And settle in. And stagnate.

 

[DonasaurusRex]

sure my body would survive but would my psyche ...i dunno.

 

[Confidence Man]

Assuming you'd want to keep your immortality a secret, I imagine it would be kind of a pain in the ass if you wanted to live in modern society. You'd need to steal IDs every few decades otherwise you'd risk getting too out of sync with all the documentation on record, like Social Security, which you'd need if you wanted to buy property or whatever. Then of course you'd have to be moving all the time because eventually people would wonder why you never get any older. Then what happens if you ever get thrown in jail for life?

 

[Mana Sin]

Assuming you'd want to keep your immortality a secret, I imagine it would be kind of a pain in the ass if you wanted to live in modern society. You'd need to steal IDs every few decades otherwise you'd risk getting too out of sync with all the documentation on record, like Social Security, which you'd need if you wanted to buy property or whatever. Then of course you'd have to be moving all the time because eventually people would wonder why you never get any older. Then what happens if you ever get thrown in jail for life?

You'd only really need to hide your immortality (if it's from some sort of medicine you developed or something similar where you can give it to others as well) until over-population of our planet stops being an issue. If we can fill up other planets, there's no harm in sharing the secret and giving it to others and thus you no longer really need to hide. Hell, it would probably have a side benefit of boosting your wealth. Sell the secrets to immortality, make a business of it.

 

[Drewsky]

Wouldn't want it.

 

[Tiduz]

Day one.
Im serious. Im not rich or anything but i <3 life.

 

["God's Beard!"]

:lol I think deGrey is guilty of this.

I can't tell if deGrey is 30 years old or 700.

 

[Zaptruder]

There's more to learn then there is time in our lives.

It would be good if we could continue the learning experience for longer...

because been able to contain a large amount of human knowledge in a single processing space for cross processing purposes is far more valuable than having that knowledge scattered and unrelated.

 

[Monocle]

fuck that shit, i want to live forever so i can experience everything. Not enough time for so much awesomesauce

This.

 

[Broken Arrow]

If I could choose to die when I tire of life then an unlimited lifespan would be awesome. Otherwise...not so much.


In three hundred years our brain-dumps will read this thread using the cameras in our robot bodies and we'll laugh.

This. If I can end it whenever I want then go ahead.

 

[Trent Strong]

There is no space & time. Being immortal is our normal state of being.

Joke post?

 

[Shanadeus]

You would of course be able to end your life if you were to become immortal through scientific means - it's not like you wouldn't be able to destroy whatever keeps you alive.

 

[Always-honest]

Would you like to be immortal?
And if so, how long do you think you'd like to live?

:lol either you are immortal or you are not.

To answer your first question: NO.

But i would like to be 35 for 60 years and then die in my sleep.. (which is impossible since i'm not 35 anymore)


Y ou're/ we're not immortal though (faaaaaar from it). Life is fucking short. enjoy.

 

[StuBurns]

You would of course be able to end your life if you were to become immortal through scientific means - it's not like you wouldn't be able to destroy whatever keeps you alive.

No, immortality is the inability to die.

 

[ChocolateCupcakes]

If someone gave me the option, I wouldnt do it. Life is hard enough and after awhile the laughs that you used to appreciate would be boring because you heard it before or witnessed it already.

 

[Suikoguy]

There was a star trek voyager episode that dealt with this:
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Death_Wish_(episode)

 

[MattKeil]

Would you like to be immortal?
And if so, how long do you think you'd like to live?

Yes. Forever.

Or, you know, until the universe ends or whatever. If given the choice, I choose living. There's always something worth seeing or doing.

 

[Meadows]

I'd live for about 600 years if I could

 

[Shanadeus]

No, immortality is the inability to die.

Sure, but whether immortality itself can be ended or not is up for debate.Anyway I guess we should specify that I'm kind of talking about physical immortality:

Physical immortality is a state of life that allows a person to avoid death and maintain conscious thought.

And death of course means:

By definition, all causes of death must be overcome or avoided for physical immortality to be achieved. There are three main causes of death: aging, disease and trauma.

Aging and disease are kind of assumed to be nullified in the process of achieving immortality through the methods I brought up in the OP so that leaves us physical trauma:

Physical trauma would remain as a threat to perpetual physical life, even if the problems of aging and disease were overcome, as an otherwise immortal person would still be subject to unforeseen accidents or catastrophes. Ideally, any methods to achieve physical immortality would mitigate the risk of encountering trauma. Taking preventative measures by engineering inherent resistance to injury is thus relevant in addition to entirely reactive measures more closely associated with the paradigm of medical treatment.

The speed and quality of paramedic response remains a determining factor in surviving severe trauma. A body that could automatically treat itself from severe trauma, such as speculated uses for nanotechnology, would mitigate this factor. Without improvements to such things, very few people would remain alive after several tens of thousands of years purely based on accident rate statistics, much less millions or billions or more.

Being the seat of consciousness, the brain cannot be risked to trauma if a continuous physical life is to be maintained. Therefore, it cannot be replaced or repaired in the same way other organs can. A method of transferring consciousness would be required for an individual to survive trauma to the brain, and this transfer would have to anticipate and precede the damage itself.

There is no logical or mathematical limitation on the degree of gradual mitigation of risk over time, so although there would be an expectation greater than zero of eventual death it cannot be proven that death even by unforeseen events causing trauma would be absolutely assured for any specific or even any single remaining person.

Which of course includes the end of the universe itself, but if we assume that it can be overcome then it leaves us with even more problems as I pointed out in the OP.

 

[Unknown One]

I'll be immortal in a heartbeat and go out in the wilderness in Africa to "survive" :lol

 

[MrBig]

Yep, sign me up for immortality please. I want to live long enough to see Mankind reach the nearest stars at least.

This is the only reason I would want to be immortal, I couldn't care less about dealing with people for thousands of years.

 

[Naked Snake]

No Gaf+ in thread title?

Would you like to be immortal?
And if so, how long do you think you'd like to live?

Yes, please.

For how long? Who knows. As long as I'm enjoying it.

 

[Negator]

Give me Immortality. I'll even take a 100 year work contract after immortality is achieved to pay off the cost of my immortality. Just find out how to do it please.

 

[HK-47]

Sounds great!