Suppose Science Made Immortality Into A Reality?

[Overread]

And then comes some really strong reasons for religion or even great confusion when some of those very early memories surface when you could be hundreds of years old. Almost like being reborn again. Or the painful sorrow of finding old memories in photographs or an old hard-drive or memory backup - memories that once were fresh but now that the person can't recall at all.

Indeed I could see some suffering some pretty strong depression as a result of living too long.

 

[BAYLOR]

Do our memories make us who we are or are we who we are due to who we are due to nature/nurture?

I do think our memories are large part of the person we become.

 

[DelActivisto]

And then comes some really strong reasons for religion or even great confusion when some of those very early memories surface when you could be hundreds of years old. Almost like being reborn again. Or the painful sorrow of finding old memories in photographs or an old hard-drive or memory backup - memories that once were fresh but now that the person can't recall at all.

Indeed I could see some suffering some pretty strong depression as a result of living too long.

Sure, but that happens to people even now. I've got lots of pictures of me as a little kid doing things that I barely remember doing. Many adults, after some time, have plenty of things that they've forgotten, particularly if they have memory problems or dementia setting in.

Additionally, I don't know if anyone is actually quite sure how much the human brain can hold. We tend to store only pertinent memories. Things like phone numbers infamously get deleted after as little as a few seconds in my case, to minutes or days for other people. Some people have ironclad memory and can tell you what they had for breakfast last week. I definitely can't tell you that, and possibly it's because I deliberately store other information that I deem pertinent - such as certain phrases to delete from my story, or a financial docket or something.

So probably what would happen is we would ultimately remember our whole life, just not in picture perfect clarity. I remember all the hardships I experienced farming, for instance, but can't tell you very well on any given day what happened.

Keeping journals works for me, though. I can usually jog my memory pretty quickly with journal entries, because what happens is I'm actually taking different memories and amalgamating them into a representation of that specific event. It's not even necessary to remember the event at all if that journal entry can just jog it real quick. It's like using the same file on. A computer for multiple different purposes. You've only got one font file for each font, for instance, but that font is stored in various forms all over the computer.

 

[Overread]

True, but there's certain memories or at least inklings of memories that are the kind of things people want to and expect to remember. A degree of forgetting things is indeed normal; but I think it would have an extra sting to it when you can't remember your first significant other; can't remember your siblings etc... As said above you could almost be reborn with the amount of history that one forgets.

That leaves a lot of holes and gaps in ones life; ripe for some pain at forgetting so much. Furthermore ripe for abuse too now I think of it; people claiming to be long lost friends - similar immortals (or even mortals) who abuse that imperfect memory.


A lot of this touches on the aspects raised in series like Ghost in the Shell with regard to memory and what makes us alive. Indeed th questions are quite similar to those who ponder on if a totally digital copy would be alive or not; or if cyborgs with little to no flesh left are really "alive" or not.

 

[nixie]

I for one don't want to live for ever. As a dream it would be wonderful but in reality it would be a nightmare. Children would be a rarity, only the privilege few allowed to breed. Over population would probably lead to culling.

 

[Parson]

Over population would probably lead to culling.

And isn't that a horrific thought!! I certainly wouldn't want to live forever in a body that was slowly breaking down. It sounds like a good illustration of eternal punishment.

 

[BAYLOR]

I think that were I given physical immortality , my biggest fear would be the worse person I might end up becoming.

 

[Mirannan]

And isn't that a horrific thought!! I certainly wouldn't want to live forever in a body that was slowly breaking down. It sounds like a good illustration of eternal punishment.

And this isn't exactly a new trope. The Greek legend of Tithonus comes to mind. (Although I confess that I couldn't remember that name without a bit of Internet help. )

 

[Vertigo]

Think about our brains, and memory in particular, in evolutionary terms; in general evolution is not renowned for being wasteful, so I would be very surprised if our brains have more memory capacity than is need to live out our genetic lives (ie to around 50 odd years old). What genetic advantage would there be to having any additional capacity? And without genetic advantage mutations simply don't reinforce and become permanent traits. So even if we can stop the loss of our mental capacities I don't see how we can increase them.

 

[nixie]

Would make an amazing futuristic horror story.
Science has eliminated death in humans, enforced sterilisation too stop over population and draining of resources. People then want their pets to live for ever, the animals become insane their brains can't cope with the changes, once beloved pets are now monsters no one is safe.

 

[AlexH]

More people would never get anything done, because they'd think they have unlimited time. Maybe the people who're quite the opposite would make up for that and we'd have other huge advances in technology.

On the same topic, I highly recommend the film The Man from Earth if you haven't seen it. There's a long-awaited sequel due out this year.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

Children would be a rarity, only the privilege few allowed to breed.

There's an empty galaxy out there. Once we get off this planet, we won't need to worry about overpopulation for a very long time.

As for sterilization, we're maybe ten years away from being able to grow a kid in a vat from a few skin cells (the biggest impediment is not the technology, it's 'medical ethics' laws). So that won't stop anyone.

 

[Overread]

Immortals - you may live forever, but condition is that you serve aboard a ship heading into deep-space to colonise a new planet. Gets around the problem of hyperspeed and overpopulation - for a while.

 

[Vertigo]

There's an empty galaxy out there. Once we get off this planet, we won't need to worry about overpopulation for a very long time.

As for sterilization, we're maybe ten years away from being able to grow a kid in a vat from a few skin cells (the biggest impediment is not the technology, it's 'medical ethics' laws). So that won't stop anyone.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; the numbers just don't work. Yes there is a (possibly) empty galaxy out there but the problem is getting people off Earth. Current figures I have seen say we have globally around 131 million births per year and around 55 million deaths. So the difference is around 75 million. So just to keep pace we would need to shift 75 million people off planet per year; that's over 200 thousand per DAY. So we have to get 200,000 per day off planet into space ships (which also have to be built), that's a million people every 5 days to get loaded into colony ships. How big would the colony ships be and how many of them would we need? And all just to keep the population steady as opposed to reducing it. It's just not realistic to believe it can be done without radically reducing our birth rate first.

 

[Parson]

I've said it before and I'll say it again; the numbers just don't work. Yes there is a (possibly) empty galaxy out there but the problem is getting people off Earth. Current figures I have seen say we have globally around 131 million births per year and around 55 million deaths. So the difference is around 75 million. So just to keep pace we would need to shift 75 million people off planet per year; that's over 200 thousand per DAY. So we have to get 200,000 per day off planet into space ships (which also have to be built), that's a million people every 5 days to get loaded into colony ships. It's just not realistic to believe it can be done without radically reducing our birth rate first

But aren't we headed in that direction anyway? It seems that every time I look at the the population charts the population growth is slowing more rapidly than anyone thought likely.

 

[Vertigo]

But aren't we headed in that direction anyway? It seems that every time I look at the the population charts the population growth is slowing more rapidly than anyone thought likely.

Possibly, but is that going to be the case if people are no longer dying of natural causes?

 

[Stewart Hotston]

My first trilogy - the first book of which is called A Family War deals with exactly this issue as one of its central themes.

 

[Parson]

Possibly, but is that going to be the case if people are no longer dying of natural causes?

I believe so, if in the VERY UNLIKELY case of immortality, it is logical that people would see little if any need for children. I suspect that the biological urge to reproduce would be at the very least seriously muted. For evidence I would point to the fact that as people become more educated and self centered the less likely they are to have children. --- If you had all the time in the world it wouldn't be surprising that people would become even more self-centered.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

I've said it before and I'll say it again; the numbers just don't work. Yes there is a (possibly) empty galaxy out there but the problem is getting people off Earth.

The Earth's population is about to crash, because there's no need for so many people in a post-industrial world. And few of the survivors will ever get off it.

But, once they are in space, the galaxy's the limit. Just pick a direction, and go...

And by the time we reach the edge, even intergalactic travel may not stop us. If you're immortal, you won't much care that the trip will take a million years, so long as you can build a starship which can survive that long.

 

[BAYLOR]

Would make an amazing futuristic horror story.
Science has eliminated death in humans, enforced sterilisation too stop over population and draining of resources. People then want their pets to live for ever, the animals become insane their brains can't cope with the changes, once beloved pets are now monsters no one is safe.

That would make a great novel.