Physical Immortality - Do you believe in it?

Death is not outrageous it's natural. Immortality is the wish of the vain. Nothing could be more damaging to the species, the planet and our sanity than immortality. People are by nature dogmatic to a degree. It's very difficult to change an opinion that's been hardened over time and I'd imagine impossible to change an opinion that's been adhered to over millenia. Immortality is the death of the evolution of society. Had it happened centutries ago we'd be locked into slavery, monarchy or any other erronious norms of the past.

Get over yourself, you're not that important or special. Try reincarnation as a belief system, maybe then you may even embrace death. Personally I think if immortality was acheived we'd only end up killing each other. We do pretty well at that now. Imagine putting up with those people you're diammetrically opposed to for eternity.

idk, I wouldn't mind living a couple hundred years past my expiration date. I feel like from a scientific perspective it'd simply be a matter of fixing what breaks down, wear and tear is the process of aging, right? as far as living FOREVER though, no thanks.

I need to think a bit more on this...

Padawan, your thinking is common sense. But rather than use the word "reincarnation", just understanding a "continuation" might carry a little more weight, because as you say, it is impossible to change those opinions once they have been formed. For example the word "communism" is a politically incorrect no-no, when 'global cooperation' would carry more weight and be harder to throw stones at.
To add a little more, IMO, I don't think death should be "embraced", just acknowledged as a part of life. I have often wondered if we were assured of our place in the future, how would we pattern our lives now? We like "to be" and "not to be" is hard for us to compute, when in all probability "not to be" doesn't exist, so to speak. We've proven that scientifically. Nothing ceases to exist, not even us.
Good post.
William

Immortality in the physical sense is as you describe. Everyone is important and special, and the soul is immortal. But I agree if we couldn't die it would be truly hideous.
Also monarchy has it's merits.

It seems our original poster has given up on this thread, for he has not commented since August of this year. For those who don't mind, I would like to offer a little more concerning a technology that is by no means slowing down. Just in case Andrew is still around and for those who feel as Andrew does, I would like to offer the following comments.

Andrew,

I am not going drill you with what it is that stir's your desire to live forever. Which by the way, IMO, you will, but in one life, I honestly don't think you would want to sacrifice what you would have to sacrifice for that to happen, and that, IMO, is to be human. If that is no concern to you, you may just get your wish, but you might want to consider what you might be letting your self in for. What quality would that life have to it, if we lose our humanity. That could be very well what hell on Earth is all about. Something to think about.

There is a natural process that governs the universe and there are no short cuts. IMO. We are a part of that process and death is a part of that process. Mentally we can only handle so much, unless of course your brain is replace with a processing chip designed by a machine that was designed by man. Andrew, you put more faith in man's motives at this point in time than I do.

The desire for a long happy life is by no means a rare one. I just hope that you do not let this desire to be immortal hinder the life you have ahead of you "if" it is not in the cards for us to master death. My God just think of the economic chaos that would ensue. Insurance companies would go broke; who would decide who get to escape to another planet and how much would that cost; how in the hell would you afford all those Christmas presents; and of course for all those who will not be able to "afford" these transhumanistic break throughs, what of them, unless you think this will be available to all human beings at "no charge". But of course if we are "part machine", human feelings and emotions will be a thing of the past and extermination will not be a problem. If this is within you perception of what it is to be immortal, then perhaps you will find some reason justify a life that is forever. Me, no thank you.

I am resolve to stay with the natural order that governs the universe. Perhaps one day we will understand more about that, but as it stands now, greed is that motivating force that propels this technology funded by those who cannot imagine an existence other than the one they have. They also have the money, power and clout to manipulate the mind of man using altruistic, disingenuous rhetoric that tugs at the heart strings of human beings to get what they want professing the enormous "good" such technology will offer.

Time to reel me back in. I hope what I have said will inspire you to think about your aspirations. We have got a lot to learn about what it is to be human. Once we get that down, then we might be in a position to understand what life is all about, quality wise as it relates to all human beings as we advance the "human condition" eliminating greed as a motivating factor. IMO.

William

Everything must rest, even the soul. Death and rebirth is an opportunity to throw off the shackles of our superficial beliefs and dogmas and start afresh, giving the soul an opportunity to evolve. Without death evolution ceases in my opinion. I agree that embrace is probably too strong a word William, acknowledged yes, but what I really meant is not feared. We shouldn't be in any hurry to die, life is the greatest teacher of all if you heed its lessons, but when our time comes we shouldn't fear death either.

I try to live my life as if the soul is eternal. I think it gives the best reason to try and improve yourself. But at the same time I realise that there is no way to truly know. The only thing I truly know is that I am largely ignorant. Science and religion are two sides of the same coin, they both try to answer the eternal question "why?" Both get into trouble when they lose their flexibility and become rigid. Keeping an open mind is incredibly difficult. Once we've invested the time and effort into learning about, then subscribing to any belief system we tend to defend it against any critisism, even valid ones, tying ourselves in ever more elaborate knots to justify ourselves.

I think Christianity was great 2000 years ago, but like Newtons laws, it can only take you so far. Now the old religions are holding us back. We need fresh ideas to move forward, just as quantum mechanics, string theory et al are doing in the field of physics. Bahai'ism for example seems to me to be the natural progression of 3 great religions founded by Abraham. It explicitly states the equality of the sexes, the unhealthyness of extreme poverty and extreme wealth and other issues the major religions have failed to address. (No I'm not a Bah'ai.)

I'm interested to hear what you consider to be the merits of monarchy avatar6v7. I can't subscribe to anything that elevates an individual to the position of God's representative on earth, especially if they are supposed to be infallible like the pope. It's why I've asked to be excommunicated from the Catholic church, not that I've found a preist who'll agree to my request. Monarchy assumes some bloodlines are better than others. I can't see past this to any benefits. My mind is just as closed as anybody else's I guess.

Great post William, so true. Humanity would be the first casualty of immortality. Maybe that's why immortality is granted to Vampires and their ilk in fiction

Such as? (sorry for the sidetrack -- feel free to start your own thread about it)

I don't in my emotional state right now want to be immortal, but I was wondering if maybe if there was always change in life there would be the ability to want to be immortal if given the right conditions in life.

If one does not want to be immortal then I suppose this person would commit suicide to escape it (lets say they could). Why would this person do such, would this person ask him/her self "what's the point"? And this question I suppose is resulted from an emotional generalization on the whole scheme of things. But if there was always something to learn or change or do that causes something different then maybe somebody would always want to live.

But then this person would perhaps feel that he/she doesn't want to live because they got tired of the change itself, so the way to solve it is by stopping the change but keeping things the same (which is in his/her capacity). But then he/she could feel "what's the point" of living a trend, in general.

And so on asking with the emotional frenzies... whats the point?

So on... with whats the point of meta-accumulation?
What's the point of perfection being asymptotical; being limited to how much change can occur?
What's the point of never being the transcendence itself?
And all these questions established in certain periods, periodically throughout one's life linearly, in a fashionably order. So that one metacognates this realization... "what's the point"... and to stay emotionally stable one will focus on the here and now... but that leads ultimately to stress and must soon change, and that change goes back to the cycle of meta accumulating, and the accumulation of "what's the point" (s) becomes meta-accumulated on top of that. It's all just a cycle that in a finite life one barely gets a glimpse of, and then you wonder what of the point of the cause of this cycle, the underlying roots... that of emotion... what of the point in the causal nature of "what's the point" because immortality is hell. If people had the ability to live forever but die at will, it'd be interesting to see how much of a will power game it'd turn into.

I imagine that it is entirely possible to live forever in our bodies.
who would want to? Probably hundreds of thousands. more probably. I highly doubt anyones claim that they would choose death.

Anyways, Considering that we are energy, Science will eventually figure out how to replenish this energy within our body tissue.

I was about to start a thread similar to this one, but can I jump in here

Assuming science can really increase the human life span in the near future, say up the an average life span of a thousand years?

"I mean quality life"

What would be the consequences to and on society?


Does the human brain have sufficient capacity to store the memories of a thousand year life?

Who would rule this world of mostly very old but healthy people ?

Would the state have to make laws to restrict how long we live and if we reach the thousand year limit we must take a cyanide pill so children could be born?

How would this effect genetic diversity?

I am sure many more pros or cons can be added by you guys.

Physical immorality is impossible, grand entropy will ensure that will never happen?

I would have thought that most people would kill themselves before reaching more than a few centuries. Life is change, and death is part of life. I don't think that, regardless of its possibility, we should opt for immortality in the first place. An extension of life is a good thing, but not beyond a certain point.

Physical immortality is impossible, no matter how long we delay the decay caused by entropy, we will and must die and return to dust in the end.

The earth and indeed the universe are not everlasting and immortality can only be outside of these parameters, maybe what we call the spiritual dimensions

It is a scientific fact, we might be able to extend physical life to a thousand years, but what about the consequences, our brain are hardwired by evolution to hold a certain number of memories.

If we lived beyond a thousand years, we would not be the same person we were at the age of twenty, that person would not even live as a ghost of a memory, the person we were would be just as dead and gone, as if we had expired at the normal age of 70/80 years

Childhood, parents. siblings , loved one all forgotten in the lonely mists of time

I have this idea of non-linear immortality. Not quite reincarnation in the traditional sense, but a bit like it. First, watch this video of Michio Kaku explaining the Multiverse Theory.

YouTube - Multiverse theory by Dr. Michio Kaku

Follow this train of logic, and tell me what you think.

1. All matter and energy in all their states are properties of the universe.
2. Life is a state of matter and energy.
3. All life is therefore a property of the universe.
4. The present state of the universe, including the existance and position of all matter and energy in the universe, exists because of the process of the creaton of the universe.
5. If the exact process of universal creation were repeated, all matter and energy would exist where and when it does now within the context of that Universe.
6. If the exact process of universal creation were repeated, all life would exist where and when it does now within the context of that Universe.

All life dies. There is no way of extending life forever. There is anti-aging medicine research underway that could eventually extend human life indefinitely, and fusing man with machine could ensure lifespan of thousands or even millions of years. Regardless of the extent of Life extension, the universe will eventually end. There is no escaping the end of this life. However, we do not know nearly enough about the phenomenon of the Universe and Life to deduce that it could not be repeated.

The multiverse Michio Kaku describes as an aspect of string theory is not proven, but if theoretical physicists can prove that our universe is one of an infinite amount of universes that are constantly being made due to string theory or any form of cyclical or repetitive universal genesis, the chances of this universe repeating as it is 100%. Cosmologists have figured the chances of life even having been possible in this universe is about 10^500, and that does not take into account the odds against of life starting on Earth, which are also astronomical, or the odds of that life leadng to you, which are still about as high. It could be said that the odds against your resistance are X>((10^500)^500)^500. Feel free to try to contemplate that number if you want, but the important number is infinity. The universal creation process is repeated forever according to this theory by the collision of M Branes. All outcomes will then be repeated infinitely.

If your logical thought process has, as mine has, led you away from the belief that people have souls, or some sort of supernatural entity that exists beyond death, do you then have any reason to assume that the exact same process that made you as you are today wouldn't make you again if repeated?

---------- Post added at 02:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:24 PM ----------



Both of these problems are easily solvable. First, a stipulation can be made where anyone who takes treatment to extend their lifespan could also be legally bound to reproduce only one child per person before perhaps being sterilized. This would dramatically lower population, because it is the families that have many children, such as 4 or more, who then go on to have more and more children that are the main cause of overpopulation. If a couple will grow to 1000 years old, and have 2 children at 30 who continue to have 2 children each at 30 and so on until the first couple reaches 1000, the total number of children that resulted in the world because of them by the time of their death will be less than 75. Now, if a normally aged family follows the same generational size, but at a rate of even just 2.5 children per generation, the number of people in their direct bloodline after 1000 years will be greater than 80, and if they were to have 3, it would be 100, 4 would make 130, and so on. The overpopulation issue is only a problem at first glance.

As far as genetic diversity is concerned, that won't be determined by the natural process very much at all after this century anyway, what with the advent of genetic research and DNA code sequencing. We are now coming to a new era in human development where technology will increase the rate of human evolution far beyond the natural rate. The major change in genetic diversity will not come from reproduction.

---------- Post added at 02:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:24 PM ----------



Absolutely not. Technology in the 21st Century will begin to alter the species at a rate far faster than the natural process of evolution. With or without reproduction, the species will continue to change and evolve well beyond any precedent we have.