Would you want to live forever?

One issue I have with dying is missing out on what's to come. Look how far we've come in the last fifty years, technologically and socially. At fifty-five I'll be lucky to see fifty more.
This article talks about triple digit aging.

I like the idea of living forever, but just how many people can the planet support.

 

Oh, hell no! Seriously, there is no way I would want to live forever. If only to be purely selfish, because if there would still be disease I would no way want to live forever sick and miserable. I don't want to put myself or my family through that. Also, if you live forever, what do you do for income? At some point, no matter how carefully you've planned for retirement, you're going to run out of money. What are the odds someone 100+ years old is going to find a job?

And then there's the whole population thing as sibeer said...there comes a point when something has to give, and it pretty much comes down to either old folks giving way or people no longer reproducing. I have a vision something like Shirley Jackson's The Lottery...draw your name out of a hat, and today is your turn to die. Yikes!

 

Sorry for the long post but it's an itch I have to scratch:-D

Since worrying about death takes up a lot of my brains time during a regular day I'd most definitely want to live forever.We get 70 years or so if your lucky but the universe will be here and habitable for a good couple of billion.

People of who don't think about death or worry about it don't make sense to me, I think they don't have a good understanding of the concept of forever and the inevitability of losing everything. At some point everyone you know and love will be gone forever, you will never see them again and then you will be gone forever.

It's as thought everyone is blind to it and in a sense they are, brains are tuned to look on the bright side of life, the blinders are up:-D It's a protection method called optimism bias-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/boo...TIMISM-BIAS-BY-TALI-SHAROT.html#axzz2JmhBwNU4

Why would anyone choose to join the army and let people fire hot metal at them to see who's gone forever first? Because death isn't going to happen to them, everyone thinks like this.

On a slightly different note I analogise life and the universe to a horror movie scenario.Someone kidnaps you and locks you in a room. It's a prison but your every need is catered for, you brought the best food and drink, the largest TV computer, video games and the best entertainment, all the lovers you could wish for, the comfiest bed basically your every need catered for. How much time do you spend just enjoying it knowing you cannot change your situation or how much time do you spent trying to understand the room and escape?

I thought about it and decide I'd spend all of my time trying to escape, I asked my brother what he would do and he said just enjoy the room. So you can see he's very materialistic and just wants to enjoy life, while I'm tryna understand the universe and find answers to the big questions.

I like to think there's hope, that somehow there's a point to all this universe thing and people are important and our souls shall we say will be concious again in some form or other but since there's no evidence for this it's unlikely. That's why I envy religious people, seriously I want to be be less self aware and just be the happy cow chomping on grass in a field, at least for a while. Man's Intelligence is both a gift and a curse.

EDIT Another thing I was watching Tron Legacy and I thought why would the software programs want to be in a race or game where they got deleted of they made a mistake or got beaten and then I thought we're all playing that game whether we like it or not. I saw a statistic that your more likely to suffer a premature painful death than win the lottery, so everyone has a death ticket and your ticket will come up eventually and you don't have a choice.

Pretty depressing stat:-D

 

This reminds me of the joke where the doctor told a patient to quit smoking, lose weight, excercise daily and become a vegan.

"Will I live forever?" asked the patient.

"No," said the doctor. "It'll just feel that way."

 

I thought that was already worked out and the answer is 42. :-D

 

WTF? I am not immortal? But but, I have a cape... :-D

Interesting subject. I would like to live much longer, but not forever.

 

We, as individuals may have a limited life-span, but every parent has at least half of their DNA immortalized in the form of their children. That is our gift of 'immortality' to the world. We as individuals do not exist after death as such, but our children, grandchildren, and great-grand children's lives go on for eternity, as do many of our works and deeds as well as our influences on other people, both good and bad, (whatever good and bad means).
For those that say "hey!, I have no children!", then you still have whatever influence you have on others and the world in general.
All depends on what "life" means to you. Is it what you might achieve. Is it earning, money, love, or just the next immediate pleasure, or all of these things?
Also depends on what version of immortality you have. Growing ever older, forever young, 'Pinocchio syndrome', staying in what ever you consider your prime, read "boring as Hell").
I couldn't imagine a worse punishment that growing older and increasingly more irrelevant in an ever changing world that we cannot hope to adapt to and understand and having everybody you know, love hate, or anything else changing and disparaging. What, to the naive may sound like the ultimate reward is actually the ultimate punishment.
Rikky, people choose to die, or at least get in harms way, for many reasons, but mainly because for some of us at least, our ideals and our freedoms and protecting our loved ones, and our even more loved way of life, (faults and badness and all) is more important than self-preservation.
That's why people like me would either find a way out of the "room of paradise" or die trying.
Whether our metaphysical aspects can survive outside of the human body and enter alternate dimension, free of space, time and matter is beyond the scope of this post and this thread, but the possibility exists, even on a Quantum Physics level.
Living is over-rated, anyway, i.m.h.o.

 

I believe Queen answered that question already, a couple of decades ago...

If I could choose who would also live forever with me I may briefly consider it, but honestly... watching people I care about grow older and die while I don't...? No way. Never. Let me live my linear time limited existence and then let me fade and die with them. Living forever would be a very lonely existence.

 

That's one of the things I accept. The universe/life is like a domino rally, each person a domino being hit from behind by our parents or the shoulders of giants who made the first discoveries about the universe, we then knock the next and we're all part of it however little we contribute.

I think that's the point of old age also, to make life so shit your glad it's over:-D Age and the medical problems that come along with is a sucky fate.

It's all the same thing the way I see it, until you appreciate death I don't see how anyone can appreciate life. I got up one morning and saw a show about cancer patients and it depressed me a little then I started to think about death, my parents and close close family and my own death. I had a hot shower, came downstairs and put the kettle on the stove 'yeah I have an electric but the gas one tastes better' there's was a bit a fat on the electric element that smoked so I opened a window, the sun poured through the window and a cool breeze cooled me down after the shower , I felt good.

I pondered how lucky I was the experience this and maybe death is the price we have to pay to allow these kind of experiences maybe it's worth it:confused

Dunno...

 

I am...

Don't know if you've noticed, but I quote Lazarus Long quite a bit - and he lived for over 2,000 years...

I wrote a short story once for a university writing project in which a small child was raised in an environment where all information and knowledge of the concept of "growing old" was purged. Everything: media, conversation, art, everything was free of any mention of aging. The child reached puberty, but his mental and physical metabolic progression was far, far slower than that of his peers. I'll not give the climax of the story away - suffice it to say that it takes a weird twist...

The point is that I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the subject at the time, and I've enjoyed reading yours and others' opinions about such a personal subject. Whether we admit it or not, growing old is something we think about every day, either at the forefront of our minds or subconsciously. Thanks.

 

I have managed to make it to 65 and had a few mishaps along the way but a lot of good time as well but when my time arrives i will embrace it and accept what is if any afterlife.
Living forever is not a concept i can imagine, not only does this earth have finite resources and an infinite number of humans on the planet would soon deplete those so hunger and cold would end the life of us all.

 

Live forever, I plan to and so far so good LOL

but seriously no I wouldn't want it
I watched one of my grandmothers live to 103, sadly all of her friends had died by the time she was 80 and now my mother who is 82 has the same problem with all her friends passing away. My grandmother never grasped new technology and especially how a phone worked. Even from the 1960s and 1970s she couldn't be convinced that it was a real person speaking to her on the line because she knew it was just a machine repeating everything you say and she refused to talk to a machine rolleyes
Also, she would only listen to the radio because the devil created television and everyone who watches it will get cancer and die then go to hell
Well she never watched TV and it worked for her until she was 103 anyways roflmao

 

Well, my family is mostly dead as are most of my relatives. Come to think of it,, a lot of close friends, too. ...Some say I have the 'Grim Reaper' effect on people, including myself. Great start for a middle aged guy, isn't it? .rolleyes
I don't know about living forever, but several lifetimes would be handy, since one lifetime clearly is not enough for me to do all that I need/want to.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jtpf8N5IDE

 

Also, getting back to what exactly one means by "living forever", consider this. The Earth itself has a finite lifespan, (some say 3.7 billion years), so what ya gonna do when the the world ends? "Go to another world", you Geeks will say. Fine theory, but it's not as simples that, since TIME itself may end before then.:-

http://www.technologyreview.com/vie...to-end-within-earths-lifespan-say-physicists/

So you see dear readers, that even time and 'forever' itself is not infinite. Guess it may be some kind of universal 'safety valve', so to speak. ~ I dunno.:confused

 

Go to another universe? Create a new universe to call home.

Man's intelligence is an ever accelerating process so not in a billion, million or maybe even thousand I think the whole universe and it's purpose will be revealed maybe in the next couple of hundred years, in just a hundred or so years we've gone from the sun goes round the moon to having a theory that explains the physical properties of the entire universe.

I expect this with just men figuring it out on paper but when genetic modification for increased intelligence the skies the limit, in just 2021 we'll have computers more powerful that the human brain, in 2060 there will be a computer 1,000,000 times more powerful than the human brain, probably called google:-D Just ask it what the point of the universe is.

What would an organism with practically unlimited intelligence want to do? If it can figure out the function of the entire universe and model it's properties inside it's own brain within an nano second how can it then enjoy a game of sudoku? What would it want?

In that respect I imagine some kind of god like creature similar to religious stories that the moment it was created instantly understood everything, then one nano second later got lonely or bored and committed suicide:-D So I guess even then death could be preferable.

The only way round this problem as I see it would eb for us to artificially limit our own intelligence or the intelligence of the creatures we create, without limits and challenge any existence wouldn't be enjoyable.

I wonder could the big bang have been a super being committing suicide and is now enjoying a simpler life through us? Sounds like the nines lol.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810988/

 

Interesting discussion. Would I want to live "forever"" (quotations are a nod to Phantom ) No . . . I wouldn't mind living past 100 a bit, if I could retain my faculties and reasonable physical ability. But for thousands, perhaps millions of years? No. Perhaps I say no because I can't wrap my brain around the concept? It’s hard to say.

I do not fear death. I recall a debate about the fear of death on this very forum years ago where someone pretty much told me that it was impossible NOT to fear death. Balderdash, I say. I don't welcome death. Sure don't want to do anything to speed the process, and I'll fight for every last breath to stay alive . . . But fear? Not at all. Fear is counter-productive and pointless.

I still remember when I found out that "death" existed for all living things, including me. I forget how old I was . . . perhaps four, maybe? I don't remember how I felt about it at the time - the memory is devoid of any emotional context. As I aged I thought about death now and then, and pondered what may lie beyond it, if anything. I decided as a teen that there wasn't anything I could do to prevent it, just stave it off as long as possible, so there wasn't any reason to waste energy worrying about it. It's going to happen, and there isn't anything for it. I've just tried to take care of myself as best I can, and endeavor to leave things in overall better shape then I found them, to the best of my ability.

I believe there is something after death - anything else doesn't make logical sense to me. But even if there isn't . . . what is there to fear? I had a discussion with a co-worker along these lines. She feared death because she wasn't sure where she would go. She also feared there was nothing, no afterlife. I asked her where she was before she was born? I also pointed out if there were no afterlife of any kind she wouldn't know anything about it anyway, so she shouldn't waste life worrying about death. It just doesn't make sense to me.

If I should drop dead tomorrow I'll be disappointed . . . but I couldn't complain. In my life to date I managed to convince two otherwise intelligent, beautiful women to marry me; I have two grown sons that I am very proud of; I have seen my first grandchild start school; countless other happy things. Not every man gets these things, so I'd still count myself as a lucky fellow.

Live forever? No, I really don't think I'd choose to do so if it were possible and offered to me.

 

@ Rikky:- Well, I choose to base my ideas/theories on the basis of whether they make rational, scientific, historical and so-called "common" sense. If they fulfill all of those criteria, then I consider the idea/notion at least, valid. Same applies for any religious/ethical notions held by me, (and you know that I have some ).
As for becoming "Gods", etc., those kinds of ideas remain in the realms of conjecture. According to some Buddhists, "the ultimate reality is that we do not exist".
@ Spad:- Some very good ideas there, and well said . Yeah, I could handle 120, 130 years, but 'forever', whatever that means, I dunno.
Yep, if death of the physical body is final, then there's nothing anyone can do about it. if it is "eternal spirit' or some such entity, then I guess I will find out eventually.
To strive to be healthy and happy, to have decedents, and to provide a better life for your fellow man and to learn in all it's many aspects. I guess that's as good as it gets. Good enough for me, anyway. (See my sig.)

 

The problem with an afterlife is it has the same problems with living forever. If we are all in heaven being happy how do we spend the time? Do we just meet all our old family and friends and talk to them for eternity? Do we smile down on our family to see how well they're doing, how long before that gets boring?

Or would we be kept in some kind of artificial opioid high that made everything seem awesome as in common mythology?

One way I have started to think about death as you mention by asking your friend what it was like before she was born, is that you have no concept of time, so from an atheists perspective basically death is like a time machine that instantly transports you to the end of the universe.

One of the concepts of how the universe works in quantum mechanics is that everything is possible however improbable and even predictable, you can calculate the odds and how many years you would have to wait for a bar of gold to magically appear in your hands out of the quantum vacuum. If you subscribe to the multiverse theory which I'm warming to lately then everytime and electron changes state the universe is split into an infinite number of other possible universes accounting for all the possible paths that electron could take.

So if you take an infinite amount of time and work from there you have an infinite amount of possibility, in all that possibility the chance of you becoming concious again in some for or your death being averted is as I see it is 100%, just because you die in everybody else's universe doesn't mean you die in every universe of possibility.

If this is not true and this is the only universe and what we refer to as the 'visible universe' is all there is then that would seem incredibly strange to me since we know universes can exist and life can exist then it must exist infinitely, again as I see it:-D A better way to explain it would be if nothing existed at all just empty nothingness then emptiness would extend everywhere, since we know the universe is full of stuff then is highly likely that everywhere is full of stuff, an infinite amount of stuff, infinite possibility.

 

We take frequent visits to Hell to break up the monotony, (it's called 'Earth').

Great idea! I'll volunteer to be first! roflmao

I agree about the concepts of probability, the consequences of multiplying any thing by infinity to get infinity; the consequences about dividing anything with infinity and getting infinity; and, of course, the fact that even 'infinity' isn't truly infinite. Also that when dealing with Quantum Mechanics, the laws of logic, but not the laws of reasoning and evidence break down. I won't get into the "nitty gritty" here.

Also, like I alluded to, there is no way of disproving, or proving that we and the Universe(s) are not merely an illusion.
"We think - therefore we are confused." ~ Only the ignorant have the comfort of certainty.