Immortality, do you have what it takes?

Crni Vuk

Crni Vuk

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I just asked my self, what I would chose if I had the chance to gain immortality.

Lets say we discover in the near future a way to keep our self always young, like a method that keeps our cell regeneration in a state where our body always has the condition and health of a person in his mid 20s.

Now, at a first glance this sounds pretty awesome. Kinda. But the more I think about it the less desirable it seems to be if you ask me. Now ouf course since I am 29 year old, it seems easy to say something like that. And I will be honest here with saying that I do have quite some fear from death. Not in a way that it gives me any trouble. I guess all people fear death one way or another. But immortaility seems to require a mental state that can also deal with the consequences.

One issue is that you could still "die" from natural causes, like a car accident, or from a disease, scientists do some research here after all, so who knows, they might find a way to stop ageing in the future, even if I think that it is unlikely but its just a hypothetical question anyway. But making us invincible to all forms of damage or death? That sounds more like science fiction. The worst part though could be that you survive though and now suffer from it. Imagine you lose your arms, legs or you would have to deal with distortions of your body or damage to your mind.

The other problem, is simply put. Boredom. Eternity of life. We have no clue what happens after death. There are literaly thousands of concepts. Maybe its just another journey? You become one with everything? Playing the harp as angel? Or geting screwed by the demons in hell? Who knows. But the point is, maybe in 1000 years or 100 000 years, doesnt matter, you might have experienced everthing there is to do on earth. Quite often you see immortal beeings in storys, movies and all that. And quite often do they express a form of ... antipathy. So. Now you have immortality, but no clue what to do with it. How does icre cream taste if all your dishes contain only icre cream? We are after all not gods, or super natural beeings. So the more I think about it, I just cant picture my self runing around on this earth for thousands of years. Even if I would love to see the future. Particularly when you consider what amazing things they might come up with. But maybe not even that is would be awesome. I mean if we become immortal, we probably would have to deal with overpopulation on a whole new level. The resources have their limits. Space as well.

I guess no matter how you spin it. We are not made for a universe with immortal life. Not yet anyway.



So what do you feel? Would you chose immortality?
 
I like to think that I would go for immortality

The first century, everyone I know would die. Tough. I'll get over it - we are after all talking immortality here, and maybe we are even toying with concepts like "eternity"

The first 1000 years, I will be the first, only and ever human to observe MASSIVE geopolitical and cultural change. I will see entire power shifts, and several world wars, civilizations ravaged, languages gone extinct, entire nations being redefined.

The next 10 000 years I will witness significant environmental change, population movements etc.

If my mind is stimulated, and I am kept busy, I see no reason why I should not be intellectually up-and-running by that time.

The next 100 000 years would be enough to notice significant changes to the scope of nature, whole new creatures have the ability to emerge - not merely "undiscovered" animals, but animals that do not yet exist today. Well, subspecies and such anyway.

The next million years, I would observe the limits of humanity. A large mammal species shelf-life tend to be 1-10 million years, so we still have plenty go, if we don't fuck up too bad.

10 million years into it, continents have moved. Whole faunas have changed places. Noticeably new animals have evolved. Humans may or may not still be current, and they may or may not have evolved any at all the past 10 million years, depending on the physical challanges imposed upon them, that will prompt bottle-neck events in the populations,

100 million years in, we can probably say for sure, that humans are no more. Climate, temperatures, atmospheric composition etc would probably be noticeably different, and our species would no longer be fit to survive in it - unless we have evolved :]

1 billion years into it, we can safely say I no longer know how to speak, or form coherent verbal thoughts. Life on earth may look like anything by then, but it will likely consist of the same base branches as today, plants, fungi, animals - vertebrates, invertebrates, that jazz.

10 billion years into it, the sun explodes, and the shockwave vaporizes our planet, and flings me out of the solar system, probably in a matter of just months (which will itself be a moot concept, along with "year" since our solar system has exploded itself)

100 billion years into it, I guess I drift between solar systems, just here and there, tumbling around

1 trillion years into it, I have either ended up inside the core of the Milky way, and somehow survived a crunch into a black hole, where I will continue to exist, concious and healthy, forever OR I have been flung out of the galaxy, drifting between galaxies, in the big, black voids

10 trillion years into it, who knows how many planets I've crashed into, like a meteor. I've watched alien fungus evolve, construct cities, worship me as an alien god, for their star to finally explode, and this repeated

100 trillion years into it, who knows how many universes ive floated in and out of. I hope I get to bring a scarf, at least
 
I think I'd like to give it a shot, but only because I have faith in technology. I'm sure humanity, if unchecked, will eventually reach the point where we can functionally grant ourselves biological or technological immortality anyway, so why not get a head start? I'd like to see what would eventually become of the world, and of me. Outliving my loved ones would be painful, but you have to feel that pain AND inflict it on someone else at least once during my natural human lifespan regardless of all other factors. I feel I could do a lot of good if I was immortal-- as an intrepid experiment in human nature, if nothing else. You said in your terms and conditions I'd still be vulnerable to physical harm, so I could choose to terminate the experiment at any time if I felt the need.
 
zegh8578 said:
I like to think that I would go for immortality

The first century, everyone I know would die. Tough. I'll get over it - we are after all talking immortality here, and maybe we are even toying with concepts like "eternity"
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depends however if you are the only one that is immortal, or if its actually a medication or treatment of some sort. I guess it would definitely be a problem if you give this access to all of humanity.

Not to mention, I get already now bored by certain stuff (like most video games), simply because I played so much of them in my youth. Even with fancy graphics, it seems that a lot of stuff just repeats it self, I mean there is only so much you can do with a Dragon in RPGs ... if you catch my drift.

I can only imagine that this would become worse and worse with the milenias to come. I mean compare movies from today with those from the past, it is interesting how often they are similar. Hell you could even go so far and say that story telling has not changed all that much in the past 2000-3000 years. The basics I mean.
 
Crni Vuk said:
depends however if you are the only one that is immortal, or if its actually a medication or treatment of some sort. I guess it would definitely be a problem if you give this access to all of humanity.

Not to mention, I get already now bored by certain stuff (like most video games), simply because I played so much of them in my youth. Even with fancy graphics, it seems that a lot of stuff just repeats it self, I mean there is only so much you can do with a Dragon in RPGs ... if you catch my drift.

I can only imagine that this would become worse and worse with the milenias to come. I mean compare movies from today with those from the past, it is interesting how often they are similar. Hell you could even go so far and say that story telling has not changed all that much in the past 2000-3000 years. The basics I mean.
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Cinderella is the oldest story that is traceable historically (to my knowledge), and the core story is quite similar to the Disney version in fact, except in most historical variants, there is no "good faery" instead it is the spirit of her dead mother, who comes back to save her (which makes more sense)

I don't think that would be a huge problem, really - for that reason - we humans enjoy very similar stories, heroism, fate, etc, try to compare the ratio between good endings and bad endings, and get a clear picture of what we tend to prefer :D

You bring up a new factor tho - wether or not you are the only immortal one, this makes completely different scenarios, and I forgot to take that difference into account.
If you are alone, there will obviously be a lot of focus on you. You'd be tested upon a lot, and most definitely worshipped, either while captive or as a ruler, but worshipped nonetheless, as people would learn of your immortal nature.
If you were one of many, on the other hand, it would probably grow into a cruel elite, probably the worst kind of elite humanity has ever spawned :D

Yamu said:
but you have to feel that pain AND inflict it on someone else at least once during my natural human lifespan regardless of all other factors.
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Eek o_o
 
Meant to say *any natural human lifespan, as in, "you're going to outlive many of your loved ones anyway, and many of them are likely going to have to deal with the pain of outliving you." Heh. Sorry.
 
Immortality heh? The first 100.000 would be golden age but after that you done basically everything on Earth, maybe go to another planet? After sometime everything would be boring, following the physical harm thing I don't doubt some immortals will commit suicide at this point.

Without the physical harm thing some immortals would start/influence some great acts of destruction (great world wars,etc) just for something interesting happening, I wonder what the historians would write about a person running naked with a knife on the battlefield.

I probably would go bats#it crazy after some years.

To endure immortally, one must already be born with it. That's what I think

The question is: Would my mortality try to ''destroy'' me?
 
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Immortality would be last invention of humanity (after the holodeck) I believe that the thing that motivates us to even do anything is the fact that we have an alloted time, we are temporal and we are ephimeral, the average 80 years someone lives is nothing in the bigger picture, that's why people actually rush into having kids, learnning things and trying to leave a mark in the world. With immortality tho the only thing we would care would be to eat and breathe, and even then depending on the type of immortality that wouldn't be necessary, and any other activity would be nothing but a passing distraction something we won't do with any passion or interest.
 
Walpknut said:
Immortality would be last invention of humanity (after the holodeck) I believe that the thing that motivates us to even do anything is the fact that we have an alloted time, we are temporal and we are ephimeral, the average 80 years someone lives is nothing in the bigger picture, that's why people actually rush into having kids, learnning things and trying to leave a mark in the world. With immortality tho the only thing we would care would be to eat and breathe, and even then depending on the type of immortality that wouldn't be necessary, and any other activity would be nothing but a passing distraction something we won't do with any passion or interest.
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It would be very much up to you tho. I agree that a majority would probably lose meaning in their life, if it was eternal - but have in mind, they say the same thing about religion vs irreligion - that the latter signifies a meaningless existence.
You could use your eternal nature for the good of the collective - somehow, almost like a superhero - to consider your immortality as something with a "cause"

You could still set goals, "I want to know what happens to life on earth" "I want to experience our supernova" :D
 
I would pass on the opportunity to become immortal. I'm already dreading the fact that I might have another 50 years ahead of me.
And what if you became poor and homeless and still be immortal? It would be hell - forever.
The nicest thing about life, I find, is the fact that it stops one day.
If there is an afterlife of some sorts (I don't believe in it, but I guess everything is possible), I really really really hope it's less boring than this one.
 
Even if you could not be hurt you could still end up losing your life. Because the closer your life's length comes to infinity, the higher the chance that you become trapped somewhere through some dangerous circumstances.

Oh, I'll just take a walk through this rocky area. . . bam! Trapped under rocks for all eternity. .
 
It would be hell...you would want to die every second of the day. Enlightenment over Immortality any day.
 
On the other hand, you might be more likely to reach enlightenment if you had the lifespan of human civilization to work with rather than eighty or ninety years, and once you'd reached that state of mind you'd either be free to leave this mortal coil a complete and happy being or content to live out your immortality as an imperturbable bastion of zen.
 
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