Immortality, who wants to live forever?

[ClintonHammond]

On this whole subject, read "The Harvest" by Robert Charles Wilson

 

[Blue Tyson]

Yeah. Then you could read every SF book ever.

 

[steve12553]

This thread has several new thoughts worth addressing everytime I look through it. Someone said that a non-aging person would have trouble remembering important dates. After a long enough period of time, would the dates really be that important? I don't remember a lot of historical dates, I just know where to look them up. I've always heard that only a small portion of the brain was being used, maybe an "immortal" can tap into that extra unused expanse of brain tissue to be able to manage a long lifetime more competently. I remember hearing 10% years ago, even if 75% of excess memory capacity were available beyond the "normal" human lifespan, wouldn't that give us competency into our fourth century or so. I guess that leaves the whole thing into maintenance and degradation. How well can these thing be improved. They would be improved, though, on a racial level (as in human racial) rather than Doctor Frankenstein making the magic corrections in his laboratory.



Personally, I like to see this in the next 20 years or so. Otherwise I will have to start exercising and eating right.

 

[ClintonHammond]

"Someone said that a non-aging person would have trouble remembering important dates"
I don't see why they would.... I had no problem remebering things when I was 25. (I don't have much trouble now, at 36 either) If I was kept at that physical and mental 'level' forever, why would I ever develop a problem remembering things? The human brain isn't like a computers hard-drive.... You can't fill it up, unless age (or some other form of damage) has imparied your ability to make new 'memory cells')

"that leaves the whole thing into maintenance and degradation"
Hence even a middling level of nano-tech....

 

[steve12553]

"Someone said that a non-aging person would have trouble remembering important dates"
I don't see why they would.... I had no problem remebering things when I was 25. (I don't have much trouble now, at 36 either) If I was kept at that physical and mental 'level' forever, why would I ever develop a problem remembering things? The human brain isn't like a computers hard-drive.... You can't fill it up, unless age (or some other form of damage) has imparied your ability to make new 'memory cells')

"that leaves the whole thing into maintenance and degradation"
Hence even a middling level of nano-tech....

As someone nearly 20 years older yet, I see a change that you haven't yet. My mind is definitely more developed. I understand more. I have more background to compare things to. On the other hand, I have so many more memories to look through. I don't forget everything but I tend to let go less important things as more important things show up. Think of it as the software that manages the memories has limits. Everything is probably still in there but like a fragmented harddrive, some things are harder to find. There seems to be a lot of limits to immortality.

 

[Specfiction]

Immortality--there are some topics that are hard to discuss, not because they're not good topics, but because whatever can be said about them does not do them justice. It's a matter of perspective. We, as human beings, on this small blue marble have very little perspective. I have never met anyone who has ever thought of anything that they have not experienced in some form or other. I have never read anything that I’ve ever considered truly outside human experience. We haven't been around in any effective way for very long, we're not that smart, we're ripe with subjective emotions that continually distort our judgment, and we've seen almost nothing at all of the universe around us that we so arrogantly dismiss in favor of childish stories that we constantly make up and try to pass off as deep insight, or worst yet, truth. And before you start hating me for saying these things, I count myself as one of the clueless.

Immortality?--I have no idea.

 

[Nikitta]

"Someone said that a non-aging person would have trouble remembering important dates"
I don't see why they would.... I had no problem remebering things when I was 25. (I don't have much trouble now, at 36 either) If I was kept at that physical and mental 'level' forever, why would I ever develop a problem remembering things? The human brain isn't like a computers hard-drive.... You can't fill it up, unless age (or some other form of damage) has imparied your ability to make new 'memory cells')

You'd have more things to remember, which would make it harder to remember them. I mean - no matter how big a harddrive you have on your computer, more information stored means it takes more time to find the information you need, unless you manage to invent a search engine for the mind. That would make you rich and famous. I'm "only" 32 and I could really use one!

 

[Alurny]

You'd have more things to remember, which would make it harder to remember them. I mean - no matter how big a harddrive you have on your computer, more information stored means it takes more time to find the information you need, unless you manage to invent a search engine for the mind. That would make you rich and famous. I'm "only" 32 and I could really use one!

I need one now and I'm 19!

Living forever would be great and horrible at the same time. For instance you would see every generation of your family die but then you would see how your family line continued.

Also I could read as slow as I wanted and still know that I literally had all the time in the world! hehe.

 

[AHJ87]

Here's the thing people...
We are already immortal beings! Don't be seduced by the organized religions and their quest to enslave the minds.

Our bodies are merely garments that we change every once in a while. We were here - we are here - and we'll always be.

Earth is just an evolved planet that might decay after a couple of billions of years. But so what? We'll simply move on to another planet that'll evolve into a new Earth and start all over.
I said this once in another thread, and I'll say it again: the Universe is limitless.

The relgious scriptures that depict a so-called "Judgement Day" have all been misunderstood and taken literally. The learned knows that the writings hold parables - metaphors - symbolism that only the wise can grasp.

Our minds are boundless, so basically we are boundless. It's as simple as that.

"And God said: Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." - Genesis 1:26

 

[Parson]

The learned knows that the writings hold parables - metaphors - symbolism that only the wise can grasp.

It's always good to have a militant Gnostic in the circle.

 

[AHJ87]

It's always good to have a militant Gnostic in the circle.

LOL! Yup - it sure is!

But I'm serious. Yes, I know to each his/her own opinion, but look at what's happening to a world where people are taking everything at face value.

 

[Tau Zero]

Here's the thing people...
We are already immortal beings!

Uhh, OK, i think we were talking about the kind of immortality where one doesn't die. All the dead people i've come across seemed to stay that way.

 

[Azathoth]

All the dead people i've come across seemed to stay that way.

Apparently you haven't met zombie Lincoln yet.

 

[AHJ87]

Uhh, OK, i think we were talking about the kind of immortality where one doesn't die. All the dead people i've come across seemed to stay that way.

Oh well... that's what you think. And it's probably what many others think as well.

As for me, I'm sticking to my opinion no matter how absurd it may sound: we're immortal the way we are.

 

[Tau Zero]

Well, it's a bit more than an opinion. All the people who have ever died are still dead. Try going for a walk with one of them.

If i understand you correctly, you're saying all the dead people in world are still alive? Sorry, but i don't understand how a dead person can be called immortal (which, in this thread, means "doesn't die").

 

[j d worthington]

Yes... it might help to define terms before things get a bit too muddled; that way differing viewpoints can be debated, rather than ending up with mass confusion....

 

[Urien]

Immortality as originally intended in this thread was the kind of immortality that preseved you the way you are now. Take a little green pill that means you never age. You would still be vulnerable to dread disease and accident.

The question afterwards was would you take it?

 

[AHJ87]

Okay, I'm sorry for getting you confused. You're right, I should've explained my point, hehe.

You see, I personally believe in metempsychosis - the transmigration of the soul. I really don't believe that the eventual decay of my body will end my existence for ever. I will simply be born in another shell, in some other time - maybe be in another planet, in a far-away galaxy. And the cycle of life keeps going.
It's basically a form of spiritual evolution.

But since this thread is dedicated to the mundane sense of "death", then no, I don't think I'd want to stick around with this shell for ever.

 

[Joel007]

If you can't remember where you came from how do you know you're on your way up the chain and not down?

Bodies age, and eventually we'd kill ourselves with the silly vices and risktaking that seem natural to our (apparently suicidal) bodies. If there was a way to renew the body whilst keeping the mind intact, we'd be onto a good thing. It could theoretically be possible, after all, bodies are just tissue that we command. The brain, however, is currently far beyond our capability of understanding, let alone replacing.
We'd have to remove all the toxins from our styles of living to pull it off!

 

[AHJ87]

The brain, however, is currently far beyond our capability of understanding, let alone replacing.

Don't you mean the human mind is far beyond our capbility of understanding?