Experts say humans can live to 1000.. would you want to?

Originally posted by Tayesin
Interesting article.

I'm happy to die off somewhere around 80, if I am losing my ability to communicate effectively, being incontinent, etc.

Obviously health is what makes life worth pursuing so there would not be much point otherwise.

The possibility of being around for much longer concerns me, unless we solve health issues of today and humanity in general can grow up, wake up and change the way they live on this planet.

"We' are doing fine with the situation we have inherited and we will do better as we live longer and accumulate more means to make our governments/societal leaders responsible.

We should not be allowed to develop star drives!

Too late.

Look what we do to each other, then imagine what we would do to other races and worlds we came across as military and governmental greed, powermongering and warring took precedence over exploration.

80 will do me.

Unless they do it to us first. Amongst all the stars in this galaxy alone which races do you think will be able to spread and survive? Those who are pacifists and can't defend themselves at all, those who are nakedly militaristic and can't cooperate very well or races such as ours who are highly social but willing and able to defend ourselves from both internal and external threats?

I am quite confident that once humanity becomes aware of the existence of other species of intelligent life much of our internal strive would cease overnight as we realise just how much we do in fact have in common as compared to what's 'out there'. This is probably part and parcel of why this type's of knowledge have not been publicly disclosed; i mean how do you divide and conquer when people unite in common humanity and start focusing their suspicions elsewhere?

Stellar

I thought that this article was relevant for this topic:
Source - BBC

Antioxidants 'cannot slow ageing'

Diets and creams claiming their antioxidant properties could cheat ageing may be worthless, a study says.

Who wants to live forever? Enough people i guess and a lot do not. It will be a gass to live that long with someone you love and to be loved and also able to provide your family with the stuff one need to live. I can imagine that it also can be a endless living in hell. Earth will be a crowded place to be, after a while. But it is clear that technology and medicine will succeed to make people to live longer. Just imagine how far advanced science will be a thousend years from now, maybe it will be possible to live forever.

While the idea of living for 1000 years would be great, I’d only want it if I was fit and healthy as I am now (24), or a least able enough to do things.

I mean I don’t want to reach 90 and start to poo myself and dribble for someone to come and say “hey, great news, you’re here for another 1000 years, but in that state”

Mikey

I think we have to take this idea from a more dissociative point of view. To look at an issue such as immortality from the purview of the mammalian psychology raises many problems that are counterproductive to this ultimate goal of living forever, making the discussion rather difficult, and much more contrived. It wouldn't be long after we have discovered some means (technologically) to preserve an individual's consciousness from destruction that we would begin to explore new modes of existence for the concerned being. Why limit ourselves to the psychological underpinnings of this million year old brain? The brain tends to encourage behavior that is beneficial to the reproductive fitness of its body. It is millions of years in the making, but it is constrained in that it only serves a body, designed to live for but a hundred years at most.

In this future we could alter so many things. We could be eternally and fruitlessly happy. Millions of new emotions could be discovered. We could essentially pursue any function of being that we like. We don't have to trap ourselves in our current bodies and minds.

The thing about human immortality is that it would only be the first stepping stone on a vast spiritual journey. The biological immortality of our species will lead to greater things. Personally, I wouldn't mind living for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, if at some point I, or others, became involved in some method to free ourselves of this body and this brain. I am not ungrateful for the body I have, only as an intelligent being I am interested in further pursuits. This all may very well be a result of the boredom conditioned into my brain, but I have inherited this trait nonetheless. Some species might not ever be bored and are content with the way things are. I would love to believe, however, that this approach must be the natural progression of any sufficiently intelligent species.

So this would be the first step, in my opinion, and I would endure all its platitudes if at some point in the future there was but a glimmer of hope I could continue this great journey indefinitely.

[edit on 11-12-2008 by cognoscente]