SecularFuture

I was reading through some very – very deep and wonderful posts from the http://www.imminst.org/forum/ on the subject of living forever. What do you all here at the IIDF think about Immortalism.

Questions / Thoughts:
- Would living forever be boring?

- Could people today become the first round of Immortalists, if they chose to do so? (is the technology available?)

- Should the idea of living forever be considered?

- Do you believe that there are problems with Immortalism?

- Does Immortalism go against your religion?

- Would the technology to make Immortalism possible ever be affordable for the average person?

- Would you mind living on another planet? (I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be enough room on this planet for everyone if no one died)

Luiseach

That would depend on how a person chose to spend eternity. It would be an interesting experience in itself, immortality. Not missing out on anything. It's hard to say, though, with any certainty, what eternity would be like, or how it would affect human psychology. We're kind of used to being finite beings, after all. ;-) Perhaps it would improve us, give us more time to mature...who knows?

As far as I'm aware, there is no technology available to ensure immortality.

Sure....why not?

With 'immortalism,' yes...potentially. There are ethical questions that would need to be addressed. Who gets to be immortal? What would the criteria for becoming immortal be? What happens to those of us who decide to remain mortal? And so on.

I have no religion.

That would be one of the potential problems with Immortalism, would it not?

It would have to be as good, or better, than this one for me to spend my eternal life on it. :-D

By the way, why are you posing these questions? They're unusual queries...

SecularFuture

Luiseach
I totally agree.

It does take a lot of imagination to fully realize Immortalist concepts. We're still a very primitive people, and Immortalist concepts are very advanced and experimental.

The whole concept of FOREVER kind of scares me. I know that I don’t want to be DEAD forever, but I don’t know if it would be that great to LIVE forever either. FOREVER – That’s a very long time.

I’ve heard that some cryonics companies are working on ways to preserve people while avoiding that ‘ice crystals in the brain’ thing. The only problem now is that we need to find a way to bring people back to life after being frozen. There’s a BOOK on it. Haven’t read it all the way though yet, but it’s been a very interesting read so far. Kind of expensive though.

I personally believe that anyone who wants to, and can afford it, should.

I’m not sure.

They die.

Amen to that!

Pricing would be a problem. I’m pretty sure that pricing would be kind of expensive for the first few generations of people.

I agree. I wouldn’t mind a little discomfort though, as long as I knew that it were only temporary.

The unusual is far my interesting than usual. The usual can get a little boring after awhile. And I was inspired by BJKlein’s forum. http://www.imminst.org/forum/

Tom Sawyer

- Would living forever be boring?

I imagine that for some stretches of time, eternal life would be very boring. However, for other stretches of time, eternal life would be quite interesting. Most people would likely go back and forth between the two over the eons. We'd just have to find things to do. I remember a poem I once read that said somthing about how most people who want eternal life can't figure out how to spend a rainy afternoon. Given enough time, I'm sure we'd be able to solve the problem, though.

- Could people today become the first round of Immortalists, if they chose to do so? (is the technology available?)

The tech is not currently available. However, people are working on it, so if they succeed, it's possible that people today would be able to benefit from it. Unlikely, though.

- Should the idea of living forever be considered?

Every idea should be considered

- Do you believe that there are problems with Immortalism?

None that are worse than death

- Does Immortalism go against your religion?

N/A

- Would the technology to make Immortalism possible ever be affordable for the average person?

Eventually, I'm sure it would. Provided, of course, that we find other places to live since having everyone immortal on this planet would be unfeasible so at first it would only be available to the very rich until more living area is ready for use

- Would you mind living on another planet? (I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be enough room on this planet for everyone if no one died)

It would depend on the planet. There are areas of this planet I wouldn't like to live in and I'm sure anywhere we're able to colonize would have good and bad areas as well. I'd need to talk to a good real estate agent before making any firm commitments.

victorialis

There seems to be an assumption that immortality would provide the crucial missing ingredient for the solving of all problems.

If this assumption were not borne out -- and borne out very early on in the endeavour -- the result would merely be unsatisfactory in a different way.

It seems more likely that the proposal would simply replace one set of universal problems with a presently-unforeseeable but different set of universal problems -- without one of the present universal solutions.

Time is not the only scarce commodity. It's the perception of scarcity that drives a lot of human behaviour.

Would "more time" eliminate adverse selection? More specifically, would self-selected immortals be best for humankind?

Luiseach

True enough, that...immortality, after all, has been seen as one of the major 'Holy Grails' of humanity for a long, long time. Perhaps we (some of us, anyway) have been conditioned to want immortality...to equate a 'better' life with quantity rather than quality: more time, more stuff, more experiences, more learning, etc. Immortalism could be seen as a linear view of existence, rather than multidimensional. If it came to the crunch, though, I would be willing to give eternity a go...until I got fed up with it for some unknown future reason. Why not? I like adventures... :-D

Of course, if we could achieve eternal life, we would need eternal youth and health to go along with it...that's very important if you're planning to live forever...I don't fancy looking and feeling like a million-year-old when I blow out the million candles on my birthday cake.

Absolutely...

I agree with this...the prospect of eternity would introduce issues and problems that we don't have at present as finite beings. I wonder what they would be? Boredom would be one. Over-population another. These are the most obvious...

That's what I would be concerned about. Who gets to be immortal, especially when there's a price-tag on eternity? Would we all be given an equal opportunity; would low-income folks have the same chances as the rich? How would selection happen, and what criteria would be used for those 'worthy' of such a strange gift?

It's not as if class stratification and inequality of opportunity would disappear over night, after all.

Luiseach

True.


As finite beings, I guess we find it difficult to even conceptualise eternity, or infinity. We are used to limitations.

Ah...there's the rub. Only those who can afford eternity can have it. This could lead to big problems, further inequalities, unfairness, etc. We'd be carrying all the problems we have in today's society into eternity with us. Which would be a terrible shame, wouldn't it?

Jinto

- Would living forever be boring?

Society seems to altermate between exciting periods and boring periods. Thus, the advantage of living forever is that you get an infinite amount of excitement. The downside is, of course, an infinite amount of boredom.

- Could people today become the first round of Immortalists, if they chose to do so? (is the technology available?)

The technology is certainly not available today. As to whether it will be available within our lifetimes, that depends on how old you are now.

- Should the idea of living forever be considered?

Yes.

- Do you believe that there are problems with Immortalism?

Big ones. Among the most obvious: people have this tendency to multiply, and multiply. If humans kept doing this after becoming immortal, then we would very quickly have too many humans to deal with. The other big problem is that initially, this kind of technology would only be available to the very rich, which poses big problems as far as maintaining some level of equality among human beings. Then of course, there's the religon problem. How much modification can you do to a human before they cease to be a human? I can probably forsee a lot of people refusing this technology on religous grounds. This could be a good thing, as it means that the more open-minded would be the most likely to accept immortality, or it could be a very bad thing, opening up avenues of untold persecution. There will be significant debates over whether these immortals can even be considered human in light of their modifications. These are just some of the problems which will have to be faced with immortality.

- Does Immortalism go against your religion?

What religion?

- Would the technology to make Immortalism possible ever be affordable for the average person?

The average of what group? If you mean the average person in developed countries, sure. But if you mean the average person globally, then probably not - some of those people can't even affor food, much less immortality.

- Would you mind living on another planet? (I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be enough room on this planet for everyone if no one died)

I wouldn't mind living on another planet. But I'd much rather be free in space, not mired in mud on a dirtball's surface.

SecularFuture

Tom Sawyer
Not according to this book.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...l/-/1581127243

I totally agree.

SecularFuture

victorialis
If we had all of the time in the world, don’t you think that we would eventually find a way to solve every problem, or at least most of them?

This is a good point.

As long as the laws were still in effect, and / or improved. If someone became a problem to society, they could always be exiled to some distant planet. A planet for prisoners. Its an idea.