Who wants to live forever?

Kohadre wrote: Whats the point in living even a day, if nothing continues after your death?

may be one of the most important questions of our era

my reflex answer is: "that depends on what youre doing with your life"

Once you move past the need for a "point" and realize life isn't literary, then I think it becomes really easy. I'm not there myself. That's just my hypothesis.

I thought this was a thread about a Queen song, so I didn't really come prepared with an answer to the question.

Goken wrote: Every path that I see that leads there isn't really what I'd call living. Either we live longer but with constant health problems, are able to transfer our consciousness into machines, or are able to live longer at the expense of the lives of others. None of these options appeal to me.

Perhaps herein lies the problem. Now, I agree that enduring for centuries on miserable bones and ever fading sanity is undesirable. I also find that prolonging our own lives at the expense of other ones has some rather ugly ethical implications if it isn't one in itself. Both of these produce strictly unnecessary suffering to either oneself or somebody else. Pending further specifications, is not in principle true of transfering ourselves into machines that can run a consciousness. You did not specifically exclude that by the time we could do this, the machines in question would be bodies no less suitable to host us than our current ones are.
However, while I do understand that these are the only three options you deem plausible, I doubt we have established that these are indeed the only three. What if medicine advanced to where it could in some way restore our physical bodies to the prime state we had at, say, our late twenties, and that would be done by an enzyme injection synthesized from a personal DNA sample gathered from stem cells we give for that specific purpose? What if prolonging lives wouldn't cost anybody else's life expectancy nor would mean living on to observe our own bodies decompose nor living in a body that is fundamentally foreign? And if you object to that, is it not more accurate to say that said objection stems from some place other than the mere undesirability of the options?

It does for me, if you wish to know. My mortality is what gives my life urgency. It is by scarcity that time is precious. Would I like to live, say, another half century longer and in good health? Maybe. If I find something to invest that time into, then maybe. A prospect of proper immortality however is utterly unappealing to me...

You could just be like Dracula, crushing your enemies and seeing them tremble before you.

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steamboat28 wrote: I thought this was a thread about a Queen song, so I didn't really come prepared with an answer to the question.

I very much did that on purpose. Not really a huge fan of that song but I do love "The Highlander" (the movie for which the song was written, along with "Princes of the Universe" although that might not have been until the TV show. Hard to remember).

If a human is presented with the option to escape death, and become immortal forever. He will accept it.
If he must so kill for it, human programming is to survive, it is our instinct and it has always been.
Not all humans will react the same way, and some may not accept it, but in most cases a human will accept the offer. That is simply how we are, i belive that we should refrain from instinct, as instinct is very impulsive and it could lead us to a quick death.
But as i said above, a human want to survive, the individual want to keep existing, it is in our nature.
So yes, many humans want to live forever

I'm interested in living as long as nature, augmented by medical support to overcome emergencies, allows. My understanding is that under ideal conditions, this is a maximum of a bit over a century.

My perception though is that Earthly life is just one segment of what is available to each of us as an eternal soul-being. I believe there are other places for us to go, other things for us to experience, and I don't want to give that up for the limited range of options which exist for most of us while living in the material universe.

So - no, I don't want a body that is a perpetual-motion machine.

Desolous wrote:

Goken wrote: ...able to transfer our consciousness into machines, ...None of these options appeal to me.

whats wrong with transferring our consciousness into machines? better, stronger, faster, infiinitely adaptable, etc etc. why not?

because it isn't possible and never will be. Even if we are able to use whole brain emulation to emulate your brain and if that simulation is conscious (I personally find this doubtful and frankly i have yet to see a viable test of consciousness ) at best it will be a copy of you. You will still die with your body and will either find out that there is an existence after this or just cease to exist.

I definitely want to live forever. Life is so rich of experiences, I need immortality to explore better ways to overcome mortal limitations.

Keladry wrote:

Desolous wrote: whats wrong with transferring our consciousness into machines? better, stronger, faster, infiinitely adaptable, etc etc. why not?

because it isn't possible and never will be.

*smirk*

Aerial flight is one of that class of problems with which man will never be able to cope.

Simon Newcomb
Director of US Naval Observatory, 1903

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPgS26ZhqZs

Life is about the experience. If it is longer, then we get more to experience. This can be both a good and bad thing. Would our standard of living be similar?

I don't care what happens after we die, and so I just leave it as so nothing happens after we die. I think that makes living now more important. If we only get once chance of consciousness, then why not try to make it the best you can? If I believed in something else afterwards, I can fall into the belief that this life doesn't matter because I can do it again.

It's like a student who knows the essay is due next week and it should only take him two days to do it. They are more likely to try and find justifications not to do it ahead of time and just do it two days before it is due. Not all people fall into this trap, but many do. Why put off something today when you can do it tomorrow it seems.

Seumic wrote:

Life is about the experience. If it is longer, then we get more to experience. This can be both a good and bad thing. Would our standard of living be similar?

I don't care what happens after we die, and so I just leave it as so nothing happens after we die. I think that makes living now more important. If we only get once chance of consciousness, then why not try to make it the best you can? If I believed in something else afterwards, I can fall into the belief that this life doesn't matter because I can do it again.

life matters in what we do with ours. if we are unable to help others, at least avoid hurting them.

and we must always plan for the next 7 generations

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