tronvillain

An immortal might get bored of living before being killed in an accident, but I do not see it as as necessary part of being immortal. Anyway, I do not think that potential future children have any inherent right to live, so I do not have a problem with immortality on that front.

Seraphim

"What makes you think that's true? As of now, nobody has lived beyond 130 years so how can you say with any definite consensus that after some time time, everybody would be so "bored to death and miserable"?"

My reply : It doesn't matter how many years you have lived (living), what will matter is how you live your life.

"I imagine that would occur if one were to remain exactly the same with the same desires and ambitions for a long long time. Personally, if I were to be given a chance at an indefinite life, I would be seeking out new experiences, desires, and remaking myself over time. Afterall in a mere space of 20 years, I have changed nearly beyond recognition from a toddler to a full grown man."

My reply : Remake yourself? Hmph ... you think it is that easy?
You are what you made yourself to be and that is based on your childhood and growing up. Have you ever face same type of choices and made the same choice over and over again?

I notice this when I was playing a game called Final Fantasy X (maybe some of you have heard of it). There is something called a Sphere grid which consist of various spheres that upgrade your characters' health, strenght etc following various paths. I noticed that I choose the same path over a period of time after I KOed. Only way I change this pattern was by remembering not to do it and make a separate choice.

99Percent

There is also the issue of singularity.

Of course you cannot become immortal just because, you must absorb the knowledge of other immortals, by its logical consequences.

In short there is never "free" immortality. Think about it. The price to be paid in such scenario is singularity as mentioned above.

Demosthenes

I never said it was easy, yes people get into trends, it's something we all do, it's comfortable and requires less thinking on our part. But it doesn't mean that we can't make the conscious decision to change that.

Demosthenes

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by immortality logically requiring that one absorbs the knowledge of other immortals.

And will you elaborate on what you mean by immortality costing a "price" of a singularity?

By its definition, the singularity is the exponential converging of technological, cultural, and social trends. I don't really see where you're going.

Seraphim

"I never said it was easy, yes people get into trends, it's something we all do, it's comfortable and requires less thinking on our part. But it doesn't mean that we can't make the conscious decision to change that. "

My reply : So, Immortality should be an option for some, not all. If I was given an option for immortality and a normal life, I will take a normal life any day.

It is not because it is the right choice (morally) or anything like that, but because I don't think I have what it takes to think, rethink and think again at every step I take in life.

What is a Singularity? How does that applied to Immortality?

Illithid

My ideas about morality often differ from those of others, but I must concur that I/we have no moral obligation to allow not-yet-existent beings to exist.

As for immortality, there are many, many, many science fiction stories about it, some excellent. I think that not growing physically old would make life worth living for a long while. Heck, I'm having a better time now (I'm 34) than I ever did, and it gets better every year. The only cloud on the horizon is my eventual physical deterioration.

And even if life, with all the potential to experience so many different facets over the centuries, did grow irredemably boring over the course of a few millenia, it's not like "immortality" is an irrevocable decision in any reasonable scenario. I'd love to have the chance to find out if I still enjoy life after 10kyr. If I don't, then I can end it, but I want the choice!

There is a faint hope that medical immortality will be available before I kark off, but I'm not holding my breath. When I was twelve, I expected to be living in an orbital habitat by now. I'm still a bit pissed off about that, when I think about it.

Demosthenes

At least you're establishing it as an option. If it becomes possible and given the chance, I would do everything to ensure that I lived for as long as possible. There are too much things I want to do and I most of all especially want to see how the future turns out. There are people who wants to impose their idea of whether immortality is morally wrong on the entire population. The Bush bioethicist Leon Kass particularly wants to end all life extension efforts claiming that "life would be meaningless without death". How so? To me, it's nothing more than a rationalization of death and the powerful force it has been on the entire history of human civilization. Just because the past generations always died doesn't mean that the future generations have to.

Yes, people would prefer to live a normal lifespan. It's fine by me, I'm happy for their choice and their decicion as long as they don't impose it on me. It is outrageous that there are people who would dicate how people chose to live based on their own concept of morality.

The basic definition of a singularity is a point where the laws and the predictive powers breaks down and we're incapable of predicting what happens within, during, or after the singulary. You can find it in mathematics and physics. But the particular one we're talking about concerns the evolution of a technological society. It was noticed that the development of technology and cultural innovation is an exponential curve. To be able to see it, recall that during the prehistory tens of thousands of years to millions of years ago, there were very little progression and it was slooowww. It took tens of thousands for significant changes to occur ranging from fire control to developing urban centers.

Then during the times of the ancient Egyptians, the progression was faster, it took centuries to millennia instead of millions for changes to occur. Things still looked and stayed pretty much the same for centuries. There were little visible progression throughout the early millennia of the recorded history. However it is still increasing, alas slowly. It gradually increases till we arrive at the Greek and Roman times where we have all kinds of visible changes occuring over centuries rather than taking millennia as it took in the past. Then comes the medieval age which obviously slows down the things somewhat.

Now we've arrived to the 20th century where progression is moving so fast that we now see massive changes occuring on the scale of mere years, and it's still going fast, dropping to only months to days to see major occurances. That's not just for technology, it's also for social and cultural changes. There are many parallel trends all showing similiar development. Eventually everything will be occuring so quickly and hitting such a exponential growth that it receeds beyond our horizons and our ability to figure out what's occuring.

That's the basic outline of the Singularity.

People disgree on what exact developments will bring about the singularity. It maybe the creation of the first AI, flowering of mature nanotech, biotech, or even all. But one for certain, it will be many different developments all occuring at the same time that will bring about such a singularity. Of course it can hardly last forever, it'll have to end eventually, but nobody have the slightest idea of long it will take and how it will happen, hence the term Singularity.

Jamie_L

It's not like the whole population of the world would become immortal overnight. Invariably, it's going to be costly to start with. Which is a whole separate problem - having a rich elite that gets to live a long time while the underclass struggles with their normal mortality.

I think those kind of issues will put a strain on things long before we would have any kind of population issue. After all, people will still die in car accidents, crimes, etc.

By the time we would hit severe population pressure, we could be sending people offworld to live. That may sound fanciful, but really we've got the technical ability to do it now, it's just way more expensive than its worth. But in a severe population crunch, the cost-benefit ratio might change dramatically.

And, of course, un-conceived children are owed nothing. Otherwise, as mentioned, it would be immoral to do anything other than try to conceive children at every possible moment.

Jamie

excreationist

Well at the moment the government and families usually do everything they can to prevent those who aren't in great pain or are nearing death from ending their lives early. People can choose to refuse medical treatment as a passive way to attempt to die, but what if the person is 20,000 years old and doesn't have any threatening medical condition? The only way to end their life would be through active means.
And sometimes people can't refuse medical treatment... e.g. if someone tries to not eat or drink, they will probably be force-fed nutrients in some way... e.g. they could have a food tube down into their stomach or an IV drip.
If the average lifespan increases gradually then maybe the age at which we try to prevent suicide will also increase - even to the age of 20,000+ years.

Well what about all the sperm and eggs that die? They could be combined to create a unique string of DNA and unique people... and there are also many fertilized eggs that die naturally... and what about abortions of week-old fertilized eggs... is that "denying someone a life"?
People would definitely die in things like accidents, suicide, murder/wars, etc, in the future. There would be some room for others to fill in the gaps. The new arrivals could take different forms though - e.g. they could have genetically engineered or changeable robotic bodies, etc.