Immortality. Who wants it.

Sign me up for it, with out the invincihble crap, I want to feel, suffering is part of life, it's how we learn things, can't learn much if you don't see how it feels.I would want to live forever but not above god, just with alot of knolege.Some hundreds of years may be bad some would be good, I would better my self from all I learn and in the far future I would understand what is my meaning and what do I serve?
Since the universe is infinite I would have to always gain knolege because it;s infinite just like numbers. I would like to rest tho just like every regular human does, sleep and then wake up.Soon I would become bored then I would understand the meaning of being bored so it would soon go away in the next hudreds of years..I would have projects that would last hundreds of years, as an outcome I wold create things near perfection, I'm not god so I can't create perfect things.
Why are we bored ? maybe we don't understand things, how they work.




[edit on 29-5-2008 by pepsi78]

I think the aspect of immortality stems from many reasons. My personal interest of immortality or at least longevity stems from my search for purpose and desire of fulfillment. I also there is a desire for adventure and exploration, I would personally love the sail across the universe or multiverse, meet other intelligent being if I had the chance.

However, I think with immortality come with a price, deterioration of health and wellbeing, physical appearance, and mind. And if the future of modern medicine can resolve that, that I would without a doubt love to live for as long as possible.

I think Gulliver's Travel touches on the dilemma very well:

As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their estates; only a small pittance is reserved for their support; and the poor ones are maintained at the public charge. After that period, they are held incapable of any employment of trust or profit; they cannot purchase lands, or take leases; neither are they allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal, not even for the decision of meers and bounds.

At ninety, they lose their teeth and hair; they have at that age no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get, without relish or appetite. The diseases they were subject to still continue, without increasing or diminishing. In talking, they forget the common appellation of things, and the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest friends and relations. For the same reason, they never can amuse themselves with reading, because their memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence to the end; and by this defect, they are deprived of the only entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable.

It'd really depend on the circumstances. If I'm immortal, does that mean the existence of God is false? Because in many perspectives, the realistic idea of immortality might contradict Christianity. So therefore, if we assume that because immortality is real, and then we assume God is not, then immortality might not be so bad, since I don't have the possibility of Heaven. But even if Heaven and Hell are real at the same time as immortal, I'd rather be immortal than go to Hell. Secondly, do I get to stay young?

I think depending on the circumstances of the immortality, it would be good. Although, in many perspectives it might be a nuisance to have to live forever, it would be great to continue to do positive things in the world forever, and also see how the world changes and to be able to live without the consequence of Hell. That's not to say I would abuse my immortality. I wouldn't.

Originally posted by Barak89
I know many of us have probabaly wanted to be Immortal at some point in time. But what really drives us to be Immortal. I certainly wouldn't mind it. But not living forever like some would. I think I would get way to bored after the first couple thousand years. I would say my own hunger for knowledge and adventure would drive me to want to live long enough to learn the things I want to, and see some of the universe.

I was wondering if anyone here was interested at all in Immortality and what is everyones opinion on it. Like it? Hate it? And what are the reasons behind your ideas. I would love to debate this and maybe learn a little more about it at the same time.

I found a cool site as well www.imminst.org It seems to have everything you could want to know about immortality and many many other things as well.

If you believe in Life After Death then "technically" you should believe in Immortality. If your talking about the Immortality of the body, thats something different. I really wouldn't want to live more than 100 years to tell you the truth. Besides if you die, whats to say that you still cannot see whats going on here on earth? Your no longer bound by a physical body, so imagine the possibilities. You could visit every planet and star if you wish!

My grandpa told me a story of a man who lived to 110 years in Iran.
Just before his passing... he said "Mahmood, I have lived for 110 years... yet, I still have not understood the meaning of life, and I have not unraveled any of its mysteries" That sends shivers down my spine when I think about it.

Lets say you lived for a thousand years or more...what if you never got to see anything at all? Would you really want to live another one thousand..?

I'm looking forward to the day I die.. I don't like the way the world is heading.. it's not a paradise in many places. It's proven you can live/exist outside your body.. I've seen ghosts etc along with my sister.. so not scared of death. People always think I'm loony when I say I don't fear it. Blah... just did more research and looked into things a little more than ya average joe .

edit: and being in the biker community have had to deal with a few people die that I personally knew so yeah, softens up the blow a little I guess.

[edit on 29-5-2008 by GhostR1der]

Y'all aware they already have immortal human cells?
Supposedly this all stems from a black woman who died of cancer in like the 1940s or 50s. (You'll forgive me not looking up stuff before I post, hopefully, I just run off of general knowledge). Her name was like either Helen Lane or Henrietta Lacks, lost in the mists of history et cetera, the cell line off of her was called HeLa cells. The deal is, normally your cells can divide a set number of times, I believe this is known as the Hayflick limit. Supposedly this is mediated by a structure called the telomere, at the end of the chromosome, as if each time the cells divide the telomere gets abraded, then when the telomere gets too low your candle is done gone and burnt. This applies to the cells in your body, obviously, but also if we run a cell culture off of you it's going to to do the same thing in vitro, the culture's going to clock off and won't grow no more. This is why the upper limit of human life is 120, even with no disease to kill you, you stop the replacement cellular division by then if not earlier. Okay, so they observed that this cell line of HeLa cells didn't clock off, like it should have, eventually. Turns out the cell line (cancer being nothing if not a bunch of mutations that want to grow and expand and not die like a good little cell) produced an enzyme, to be called human telomerase reverse transcriptase, which has the effect of restoring the telomere such that there is no arbitrary clock-off number of cell divisions, so you can just go on and on and on...
So this enzyme is like isolated, studies being done with it, google it, this not vaporware.
What you'd want is a little gene therapy, use something like a retrovirus to insert the code for producing this enzyme into the DNA of the vast majority of your cells...
And as far as immortality goes, I could be a head on a shelf like in FUTURAMA if they give me a window or cable TV...

This topic entails so many variables, that it is hard to give an absolute answer. If living forever entails an enless existence within the structure that we currently subscribe to, then absolutely not. Our society is DEATH ORIENTED, and we are constantly reminded that there is truly NOTHING to look forward to. Also, does this question apply to a doctrine that EVERYBODY will live forever? Remember the movie Highlander, where the main character could not die, unless under certain conditions. He watched those around him die for centuries, and seemed to come to the conclusion that he wanted that as an option. If in fact, there was truly something to make the existance exciting and meaningful, sure, I'd opt for immortality, but I think that most are conditioned to live in fear, (especially of death), and to serve without question. There IS an ultimate truth out there. The question is, do you REALLY want to know it?

So after reading the majority of the posts in this thread, i believe that it's safe that a majority of people feel relatively the same way:

1.immortality is interesting, but not something we want if our bodies don't have the means of staying young.

2.we don't want to be immortal alone. we want someone to be able to share the immortal journey with us (strange, the Highlander theme is playing in my head right now...)

3. we only want the immortality if the future is bright and sunny, as noone wants their only friends to be whatever survives a nuclear winter with us, I.E. cockroaches, and cher, since she is only marginally still organic.


now this does not conclude that everyone feels the same way, but after reading 3 pages of the same thing, these are the basic conclusions i have come to for those that would take the immortality, then again, from the posts ive read, these are the summarization of those that didn't want it:

1.it messes with god's plan, and should not be attainable

2.living forever would be a curse, because this life is not meant to extend infinitely

3. living forever would be a curse, because this world is going in a direction of anger and destruction such that i would not want to be a part of.

4. living forever would be a curse, because..... oh, you get the idea....

reply to post by sandman692


I'm in the want it, I want to explore the world, I want to learn, I want knowledge, I want to see the great creations, inventions, space travel, virtual reality, etc etc. To be immortal would make me happy and calm I think, because of time...

A lot of us feel stressed because TIME is against us, we need to get that career, that family, wife and kids, etc etc before we grow old, all this makes us spend our entire lives trying to fit all these things in so little time, thus causing depression etc. We simpyl do not have enough time for what we desire.

Of course I believe if it's gods will for me to die , then so be it, but it may also be gods will for us to live longer, become wiser etc too, it might be good for the world to have older yet physical young people to look up to.

Maybe not immortal is the right word, maybe we simply want to live "longer" while feeling young.




[edit on 30-5-2008 by _Phoenix_]

Originally posted by _Phoenix_
reply to post by sandman692

 

To be immortal would make me happy and calm I think, because of time...

A lot of us feel stressed because TIME is against us, we need to get that career, that family, wife and kids, etc etc before we grow old, all this makes us spend our entire lives trying to fit all these things in so little time, thus causing depression etc. We simpyl do not have enough time for what we desire.

you're right about the time aspect. Time is finite for all of us, and we want to do everything we can while we can before we lose the means to do so. If we were immortal, however, then the variable that is time is removed from the equation.

this means that if you want to pursue something over the course of 1000 years, you could do so. but i think that it's the idea of only having a finite amount of time that drives people to accomplish their goals. if you knew you were never going to die, would you go to work today? would it matter? would you finish college in 4 years to get that desk job that society has told you you want, or would you say "i'll do it later, it's not like i won't have time"

you could do pretty much whatever you wanted. you could rob banks if you wanted to, it wouldn't matter if they shot you, you're immortal (if that's the type of immortality we're talking about) then again, if you got arrested, and they sentenced you to life in prison, that's a long time, to say the least...

reply to post by sandman692


I would prefer a immortal where you could die, or maybe hard to die. Which I think is more scientificly possible, probably in the next 10-20 years if we don't get any problems to slow science down.

Imagine some crazy person buries you alive! No thanks haha.



[edit on 30-5-2008 by _Phoenix_]

I wonder what many of us would give for immortality? What's the limit before it becomes not worth it. I seriously consider the freeze me till later option that Walt Disney took.

Maybe it's because we don't want the same experiences over and over again that we can't remember previous lives. After a few lifetimes full of 'sex, rock & roll', you'd get that "Been there, done that" feeling? And then you choose a couple of lives of celibacy and spiritual practice.

According to Buddhism we are already immortal in a way. That is, a being is reborn over and over again (the wheel of rebirth) and the ultimate goal is to end this cycle of rebirth.

My own belief is that the spirit evolves until there is some final stage where that spirit can pretty much do anything it wants, complete wisdom and understanding. Some spirits move around creation doing something here and there for centuries until finally the spirit decides it's enough and "blows itself up" just like the bigbang and creates a new universe or possibly merge with some power source comparable to our sun so that others might exist. The being ceases to be but gives the possibility for other beings to inhabit the new universe.

[edit on 30-5-2008 by Dragonfly79]

reply to post by Zealott

Walt Disney actually didn't do the cryonics, many people believe he did but he's buried somewhere around LA, Forest Lawn if memory serves.
Once a few famous people get down with the freezing it'll really catch on, IMHO, cause if it don't work, you're already dead anyway, it's like Pascal's Wager.
Timothy Leary was all set up to do it, gave interviews to that effect, but then at the last minute failed to follow through, I think he wound up getting his ashes dumped into space. But he was a snitch anyway, a poor choice for early adopter/culture hero.

Lets say you lived for a thousand years or more...what if you never got to see anything at all? Would you really want to live another one thousand..?

Yes, why not.Dumb people are the most happiest people, just look at the dumb blonds(just sarcasm) they are happy.It would be eternal happyness but of course after 1000 years you do come to your mind.Life is too short I think or maybe who knows, maybe this is not it.

I have so many projects going on that I honestly doubt I will be able to finish them all in my lifetime.

What will become of them?

I would accept immortality... although, I would really want to keep the mental capacity, and a minimal level of physical capacity, during this time.

If I could be Immortal from a "Vampire" point of view, with certain abilities and powers i'd go for it, otherwise i think i'd get way too bored...

Originally posted by The Soldier Of Darkness


If I could be Immortal from a "Vampire" point of view, with certain abilities and powers i'd go for it, otherwise i think i'd get way too bored...

Can you imagine after 10000 years of knolege you could modify your organism to become one , you would learn by then how your organism
works.

Originally posted by pepsi78

Can you imagine after 10000 years of knolege you could modify your organism to become one

, you would learn by then how your organism works.

i'm not sure i have any idea what you're talking about...by organism, do you mean body? that i could modify my body to become one? one with what? what do you mean by "become one"? one with my body and mind? one with god? one with the universe? will i become a scottish swordsman, fighting all the other immortals that exist, until i become the ONE? help me pepsi, help me to understand!

OH! maybe... nevermind, i still don't get it...

reply to post by sandman692


I was thinking the exact same thing, not sure what he is referring to...