What if you could live "forever"?

[True Dough]

Would you take that option?

John McCain, in a clip played repeatedly on CNN, alludes to writer William Saroyan's line:

"Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case."

No exceptions to date. But, let's say you were chosen by science to be the first one granted that option. There could be no reversal of your aging/maladies, but you could be guaranteed you would never die of natural causes. You'd only perish due to some sort of accident or calamity.

Would you sign up?

[Aristus]

1. No.

Never.

[CatMor]

2. Would after say 300 years would it be like the movie Ground Hog Day

[Doreen]

3. Not only no but hell no!!

[leftieNanner]

4. Nope

I was attendant for my parents' last few years - and especially on the days that they died. It was time. And I would not have wanted to see them suffer any longer.

As Woody Allen said "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying."

[Hassin Bin Sober]

25. What did if you didn't have to watch your parents get sick and die?

I believe some day science will be able to “turn off” aging. What seemed like magic 200 years ago can now be envisioned. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

I recently had this conversation with my partner. He gave the usual “who would want to live for ever” rationale. When I asked if you want to watch your mom get old and infirm and die, the answer changed.


Aubrey de Grey talks about the fatalism we’ve lulled ourselves to sleep with.


This is the guy that hypotheses someone living today might live to be 1000 years old through what he calls “escape velocity”. He thinks life extensions of say 30 years now may lead to further treatments as science improves.

[leftieNanner]

31. I wish my parents had lived long enough

to see my daughters attend fine colleges (that they helped pay for), graduate with Latin honors, and go on to be successful adults.

So I suppose I would love to stay around to enjoy my children and then my grandchildren for more years than I likely have at this point. I had children later in life.

I also have a close friend who is only 66 and she is suffering with frontal lobe atrophy and a form of parkinsonism. Every day that I see her, she slips away just a little bit more.

Mortality is not necessarily an easy concept.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

45. For what it's worth, the promise of ending

aging has been out there for some time now. We do know a fair amount about what causes aging, although we don't yet know how to stop, let alone reverse aging.

Some people mistakenly think that just because average life expectancy has increased a great deal in the last hundred or so years, we're on the edge of people living at least a century and a half. They don't understand that the ALE increase is entirely from eliminating premature death, infant mortality being the main thing.

I have not taken the time to watch that video you posted. Is there somewhere I can read what he says? I can read vastly faster than I can watch something.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

46. I'm on my phone but if you google him there are a ton of hits.

His position is we are on the verge of Moderate 30 to 40 year life extension. And from there as technology rapidly changes over the next 30 to 40 years more advancements will be made. He uses aviation and computer science as an example of the rapid growth of technology. That’s where he comes up with the hypothesis that there may be people living today that could see age 1000. After advancement and extension and advancement an extension - he call it it escape velocity

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

50. Oddly enough, none of his supposed

means to extend life seems to be effective. Not to mention he also seems to think that we get old only because we think we'll get old.

I remain highly skeptical of such claims.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

56. Huh? I've never heard him say we age because we think we get old.

I’ve heard him talk about the pro aging trance or the irrational belief that age and age related diseases are forever inevitable and should never be dealt with.

We see a lot of that on this thread.

Pro-aging trance

The "pro-aging trance" is a term coined by Grey to describe "the impulsion to leap to embarrassingly unjustified conclusions in order to put the horror of aging out of one's mind".[39] According to de Grey, the pro-aging trance or "pro-aging edifice"[40] is a psychological strategy which people use to cope with aging, and which is rooted in the belief that aging is not only immutable and unavoidable, but desirable in some sense, as part of the natural or divine order that should not be perturbed. De Grey refers, in this regard, to the general public's ambivalence towards aging. For example, he states that SENS research is often misunderstood or misrepresented as likely to lead to prolonging, rather than postponing, the period of decrepitude characteristic of old age—a belief that de Grey calls the "Tithonus error", in reference to the myth of Tithonus. He describes this "pro-aging" stance as an irrational response[41] to the perceived inevitability of aging, and compares it with related ideas and experimental findings in terror management theory.[42] However, de Grey believes that defeating aging is feasible and that the pro-aging trance represents a huge barrier to combating aging.[43]

[kimbutgar]

5. No I would miss my family and friends if I outlived them

[unblock]

6. whaddya mean no exceptions to date? there are nearly 7.5 billion people who have never died!

i'm not clear on your terms, though, what counts as "natural causes" if accidents or calamities can still kill you?

is a hurricane a natural cause that can't kill you or an accident/calamity that can?





of course, much depends on quality of later life. a few billion years adrift, orbiting near the surface of the sun after it has expanded enough to consume the earth doesn't hold much appeal.

[True Dough]

10. I'm thinking of hurricanes/tornadoes/wildfires etc.

as calamities or natural disasters, but not natural causes. Natural causes would be things like heart attack/heart failure, diabetes, cancer, the flu, etc.

[unblock]

12. i might take that deal, again, depending on quality of life.

i mean, if i always have the ability to end it by some accident,....

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. How long a forever are you talking about?

It's a theme that's been dealt with any number of times, especially in science fiction. Sometimes it's a man who was born many hundreds or even thousands of years ago and has somehow survived thus far. Sometimes it's immortality achieved for everyone.

There's a lot to think about. Outliving everyone you know is tough enough with our current lifespan. Heck, anyone here who's attended their 50th high school reunion is already very aware of how many of them have died, and barring something unusual, it's still only about a quarter of the class. One reason my high school class is becoming reluctant to have any more reunions (we're up for a 55th in two years) is that ongoing loss of classmates.

Of course, if you remain physically young, say under 45 or so, that would be nice. You'd need to be good about making new, younger friends literally all the time. And as you didn't age but they did, well that would create a lot of issues, wouldn't it?

If no one ages and dies, the first problem is overpopulation. Even with people dying regularly there are too many people on this planet and more every day. How to handle that? You could read Neal Shusterman's YA novel Scythe to see one way of handling it.

I read another book recently, The Thief of Time by John Boyne in which a Frenchman, born in 1743, stops aging in his late fifties and is still alive in 1999. What made that not work very well for me is that the man never set up a new identity, never faked a new life, always used the same name, and so on. Which made me wonder what in the world he did for a passport given that, even if he had a birth certificate from 1743, it would have been considered fraudulent by the late 1800s, let alone the late 20th century.

More believable is "The Man From Earth", a movie based on a story by Jerome Bixby. In that one a man born probably in the Paleolithic (he's not really sure, given how very long ago it was) is still around well into the 20th century. In his case, he relocates himself every twenty years or so, as people around him start noticing that he's not aging at all.

Another issue not well dealt with is the language problem. Such an immortal would be constantly needing to learn new languages. Unless there would be an accompanying ability to learn new languages flawlessly and without foreign accent, the immortal would forever be clearly a foreigner of some kind. And in many eras and places that's not necessarily a good thing.

I happen to have a belief in an afterlife that makes the reality of my death not so bad. I've just turned 70. I hope to have many more years remaining, and that I retain the good health I've always had. But this life will come to an end eventually, and then I'll do what comes next.

[True Dough]

11. Thanks for the response

You've obviously given this a lot of thought, aided by the reading on related topics. My intuition tells me that anyone who could live that long would live to regret it, for the most part.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. Oh, I have thought about it a lot.

And I've read lots of books where that's the theme. There are occasional movies, the most recent one being "The Age of Adeline", and it addressed the practical matters of never aging.

I also think that the problem of mental aging would be huge. As I said, I'm 70, and while my life is quite good, I can really tell that I don't think like even a 50 year old at this point. No, I have not become a conservative, but I have become less tolerant of some things than I used to be. The specifics aren't important. But the resistance to change that is so common as we get older, could be a huge problem in a culture where nobody ever dies. Or where death is extremely rare. There's some kind of saying in science about new ideas don't get accepted until the old scientists all die. Albert Einstein famously rejected quantum physics. So with all due respect to Einstein all the many people a lot smarter than I am, the older generation really does need to leave the scene.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

28. Love The Man From Earth. What a great story

Just ran across a trailer for a sequel. Hmm



Original

Sequel

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

34. Oh, yes. I have the DVD for "The Man From Earth".

My astronomer son told me about it several years ago. It is an excellent compilation of the genre. There are many, many iterations of the immortality theme, and this is a very good version.

I will suggest to all who read this thread to read the many novels out there that are about this theme. Alas, there is not one simple compilation. Just go ahead and search, and read whatever you come across.

Some years back I read a novel in which the theme of immortality was in the background. People lived a very long time, and since human memory was limited, people could only remember so far into the past -- I forget the actual time frame in this novel, but only some several hundred years. What I vividly recall is a brief scene between a main character and a daughter, grand daughter, maybe great-granddaughter, but the point was that the main character had zero memory of this descendant because he could only remember some specific and limited time into the past. Maybe 50 years, maybe 150, maybe 300 hundred. The specific number of years isn't the point, just that at some time in the past memories disappear.

In a related vein, what is your earliest memory? The specific answer is only partially relevant. I happen to remember a couple of things that happened before my second birthday, which is quite unusual. At the other end, a co-worker I had when I was 21, couldn't remember anything before about the age of 10. I contacted her some ten or so years later, and she couldn't really recall me. It was quite strange. We'd worked together for a couple of years, and she wasn't entirely sure who I was. How bizarre.

My point is that memory is malleable. Do we really remember what we think we remember? For all of us normal mortal people, as our lives progress, we get that. I am already 70 years old, and while I'm certain I have a very good memory, what if I don't? Which isn't really the point. What is the point is that what we remember may or may not be accurate.

And so with someone who lives far beyond the normal human lifespan. I want to suggest that normal mortality serves a purpose. If you believe in a life after this one, we die to go on to what happens after. And if you believe there is only one life, it still matters a great deal that old people die and leave the world to the younger generation.

Immortality is not a good thing. At least not in my opinion.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

44. You may really like this book ...

A science fiction book written by Poul Anderson, “Boat of a Million Years”. Some have called it a series of short stories, not really a novel. My view is so what? Puts an interesting perspective on immortality. Deals with the problem you described in your paragraphs 2,3,4...enjoy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boat_of_a_Million_Years.

Loved the movie “Man From Earth”.

[randr]

8. By my conscious recognition

There has never been a time when I was not 'here"

[Sunny Daze]

9. Definitely not!

[geardaddy]

13. Maybe, but probably not.

[Iggo]

14. Would my body keep on degrading and decaying with age?

'Cause after my muscles fall off, where's the fun?

[True Dough]

15. No, you'd be guaranteed to maintain your existing physical condition

Now what do you say?

[Iggo]

16. Then hell yes!

[Floyd R. Turbo]

17. I'm good!

[Glamrock]

30. Why yes you are!

You're quite the last looker Floyd! Woof!

[PJMcK]

52. Uh, Floyd... that's not you, is it? (n/t)

[Floyd R. Turbo]

61. Lisle Von Ruhman

Sempre vive!

[haele]

19. No. I'd like to live longer if I was healthy, but no.

Maybe 150 years? Can't see much more than that; that long will give you the chance to visit or see as much as you like before it becomes doing the same thing over and over again.

After a certain point, your kids, grand-kids, g-grand-kids and so on will just merge, along with all your jobs, pets and lovers. And honestly, if you were any sort of professional, you'd have to keep going to school just to stay current with the technology and history. None of this " graduate high school at 18 and get your degree by age 25 and that's all the schooling you need" thinking.

Haele

[Fla Dem]

20. No, because what is forever? Hundred of years? Thousands? Millions? Billions?

Last edited Mon Aug 27, 2018, 08:55 PM - Edit history (1)

Unless things change dramatically, I don't think the earth will be a very habitual place in the next 100-500 years. Climate change, extreme temperature, wildfires, droughts, floods, garbage in our oceans and rivers, are suffocating our environment. The earth may go on for billions of years, but humans will not be able to live here.

So no. I'll go while the going is good. Besides, everyone I loved and cared for would be gone. It would be an endless life of loneliness.

[True Dough]

22. Yes, that is definitely part of the risk you'd run

If climate change intensifies further over the next 10, 50, 100 years, you'd be around to witness it and potentially be harmed/killed by it. Same for any other sort of disaster. Law of averages, I guess. If you're around long enough, something external will catch up with you.

[Flaleftist]

21. Sure.

As long as they can halt the aging process so that forever doesn't end up being in a bed with diminished mental status. Life is short. It will suck to see everyone I love die before me, but there are a lot of things to see and experiences to have.

[Upthevibe]

23. Absolutely NOT!

I believe in an afterlife and am hoping for the best

[zanana1]

60. But...the afterlife is eternal, right?

I don't know what I'd do with eternity. I get bored easily.

[Kaleva]

24. Only if my wife can sign up too. I have no interest in spending eternity without her.

[Thekaspervote]

26. No! Those with money and power and have misused it would make life a living hell for everyone else

[Anon-C]

27. Absolutely.

[Glamrock]

29. Oh hell yes, man!

I've been actively searching for a vampire to turn me. Alas, no such luck..
Y'all know the world would be a better place with me in it for a few hundred years, yeah?

[True Dough]

38. You and

Keith Richards. He's well on his way!

[Glamrock]

41. Oh man!

If I'm around a few hundred years I'd definitely get a chance to jam with him!

[fierywoman]

32. When I was in my early 30's I played a beautiful opera by the Czech composer Janacek

called The Makropulos Affair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Makropulos_Affair_(opera)

(scroll down for the synopsis).
It pretty much turned me off to the idea of living for 300+ years!

[radical noodle]

33. No

With no reversal of aging or illness, it would be no kindness to live forever.

[TexasBushwhacker]

35. Hell no

Living forever means you get to experience all your loved ones dying before you. No thanks.

[Tucker08087]

36. There is a teen book...

Tuck Everlasting, that brings these two choices into play. They made a movie that doesn’t clearly show the thoughts and emotions of the reasons behind the feelings, good and bad of each character who is “blessed” with eternal life. It’s an easy reader, but actually quite good. Has anyone read it? I don’t want to spoil the ending. (I used to teach, so I can pull out books from memory on many themes. Sorry!)

[Squinch]

37. I want a good long life, but I'm curious about what happens next.

[kentuck]

39. God would put that burden on no one.

[zanana1]

40. I've always thought that the idea of an afterlife...

was for people who never get bored.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

42. Here is a book by Poul Anderson...

“Boat of a Million Years”

Google it you can get the PDF.
If it was possible this is the way I’d like to live life to the ?end?

[yuiyoshida]

43. Well considering the vastness of space, and the Universe

If we could live forever, or lets say a very long time, maybe Exploring strange new worlds, and seeking out life and Civilizations might be cool, however you would need a ship that could travel faster than Light and be able to cross vast distances in a short period of time... yeah kinda
like STAR TREK..

[llmart]

47. Nope. No way.

I feel I have a moral obligation to move over and give the next generation their chance, and then the next generation after that. I don't believe in an afterlife, but I do believe I will live on in some way in my children and grandchildren.

I am almost 70 and have already lost too many family and friends to want to outlive the remaining ones. Hell, I don't even want to be the last one standing in my family of six siblings. Who would sit around with me and reminisce about all of our goofy childhood experiences?

[sarge43]

48. Hell no. That no reversal of your aging/maladies is the deal breaker

How would I support myself? Where would I live? Worse, I'd continue becoming more and more fragile and helpless. What would be the point?

[ailsagirl]

49. Nope!!

[jberryhill]

51. No thanks

[tymorial]

53. Hell no

The world is going to shit. I wouldn't mind reliving my life a few times though. I miss a lot of people who I would love to see again.

[defacto7]

54. No way

I saw that Twilight Zone episode.

[cloudbase]

55. No, thanks.

[keithbvadu2]

57. We want to go to heaven... but not yet.

We want to go to heaven... but not yet.

[shanny]

58. Eff no.

Existence is a process. Stopping it is blasphemy.

And anyway: isn't there a cautionary tale about the guy who was granted his fondest wish for eternal life (close enough) but neglected to ask for eternal youth? Ugh.

[True Dough]

59. I remember an expression of desire

to live forever...

[OxQQme]

62. Robert Heinlein "Methuselah's Children' seies

and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love

describes the hardships of keeping your reality hidden and the joy.