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Immortality

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That's a tough nut to crack, really. I want to live a long life, yeah, but immortality? I think, after a while, I'd just want to see what comes afterwards, even if it is but a great black void.

In any case, I don't see humans, as we are today, managing to live eternally. Our consciences could, maybe, eventually live on, but our bodies will always be fragile things of flesh and blood. I'd be happy enough just having a legacy that survives me.
 

Kentpaul

When keepin it real goes wrong. Very, very wrong.
would suck complete ass living forever and getting life in prison.

complete ass.
 

Shanadeus

Banned
Blue Ninja said:
That's a tough nut to crack, really. I want to live a long life, yeah, but immortality? I think, after a while, I'd just want to see what comes afterwards, even if it is but a great black void.

In any case, I don't see humans, as we are today, managing to live eternally. Our consciences could, maybe, eventually live on, but our bodies will always be fragile things of flesh and blood. I'd be happy enough just having a legacy that survives me.
I'd actually argue the opposite, our minds are fragile things that I cannot see being capable of existing indefinetly.

Bodies are a piece of cake, you just need to repair them.
 
Shanadeus said:
I'd actually argue the opposite, our minds are fragile things that I cannot see being capable of existing indefinetly.

Bodies are a piece of cake, you just need to repair them.
You've got a point there. It depends on how you look at it, I guess.
 

McLovin

Member
Truly being immortal has its problems though. For one your brain can only hold so much information. Fill it past its limits and you would probably go insane. You would have to find a way to flush out your brain every 100 years or so.. and if you don't remember your life, whats the point?
 

Kentpaul

When keepin it real goes wrong. Very, very wrong.
Despressing thought but when we die i think our minds will live on forever, eveyone who has died will be like holy fucking shit i wish i done more with my life, thinking away day after day with no body to move there mind around, just basically being like when your eyes are closed before you sleep, that forever.

Role playing situations from your memory millions of times just to try and tackle the intense eternal boredom.
 

Cygnus X-1

Member
Immortality has not to be discovered, because it would be only a privilege for rich people, while the 99.999999% of earth's population would die. That's because, even if it would be accessible for every human beings, the fact that resources are limited prevent an indefinite growth of the human population. Ergo, sooner or later food and/or water will not be enough for everyone and thus death will come anyway. Only for poor people unfortunately, while rich one would be able to buy food and water

Death in the only remaining justice on this planet: it comes for everyone. It's just a matter of when and how, but anyway it comes indistinctly for everyone. I pray God that this will remain like that forever. If the immortality exists, it is after death and it's effectiveness has to be decided by God and not by a mere human.
 

Kentpaul

When keepin it real goes wrong. Very, very wrong.
Cygnus X-1 said:
Immortality has not to be discovered, because it would be only a privilege for rich people, while the 99.999999% of earth's population would die. That's because, even if it would be accessible for every human beings, the fact that resources are limited prevent an indefinite growth of the human population. Ergo, sooner or later food and/or water will not be enough for everyone and thus death will come anyway. Only for poor people unfortunately, while rich one would be able to buy food and water

Death in the only remaining justice on this planet: it comes for everyone. It's just a matter of when and how, but anyway it comes indistinctly for everyone. I pray God that this will remain like that forever. If the immortality exists, it is after death and it's effectiveness has to be decided by God and not by a mere human.

I'm sure the poor people would rise up before they kicked the bucket.

Just let everyone who wants to be immortal , have there balls terminated to put a cap on the population.
 

Shanadeus

Banned
Cygnus X-1 said:
Immortality has not to be discovered, because it would be only a privilege for rich people, while the 99.999999% of earth's population would die. That's because, even if it would be accessible for every human beings, the fact that resources are limited prevent an indefinite growth of the human population. Ergo, sooner or later food and/or water will not be enough for everyone and thus death will come anyway. Only for poor people unfortunately, while rich one would be able to buy food and water

Death in the only remaining justice on this planet: it comes for everyone. It's just a matter of when and how, but anyway it comes indistinctly for everyone. I pray God that this will remain like that forever. If the immortality exists, it is after death and it's effectiveness has to be decided by God and not by a mere human.

In the event that we manage to make ourselves immortal through scientific means then it'll really just be life extension. The tyrants and unjust will still be susceptible to death by assassinations and accidents, but do those that are good and not living on the cost of others really deserve to die in the name of equality?

There are several ways you could introduce life extension technologies and one of them would be by limiting the reproductive ability of people opting to become immortal. It'll then be a choice for them, would rather live on or would they rather have children and die to make room for them?
 
McLovin said:
Truly being immortal has its problems though. For one your brain can only hold so much information. Fill it past its limits and you would probably go insane. You would have to find a way to flush out your brain every 100 years or so.. and if you don't remember your life, whats the point?

Theoretically that can easily be solved with implants to increase memory capacity, and/or having your memories stored in a cloud that your brain can tap into to retrieve specific parts as needed, and also selective deleting of unwanted/junk memories to tidy things up.

The biggest downside to immortality that I can think of is the risk of becoming lazy and complacent. If you know you'll be living forever you'll probably be less motivated to try and achieve big ambitions.

I'm in my 30's now and the fact that I'm getting old is staring me in the face every day, which makes want to make the best of my time and work hard to try to achieve something before it's too late.

If I knew I'd be living forever, I'd probably spend way more time laying on a couch consuming entertainment and have less drive to be creative.
 

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
Cygnus X-1 said:
Immortality has not to be discovered, because it would be only a privilege for rich people, while the 99.999999% of earth's population would die. That's because, even if it would be accessible for every human beings, the fact that resources are limited prevent an indefinite growth of the human population. Ergo, sooner or later food and/or water will not be enough for everyone and thus death will come anyway. Only for poor people unfortunately, while rich one would be able to buy food and water

Death in the only remaining justice on this planet: it comes for everyone. It's just a matter of when and how, but anyway it comes indistinctly for everyone. I pray God that this will remain like that forever. If the immortality exists, it is after death and it's effectiveness has to be decided by God and not by a mere human.

If the people knew there was a scientifically valid way to reduce or repeal aging and the elite kept it to themselves, the government would be overthrown. People would riot like crazy. It would be like the French revolution.

Now there would have to be strict laws on people that get treatment - ie an agreement not to procreate otherwise a very harsh penalty.

Sure there would be more problems with population, but you would also have the greatest scientists and engineers be immortal. The next Einstein and Newton would continue coming up with new ideas. Everyone would be working (maybe less if we invent robotics to automate manual labor), there would be very few children and elderly people.
 

Shanadeus

Banned
Naked Snake said:
Theoretically that can easily be solved with implants to increase memory capacity, and/or having your memories stored in a cloud that your brain can tap into to retrieve specific parts as needed, and also selective deleting of unwanted/junk memories to tidy things up.

The biggest downside to immortality that I can think of is the risk of becoming lazy and complacent. If you know you'll be living forever you'll probably be less motivated to try and achieve big ambitions.

I'm in my 30's now and the fact that I'm getting old is staring me in the face every day, which makes want to make the best of my time and work hard to try to achieve something before it's too late.

If I knew I'd be living forever, I'd probably spend way more time laying on a couch consuming entertainment and have less drive to be creative.

But would that really matter if you over time would still achieve great things?
And I think that some people simply can't stand still and be content with not involving themselves with big projects, and these passionate people will most likely continue without the fear of never achieving their dreams because of limited time.
 

jambo

Member
KYSob.jpg


I plan to live forever.
 
Shanadeus said:
But would that really matter if you over time would still achieve great things?

I guess it depends on the degree of laziness/complacency brought on by immortality I guess. I think for some people the wish to "leave behind a legacy" is what drives them to achieve something, so at least that motivation would be gone.

But other people enjoy the process of creating for the sake of it. I'm one of those, and I also think the immortality of art is questionable, so the "legacy" part is not the motivation for me. In that case I guess your point is valid.

And I think that some people simply can't stand still and be content with not involving themselves with big projects, and these passionate people will most likely continue without the fear of never achieving their dreams because of limited time.

Yes I was going to add that to my previous post. Some people are just naturally driven, while others like me are naturally lazy and need to feel some pressure to work hard. So it won't affect everyone the same way.
 

Shanadeus

Banned
Quagm1r3 said:
Only if I can be physically fit. Life as a crippled old man isn't worth living for very long.
That's usually just the case when you achieve immortality through supernatural means.
Curing aging, a step towards immorality, would mean that you wouldn't be a crippled old man but rather a young and healthy long-lived individual.
 
I do agree, it seems like those of us under 40, maybe even 50, are at least in position to think about this as a possibility. I mean, you gotta think, if we're talking about living to 120, for instance, whose to say that, by then, they won't have figured out how to stop or even reverse the aging process? Factor in your typical transhumanism talk on top of that, it's not hard to convince myself that I'm still just a little kid at 32. 30 isn't just the new 20 sociologically, the day might be coming where 30 is the new 20 physically. And that day might already be here, is the point. Who can say?

My only concern is that there's certainly going to be issues involving haves and have nots - as always - and the idea that only the richest of the rich will be able to take advantage of such technology (factoring in overpopulation only confuses the matter) is off-putting.

But yeah, more generally, I'm fully expecting to live to 120 or beyond. If we don't blow ourselves up first.
 

b33f

Member
Shanadeus said:
Isn't that basically reincarnation?
And if you lose your memories then you're essentially losing what make you up, so it'd basically be no different from death.


The Buddha never did. He found enlightenment, escaped the realm of suffering, and never to be reborn again. He is considered immortal.
 

Shanadeus

Banned
b33f said:
The Buddha never did. He found enlightenment and escape this realm of suffering. He is considered immortal.
And doesn't the escape of this realm of suffering means extinction of ones desires and thoughts?
 

zoukka

Member
Kaijima said:
There are thousands of reasons why the human body can't travel faster than natural running speed over the surface of the Earth.

There are thousands of reasons why people cannot talk to one another at distances longer than shouting range.

There are thousands of reasons why men can't fly.

There are thousands of reasons why you can't be doing what you're doing right now: using your fingers to make words that millions of people somehow receive and understand on every corner of the globe - nearly instantly.

Sentience exists to break the universe.

I bet you could blow many minds in the kindergarten.
 
Anyone here watched Dollhouse? That, to me, would certainly do.

When you're consciousness/brain content lives forever and hops on to several different bodies, you ARE immortal, right?
 
Nemesis121 said:
I want to live forever........who doesn't??

To see the entire universe would be awesome.

10,000 years is hard to grasp. That is a long time and assuming you're the only immortal, all of humanity might have died off.

Also, depends on the type of immortality we're dealing with. If it's the invincible kind, what if you get caught floating around in space for a few million years? :lol

Reread OP, and said immortal until we pull the plug, so yea both of those above don't really apply lol.

sw33tclyde said:

Read the spoiler...after I cut my hands off... :(
 

Shanadeus

Banned
Larson Conway said:
Anyone here watched Dollhouse? That, to me, would certainly do.

When you're consciousness/brain content lives forever and hops on to several different bodies, you ARE immortal, right?
I suppose you are, we are after all our brains (even if our bodies play into it, so don't flame me for that)
 
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