Mortality

[Motep]

It sucks, no? Well, not mortality in general; if we all lived forever, the world would be bursting at the seams. What really sucks is being forced to face mortality.

[Rhyfelwyr]

When I think about it, the idea of not being able to die is pretty terrifying. Hard to comprehend...

[a completely inoffensive name]

I am starting to firmly believe that mortality will be eradicated by the time I would be old enough to die.

[Hooahguy]

I welcome my morality. For multiple reasons, mostly because my life holds more meaning, knowing that I have a limited amount of time here, and I need to make the most of it.
I will direct you to my favorite poem, "If" by Rudyard Kipling, specifically the ending of it:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

If I can fill my life- the unforgiving minute- "with sixty seconds worth of distance run," in other words, as much effort and passion that I can, "Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it" which in other words is saying that I can do anything I want in this world.

I draw from that poem the rationale for my morality that while I will eventually die- that is inevitable- I should not cower in fear of it; rather I should use the time that I have to sally forth and meet the world head on.

I also think that the longer our lives, the more pain and suffering that we will have to endure and watch. For those who play Mass Effect, they would know that the Asari (a race of aliens in the Mass Effect series) live for a thousand years or so. This might seem like a great thing. But when asked about it in the game, one elderly Asari answers that it really is not such a great thing. The Asari tells you that while living for so long may seem like a good thing, it really is something very painful. Due to their long age, the Asari have seen countless wars and so much suffering that many of them become recluses from society. Not to mention that they always outlive their lovers, making the search for true love very difficult if you have to do it every 100 years or so. That is why morality is a good thing. Granted, we would all like to live to 1000, but the toll that would take on us, both physically and emotionally, would be too great for us to bear and we would eventually collapse, either physically or mentally.

So thats why I value my morality. Knowing that I don’t have too much time on this planet gives me the drive to make the best of it at all times, and living forever only means that I would have to bear witness to the inevitable sufferings that would occur throughout history.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I disagree with you Hooah. I think it would only be a terrible toll on those who are too weak to handle it. If I knew I could live forever, quite honestly I would work so damn hard. Know why? Because now I can fulfill my big desire to learn everything. I want to learn everything, but in my 90-100 year time span I only have enough time to specialize in one field and perhaps along the rest of my life take intermittent breaks in my job to take classes in my later years to expand my learning. If I could live forever... I could see humanity become god and see us reach the point of terraforming entire planets far off in the future. It would be glorious and I would welcome it fully.

[drone]

I have no idea how I would pay for my immortality.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I have no idea how I would pay for my immortality.

How so?

[Hooahguy]

I disagree with you Hooah. I think it would only be a terrible toll on those who are too weak to handle it. If I knew I could live forever, quite honestly I would work so damn hard. Know why? Because now I can fulfill my big desire to learn everything. I want to learn everything, but in my 90-100 year time span I only have enough time to specialize in one field and perhaps along the rest of my life take intermittent breaks in my job to take classes in my later years to expand my learning. If I could live forever... I could see humanity become god and see us reach the point of terraforming entire planets far off in the future. It would be glorious and I would welcome it fully.
Of course, that would only be for those who are very committed. There will be always those who will spend centuries sitting around being lazy. If I knew that I would live forever, I would do that. Spend a century being a nerd, another century being a jock, and so forth. But eventually I would ask myself what Im doing on this planet if Im just wasting time. Of course people would say they are tough enough to handle it, but would they actually be tough enough? We will never know, for there wont be any cure for death in the future. At least within the next century. First we got to cure AIDS and Cancer.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

bah, "immortality would be terrible" is one of those things that come from mythology. Like "getting three wishes will turn out terribly!" etc. Authors love to cheat when they write about it.

Ask someone who's 80 if they'd like to be rejuvenated along with their wife and best friends, and given 80 more years and see what they say. And then make the same offer in another 80. How about living for a thousand years, that would be cool? Why do these stories always involve people who want to commit suicide but inexplicable can't, and people who lose all friends to death?

[Hooahguy]

But then that just trivializes your actions of the past 80 or so years.

[a completely inoffensive name]

But then that just trivializes your actions of the past 80 or so years.

No it doesn't. If you spent your 80 years finding a cure for cancer and then managed to be given another 80 years, your accomplishments are not demeaned in any way.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

But then that just trivializes your actions of the past 80 or so years.

So what would you say to a 40 year old then? Don't live to 80, it'll trivialize your actions of the past 40 years? And how does it trivialize it?

[naut]

I have no idea how I would pay for my immortality.
Heavy.

[Yaropolk]

Sure is going to be fun to be an immortal neanderthal in 1 million years. Good luck getting laid with all that hair and brow ridges. If you're immortal, the human race will evolve and leave you behind!

[Motep]

Sure is going to be fun to be an immortal neanderthal in 1 million years. Good luck getting laid with all that hair and brow ridges. If you're immortal, the human race will evolve and leave you behind!

Plastic surgery, dude. Besides, guys with lots of hair and heavy brows still get some. Look at my father

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Sure is going to be fun to be an immortal neanderthal in 1 million years. Good luck getting laid with all that hair and brow ridges. If you're immortal, the human race will evolve and leave you behind!

Maybe a million years from now they'll invent a machine for removing body hair...some kind of sharp metal utensil...

[Hooahguy]

No it doesn't. If you spent your 80 years finding a cure for cancer and then managed to be given another 80 years, your accomplishments are not demeaned in any way.


Oh please, thats only assuming you have the smarts to cure cancer.

And Sasaki Kojiro, what Im trying to say is that if you just told an 80 year old "Ok you can essentially start over," what happened to all his decisions in years past?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Oh please, thats only assuming you have the smarts to cure cancer.

And Sasaki Kojiro, what Im trying to say is that if you just told an 80 year old "Ok you can essentially start over," what happened to all his decisions in years past?

We aren't wiping his memory. And I would bet a lot of his decisions were focused on happy retirement, which is now improved and extended. I mean, the fact that he would have to work for a while longer is a flaw of that specific example, but after a certain amount of wealth is built up you would be set.

[Hooahguy]

Of course we are going with the stock "happy marriage, happy life" formula.
What about those who did not have a happy life? Just saying "oh OK, you live forever so you can get one if you would like" does not always work and it wont enable them to get one.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Of course we are going with the stock "happy marriage, happy life" formula.
What about those who did not have a happy life? Just saying "oh OK, you live forever so you can get one if you would like" does not always work and it wont enable them to get one.

It's not like being mortal and being sisyphus are the only possibilities.

I feel like people invent problems here.

And anyway, fantastic medicine, body part regeneration, stopping the aging process are all conceivable (at least we don't know any inherent obstacles). Magical immortality is not, and is thus much less interesting.

[naut]

Maybe a million years from now they'll invent a machine for removing body hair...some kind of sharp metal utensil...
Madness!

[Hooahguy]

Granted, Im all for elongating the human lifespan. Im just disagreeing that it should be infinite.

[rajpoot]

Very interesting thread....kind of like light philosophy...

Anyway, I personally would jump at a chance to become immortal. But then the stuff they say about light being of value only because of the dark isn't all hogwash either. Maybe for someone immortal, after many thousand years of life it will get tiring. I mean all their friends and loved ones would die while they would live on, so that's a lot of pain.
So the only good thing is that they have the chance to learn, 'everything'.

[a completely inoffensive name]

And anyway, fantastic medicine, body part regeneration, stopping the aging process are all conceivable (at least we don't know any inherent obstacles). Magical immortality is not, and is thus much less interesting.

A body is a biological machine. Once we have mastered learning about how it works on every level we can (will) redesign it into perfection. Sooner or later immortality will be achieved. Not by magic, but by slow progression. We will make a list of all the potential causes of death and start crossing them off. First will be aging, then at some point we will master the complexities of the immune system to be able to handle any sort of threatening bacteria, etc... Of course there will always be death from non natural causes like getting hit by a bus or getting shot. But stem cell regeneration will make all but the most fatal (like getting shot in the face 6 times) injuries treatable as well.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

A body is a biological machine. Once we have mastered learning about how it works on every level we can (will) redesign it into perfection. Sooner or later immortality will be achieved. Not by magic, but by slow progression. We will make a list of all the potential causes of death and start crossing them off. First will be aging, then at some point we will master the complexities of the immune system to be able to handle any sort of threatening bacteria, etc... Of course there will always be death from non natural causes like getting hit by a bus or getting shot. But stem cell regeneration will make all but the most fatal (like getting shot in the face 6 times) injuries treatable as well.

mmm, I have no doubts about the human body. But it seems possible that the brain can't regenerate and can't be fixed without destroying the memories etc. Perhaps they could genetically engineer people to have brains that survive indefinitely.

Of course, people talk about supercomputers that are copies of the brain. And they could be immortal, but that's cloning really.

[a completely inoffensive name]

mmm, I have no doubts about the human body. But it seems possible that the brain can't regenerate and can't be fixed without destroying the memories etc. Perhaps they could genetically engineer people to have brains that survive indefinitely.

Of course, people talk about supercomputers that are copies of the brain. And they could be immortal, but that's cloning really.

I think within 25 years we will have discovered what happens to the brain on a physical level when it experiences dementia or Alzheimer's disease and at that point depending on if the cause of the disease is something physical or if it is vice versa we might be able to stop that and reverse it as well.

[Cute Wolf]

2438 years ago, I ate that damn Immortal mushroom presented to my court, 2395 years ago, due to my age being thrown back to 20's, I fake my own death and run to the countryside as a wandering scholar, 2124 years ago, I change proffesion to a wandering doctor, but got jailed because some coward afraid to have brain surgery, I escape soon, and head west, 2015 years ago, I follow a bright moving star with 2 friends, and meet baby Jesus, 1985 years ago, I meet him again and he said "just try to enjoy it, life is sacred, if you end that without a really good reason, you'll end in hell", from there, I wander to the egyptian desert and become solitary monk until 1526 years ago. I decide to do something and advise Attila to kick the corrupt Romans, but poison him afterwards so he got endless nosebleed, because he was too cruel. I then bored and sail to south america, designing some silly pyramids because I miss my ol desert home, but political wars soon broke and I was forced to sail to pacific islands. I design some statues with big heads for lulz, but soon bored after 300 years, so 638 years ago, I back to my homeland and facepalming myself because my former empire got stagnant, so, after some failed works as imperial advisors, I decide to sleep for 520 years, only wake up occasionally for eatin somethin. And when those stupid republicans rebelled, I go south and hide myself in Dutch East Indies... You know all the rest, so I devote my life to play games because I was bored with anything else.

[Hosakawa Tito]

No it doesn't. If you spent your 80 years finding a cure for cancer and then managed to be given another 80 years, your accomplishments are not demeaned in any way.

If everyone's immortal why the need for a cancer cure? Heck, many would probably pay a fortune if you could invent a way to reverse their immortality.:idea2:

[a completely inoffensive name]

If everyone's immortal why the need for a cancer cure? Heck, many would probably pay a fortune if you could invent a way to reverse their immortality.:idea2:

You are talking about immortality in the sense of nothing can hurt you (superman). I am talking about immortality from the more realistic view of eliminating the most "natural" and common of illnesses that plague humans (disease and aging).

[Hooahguy]

So if you are eliminating only the most common forms of death, then you arent really immortal, only immune from certain things.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

So if you are eliminating only the most common forms of death, then you arent really immortal, only immune from certain things.

Yes, biological immortality. Everything you said in your opening post applies to biological immortality, so...

I believe there is a kind of jellyfish that they think is biologically immortal.

[Hooahguy]

Then you arent really immortal, you are merely elongating the human lifespan to an extreme length. If you were not susceptible to biological causes of death, then artificial ones would kill you. War, car crashes, accidents, rabid animals, etc.
Over the course of thousands of years, one of them is bound to happen. Unless you live in a bubble.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Then you arent really immortal, you are merely elongating the human lifespan to an extreme length. If you were not susceptible to biological causes of death, then artificial ones would kill you. War, car crashes, accidents, rabid animals, etc.
Over the course of thousands of years, one of them is bound to happen. Unless you live in a bubble.

No, you really are immortal. Most people in developed countries die from natural deaths. Yes, eventually one artificial death might kill you. But then again, it makes no sense to say "oh well he died after living 4,300 years because a hammer fell on his head by accident. so it's not really immortality.". You will not die unless you put yourself in danger, which means you will live forever as long as you are smart and don't hang around construction areas without a helmet, which means you are immortal.

[Hooahguy]

So are we talking about biological or physical immortality?

[a completely inoffensive name]

So are we talking about biological or physical immortality?

Biological. There is no such thing as physical immortality. However strong you can make the body, you can't make it immune to everything.

[drone]

Does the immortality apply to just you/me, or everyone?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Does the immortality apply to just you/me, or everyone?

OP said everyone.

[drone]

It's impossible to tell how the human race would develop in this case then. Lessons learned would be remembered, but the motivations and drives would be altered as well. I imagine stuff like the plague and famine would clean up the pool every once and a while, until we figured out how to beat it. The societal adaptations to avoid overcrowding would be curious to see. Constant warfare, forced sterilization, life deservency testing, etc. The economics of wealth accumulation would cause some problems as well.

[Motep]

life deservency testing

:laugh4:
See, what a fine mess immortality would be for the species.

[a completely inoffensive name]

It's impossible to tell how the human race would develop in this case then. Lessons learned would be remembered, but the motivations and drives would be altered as well. I imagine stuff like the plague and famine would clean up the pool every once and a while, until we figured out how to beat it. The societal adaptations to avoid overcrowding would be curious to see. Constant warfare, forced sterilization, life deservency testing, etc. The economics of wealth accumulation would cause some problems as well.

Depends. There are much more efficient ways to grow and harvest food than how we do it now. People are just too lazy to invest in those projects. If it came down to spending lots of everyone money to build skyscraper's full of artificial farms or the government implementing a policy of 1 child per family, people will willingly let their money be spent.

Also, most developed countries experience a negative growth rate anyway. Overpopulation simply isn't a problem. The richer you get, the less kids you have. It's a trend shown repeatedly across history. The US only has a positive growth rate right now because of all the immigration both legal and illegal.

[drone]

I don't doubt that technology would handle the food issue, but overcrowding is still an issue from a lifestyle standpoint. A "negative" growth rate (say, 1 kid per couple) is not actually negative if no one is dying of old age. If warfare, disease, and famine are the main vectors of population control, I'm not sure it's a happy place.

I'd be really interested in how religion would develop in an immortal society. The removal of guaranteed death, and the diminished precedence of the afterlife, would have a large effect on how religion developed.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I don't doubt that technology would handle the food issue, but overcrowding is still an issue from a lifestyle standpoint. A "negative" growth rate (say, 1 kid per couple) is not actually negative if no one is dying of old age. If warfare, disease, and famine are the main vectors of population control, I'm not sure it's a happy place.

I'd be really interested in how religion would develop in an immortal society. The removal of guaranteed death, and the diminished precedence of the afterlife, would have a large effect on how religion developed.

Disease will sooner or later be conquered as well. Just need to fine tune the human immune system and bolster it to be able to fend off the most deadly diseases.

There is a clear way on maintaining the current lifestyle but it would take massive social upheavals to undertake them. However, given the opportunity of either a lower standard of living or switching the structure of their respective countries to the alternative plan, many countries and societies will choose the alternative path.