If You Could...Would You?

Psychologically, I don't think we are geared to handle being alive for an eternity. I think that kind of existence would eventually drive someone mad. I think the perception of time would do it.

There was an option to do this basically in the ending of a video game - become the ghost in the immortal machine. I thought long and hard about it. But in the end I decided against it because I was afraid the existence would drive my character insane and she would wind becoming what she was fighting.

And I think you might have the same problem with immortal people.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6 I'm amazed at how many people seem to be miserable on Earth in 2015... don't quite get that, or at least I don't quite get why more folks haven't changed their situations in life.

I don't know about the others that share my opinion on "mortality", but I'm not miserable at all. I've had a good life here & still do. I have a good marriage that's lasted 45 years & produced children who've given me grandchildren, always had enough of everything, live exactly where I've always wanted to be, & we are all in reasonably good health.

The thing is.....I already have immortality & have seen what it's like to be free, outside of this body. For some reason though, there is an attachment to it. So I'll stay here & take care of it until it's time to leave, but extending the time to "forever" seems like a horrible idea.

We aren't bodies! They are prisons & I don't want to be stuck in prison forever.

a reply to: MysterX

Why do you assume that an increased lifetime would mean no children or parenthood? In the Bible, some of the earliest patriarchs (like Noah) got married and had children, then lived for hundreds of years more. Less fertility with advancing age is to be expected, but these Old Testament patriarchs probably lived to see their great-great-great grandchildren born.

Besides, the only "immortality" I believe in is that of the Soul, constantly reborn thru Reincarnation. Each time you are reborn, you have a new body, a new life, and new Grand Adventure to look forward to. Why would I want to exchange that to live forever as some kind of plastic mummy?

Our bodies are sometimes our first and best Gift From God. Why insult Him by trying to play creator ourselves, just to end up with some ancient Lego-body, a mish-mash of 3D-printed parts, and a mind more consumed with "preservation" than joy or discovery?

No thanks ...

Don't know about immortality but I wouldn't mind reaching a hundred with the health of a teen.

Might make it harder to leave, though.

The op asked a valid question: To live forever, could one be willing to give up being fertile.

While the idea of living forever is appealing, at the same time, the question is the human species advanced far beyond the basics of being human? While some would be willing to give up the ability to reproduce, however, there is one other thing.

A person lives 100 years, and sees many things, what happens after say after 500, then what? How do they deal with the boredom of living year after year, and what if you could no longer stand someone who is like you, and would be there as long as you are? At what point where a person would turn around and find that the endless existence is no longer desirable?