Your thoughts on immortality.

[Siro]

I follow biotech news pretty closely, and it seems that the mechanisms for aging and, ultimately, death are becoming more and more understood. I am hearing about longevity breakthroughs almost every month (in animal trials), and the prospects of at least living healthy to an advanced age are becoming more realistic. 10 years ago, I read a book that suggested immortality was an achievable goal, and that death was not an inevitable consequence of life. Back then, this concept was absolutely outrageous, and the author was ruthlessly attacked for promoting pseudoscience. But the science of aging is now close to being mainstream, and I hear speculation about humanity's eventual immortality quite often. It has even begun appearing in movies and science fiction literature as a norm of the far-future life. I, as a complete naturalist, am pretty confident that practical immortality will be achieved within, at most, a hundred years.

My question is, how would you feel about such a development? I would like you to forget about the obvious ramifications of immortality (overpopulation, crippling social change mechanisms, deeply disturbing understood economic paradigms, and so on) Imagine that those issues were overcome, and you can live your life more or less as you do now (family, work, study, travel, entertainment, etc). How would that affect your life? How would it change your views? Would you like it? Would you choose a different path in life? Would you reject it and opt for a normal life span?

When I pose this question to science oriented people, I typically get cautiously optimistic reactions. But I would like see the reaction of more mixed group of people. And please give this question some thought as how it would affect you. Not just a rushed "life has no meaning without death" impulse.

P.S. In this scenario, you have the choice of being fully immortal. That means you can't even die in an accident. Your brain contents are backed up every hour or so on a remote server, and the worst that can happen is losing an hour of continuity. Meaning, you can be perfectly reconstituted with your memory, consciousness, and personality fully intact.

 

[leftyjace]

How would I feel? Honestly, I would love an opportunity to continue to see how the world develops and unfolds. There is always something fascinating happening. Plus the older I get, the more I realize that youth is definitely wasted on the young. I would love an opportunity to continue to live a viable life with the wisdom garnered only through age and experience.

If a time came that I was tired of continuing to live, then choosing to die needs to be an option. But from my limited perspective right now I personally don't see that happening for a long time.

 

[Stoked]

Immortality could be the greatest gift and the worst nightmare.

 

[Siro]

How would I feel? Honestly, I would love an opportunity to continue to see how the world develops and unfolds. There is always something fascinating happening. Plus the older I get, the more I realize that youth is definitely wasted on the young. I would love an opportunity to continue to live a viable life with the wisdom garnered only through age and experience.

If a time came that I was tired of continuing to live, then choosing to die needs to be an option. But from my limited perspective right now I personally don't see that happening for a long time.

Clearly you'd have an option to die, or maybe even to pause your life for as long as you want. Immortality would be terrifying if you didn't have a way out.

 

[candrew]

I forget the name of the movie but it's where women can't become pregnant anymore and the world falls into a continual state of war and depression. Wouldn't that be a direct result of immortality?

The needs of the living will always trump the needs of unborn - the only way to control population growth is through restricting childbirth.

The human race is like every other living organism on the planet - it needs to renew itself otherwise it would destroy itself.

Not to mention it would pretty much end the institution of marriage - who the hell would want to be married to someone forever?

 

[Siro]

I forget the name of the movie but it's where women can't become pregnant anymore and the world falls into a continual state of war and depression. Wouldn't that be a direct result of immortality?

The needs of the living will always trump the needs of unborn - the only way to control population growth is through restricting childbirth.

The human race is like every other living organism on the planet - it needs to renew itself otherwise it would destroy itself.

Not to mention it would pretty much end the institution of marriage - who the hell would want to be married to someone forever?

The movie you're thinking of is The Children of Men. It had nothing to do with immortality, if I remember correctly. It was an epidemic that made everyone infertile.

Immortality would obviously have vast and incredible impact on every aspect of society. Some people would still get married (many Mormons find the idea of being with their families forever appealing, for example), but I imagine marriage would become a less powerful social convention, and the social and legal frameworks for ending partnerships would be simplified.

The situation with overpopulation is a bit more complex. I am working under the assumption that the third world will continue to improve and progress until we have some type of global parity (among nations and such, individual inequality will persist). Pretty much ALL population growth comes from poor underdeveloped countries. The rate of population growth drops significantly and inevitably whenever a culture modernize and adopts modern norms like individualism and materialism. Some developed nations actually experience a decline in population. You probably would still have a small population growth rate when nobody is dying, but it can be manageable.

That does not HAVE to happen. Certain problems might prove too difficult to overcome, and immortality might prove impractical and even harmful. I am asking you to imagine a scenario where immortality actually proves feasible.

 

[Dr. Jones]

I forget the name of the movie but it's where women can't become pregnant anymore and the world falls into a continual state of war and depression. Wouldn't that be a direct result of immortality?

The needs of the living will always trump the needs of unborn - the only way to control population growth is through restricting childbirth.

The human race is like every other living organism on the planet - it needs to renew itself otherwise it would destroy itself.

Not to mention it would pretty much end the institution of marriage - who the hell would want to be married to someone forever?

Those that get temple married?

 

[Siro]

Those that get temple married?

I already beat you to it. I'm thinking of suing, but I'll settle for 27 reps.

 

[candrew]

Those that get temple married?

Sorry, I have no clue what that means.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Now my answer. The prospect seems a bit strange to me. Most of us concern ourselves with what we leave behind, our legacy, if you will. I have no way of knowing, but it seems that void of the urgency death creates, would we still have the required motivation to accomplish goals? If we were truly immortal, how mant would find it more paralyzing than liberating.

Interesting to think about.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Sorry, I have no clue what that means.

I'm not LDS, but from what I understand, Mormons married in the temple believe they are sealed .. married for eternity.

 

[Siro]

Now my answer. The prospect seems a bit strange to me. Most of us concern ourselves with what we leave behind, our legacy, if you will. I have no way of knowing, but it seems that void of the urgency death creates, would we still have the required motivation to accomplish goals? If we were truly immortal, how mant would find it more paralyzing than liberating.

Interesting to think about.

Precisely the kind of stuff I'm looking for.

 

[Ron Mexico]

Sports would become dull and pointless if the same players with more or less unchanging abilities kept playing the same sports.

We would be forced to watch Future Miami Heat win over and over again. Seems like hell to me.

Plus if you really could have your memory and personality stored on a server some where. People would live much riskier lives and sports would devolve into violent and extreme events. We would have much deaths on the playing fields of whatever games they are playing with no negative ramifications. So that could be cool, maybe.

 

[Gameface]

We'll need to learn how to live in places other than Earth. If that happens it will be a great and wonderful thing. Especially since it would allow for extremely long space journeys.

 

[Siro]

We'll need to learn how to live in places other than Earth. If that happens it will be a great and wonderful thing. Especially since it would allow for extremely long space journeys.

Eventually yes, but people underestimate the power of technology. I read a late 1800s book that talked about how the planet was being pushed to the limit, and that overpopulation will cause mass starvation to an extent never before seen within a couple of decades of the publication of the book. With today's technology, the earth's population can be easily sustained. The reason ~1b+ people live in extreme poverty has little to do with production capacity. We have the know how to create vastly more food, water, and energy than we do now, but little incentive. And that's today. Who knows what will be possible with 2050s technology, let alone the 2300s. Additionally, we would need to change our habits. We would develop robust recycling system that reuses EVERYTHING. We would get rid of polluting tech. We would limit suburban crawl and expansion. And so on.

Right now, market forces are controlled by a few players, and the people are too comfortable to unite in a common cause. We'll see what happens when we start feeling the sting of resource depletion.

 

[The Black Swordsman]

When scientists discovered leptin they thought they have discovered the end of obesity. It gave very disappointing results.

I am of the same opinion as Albert Einstein. I think it is tasteless to prolong life artificially to that extant.

 

[Gameface]

When scientists discovered leptin they thought they have discovered the end of obesity. It gave very disappointing results.

I am of the same opinion as Albert Einstein. I think it is tasteless to prolong life artificially to that extant.

I can live with tasteless.

 

[Dr. Jones]

I can live with tasteless.

I laughed.

Another curiosity would be to see how much religion would be diminished.. for obvious reasons.

 

[Scat]

We'll need to learn how to live in places other than Earth. If that happens it will be a great and wonderful thing. Especially since it would allow for extremely long space journeys.

An interesting movie that touches on this subject somewhat is Pandorum. I won't give away the plot line but it shows where society can head regardless of where it is at when one "falls asleep".

 

[Siro]

I laughed.

Another curiosity would be to see how much religion would be diminished.. for obvious reasons.

I think at first there would be significant resistance from traditional religious institutions. But remember, those who accept immortality will persist for a long time. The opposition will simply die off. Sure they will teach their kids the same mores, but the appeal of living forever is very hard to resist. With time, fewer and fewer people will have a problem with immortality, and it will become accepted as the way things are. Just as travelling across the planet in half a day is normal and unexceptional nowadays. Since religion always evolves with mainstream social norms, it will morph into something different, if it is to survive at all. I expect something along the lines of "eternal life was misunderstood as a reference to life after death, but it is in fact an accurate and prophetic description of our times. The Bible/Quran/Torah/whatever is a recipe of how to live in these times".