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GamingKaiju
Member
Standing on Earth as the sun finally envelopes it in it’s final moments before it goes supernova would be an awe inspiring sight but waiting the 30000 billion years for it to actual happen would be a drag though.
Evil Calvin
Afraid of Boobs
Throw yourself in a vat of acid. I don't see how being immortal would survive that. I've always wondered what the Doctor from Doctor Who would do in that situation. He/she regenerates after death. Well, if in a vat of acid, and cannot get out. Would the Doctor regenerate over and over?
Fugitive Sex
Member
Not if you had an actual purpose.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
synchronicity
Member
Yes, no consequence/risk = no value.
Futaleufu
Member
That's how it happens in Gulliver's Travels, all immortals end up senile so they are forbidden of owning property or having political influence.
ThatStupidLion
Member
With immortality you would still have the desire to spread out across the universe
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mortal
Gold Member
Thank you to everyone who responded. It's interesting to read.
Does it not though? What is life without death, at the risk of sounding cliche?
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Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Life without death is still life.
mortal
Gold Member
So what is life?
mortal
Gold Member
What does that mean? Actual purpose?
Hmm sounds intriguing, will certainly check it out when I make some time.
Personally I think it's far more likely that VR or what VR will eventually become is what will lead to this dilemma, rather than physical machincal hosts.
If you can live indefinitely or "forever". Then what does it truly mean to live at that point? Is simply existing or survival truly "living"? I don't know.
Death seems to be a large influence in how we frame certain many aspects in our lives as humans. It's present in custom such as funerals & wakes, or war, and even celebrating birthdays as examples.
One of my favorite films. Also one of my favorite performances from Huge Jacked man.
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Humdinger
Gold Member
Why would immortality rule out a meaning to life? Seems to me it would just extend the possibilities.
What death does is give an urgency to the question. It doesn't supply the answer, but it makes finding the answer very important. That's why the old philosophers would say to remember death, and they'd have reminders of it around their homes (memento mori). Someone said, "Death has a wonderful way of focusing the mind." Right. It focuses your mind on the Big Questions. One of those questions is, "How can I live a life that is meaningful?"
So death make the issue of meaning more pressing -- it gives the question urgency -- but it doesn't by itself "give" life meaning. Death is empty. It can't give anything. It takes away. It is a limit or a boundary within which you have to find the answer.
To say "death gives meaning to life" is like saying the end of a movie gives meaning to the movie, or the end of a novel gives meaning to the novel. No, it doesn't. The end doesn't give meaning, any more than the beginning gives meaning. The meaning comes in the middle -- in the space between the beginning and the end.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Life is life. It is being alive. The definition of life is not dependent on the inclusion of death, and the "meaning" of it all is subject to the interpretation of whatever sentient being ponders it.
DrJohnGalt
Banned
Hate to be the one to tell you, but life is meaningless anyway. Kinda like this place without the politics forum.
BigBooper
Member
I think you are focusing on a philosophical talking point "meaning" rather than a meaning you actually believe in. In that case, is it even a legit "meaning?"
If I am eating a hotdog that never ends, it doesn't make the hotdog nonexistent.
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mortal
Gold Member
Life is indeed literally being alive, I agree. Although what is that in contrast to? If life is "being alive" or literally being, then what is not being alive or not being considered?
Or am I being too literal in my thinking?
Fair enough. I think I'm currently struggling with accepting that life has no inherent meaning. The argument that existence precedes essence does sound more reasonable when it comes to inference of the universe.
My upbringing included attending several Christian churches with my mother as a child, although I made the personal decision to stop attending in my late teens.
I would be lying if I said that it was easy to shake off that particular influence on my perception (everything has a purpose, god's plan etc) even tough I considered myself as more "logical", despite knowing as little as I did then...and now haha.
That's a very compelling argument honestly. I need some time to fully digest it tbh
BigBooper
Member
I was like that. Went to church until I was 18. Became kind of agnostic in my twenties. Back to Christianity in my thirties.
Some advice I will offer regarding that is science can't give you the answer you want because it's not a logical question. Even Christianity doesn't attempt to explain everything because it relies a lot upon faith and acknowledging the unknowable. Sometimes you have to acknowledge what you don't have direct knowledge of.
AJUMP23
Gold Member
Dave Mathews sings “The Space Between”
By the time we begin to gain some wisdom and mastery we're already one foot into the grave and need to spend a significant percentage of our lifespan retraining a new generation from scratch. It's not very efficient. 2x-3x our current time with good quality of life metrics would be a start, at least once we take sufficient precautions against oppressive forces.
Imagine student loan repayment terms tho.
Imagine student loan repayment terms tho.
Taxexemption
Member
Give me immortality and a few hundred years and I'll give you my thoughts on it.
I'm more interested in the question of what happens to our economy if we make an advancement that significantly slows aging. This could happen in our lifetime. A lot of peoples calculations will change if we can get an extra 40 years, and I suspect if we make any real advancements the people who figure it out will be given enough time to make further advancements. My guess is the first human to live to 140 will be the same first human to be 200 and even 500, assuming that the human brain doesn't experience some kind of psychosis if you keep it alive too long.
Imagine a stock market where you buy today knowing you can hold that stock 100 years from now. Also imagine knowing if you don't invest wisely you will be a store clerk in 100 years, assuming whatever life extension technology is developed is even affordable to the general population.
I'm more interested in the question of what happens to our economy if we make an advancement that significantly slows aging. This could happen in our lifetime. A lot of peoples calculations will change if we can get an extra 40 years, and I suspect if we make any real advancements the people who figure it out will be given enough time to make further advancements. My guess is the first human to live to 140 will be the same first human to be 200 and even 500, assuming that the human brain doesn't experience some kind of psychosis if you keep it alive too long.
Imagine a stock market where you buy today knowing you can hold that stock 100 years from now. Also imagine knowing if you don't invest wisely you will be a store clerk in 100 years, assuming whatever life extension technology is developed is even affordable to the general population.
doesn't death already make it pointless?
killatopak
Gold Member
It’s only meaningless if everything in the world is static.
There’s always new things to discover, explore and feel which is the temptation of immortality.
There’s always new things to discover, explore and feel which is the temptation of immortality.
Bernd Lauert
Banned
Death gives a sense of urgency, but not a sense of meaning to life. Meaning also doesn't depend on externalities imo, which means the point that everything would become boring is moot.
SKM1
Member
It's not efficient for what? You could argue that the point of life is to learn. To grow not only as an individual but as a society and beyond.
Attachment to life is not a virtue but a vice, imho.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
In contrast to? Why does it need to be in contrast to anything? Like I said, life is what you make of it. If you can't imagine any sort of purpose or meaning to life on your own, then that is a failure of your imagination.
If life is "being alive", then not being alive is just that. Not being alive, AKA death, or non-existence. You're not being too literal, you're asking a nonsense question because the meaning of life is not necessarily tied to its duration. It only is if a thinking agent wants it to be.
"Meaning" is a quality imparted on a thing by a thinking agent. Art is not inherently beautiful, but as thinking beings, we determine for ourselves how beautiful each piece of art is to ourselves. Life doesn't need to be "inherently" meaningful to have meaning to us.
Cockles & Whelks
Banned
Fugitive Sex
Member
I'm not quite sure what you don't understand. A genuine, authentic reason for your existence. It could be making art for people to make them happy. And if you could do that eternally, then that's your purpose.
Humdinger
Gold Member
Cool. I had one more thought this morning, which I'll throw on top: You could just as easily flip your argument and say that death removes meaning from life. Death doesn't give meaning to life. Death removes meaning from life.
I mean, if I die, if everyone I love dies, if everything I accomplish in life is gone and forgotten within 50 or 100 years, what's the point? Why bother? Why care about anything besides me and my momentary pleasures? Even if my life impacts later generations, so what? They will all die, too. Society will inevitably collapse. The Earth will eventually die. So if everything dies and comes to naught, what does any of it matter?
To be clear, I don't believe any of that myself. I'm just trying to illustrate that the argument can be flipped. It's equally valid to say that death removes meaning from life. In fact, if you read the old existentialists, that's what they would get all angsty about (e.g., Camus' The Stranger).
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Soodanim
Gold Member
That’s basically Nihilism, to which the response is that life has whatever meaning you give it. An extended/infinite life can have a lot of meaning.
Think of all the things you could learn, see, and do. Think of all the societal and technological progression you could be part of in 500 years, let alone longer.
I assume that this theoretical doesn’t include the possibility of being captured, locked up, and experimented on for however many years. That’s how super villains are born.
Ulysses 31
Member
What you hold dear is what gives meaning to your life, whether you're mortal or not.
StormCell
Member
Our lives are so incredibly short (relative to the rate at which things change) and fragile (people die all the time for all sorts of reasons that aren't even cancer) that we are basically encouraged throughout our lives to not look passed today. As beings, we are almost prone to thinking about our future, but the cold hard truth is that no amount of forethought can save you from. . . .
/end
So, of course, like everyone else I believe that immortality would open so many new avenues. There would be no consequence, for example, of just sitting on your porch, rocking in your chair, and watching the trees wave in the wind. There would be nothing lost if you did this every day for 40 years. Imagine watching a forest grow just because. Where I'm at in life right now, I feel like every evening not spent on my goal is an evening lost to something else. I'm in my 30s. That's a f'ing terrible feeling, GAF. I hate that I can't just lay on a trampoline looking up at the evening sky without feeling like I've squandered something precious that would better myself. I understand, though, that there's a balance to life, and we all need breaks or we'll get burnt out. Etc. So on. So forth. Etc...
/end
So, of course, like everyone else I believe that immortality would open so many new avenues. There would be no consequence, for example, of just sitting on your porch, rocking in your chair, and watching the trees wave in the wind. There would be nothing lost if you did this every day for 40 years. Imagine watching a forest grow just because. Where I'm at in life right now, I feel like every evening not spent on my goal is an evening lost to something else. I'm in my 30s. That's a f'ing terrible feeling, GAF. I hate that I can't just lay on a trampoline looking up at the evening sky without feeling like I've squandered something precious that would better myself. I understand, though, that there's a balance to life, and we all need breaks or we'll get burnt out. Etc. So on. So forth. Etc...
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Humdinger
Gold Member
Don't underestimate the value of sitting on your porch and watching the trees wave in the wind. We Westerners get so locked into goal-orientation and achievement-orientation. Letting go of that constant striving and just enjoying the present moment or connecting with nature is, in my opinion, very important.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Everlasting afterlife is a strong tenet of many of the world's religions. Does that mean the life they believe in is meaningless?
Robot Carnival
Member
assuming it's the "you can't be kill" kinda immortality, and you're the only one who has that ability, the meaning of your life would basically become whatever your passion is. what you want to do, how to accomplish it and how to keep evolving it.
I think you would have at least 3 paths to go. either you go down the path of the Eldar in WH40K and descent into debauchery and self indulgence, or you can go the path of trying to better the world you live in and help them advance. and of course, u can always go for the third path and work behind the scenes and influence how the world can change or just go totally off the grid and live a solitary life in some remote place. a mix of these path would also work I guess.
I think you would have at least 3 paths to go. either you go down the path of the Eldar in WH40K and descent into debauchery and self indulgence, or you can go the path of trying to better the world you live in and help them advance. and of course, u can always go for the third path and work behind the scenes and influence how the world can change or just go totally off the grid and live a solitary life in some remote place. a mix of these path would also work I guess.
GeorgPrime
Banned
Just imagine being one ugly ass immortal human being.... that gives "Forever alone" a whole new level of impact or you will literally turn into the living meme of it.
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West Texas CEO
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
mortal
Gold Member
I'm not sure to be honest.
infinitys_7th
Member
How do you learn if you are dead?