Immortality, who wants to live forever?

[lou.mor432]

To live forever? A question that is raised by many people and many relgions.
There is many who believe that only those who can afford it should be allowed this sort of thing if it ever came about.
Personally I would not like to live forever...maybe a few decades more but not for an enertity.
What would happen if you suffered from an illness or diability? Would the gift or enteral life cure you of it?

I agree. You never know how you're going to end up in later life. Something awful could happen or you could end up with a dibilitating disease. I wanna die when I'm meant to die. Under a bus or in me bed, I don't care. I just don't want to live forever.

 

[KZCat]

A very cool topic! MyThoughts(tm):

* As you live longer the probablity of dying in some accident some time would approch 1, i.e., you could live a long time but if you live long enough you would die.

* Only the rich could afford it -- Au contraire, a headline from the year 2020: "AIG Insurance Company Announces Longevity Plan: AIG announced today a new combination medical/insurance program. Consumers can sign up for this plan and get the new Methuselagra (the new longevity drug) free as long as they make life insurance payments, payements are expected to be very competitive. One Insurance executive was heard to say 'Imagine, 100 to 200 years of guaranteed insurance payments!'"

* Space would be a very viable option, either for the young or the old. I figure either the old will be shipped out to colonies on Mars and or the Moon. Or the young will strike out to make new lives "in the colonies".

* For a very interesting take on "long life"/"immortality" check out Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. Immortality in that novel involves downloading minds. Its a very interesting take on that whole concept and has more logical ideas about this concept than I've seen anywhere else.

My personal goal: To die in a mountain biking accident on Mars at the age of 350.

 

[Azathoth]

One other thing to consider regarding an immortality pill - those who would control access to the pill would more or less own the world. I wonder how many people would give up everything they had for a taste of immortality...?

 

[SpaceShip]

One other thing to consider regarding an immortality pill - those who would control access to the pill would more or less own the world. I wonder how many people would give up everything they had for a taste of immortality...?

And what might happen if someone were to take a double dose? Well, I know you wouldn't be able to live a double eternity - that's impossible. But what would happen?

 

[Joel007]

There's a book by terry pratchett where the races have achived near immortality, but those who choose that path sacrifice the ability to have children.
The only thing left capable of backing a currency is time, they pay each other in days.
Its called Strata, gd book

 

[chrispenycate]

It is a matter of pride to me to remember things. Possibly not all the facts I come into contact with, but a good percentage. Now, after less than six decades, I notice a reduction of capacity. Perhaps not due to lack of storage capacity yet, perhaps a reorganisation would clear this stage, but how about six centuries? Six millenia? If we have space for a couple of centuries of reclamable memories, would we get stuck with doing regular backups and editing out unnescessary information? Or just dumping everything more than a hundred and fifty years unused? (Not old. Any memory you haven't accessed in that long)
So, no, I've got no desire for extinction; but none for overload, either. And I quite like being classifiable as "human"; I question whether something with several thousand years of memories would fulfill the conditions.
I suspect that, rather than everyone going cautious and protecting their potentially endless lives, there would be a large minority who would get ever more jaded, seeking more extreme experiences, greater risks, something which stimulated enough of an adrenaline rush to inform the experiencee that he's still alive, and that these individuals, probably the most interesting portion of the population, would die relatively young (say, a couple of centuries) while the hidebound, nothing must change, no leaving opportunities/money/living space for the newcomers, boring block would live on and on (and ooooonnn), until the stastistically inevitable catastrophe renders the Earth uninhabitable.

 

[Urien]

Spaceship,

I don't know what happens if you take two, probably nothing, as the first (in my mind anyway) works by ensuring steady state no decay DNA replication.

Chris, I hate to say it but the "reduction" you speak of could easily be to do with nearly six decades. If you were held at thirty the "reduction" problem might not occur at all.

 

[Pointfinder]

We have ample technologies available to us now to document and store our memories "off site" on computers, in digital photos and videos, who really needs a memory? Of course this opens the door to a wonderful dark SF storyline where the backup files somehow get destroyed and the world is populated with people who have no idea who they are.

 

[Urien]

^Ohh nice idea.

 

[Pandæmonium]

I wouldn't want to live forever (sorry to go off tpoic here guys and girls)

Living forever would be interesting as in that you could learn everything and anything you wanted, technically, an infinite world has limitless possibilities - If you wanted to find out how to walk to the moon and back, u could theoretically do it.

however, living forever would be a life of solitude. A reasonable example would be Superman (i know its a little crude but...) - Sure he's portrayed as awsome etc etc - But you would see everyone you love and care about eventually wither away and ultimately pass on, and I can tell u from personal experience that isnt nice, especially very close people, im sure some of you share my experience of that feeling. So imagine an infinite number of people to share a "lifetime" with, and then imagine an infinate amount of loss. If any of you watch Star Trek (voyager mainly) - U'll recall the eppisode where that "Q" wants to commit suicide because he's tired of an infinite yet borring existance?

Open to your own opinions, but there you go. that's mine

Del

 

[SpaceShip]

We have ample technologies available to us now to document and store our memories "off site" on computers, in digital photos and videos, who really needs a memory? Of course this opens the door to a wonderful dark SF storyline where the backup files somehow get destroyed and the world is populated with people who have no idea who they are.

Or, if they had something to haggle with, they could purchase a more superior brain/memory/etc - and does it need to end there?

Roll up, roll up - heavenly bodies for sale to go with advanced memory-sticks for brains (unless it is your intention to become a blonde heavenly body with a dumb brain - alluring to some, I believe).

Swap your worn out body/brain for a newer upgraded version: Stephen Hawking's brain is on sale - a snip at US$6trillion. That, together with the frame of Jude Law (or the hunk of your choice) at a knock down price of US$5trillion.

Please form an orderly queue here (please leave zimmers in the car park - a label will be provided with your name on it, if you can remember it, so that you can find it later - that is if you will need it after your fabulous purchase)

 

[chrispenycate]

Spaceship,

I don't know what happens if you take two, probably nothing, as the first (in my mind anyway) works by ensuring steady state no decay DNA replication.

Chris, I hate to say it but the "reduction" you speak of could easily be to do with nearly six decades. If you were held at thirty the "reduction" problem might not occur at all.

Certainly my capacity may well be reduced; I've not exactly taken the best possible care of my synapses
Still, the fact holds that our memory capacity is finite, and our capacity of organising that memory considerably more so; how ever well brain cells are regenerating (who was the author of the short story where immortality was achieved by perfect cellular regeneration, which perfectly returned brain cells to the state in which they had been before the treatment, ie without any extra memories? Sixties,I think) there is a finite quantity of potential storage, and you are trying to put an infinite quantity of disorganised information into it and put the nescessary links in to be able to refind it. Mathematically improbable.
So, while unfair wear and tear might have an influence, in the long run nobody's brain's properly designed for the really long run.

Racist joke

Man goes into a transplant clinic for a brain transplant, and is showed available models
"and here we have a colledge professor, only one careful user, well run in, $150.000"
"Interesting; and this one?"
"Hardly used, the star of a soap opera, masses of free capacity $100,000- and here, our star offer, from a swiss german, $450,000 !"
"But why's that one so expensive?"
"Oh, sometimes you have to open fifteen, maybe twenty swiss germans to find one"

Easily modified for whichever nationality/sport you wish to criticise at the moment…

 

[KZCat]

... there is a finite quantity of potential storage, and you are trying to put an infinite quantity of disorganised information into it and put the nescessary links in to be able to refind it. Mathematically improbable.
So, while unfair wear and tear might have an influence, in the long run nobody's brain's properly designed for the really long run.
…

Computer aided memory? Off loaded memories? Memory editing services?

 

[j d worthington]

Computer aided memory? Off loaded memories? Memory editing services?

Briefly: These may indeed be possible and useful at some point, but I wonder about the things that are concomitant with memory. After all memories do not stand alone; they are tied to our senses and emotions; they are a complex rather than an isolated item or impulse in the brain. And, as we all know, the more complex a technology, the more room there is for error and the random element. One could never be certain of one's memories, as the tiniest fluctuations may alter them drastically. Good to think about -- and, as I said earlier, food for any sf writers who want to tackle the subject; but practically speaking ... very unlikely.

 

[Locksmith]

You're right JD, there's no chance of a memory editing service, unlike the immortality pill, which is just around the corner, right.

 

[Joel007]

Hmm, there are interesting ideas about immortality. Eternal old age, for one.
Or how about
"I must warn you, there's a chance that I may be immortal."
"So, if i shot you in the head, you wouldn't die?"
"well, when you put it like that..."

I think the phrase "Born to die" is actually not well thought out, but it ends up being true in a roundabout way. If we have no limit on our time we have no drive or ambition (why fight our way to the top when its only a matter of time before we are supplanted?). revelation of mortality can inspire people to great deeds.

 

[Sharukem]

and on another note. sure we may become eternaly old, but immortality will also have it's side effects. like being unable to remember important dates (amnesia) and others along those lines. plus it won't stop us from ROTTING TO DEATH. that is one of the main side effects of immortality.

 

[ClintonHammond]

Even a very limited form of Nano-tech would be able to confir the apperance of immortality and eternal youth. (It could also put an end to what we know of as economy, which is a related subject but is also a whole different thread) And I would be all over it like a fat kid on the last Smartie! Make the body 'immune' to the oxidation of aging and to all 'disease'.... Nothing short of catastrophic damage could stop its functions....

I think I'd start by sleeping for about 500-1000 years.... Ya know... really get caught up on my sleep. Then, get busy exploring the limitless potential of our universe, starting with our own little planet. Take a few hundred years and really get to know it. Hopfully by then "The Living Universe Foundation" will have made some decent advances to get us off this poor, doomed, little rock and out into space where we belong.

Boring? Oh ye of little imagination..... In this expanding universe that we know oh so little about, that we've only even seen a small fragment of, who could it ever get boring?

 

[Parson]

Alan Campbell has some interesting insights (in a tangential way) in his new book Scar Night.

The Chronicles book club is going to start discussing this book in January if anyone's interested.

 

[sci-fi girl]

In this expanding universe that we know oh so little about, that we've only even seen a small fragment of, who could it ever get boring?

Totally agree. I keep on thinking that I was born in the wrong time, too much early to be precise. *One or two extra centuries to see what Universe has to offer would be at the top of my Cristmas list.*