Immortality

[xerx]

I think it's a fairly realistic prediction that at some point in the future we'll be able to cure all diseases and elongate life, perhaps indefinitely. Plastic surgery techniques could advance to the point where a sixty year old can be made to look twenty. Given the choice, would you want to live as a twenty year old for the rest of existence?

[some chair]

Yes, provided the social changes needed to support immortality (like GMI) occurred. Given a choice between Tolkien's elves and Tolkien's hobbit I'd go with the elves.

[Kill4Me]

fuck yeah

[krieger]

entropy will probably prevent the preservation of mental integrity beyond a certain point. how long the mind can live in a non-degrading body is an open question as far as i'm concerned though.

[darya]

Omg I would kill for it. Why is that even a question ?

[Ron Mexican]

I would like to stop aging at 22, and then live forever

[some chair]

entropy will probably prevent the preservation of mental integrity beyond a certain point. how long the mind can live in a non-degrading body is an open question as far as i'm concerned though.

Interesting, why do you think there's no way of producing artificial entropy pumps to maintain mental integrity?

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

I think it's a fairly realistic prediction that at some point in the future we'll be able to cure all diseases and elongate life, perhaps indefinitely.

people will be willing to do some pretty sick things to get to it,though. it def won't be part of a utopia.

[krieger]

Interesting, why do you think there's no way of producing artificial entropy pumps to maintain mental integrity?

you expose a fundamental miscomprehension of burdens of proof by posing that question. at any rate if it is possible to establish them to do so is a problem orders of magnitude more complex to solve than preventing diseases, regenerating body tissue or extending telomeres.

[Kill4Me]

This was an easy choice for me (I'm a megalomaniac)....on a long enough timeline I wind up at war with the state.

[some chair]

you expose a fundamental miscomprehension of burdens of proof by posing that question. at any rate if it is possible to establish them to do so is a problem orders of magnitude more complex to solve than preventing diseases, regenerating body tissue or extending telomeres.

Why burdens of proof? I wasn't evaluating your statement in any way. I only want to know what your model of the mind is. I'm pretty agnostic beyond my approach angle of strict biology.

[trifling nincompoop]

lol you transient fucks got nothing on me daydreaming about immortality and what not ha

yes if you were wondering i am immortal

[miss BabyDoll]

wouldn't want to be immortal - I could and would never commit to anything infinitely!

[some chair]

But you could have an infinity of not committing to anything!

[trifling nincompoop]

wouldn't want to be immortal - I could and would never commit to anything infinitely!

how bout till death

[miss BabyDoll]

how bout till death

well isn't that a paradox!

[trifling nincompoop]

well isn't that a paradox!

miss quote

[suedehead]

I want to age a bit more. Maybe at around 25.

[miss BabyDoll]

But you could have an infinity of not committing to anything!

but i'd still be committed to infinity tho

[some chair]

Which is better, committing to an infinity of not committing to anything, or committing to an infinity of not being able to commit to anything?

[miss BabyDoll]

Which is better, committing to an infinity of not committing to anything, or committing to an infinity of not being able to commit to anything?

neither - both sound horribly limiting!

[Roro]

Die at a normal age, or whenever my time is up. Hopefully this will happen before I can no longer feed or dress myself.

[lemontrees]

tbh i don't particularly care

i guess if everyone else looked twenty i would feel peer pressure, or like i was super unattractive if i didn't look twenty

i guess it would be nice to not have to deal with some of the intense deterioration that comes with aging

[Ron Mexican]

I disagree. We're already able to pretty much cure anything but unfortunately there are some people in this world who go out of their way to create diseases for the masses.



Hell no. Absolutely not. To contemplate that is not to understand the cycle of life. To not understand our role in this world. I'm just happy to be alive today and enjoying my time here. I don't need any extra time.

It's funny. Time is what we always wish we had more of, and yet we waste it the most, yes?

P.S. Sidenote - where did the twerpy age of 20 come from? Why are people saying they'd stop at only 20/22/25 @Elina @suedehead ? Would you in theory want to look like a skinny, punky kid your entire life? If living forever is something I'd actually consider (which it's not), I would want to be at least 30 in appearance, if not 40 or 50. Definitely yields more respect and authority than some 20-year old know-nothing that nobody would listen to.

Especially for women. Once women get to at least 27/28, or early thirties especially, and they have that sexy thickness to them, of being a complete woman, then they can be most attractive imo. Many women in today's society are waiting until 30/early thirties to start having children. A girl who wants to stay looking like she's only 20 or 22 and being a skinny twig forever is missing out on her best looks!

Eh no wrinkles for me. Plus I'd have the wisdom of however many years of experience my immortality had gained me at a given point, but still be youthful in appearance/vitality. You're just being delta

[trifling nincompoop]

Eh no wrinkles for me. Plus I'd have the wisdom of however many years of experience my immortality had gained me at a given point, but still be youthful in appearance/vitality. You're just being delta

if you think about it parts of you in a way would die, mostly memories, because our minds can only hold a limited amount of data so after awhile you will forget stuff and thus a type of oblivion
that person that lived 1000 years ago is now dead

[trifling nincompoop]

Though I also think it's a mistake to reduce a person is the sum of their memories.

ya i feel ya there is more to death than being oblivious of ones on existence but your "ten year old self" so to speak will never be immortal unless you can as you already said get pass what i said
wow what a can of worms

[IBTL]

No. Definitely not. I'm already starting to see stuff cycle back around. Life would become too predictable and calculable eventually.

[mikemex]

Die now?

http://suicidenote.info/

[Creepy-male]

You know when you eat and take a shit its actually an irreversible process in which you are gain energy but release entropy to the environment (in the form of heat). I think people's mind's probably work the same, in order to get that well structured integrity... you have to take a mental shit from time to time. So considering you don't die from your own bullshit then your sanity will probably be fine, plus the universe is never the same so perceptions must change. There is an important theory about the need to forget and relearn. Thermodynamics is always about the relation of the system to the environment. A system doesn't have to loose it's orderliness if it's releasing entropy and heat to the environment, much like cooling works, you can turn something into a well ordered solid crystal from a chaotic and dynamic gas, but you must release heat into the environment to do so, which in turn will lead to disorder in the arrangement of things around it. So this premise that all minds must go insane based on the 2nd law of thermodynamics is purely false.

Further the mind from a purely mechanistic viewpoint is dependent on the neural network arrangement of neurons which are in constant communication and change. The biological material to continue the bio-electrical reactions are dependent on the energy one gains from eating and utilizing biological material in the forms of proteins, sugars, lipids, and especially ionic compounds to stimulate electrical movement. Many people have gone onto old age retaining their genius, while others degenerate mentally -- I'm pretty sure it doesn't have to do with the 2nd law of thermodynamics though and shows an elementary understanding of the physics of biology and metabolism.

Your skin for example is an entire dynamic system in which your dead cells flake off and new cells are being generated and moved to the top. Things like carotenes are important in this process of building new layers of skin. The material you are made of now, is actually different than the material you were made of when you were born-- yet we perceive ourselves to be the same individual.

Also consider the difference between a plant and a seed, the plant gains all this mass, but where does it come from? It must take energy in and form this much larger thing. It's amazing that such a small thing has the blueprints to build and grow. Maybe this will give you a better comprehension of how things work, if you sit and think about that for a while. Think in terms of processes-- you can take all the components in that seed and place it in the dirt and nothing will happen, unless it comes from the plant. Life is a continual chain of processes attempting to coexist.

[Esaman]

Die now?

http://suicidenote.info/

Hail the otter.
Recommend reading something particular on this what looks like a philosophy blog?

[mikemex]

Hail the otter.
Recommend reading something particular on this what looks like a philosophy blog?

Mitchell Heisman, a 35 year old who held a bachelor's degree in psychology from Albany University. His suicide note was notable due to its unconventional format; at 1,905 pages, spanning topics concerning (and not limited to) human nature, society, religion, technology and science, the suicide "note" was more akin to a grand philosophical tome. Heisman published his book, Suicide Note, online for free download within a day of finally shooting himself on the Harvard University Campus.

What I can tell you, he blew his head off, he knew his shit a bit more than you and me. And had some interesting insights too:

Yet the abortion controversy over exactly when an individual human life can be considered equal and independent continues beyond the pregnancy stage. The question of whether an embryo has rights leads to the question of whether a child has rights. In the United States, a human becomes most fully independent and equal in a legal sense at the age of eighteen. The continuum between conception and pregnancy where an arbitrary demarcation determines when a fetus can be aborted, then, could really be extended up to the age of eighteen. The dependency of a child on its parents, after all, is only a continuation of that fetal dependency. If birth was the authentic time of independence, we could tell an infant at that moment: ‘You’re on your own, kid.’ Since equal independence is the grounds of normative rights, one could argue that “abortion” should be permitted for children until the age of eighteen.

[Lotus]

immortality is fucked up.

this is how i see it: we all live forever anyway. well, our energies or souls or whatever do. and our relationships repeat as well, as we are drawn to the energies of our past lives. replaying the same connections, sometimes more successfully than before. i can feel it with some people, that we were together under different circumstances at one point.

death is natural and necessary. i don't see how spiritual evolution is possible without dying. one of the most beautiful things about life is impermanence, why change that?


plus like over population n shit.

[Hitta]

I think death is a paradox. All creation comes out of the vast ocean of infinity. There are infinite amount of universes, infinite amount of possibilities. Time, your reality is dependent on your perceptions. When you die there is no time, there is no way to comprehend what you are.. no way to comprehend your own demise. Eventually somehow humpty dumpty gets put together again, because it has to. Everything you taste, see, smell, touch, know... has very personalized meaning instilled in it. Many pseudorationalists try to make reality into a purely physical phenomenon... we live we die... just objects... but that perspective is so highly flawed.

Life is kind of like... what Socrates said, nobody really learns anything at all, we remember. When we come across something new...we start to piece it together from what was already there. To come across something new... one has to take what is already there... instilled in your mind, and reconfigure it to understand the new phenomenon. You see a color and you are like "this is greenish, but I see the bluish tint in there too".. and suddenly you've compounded something new. If you go completely in rewind, you begin at an origin point. That origin point could be construed as a soul or whatever you want to call it. And from the origin point it unravels... people think they are separate from their environment, but they simply cannot be. The world grows, our perception of reality grows as we unravel ourselves. Everything you see is you.

[Skepsis]

.

[Esaman]

Yet the abortion controversy over exactly when an individual human life can be considered equal and independent continues beyond the pregnancy stage. The question of whether an embryo has rights leads to the question of whether a child has rights. In the United States, a human becomes most fully independent and equal in a legal sense at the age of eighteen. The continuum between conception and pregnancy where an arbitrary demarcation determines when a fetus can be aborted, then, could really be extended up to the age of eighteen. The dependency of a child on its parents, after all, is only a continuation of that fetal dependency. If birth was the authentic time of independence, we could tell an infant at that moment: ‘You’re on your own, kid.’ Since equal independence is the grounds of normative rights, one could argue that “abortion” should be permitted for children until the age of eighteen.

Fairly obviously age of allowed abortion has to do with ability to excessively effectively argue that the fetus is not any kind of human person yet. Question of independence is not really relevant to the existing rational.

What I can tell you, he blew his head off,he knew his shit a bit more than you and me. And had some interesting insights too:

Yeah, I don't assume so.
So did he get to reasons for his own death or maybe arguments for death for general population?

[Persephone]

I voted other.

I'd like a quite long life in a decently aging body to be able to take benefits from life.
If we look at it closer, people are able to live 90 years now compared to 3 centuries ago (average death at 40 yo).
But we are technically enjoying life from 25 till 45. So 20 best years from 90... I would like this period to be a bit longer.
I'd live 150 years in a nice shape during let's say 130 years and then slowly leave, in peace, to see otherworlds.

[Creepy-male]

immortality is fucked up.

this is how i see it: we all live forever anyway. well, our energies or souls or whatever do. and our relationships repeat as well, as we are drawn to the energies of our past lives. replaying the same connections, sometimes more successfully than before. i can feel it with some people, that we were together under different circumstances at one point.

death is natural and necessary. i don't see how spiritual evolution is possible without dying. one of the most beautiful things about life is impermanence, why change that?


plus like over population n shit.

Yes, I agree but I think it has to do with actions-consequences and karma. Like the butterfly effect, small actions carry down the line like dominoes and have impacts. There is the self you were born with which is genetic and then there are past experiences that shape you and then there is the present and the opportunity for change and willpower. Ones views of the past and future change at each present moment to, impressions change-- positive things in the past may be re-remembered negatively or positively based on new insights or vice versa. Also I think there is a certain amount of immortality based on the legacy one leaves behind them and the impacts they have had on the living universe.

[Radio]

entropy will probably prevent the preservation of mental integrity beyond a certain point. how long the mind can live in a non-degrading body is an open question as far as i'm concerned though.

i guess that means there can be two types of immortalities, one where your body stops aging and gains indefinite rejuvenating properties, and another where your 20 year old brain can be replicated so perfectly in a microchip that it preserves consciousness in a even computational device.

[krieger]

i guess that means there can be two types of immortalities, one where your body stops aging and gains indefinite rejuvenating properties, and another where your 20 year old brain can be replicated so perfectly in a microchip that it preserves consciousness in a even computational device.

i think we achieve option 2 by gradually replacing nerve tissue from the brain with electronic circuitry until it is completely rendered synthetic.

then we watch theologists debate at what point in the gradual process the soul died. laff.

[ashlesha]

id want to be immortal with the option to kill myself.