Is immortality will ever possible? (Just like in the movie Mr. Nobody)

[xcorps]

Of course there is such a thing as nature. "Nature" is everything that exists.

It is a concept created to communicate. It is not a "thing" like a vulture or a rock.

Nature doesn't do anything. It doesn't have a balance, it doesn't have a purpose, you don't have a place in, above, under, around, or with it. Nothing is in harmony with it. It doesn't have forces like angry seas or pleasant days. You cannot be at odds with it. That's all a bunch of melodramatic anthropomorphic crap.

[KaBob]

Top of my mind coms the Asgard from Stargate, that race faces extinction due their immoratlity and lack of reproduction. Once reproduction stops, even though your immortal you on the fasttrack to extinction, since every life lost cannot be replaced. Thus proves my statement Immoratility == Extinction

While an interesting plot line, the Asgard going extinct was completely unrealistic from a technological standpoint. It's kind of like how in Star Trek they have all that amazing medical technology but somehow haven't managed to find a cure/treatment for the cold. I also fail to see how a storyline in a tv show can prove anything, it's fiction.

[Ralathon]

Each and every time when this comes up, the most obvious reason not wanting to have any form of immortallity is somehow beeing ignored, or even adressed.

Even in our current "short" lifespan, the number of total humans is growing, but its kept to a certain degree in check by that humans die as well, allthough the rate of humans be born is bigger as the rate of humans dying (unless we start a other WW where millions die)..

When all the offpring of the humans also going to be immortal, well overpopulation will become a serious problem quicker as when we stay Mortal..

Thus if we really want too pursue inmortallity we have to consider space kolonisation, since Earth can only sustain for an XX amount of humans life.

Now you can theorize that with Technoligy and science we could extend food production to keep people fed, but with immorality the number of humans on earth will grow exponentionally so fast, that within a few centuries there are to many humans on earth there is no ground left to support us.. IE we need to clear allmost any forrest to keep it for agriculture for food production, and towns. Fast forward a millenia and we prolly reached a point that earth cannot sustain the numbers of humans, and the demand for food is so great, we have litterly emptied the oceans, drained all fertile soils and thinned the animal kingdom to a point only lifestock animals havent gone extinct.

So we have to push ourselfs when immortal into space and kolonize other planets like we are some acient virus that is spreading itself, without any possibility to stop that virus.

So i think nature has the answer in this, that is inmorality is unarchievable, how hard we will try, dispite i too would like to live forever, i'm just too curious how the world would look in 100, 500 even 1000 years or more from now..

Even kinda curious to see our sun turn into an Red Dwarf, and curious to see if The universe expands so far that everything fades into oblivion, or that the big crunch in gonna happen.. Still i know my mortality is there for an reason, everything HAS to come to an end, its nature way to renew and replenish itself.. Only humans are so egoistical to think themself above Nature..

Imagine there was a disease on the planet that kills 2 people a second. About 60 million people a year. We'd be scrambling to find a cure for obvious reasons. Now imagine that some scientist invented a cure for it but refuses to distribute it because it would cause overpopulation.

Because really, that's what your argument boils down to: People deserve to die to prevent overpopulation. It is a very very cruel and unnecessary stance. Especially since there are plenty of ways to solve this issue.

First of all, note how the birthrates of developed countries plummet. Almost all modern developed countries have lower birthrates than the replacement rate: Their populations would decline if it weren't for immigrants from high birthrate countries.

Since it is extremely likely that the immortality will be an expensive affair the population wouldn't bloom all that fast even if we assume those rates remain the same. I'd expect them to plummet even further since there is no longer any pressure to get kids before your midlife. If it somehow does become a serious issue and some governmental birth restrictions don't work there's a simple solution: Mandatory sterilization for immortal people until a technological solution for the problem is found (Moon colonization or whatever).

Saying we shouldn't research immortality and thus condemn 60 million people a year to the abyss just because it would create a solvable problem in 100 years is downright evil in my opinion. The only reason people don't seem to mind aging is because it is such a prevalent part of life, looking at it objectively it is a rather horrible affair.

[Arran]

Imagine there was a disease on the planet that kills 2 people a second. About 60 million people a year. We'd be scrambling to find a cure for obvious reasons. Now imagine that some scientist invented a cure for it but refuses to distribute it because it would cause overpopulation.

Because really, that's what your argument boils down to: People deserve to die to prevent overpopulation. It is a very very cruel and unnecessary stance. Especially since there are plenty of ways to solve this issue.

First of all, note how the birthrates of developed countries plummet. Almost all modern developed countries have lower birthrates than the replacement rate: Their populations would decline if it weren't for immigrants from high birthrate countries.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/TFR_vs_PPP_2009.svg/900px-TFR_vs_PPP_2009.svg.png

Since it is extremely likely that the immortality will be an expensive affair the population wouldn't bloom all that fast even if we assume those rates remain the same. I'd expect them to plummet even further since there is no longer any pressure to get kids before your midlife. If it somehow does become a serious issue and some governmental birth restrictions don't work there's a simple solution: Mandatory sterilization for immortal people until a technological solution for the problem is found (Moon colonization or whatever).

Saying we shouldn't research immortality and thus condemn 60 million people a year to the abyss just because it would create a solvable problem in 100 years is downright evil in my opinion. The only reason people don't seem to mind aging is because it is such a prevalent part of life, looking at it objectively it is a rather horrible affair.

There is a huge difference in finding a cure for an epedemic desease, or an artificial method to immortality, and i find the reference to this particulair strange, since in the case of an cure for an desease, people still stay mortal, and die of old age.

This has nothing to due with beeing cruel, its like saying that i'm cruel because people just die of old age, and mentioning this is cruel.

We all know it, we accept it as part of our lives, i never said like you state that i would kill people to keep the population in check, nature allready implemented this, by giving life an timelimit, blunt said, nature regulates this by death.

So you statement

Saying we shouldn't research immortality and thus condemn 60 million people a year to the abyss just because it would create a solvable problem in 100 years is downright evil in my opinion.

is in that retrospect illogical, in other words you allready say we are cruel because we cannot make people better to a point we can make them immortal, thus its evil..

Sorry to say, i find that remark very.. very strange and illogical and doesnt make any sence at all, since we dont research immorality at all as cure for deseases in an event of a pandemenic, since even IF we find an way to artificial celregeneration, we still would die of deseases as we do today.

This also would prove my point that IF we would be immortal, and would fully stop reproducing, we are on the fast track to extinction, even today with all our technoligy and science, we still die of deseases, and new ones deadly deseases still emerge, and old ones evolve to a point we have to consider them as a whole new deasese.. Even deseases are life, and as life even they evolve.

Thus an immortal human race without reproduction capability is, doomed even if they are immortal.

And thinking now that we would in the far future eliminate any desease, is for me the same as gambling with very low odds to win, i woudnt want to bet my money in that assumption, and also assuming this is what i said a few times, we humans want to believe we placed ourselfs above nature, sadly for us, this is currently an illusion, and i dare to bet it will stay an illusion.

To think we could create an immorality that also would make us immune to any desease is i think desillusional, i doubt ever will happen, as i said, even deseases are a form of life, and they evolve, what we can cure today, we need to reexamine to be able to cure it tomorrow..

This is just how things work in life, and has nothing to do with me being cruel, i just dont believe in Utopia, i believe in nature and all it aspects, and nature is cruel, but also tender it can be very ugly but also very beautifull, its the two sides of the same coin, just like life as death is.

So TBH i do take a little insult in saying to me i'm cruel to say people will die and should die as nature have done and will keep doing as this is the natural order of all that is alive, and i take the term life in a very generalising way, since you can even consider the universe and all in it as part of life. Even eventually our solorsystem, even our milkyway, and the universe will die..

If believing in this makes me cruel, wel sorry to say, i'm then proud to be cruel, since i believe in the natural order of things, even though i'm a firm believer in science and will we should pursue science in all it facets.

Even in researching the possebilty in immortality, but with great precaution, since it opens an can of worms, maybe even Pandora's box..

As i said, unregulated immortality with reproduction has in certain aspects imho an analogy with an Tumor..

And Immortality with no reproduction is the beginning of extinction.

Dont get me wrong i wish i would be able to life forever as well, as death isnt really an foresight i'm waiting on, i just realise thinking of such is just disillousional.

I can go one for a long time on this.. still i think i made my point clear, immortality shoudnt, or even is an thing you dont want, immortality doesnt exsist, nor it should exist, not when its introduced artificial. If immorality becomes an reality, it should become so by evolution.

Not by the vanity of a race of beeings that think they are placed above the grant whole that is nature, its vain to a point we start to to think we are Gods..

While an interesting plot line, the Asgard going extinct was completely unrealistic from a technological standpoint. It's kind of like how in Star Trek they have all that amazing medical technology but somehow haven't managed to find a cure/treatment for the cold. I also fail to see how a storyline in a tv show can prove anything, it's fiction.

Well, this whole debate is fiction, as i said since we are in the realm of SciFi, you could look at stargate, i never stated it as a ScienceFact, and again as i mention above, i doubt even in the future we will ever cure all deaseases, those we cure just get replaced by new ones and evolved ones.

IMHO in this people start mixing SciFi and phylosophically issues into sciencefact, and neglecting some fundamental laws that has been present since the dawn of time.

It wasnt ment as proof at all, i think you misread the intention here.. just as kinda of easy clarification, an race without reproduction capabilities is doomed.. Unless you think that elimitating past, present and future diseases will be possible, by eliminating diseases from the evolutional ladder.

And that, is Science Fiction..

Edited July 20, 2014 by Arran

[Ralathon]

There is a huge difference in finding a cure for an epedemic desease, or an artificial method to immortality, and i find the reference to this particulair strange, since in the case of an cure for an desease, people still stay mortal, and die of old age.

In both cases the same number of people are dying every second. What's the difference?

This has nothing to due with beeing cruel, its like saying that i'm cruel because people just die of old age, and mentioning this is cruel.

I'm not saying you are cruel for people dying. I'm saying you are cruel if you want to hinder the development of anti aging treatments and overpopulation is your main argument.

We all know it, we accept it as part of our lives, i never said like you state that i would kill people to keep the population in check, nature allready implemented this, by giving life an timelimit, blunt said, nature regulates this by death.

Why should we accept an arbitrary time limit set by the evolutionary path that led to us? The only reason aging in humans even exists is because we used to die from predators or disease in our 40's. So there was no evolutionary benefit to keep a body alive for any longer. In other species where population pressure wasn't as intense you can see remarkably long lifespans or even biological immortality. Lobsters and planarian flatworms being the most notable.

Nowadays we are one of the most successful species on the planet and the only one capable of understanding our heritage. We don't have to be good genetic mules who dutifully copy a string of DNA anymore, so why keep ourselves subject to the flaws in that process? We have already eradicated numerous diseases and healthcare is astonishingly good, but nobody thought that was a bad thing even if it went against the 'natural' way of things.

So you statement is in that retrospect illogical, in other words you allready say we are cruel because we cannot make people better to a point we can make them immortal, thus its evil..

Again, I'm not saying it is cruel that we can't currently make people immortal. I'm saying it is cruel to be opposed to immortality because you are saying that hundreds of millions should die unnecessarily because of your opinion.

Sorry to say, i find that remark very.. very strange and illogical and doesnt make any sence at all, since we dont research immorality at all as cure for deseases in an event of a pandemenic, since even IF we find an way to artificial celregeneration, we still would die of deseases as we do today.

This also would prove my point that IF we would be immortal, and would fully stop reproducing, we are on the fast track to extinction, even today with all our technoligy and science, we still die of deseases, and new ones deadly deseases still emerge, and old ones evolve to a point we have to consider them as a whole new deasese.. Even deseases are life, and as life even they evolve.

Thus an immortal human race without reproduction capability is, doomed even if they are immortal.

And thinking now that we would in the far future eliminate any desease, is for me the same as gambling with very low odds to win, i woudnt want to bet my money in that assumption, and also assuming this is what i said a few times, we humans want to believe we placed ourselfs above nature, sadly for us, this is currently an illusion, and i dare to bet it will stay an illusion.

To think we could create an immorality that also would make us immune to any desease is i think desillusional, i doubt ever will happen, as i said, even deseases are a form of life, and they evolve, what we can cure today, we need to reexamine to be able to cure it tomorrow..

This is just how things work in life, and has nothing to do with me being cruel, i just dont believe in Utopia, i believe in nature and all it aspects, and nature is cruel, but also tender it can be very ugly but also very beautifull, its the two sides of the same coin, just like life as death is.

Watch out for that slippery slope dude. Why do you think an immortal humanity wouldn't reproduce anymore and instead would march into extinction without even trying to survive? I said that if necessary population control should be mandatory. This does not mean 100% sterilization of every single human, it just means restricting birth rates to compensate for deaths due to accidents and diseases. Even if due to some fluke of mismanagement every single human on the planet gets sterilized, they're still immortal. They got plenty of time to either master cloning or fix the sterilization via IVF or some other means.

And yea, you're right. Life can be cruel and tender. I don't believe in utopias either. But I do believe that they are something to strive for, even if we might never reach one. To not even try is just lazy.

So TBH i do take a little insult in saying to me i'm cruel to say people will die and should die as nature have done and will keep doing as this is the natural order of all that is alive, and i take the term life in a very generalising way, since you can even consider the universe and all in it as part of life. Even eventually our solorsystem, even our milkyway, and the universe will die..

If believing in this makes me cruel, wel sorry to say, i'm then proud to be cruel, since i believe in the natural order of things, even though i'm a firm believer in science and will we should pursue science in all it facets.

Even in researching the possebilty in immortality, but with great precaution, since it opens an can of worms, maybe even Pandora's box..

Why do you put so much emphasis on the 'natural order'? There are plenty of things that evolution never designed us for. You are currently looking at a box of refined oil and sand that is emitting photons. You use a lump of fatty acids that was designed to catch prey and run from predators to decode those photons into patterns that convey my thoughts. Other humans used that same lump of fatty acids to land on the moon. If we stuck to the natural role that evolution designed us for then we'd still be stuck on the African savanna, cowering from lions and dying young.

Since you clearly are not currently getting eaten by lions, why are all the other things that make up our society okay but immortality isn't?

As i said, unregulated immortality with reproduction has in certain aspects imho an analogy with an Tumor..

And Immortality with no reproduction is the beginning of extinction.

"And a middle ground would be inconvenient for my argument!"

Dont get me wrong i wish i would be able to life forever as well, as death isnt really an foresight i'm waiting on, i just realise thinking of such is just disillousional.

Of course we're all going to die. But I plan to go down kicking and screaming. I like living and I'd like to see what humanity does with itself the coming millenia.

I can go one for a long time on this.. still i think i made my point clear, immortality shoudnt, or even is an thing you dont want, immortality doesnt exsist, nor it should exist, not when its introduced artificial. If immorality becomes an reality, it should become so by evolution.

Not by the vanity of a race of beeings that think they are placed above the grant whole that is nature, its vain to a point we start to to think we are Gods..

In a sense we are gods. If you got someone from 1000 BC to today and showed them a rocket launch they'd worship you. If immortality makes us gods in your eyes then so be it, we'll be gods to you in the same way we are gods to that poor sob from 1000 BC.

[guto8797]

If i recall correctly, some lobsters and jellyfish are naturally immortal. If i am not mistaken, i once watched a documentary that basically your cells die because they have a sort of "timer", a protein that has a fuse, when that runs out the cell kills itself. In your body, this is not a problem, as cells reproduce, hovever after 20ish your neuronnia cease to reproduce, they just die. Eventually it gets you. But yes, imagine the PR shitstorm that would be, people get super pissed at cloned pigs, imagine immortal people.

[Arran]

In both cases the same number of people are dying every second. What's the difference?

The difference, in one case they die even after beeing cures, the second, they never die of old age.

I think there is an difference, ofc prolonging life expentency is not an issue and isnt immortality, like you mentioned there are lifeforms on earth that outlive a human, and i dont see an issue with a prolonged life, but true immortality, and i mean thus living really till the end of time, i doubt the human can cope with such a time.. Eternity is really a pretty long time, and as far i understand it, true immortality doesnt exist.

So why do you want to archieve this, in an universe that will come to and end.

I'm not saying you are cruel for people dying. I'm saying you are cruel if you want to hinder the development of anti aging treatments and overpopulation is your main argument.

Like i said above, i'm not against an prolonged life expentancy, in case you see an longer lifespan as immortality, then we are allready doing so, as you said, a not even so long ago average age was 40, i think its atm now somewhere around 70, with exceptions to past 100..

So yeah we allready doing this, still atm going any older well the body just cant cope with it and slowly shuts down..

To archieve a even longer life we have to change on cellulair level and create some treatment for cellulair degradation and slow aging down, still it only means we prolonged life for lets say a other 100 years.. still even then we arent immortal, but just a longer life.. I dont oppose this at all, and i do believe that this is genuine our future..

But Immortality... true immortality again, my appologizes if i sound blunt, and to quote Prince here, "Eternally is a mighty long time" and forever in an universe that will die off.. i dont think i want to be around by then.. it might become very lonely..

Again i make the distinct difference between an long life, and immortality.. And somehow i start to assume some here see a long life as immortality, but when someone mention to me immortality i think of indead true immortality, not a lifespan of lets say 1000 to 5000 years or so, but really true immorality..

Why should we accept an arbitrary time limit set by the evolutionary path that led to us? The only reason aging in humans even exists is because we used to die from predators or disease in our 40's. So there was no evolutionary benefit to keep a body alive for any longer. In other species where population pressure wasn't as intense you can see remarkably long lifespans or even biological immortality. Lobsters and planarian flatworms being the most notable.

Other species didnt archieve longer lifespans artificially, but evolution created circumstances for them to have a long life expentancy, just like we humans have a longer life expentancy as our anchestors.. We are still even to day evolving, just like any other lifeform.

And i said earlier, if we archieve immortality by natural evolution, well then its naturall evolved, in this hypothesis of the topic, we artificial create an means to archive it, imho there is an distinct difference between that.. Again i dont mean an prolonged life expentancy, but true immortality.

Nowadays we are one of the most successful species on the planet and the only one capable of understanding our heritage. We don't have to be good genetic mules who dutifully copy a string of DNA anymore, so why keep ourselves subject to the flaws in that process? We have already eradicated numerous diseases and healthcare is astonishingly good, but nobody thought that was a bad thing even if it went against the 'natural' way of things.

I partionally agree, yes in certain area's its absolute true to a certain point, it also shows how humanity deals with this kind of responsebility, and you call me cruel, no the human race is cruel to itself, ok you might call this natural selection, but ermm wait a second, didnt i just get burned by you on holding tight on natural order.. Wow i stepped on a really slippery road here.. one that will condradict the other.

And dispite our good healthcare, knowledge of DNA, gene, etc etc.. we still encounter new deseases each day, only way we deal with these threats and we dont see people dying by outbreaks like we had in the past nowerdays, is we know well enough how to isolate them..

But irradicating them, we with all our knowledge still cant do, wasnt there an resent outbreak of Ebola again, or the spanish flue a few years back, while we thought a long time we had irradicated those.. Guess we where wrong even with our very good healthcare..

We still are at the mercy of life itself, all our knowledge on healthcare is still not capable of elimitating those threats..

Ok, granted some things we have eliminated, or are on the firge to eliminate them.. but i dare to bet nature has alot of aces up her sleeve to throw at us..

Again, I'm not saying it is cruel that we can't currently make people immortal. I'm saying it is cruel to be opposed to immortality because you are saying that hundreds of millions should die unnecessarily because of your opinion.

I never said they should die, i said if the population is preproducing at the current rate, but deathrate goes way down even to zero, then we will die, in time in this scenario there will be to many people, this will result in area's of huge foodshortages bigger even as we have today.

Allready fishing grounds are dimisching, fertile agriculural ground are getting rarer due saltification, and new area's for agriculture have to be obtiained to feed the ever increasing demand for food.. Brighter minds as you and i are allready struggling to solve the issue, and are running against walls, geneticly engineerd food is allready an topic that is heavy debated, and with an immortal population these issues just will get even bigger and bigger.

Take also into consideration how the human psyche works, and if there are in an overpopulated world where hunger is driving people, what we allready see on smaller scale today, projected in a ever growing population in wich noone dies of aging, and stay young forever, well you call me cruel, but TBH you are the cruel one here, since you are steering towards an war scenario that well.. i dont wanna think about even..

Deathtolls will be insane in wars the world ever have seen yet.. And you call me cruel to let things over to nature and leave it up to evolution..

Thats twisted imho..

And dont tell me in the future people will change, in that manner in 100.000 years the Homo-sapiens havent changed much, and i doubt we will ever change even, its in our nature, survival of the fittest some would say... And with this we come to your next point..

Watch out for that slippery slope dude. Why do you think an immortal humanity wouldn't reproduce anymore and instead would march into extinction without even trying to survive? I said that if necessary population control should be mandatory. This does not mean 100% sterilization of every single human, it just means restricting birth rates to compensate for deaths due to accidents and diseases. Even if due to some fluke of mismanagement every single human on the planet gets sterilized, they're still immortal. They got plenty of time to either master cloning or fix the sterilization via IVF or some other means.

here we arrive at the sollution issue, and yes like you say, we getting on a really slippery road here, as i mentioned above food supplies allready dictates who is rich and who is poor, who has to eat and who doesnt.. Now imagine the rich who could also afford this artificial immortality and also the food supply over the poor who dont have food nor the means to gain immorality.. So we getting to that thing you burned me for earlier, Natural order ande natural selection, survival of the fittest, rich against poor, the rich who deside the faith of the poor.. We slowly now going towards an world i dont want to live in, nor even would want to be part off.. Who desides who lifes of dies, who just life a normal life and dies of old age and who becomes immortal. Artificial Immortality like i said will open an can of worms, or even an pandora's box that cannot be closed again, but certainly will become our undoing, simple history allready shown examples of this, and i dont have enough faith in the human race to think we ever will change in that manner, and even so this is then the world you burned me for earlier, people deside who lifes or die, and in an way its the natural order of things.. the strong ones will overcome the weaker ones.. Without natural death the population just will grow in time to big differences will become a too large food will become even more scarse in certain areas and just sufficient in others, the poor have to make even more space for the richer who just keep multiplying to the point that the weaker richer ones join the poor ones again, and the human race proved in time enough that this is the ingriedent for some serious war...

Still you can agrue that this is happening today as well, i cannot deny that.. its true its even the scenario we life in today, but immoratlity is then an added factor that could be that Pandora's box, and we have a serious change too annialate ourselfs, and you call me cruel for letting nature run its course, even though with some manupulation to prolong our life..

And yea, you're right. Life can be cruel and tender. I don't believe in utopias either. But I do believe that they are something to strive for, even if we might never reach one. To not even try is just lazy.

To strive for an better and longer life isnt the issue but a worthy goal, archiving better healthcare is an noble cause, but reaching true immortality by artificial means, i see that as pure evil.. an path that never should be archieved..

Why do you put so much emphasis on the 'natural order'? There are plenty of things that evolution never designed us for. You are currently looking at a box of refined oil and sand that is emitting photons. You use a lump of fatty acids that was designed to catch prey and run from predators to decode those photons into patterns that convey my thoughts. Other humans used that same lump of fatty acids to land on the moon. If we stuck to the natural role that evolution designed us for then we'd still be stuck on the African savanna, cowering from lions and dying young.

I said earlier that i consider even technoligy as something natural, we evolve into more advanced and intelligent beeings, and the use of tools is an sign of intelligence that evolves naturally, and thus i see the use of our intelligence to make better tools as natural as an bird feeding its young. And is what i mean, part of the natural order.. Again just plain ol boring evolution..

I think the confusion here lies in old believes and modern believes, and yeah it might be hard to see the difference, just like 500 years ago claiming the world was round could lead you to the burningstakes, while today we see it as a normal part of nature that the world is round, and we arent the centre of the universe anymore, still even with this advanced knowledge of how things work we still are part of nature, arent we, dispite we can launch rockets to the moon, and even theoretically can allready life with help of technology life on a other planet, does that mean we arent part of nature anymore ??

I beg to differ here, we still are part of it, regardless of our technolocal knowledge of things, TBH the understanding of this all, even made me think more like i do now and even see us more part of the grand whole that is nature, as i did before i knew of this..

Since you clearly are not currently getting eaten by lions, why are all the other things that make up our society okay but immortality isn't?

Because simple said, immortality doesnt not exist in nature, a long lifespan yes, but true immortality is unnatural, nothing lasts forever, not even the universe.. everything in time will die, and reborn.

To place yourself out of this natural order, is to try to become the so called allmighty god.. Not the godlike feel you discribe of acient man meets advanced man, but i mean the mythical God half of the world worships.. this is imho borderline insanity

"And a middle ground would be inconvenient for my argument!"

And here we come to the conclusion, only middle ground would be an prolonged lifespan, and i havent said anywhere i oppose a prolonged lifespan, this still means we will keep aging again, something i beeing saying all along, but this discussion goes over immortality originally, and thats a complete different thing, that i keep trying to make clear, but somehow i feel people keep mixing a prolonged life up with immortality..

I see a huge distinction between the two.

Of course we're all going to die. But I plan to go down kicking and screaming. I like living and I'd like to see what humanity does with itself the coming millenia.

Well, depends on the way i am going ofc, when my body is so old, i cant do anything anymore, and starts to shut down of old age, i prolly embrace death, i have know enough older people who felt the same way.. They felt their time was up, and saw death not to be feared, but to embrace, staying alive was for them the thing they feared at that point, and i cannot place an age on to this point, if i even look at my own parents, my dad died at 65, he was so ill and weak, he didnt want to go on.. and he embraced death, my mom is now 89, and still healthy as an lady of her age can be, full of joy in her life, and still running around doing anything she can to enjoy life, thinking of dying isnt even coming to her mind, she still wants to do alot in her years she has.

But atm, yeah, i dont give up my life too without screaming and kicking.. way to young for that i think we can agree on that both.

In a sense we are gods. If you got someone from 1000 BC to today and showed them a rocket launch they'd worship you. If immortality makes us gods in your eyes then so be it, we'll be gods to you in the same way we are gods to that poor sob from 1000 BC.

Still they arent gods imho, they are just advanced people abusing a lesser intelligent human beeing for their own needs, even they think of me as an god, i'm no god.

Even if i prolonged my life absurdly long, i'm no god.. But when i temper with my genepool in such manner i archieve true immortality, i'm still not an god, but an fool that thinks in vain that he has become a god.

Why.. Gods dont exsist, that is mythology, and as long science cannot prove to me god exists, i keep saying they dont exsist, but alas thats an complete other discussion and not relevant any further to this one.. so i leave that part for what it is.

Anyhow, i appriciate your challenge and your critism.. This is imho an healthy discussion dispite we at points disagree

[KASASpace]

This is a strange subject. But the real thing to ask is not if it is possible, but if immortality is ethical. Nature set the laws that humans are born, live, and then die. Should we really strive to accomplish this? Yes we can expand the lifespan to 150, 200, 300, 500, 1000 years, but being immortal is not living long (and prospering), rather being immortal would be to see things no one can unsee. Being there when something horrible happens. Given the choice, I would not accept that burden. But whoever will, good luck.

Onto the point, what one must do to be immortal is to find the root cause of aging. And if I remember correctly, there is a small error in the cell replication process that cuts off a small amount of DNA. Very small, but enough that over a long period of time, you start to "age". So, rejuvenating a cell "could" fix this, but remember, we all have the right to die.

[Claw]

Kerbonauts,

Please remember to retain a civil discussion. While I have nothing against the thought exercise of immortality, I do have problems with resorting to insults as a way to support one's ideas.

In case you forgot some of the rules.

2.2.d Harassment of other users or staff, this includes insulting, threatening, stalking, racism, sexism and impersonation as well as posting private conversations;

Remember to discuss the concepts. There is no need attack the people.

Cheers,

~Claw

[Mazon Del]

So, a couple statements and questions.

It is brought up that an immortal human is "against the natural order of things". First off, who cares? We have been dictating what 'nature' exists since our evolutionary creation. We didn't like the competition of neanderthals, so we killed them. When animals attack, we kill them, but we leave the fearful ones alive, thus breeding a certain level of docility. We find an animal with a useful trait, we breed that animal to exacerbate that trait to the point where that animal could not exist in nature without man supporting him. This area is too muddy, we bring in plants to solidify the ground. This area is too dry, we make dams to irrigate it. This useful plant is dying to disease, we change its very genetic structure to suit our needs. Soon we will be undertaking geoengineering to control global climate.

There is almost no aspect of nature that we have not taken over ourselves at least on a limited scale. As time goes on our mastery and control over the planet will only increase. The majority of the Earth at this point is against the 'natural order'.

It is brought up that curing a disease is right and noble vs curing old age. Old age IS a disease in the same way that cancer is. It may not be transmittable (unless you count passing on the genetic code to die of old age on to your children), but like cancer it is a disease to be stamped out. Everything about growing old is a horror. Watching yourself and your loved ones, slowly day by day growing less capable of taking care of themselves, unable to speak your mind, slowly losing your mind itself. In the same way that it is unethical to refuse to cure someone of a cureable disease, it is unethical to cure mankind of death if it is within our grasp.

In fact, bringing some scifi into this, a similar reasoning is brought up in the Riverworld books. Lets say some day we figure out how to bring people back from the dead, not just recently deceased, but lets say someone like Abe Lincoln, George Washington, etc. Is it not our duty to our fellow man to cure them of this affliction known as death? They even bring up an interesting point as someone does ask "What about people like Hitler?" to which the response was "What right do we have to decide who lives and who dies?"

Now, from what I have seen this thread is mostly taking on the view of immortality in the biology sense, so allowing for say a plane crash to kill you perma-dead. I assume that comes from the thread's title source, as I have not seen/read it. But since our conversation seems to have lead to the point that "Assuming perfect bio-immortality, you can still die to external causes, so why bother with bio-immortality?", it is prudent to bring up that we wouldn't stop there. For no other reason than because eventually we would start to lose our memories as time overwrote them, we would begin offloading storage into computers and other hardware. Eventually we would be fully capable of reviving your mind when your biological body died, and replacing it. In fact, generally speaking you would never even necessarily have a cessation of conciousness, you would simply register that your body died and grumble as you wait for the next to be grown. And this brings up a wonderful question, as some have argued against me declaring that a copy/pasted conciousness "just isn't me!" primarily as a result of cessation of conciousness. What happens when you have offloaded so much of your conciousness to external systems, that you register your body-loss similar to how one might register a broken arm? Is that good enough for you?

And finally, for the argument against immortality because of overpopulation, this is easily the MOST solvable problem here. A great deal of scifi is devoted to this and it simply brings up that once someone becomes immortal (note, being born immortal counts) they are temporarily sterilized. You must EARN the ability to have a single child. There would of course be a great deal of committees and politics governing what is necessary, but that is needed to allow for changing needs of time. On Earth we'd be super strict for a while, only giving it to people who acheive amazing things (unlock new scientific knowledge, break a world record of some physical feat, etc). But lets say we started up a Mars colony. One of your payments for moving to Mars to colonize could be the ability to have 2 children. This system (while I'm sure eventually it would get massively corrupt, etc) would be charged with measuring the need for more humans against the demand for more humans in order to generate the conditions necessary to reward someone.

In the Ringworld series they had a similar system in play, though *spoilers* it was corrupted to run a breeding experiment.

I have a saying that I usually say in jest, but the sentiment applies.

If you are not playing for immortality, you are playing to lose.

[WestAir]

The entire point of offspring is immortality of the species. Species and organisms strive to live as long as possible in a volatile world.

The fact that our brains allow us to make offspring an inefficient method of immortalizing the species does not make it unethical. In fact, the opposite is true. Immortality is as natural as natural gets; It's what every organism and species strives for.

Go out into a forest and listen to nature. What you'll hear is the sound of a thousand species just trying to get laid so their DNA can live on forever.

[NASAFanboy]

What is the natural order of things? If we achieve immortality, then immortality is in the natural order of things. We already dictate what species lives and what species doesn't (Dodo bird, Smallpox, and even our neantheral cousins), and our ability to do this will only increase with time. Old age is a diease. Death is a diease. And we have each and every right to disturb this so called "natural order" to change nature and our universe as we see fit. The interests of humanity will always be above and wholly superior to the interests of anything else. The natural order can and will be dictated by an sufficently advanced species when applicable, and humanity is already fitting the bill.

tl, dr; Sufficently advanced species will dictate the natural order of things when applicable. Humans are doing it already, and what's to stop us?

[vger]

3: Your mind wont be able to cope due to memory overload.

[citation needed]. Nobody has ever been older than 120ish so there's no way to know what being this old does to your brain. Human brains don't work like computers and you won't get an Out of Memory error when you hit 150. Most likely you'll just start to slowly forget your past to make room for more recent memories. This happens already, I can barely remember anything from elementary school. It also assumes that no external memory is ever invented, something that sounds unlikely if several centuries of humanity suffer from it.

I've heard so many conflicting reports on this. Do we know for sure or not? I've heard just as many rumors that we never actually lose any of our memories, but our ability to access them decays overtime, so the older it is, the more likely we're going to forget.

I don't think there's any proof that old memories get overwritten by newer ones, or that anyone can determine just how much information the brain can store. So much of our experience is incredibly subjective, so we can't even take a guess at how much information would be required to store an average day in our lives. Some days we remember with crystal clarity, and others are just a blur. Does that mean we're not storing as much info about the hazy day?

Regardless, this is the biggest hurdle I can think of. Even if the brain is capable of storing 1000 years, it's going to run out of space sooner or later.

[Mazon Del]

Of course it will, but this is a physical limitation and solvable one at that. Eventually we will have brain implants (think Google Glass, but in your head, if nothing else) that will eventually help you with memory. Even if immortality research was banned, this technology is still useful. Just imagine how great it would be when you have one of those annoying situations where you forget what you were about to say and so you just consult your memory log?

[Arran]

The entire point of offspring is immortality of the species. Species and organisms strive to live as long as possible in a volatile world.

The fact that our brains allow us to make offspring an inefficient method of immortalizing the species does not make it unethical. In fact, the opposite is true. Immortality is as natural as natural gets; It's what every organism and species strives for.

Go out into a forest and listen to nature. What you'll hear is the sound of a thousand species just trying to get laid so their DNA can live on forever.

Erm, immortality is as unnatural as it gets. As i explained, we live in a universe where everything has a certain timelimit, even our beloved blue dot its days are allready numbered, its calculated that earth is going to loose its moon, we know our sun is at half of its lifespan, the days of our galaxy are numbered, and as far studies goes, with the constant accelleration that galaxies are having, and if it woudnt slow down, all the lights in the sky goes out..

If somehow we found a new place to stay after the sun swallowed earth, and sat there with our immortal lives till this all happends, and you see an pitch black sky all alone, you prolly wish you never would have been immortal, everything has died of.. But you are hopefully still there, enjoying the silence of everything around you beeing dead..

nature is the constant cycle of life and rebirth.. Not some artificial induced manner to keep on living till there is nothing left to live for..

But i doubt most here (including myself) cannot even grasp the concept of real immorality till the end of time, since we are talking of a time that is longer even as atm time itself, an timespan longer as even life on earth exists, since that what it means to reach immortality, its like saying you can grasp the concept in how large the universe is, and grasp the concept of everything in it..

I dont want to sound insulting, but grasping the concept of immortality is beyond the capacity of our brains, its as i said like saying you can comprehent the vastness of the universe, even the brightest astronomers that study the universe for a living admit that cannot even grasp it..

Like every human alive, we are just infants toying with an idear, we have utterly no concept of what we all are even talking about..

True immortality is as unnatural as it gets.. And to even slightly think we can place us above nature with all our technoligy and future knowledge and technoligy i find personally the most vain thing someone can say, and makes us imho exactly the reason the human race cannot and should not reach true immortality.

In an universe that doomed to die from the day it originated even the most advanced species will perisch eventually..

At best we can manipulate nature, make it a bit more habitable and comfortable, to even to think that we ever will truly control it...

Maybe we can prolong our life to a few hundred or maybe an millennia or two, IF we are lucky we can put a few planets to our hands, harnass a few stars, with some luck we can manipulate space/time and MAYBE a small really small MAYBE we might be able to harness the power of an blackhole... But truly control nature.. Sorry thats just vain and utterly insanity to think any species would ever be able to..

If you just would take a bit time to grasp even an small part of the grand whole that we are part of, and take into consideration what we really know, and how huge and powerfull nature is... You will have to agree with me.. full control is an vain illusion.

[vger]

Erm, immortality is as unnatural as it gets. As i explained, we live in a universe where everything has a certain timelimit, even our beloved blue dot its days are allready numbered, its calculated that earth is going to loose its moon, we know our sun is at half of its lifespan, the days of our galaxy are numbered, and as far studies goes, with the constant accelleration that galaxies are having, and if it woudnt slow down, all the lights in the sky goes out..

Depending on how you look at it, it may become a necessity if we wish to continue advancing.

Take a look at education now. The more knowledge humanity acquires, the more that children need to learn. We're already approaching a point where the amount of time we have left to apply the knowledge, is equal to the amount of time we spend on learning it in the first place.

Imagine a future where to become a physicist you have to go through 60 years of study, just to spend the last 10-20 years of your life applying it and hoping to break new ground? And at that point your brain isn't as sharp as it used to be anyhow, so you can't apply tat knowledge the way a young adult could.

[NASAFanboy]

True immortality is as unnatural as it gets.. And to even slightly think we can place us above nature with all our technoligy and future knowledge and technoligy i find personally the most vain thing someone can say, and makes us imho exactly the reason the human race cannot and should not reach true immortality.

In an universe that doomed to die from the day it originated even the most advanced species will perisch eventually..

Vain? Old age is a diease. Death is a diease. How can it be vain if we want to advance? Who cares if it is "natural"? Tell me, what the heck defines your "natural cycle"? Humanity has every right to adjust and control the natural cycle as we wish. To truly control nature is possible if you are an sufficently advanced species. A long time ago, they thought we couldn't split the atom, that lasers were impossible manifestations of the mind, that antimatter was simply a force of pure magic. Today, we split the atom everyday, lasers are used in many fields for all reasons, and anti-matter is tested and manufactured at reseach facilities around the world. Any sufficently advanced species, can, and will control the universe even if your logic calls it "unnatural". There is no need to be natural. Whether something is natural can be controlled by a advanced civilization. They will choose between life and death. They will be gods. And humanity has every right to do this.

Controlling nature is not a vain fantasy. With the technology, it can be done. It will be done. Whether we all evolve into omnipotent energy beings that can travel between universes and can manipulate worlds at our whim is not for you to decide; it does not matter if it is vain, nor does it give one crap about ethics. Nor does it matter if we perish eventually - I'd rather go down waving a middle finger at the universe than going away silently into the night. Humanity can achieve immortality, and it should. Because it doesn't matter that we will die off. It simply matters that we put up the hardest fight that nature has ever seen, that we go down kicking and screaming, that we give them a hard fight.

Edited July 22, 2014 by NASAFanboy

[Arran]

Vain? Humanity has every right to adjust and control the natural cycle as we wish.

And who gives us that right, we ourself, because we feel its our right.. Thats like saing i'm superious to you, so i have every right to dominate you, because i'm superiour thus you have to obey my view.. This attitude allready have been reason for many wars on earht, because one party thought they had the right..

You statement is exactly why i call this way of thinking vain, advancement and progression sure, i never said i oppose that, but i only am hearing as arguments on the short term, and sorry to say, i hear only arguments that are short term perks.. I havent seen anyone here yet even consider what true immorality will behold.. Is nonestatements of its our right and obligation to put nature to our hands.. Without even making me think some here can grasp the concept of what Immorality really upholds..

Read my previous post.. its a point none touches but me.. you really want to life an timespan that you cannot even comprehent to a point there is nothing left to life for, since everything has perisched.. Since noone that feels we have the right to become immortal have answered that particulair question.

And every form of immortality that doesnt imply you life till the end of time, is still morality.. Hence i said several times, i think alot here mix up a prolonged lifespan with Immorality.. sorry to say, it even proves to me a bit, that the concept what true immortality is even to hard to comprehent, since we cannot grasp such a long time, and are vain enough to think we can..

To truly control nature is possible if you are an sufficently advanced species. A long time ago, they thought we couldn't split the atom, that lasers were impossible manifestations of the mind, that antimatter was simply a force of pure magic. Today, we split the atom everyday, lasers are used in many fields for all reasons, and anti-matter is tested and manufactured at reseach facilities around the world. Any sufficently advanced species, can, and will control the universe even if your logic calls it "unnatural". There is no need to be natural. Whether something is natural can be controlled by a advanced civilization. They will choose between life and death. They will be gods. And humanity has every right to do this.

Again you'r mixing advanced ment and harnassing the power of nature up, with controlling it, you only think of small scale manipulation, as even stated this

At best we can manipulate nature, make it a bit more habitable and comfortable, to even to think that we ever will truly control it...

Maybe we can prolong our life to a few hundred or maybe an millennia or two, IF we are lucky we can put a few planets to our hands, harnass a few stars, with some luck we can manipulate space/time and MAYBE a small really small MAYBE we might be able to harness the power of an blackhole... But truly control nature..

nature as a whole.. i wish we could life as long to this point, because we will persich before we reached such power, and everyone that perisch, isnt immortal.

What again i have to say, arent you mixing a prolonged life up again with immortality

Controlling nature is not a vain fantasy. With the technology, it can be done. It will be done. Whether we all evolve into omnipotent energy beings that can travel between universes and can manipulate worlds at our whim is not for you to decide

but it is yours, why is it that its your right to claim its our right to become immortal, nature have proven in many cases, that even will all our awesome technoligy er have today, with our lasers and atomic bombs and spacecrafts and computers, we still cannot even predict the weather.. we cannot still control our little dot, matter of fact, nature has the power to wipe all of us away tomorrow in a whimp.. and thats just our small planet itself.

it does not matter if it is vain, nor does it give one crap about ethics. Nor does it matter if we perish eventually - I'd rather go down waving a middle finger at the universe than going away silently into the night. Humanity can achieve immortality, and it should. Because it doesn't matter that we will die off. It simply matters that we put up the hardest fight that nature has ever seen, that we go down kicking and screaming, that we give them a hard fight.

I dont mean to insult you, but i dont know how to state it better, i doubt you want to grasp or can grasp my point what immortality is, and that it is unnatural because immortality doesnt exist in nature, and keep mixing an prolonged life up with immortality, and as i said see some small dabbling with a few localized stars, couple of planets and maybe a few blackholes as controlling nature as indead something we will be doing in a few centuries, maybe one or two millenia, i stated this allready a few times.

Again sorry to say i not gonna repeat my own post over and over again because you and few others overread the part in where i try to make my point clear and start to discuss the little things, in a manner like its the grand whole. Hence i am sorry that i feel you dont want to grasp, or cannot grasp it.

I dont disagree with you, or the others on most parts, i just dont believe in immortality nor that we ever will fully control nature.. at best we can manipulate it, no matter how advanced or how prolonged lifespan we have, in the end nature will keep contolling us..

I have writting my views clearly enough and repeated myself several times, its my view and my believe that man is becoming to vain for its own good the moment we think we can control nature in all its aspects, since we never really will be able to..

Nature is just too big to be fully controlled (and to clarify, the universe is part of nature, not just the flowers and the bees, i said in an previous post, i see nature as everthing, again i admit, its so big even its hard to grasp even for those who make an living out of it to study it all, hence prolly even harder to grasp for us mere mortals, pun intended )

[NASAFanboy]

And each man/woman to his/her own views. The whole "ethics" discussion obviously is going nowhere, since no one can prove that we can achieve total immortality to control nature and no one can prove that we can. We'll check in on that in a thousand years using our proto-immortality that's hopefully done by the end of this century.

Anyways, so, let's talk about how immortality will be achieved. I think it may be achieved though mind-uploading after which the "consience" of the person can control an "avatar body" for their own personal use in a form of "proto-immortality". That would sound fun.

Edited July 22, 2014 by NASAFanboy

[WestAir]

I assume by "immortality", the OP means the "inability to die due to decay or old age." not "living until timespace explodes."

The former is definitely possible. Living until you are killed (and the destruction of the Earth via the Sun is a pretty good way to go) is still immortality if you ask me, and that is where my comment about immortality being the most basic, natural instinct, came from.

To be fair, every organism that has a sense of preservation is fighting to survive as long as possible. It's natural to push the limits as far as they can go.

[Stargate525]

basically, in humans, your cells undergo cellular division during all of your life in order to replace dying cells. - however, each division shortens a bit the DNA contained in the cell. once the DNA becomes too short, the cell can't be replaced anymore (and that's not counting all damage cells can get from toxins, radiations, etc we get from all of our lives - and even just plain oxydation (yes, oxygen is also part in what makes us age and kill us in the end ).

Well yes, life is essentially a very slow burning to death.

But if you could run a genetic replacement on cells with perfect copies of an original, stored pattern... Or simply keep replacing aging parts with new ones... There are a LOT of ways to cheat when it comes to death.

I've heard so many conflicting reports on this. Do we know for sure or not? I've heard just as many rumors that we never actually lose any of our memories, but our ability to access them decays overtime, so the older it is, the more likely we're going to forget.

I don't think there's any proof that old memories get overwritten by newer ones, or that anyone can determine just how much information the brain can store. So much of our experience is incredibly subjective, so we can't even take a guess at how much information would be required to store an average day in our lives. Some days we remember with crystal clarity, and others are just a blur. Does that mean we're not storing as much info about the hazy day?

Regardless, this is the biggest hurdle I can think of. Even if the brain is capable of storing 1000 years, it's going to run out of space sooner or later.

There have been a lot of studies done into this, mostly for criminal justice. It turns out that when you are remembering something, you are actually remembering the last time you remembered it. You are constantly overwriting your old memories, inducing error little by little every time, losing 'unimportant' bits that your brain fills in with best guesses.

For instance, I remember the layout of the house I lived in when I was four. I don't remember the color of the walls. When I picture it in my mind, my brain fills in a generic color; it's not something my mind considered important over the many iterations I've remembered that house.

I imagine a 200 year old man might have some very few, very twisted memories from two centuries ago; specific in some odd details (I know precisely what tile was in that house), but completely inaccurate in many others.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Stargate525

[Hal]

Like WestAir said, there are two kinds of immortality, never dying of old age but able to be killed by other means, and living forever, with your existence unable to end. To clarify things for Arran a little, I think he is talking about the second one, while most others are talking about the first (unless they specify something else, or I'm entirely wrong, which is very likely).

As for my own opinions, I think I'm agreeing with everyone when I say the first kind is great. Coupled with advanced medical care and/or computer memory storage, this would lead to most people living hundreds of years at least, unless society was particularly violent. The second kind, though, is kind of weird. First of all, there's no way I know of (not that that's saying much) that it could be possible, as life requires some sort of physical component, and that can't really be invincible. Assuming it was though, I would never want to accept it or condemn anyone else to it. As fun as living through all of human history would be, and even assuming we magically branch out and colonize the whole universe, even finding a way to combat entropy, the end of humanity is essentially inevitable. Even if there's only a tiny chance of something going wrong, given an infinite amount of time, it will eventually happen, and you would have to spend an even longer eternity after that going crazy (which might actually be pretty fun after a while, living forever in the empty dark with a few other madmen to talk to).

That's all assuming you can't shutdown the super-immortality when you choose to, however. If I could end myself when the universe(s) finally went out or when existence tired me, then I would go for it in a heartbeat. I think what makes us human is our ability to ignore the natural order of things, and screw with it as we please.

[NASAFanboy]

Who knows? Maybe by the time the universe ends, we're just a bunch of omnipotent energy beings who can travel between universes and dimensions with the power to control entire worlds just by ourselves alone. So when it ends, we just flee the universe to another one, or flee the dimension, or do some odd machine that prevents it from ending.

[Arran]

Like WestAir said, there are two kinds of immortality, never dying of old age but able to be killed by other means, and living forever, with your existence unable to end. To clarify things for Arran a little, I think he is talking about the second one, while most others are talking about the first (unless they specify something else, or I'm entirely wrong, which is very likely).

As for my own opinions, I think I'm agreeing with everyone when I say the first kind is great. Coupled with advanced medical care and/or computer memory storage, this would lead to most people living hundreds of years at least, unless society was particularly violent. The second kind, though, is kind of weird. First of all, there's no way I know of (not that that's saying much) that it could be possible, as life requires some sort of physical component, and that can't really be invincible. Assuming it was though, I would never want to accept it or condemn anyone else to it. As fun as living through all of human history would be, and even assuming we magically branch out and colonize the whole universe, even finding a way to combat entropy, the end of humanity is essentially inevitable. Even if there's only a tiny chance of something going wrong, given an infinite amount of time, it will eventually happen, and you would have to spend an even longer eternity after that going crazy (which might actually be pretty fun after a while, living forever in the empty dark with a few other madmen to talk to).

That's all assuming you can't shutdown the super-immortality when you choose to, however. If I could end myself when the universe(s) finally went out or when existence tired me, then I would go for it in a heartbeat. I think what makes us human is our ability to ignore the natural order of things, and screw with it as we please.

Finnally someone who understands it.. i been saying all along most here see a long life, an no growing old but still able to die as of unnatural cause as immortal, my professor in philosophy had once an lecture on this topic, and made clear everything that can die, regradless the way death is introduced in the organism, its still mortal, hence i keep saying most here are mixing up Immortality for an prolonged life.

The word immortal means unable to die, by any causes, thus an immortal beeing wil life on forever, and that my friends in indead a might long time, since you would go on even after things end.. And nature as an grand whole will end.

In our short existance an million years might seems an enternal long time, and we "might" see this as an immortal lifespan, but still it isnt.

our scientist allready speculate that life can sproud in the most extreme places, and speculate if life is for example possible in extreme cold places the metabloism of such creates is ussumable very low, thus they could theoretically have and extreme long lifetime compared to our humans. Maybe even an million years, still they are mortal.

On earth as far i have payed enough attention to my biology classes tree's (they are a lifeform, abeit not an sentient one) has the longest lifespan of all living organisms, still they die.. In the end everything will die, from scentient beeings to plants, to planets and stars. Even atoms and neutrons have a certain lifespan.

Its a kind of saveguard to keep the foundation of life in order, and thats is that life is based on the concept of death and rebirth.

As hal say you guys may speak on teh first form of immortality never beeing able to die of old age, but still able of dying of other influences is not true immortality, but still an prolonged lifespan, an unnatural long lifespan even, but not immortality.

I never said i dont think the first is impossible, hence i also believe we can create an prolonged lifespan, but true immortality is impossible to archieve, there are just to many safeguards that will prevent this..

And even so, IF we have the knowledge in time to even to eliminate those, thus you cannot die by any means, you will start to live till the end of time, till there is nothing left, and you start to wish you could die, but alas, you cant, since you are immortal, you lived through everything that the universe has thrown at you, planets, galaxies and even the universe itself has ended, and you are still there, and you cannot end you lonely miserable life at that point anymore, since you archieved immortality as human beeing.

Who knows? Maybe by the time the universe ends, we're just a bunch of omnipotent energy beings who can travel between universes and dimensions with the power to control entire worlds just by ourselves alone. So when it ends, we just flee the universe to another one, or flee the dimension, or do some odd machine that prevents it from ending.

If we are transent into a enerylike beeing, we arent human anymore, not just a new evolved version of man, like cro-magnon or Homo Erectus (neanthaler i think was an subcatagory of man, and not part of our lineage of homo-sapiens) but a whole new race.

But in you're example it must mean that we must have multiverses, or you cannot escape the dying universe..

On that regard i personally believe that even universeres are part of an lifecycle, and universe is born (big bang) and it eventually fade into nothing, due the Big stretchs theory what we currently think is the most realistic view since we atm we still see everything expand in an exponentional rate, till everything has drifted so far apart, that as an whole the universe ceases to exist, galaxies will die off, and in the end we just have empty space loaded with blackholes where onces galaxies where.

Granted we speak here over billion, maybe trillion years, for us short living beeings an timeperiond we cannot even comprehent, but dispite i would like as most here have a long life, thats an future i dont want to be around if thats happens.

And i doubt we can make an machine powerfull enough to prevent an universe from dying, we only know how big the universe is, due the fact we can only see as far light has traveled to the point we are in the universe. But scientist allready theorise the universe could be alot bigger, much bigger.

Clues that is might be the case allready lies in the origin of the big bang, we currently think light is the speedlimit, while they have calculated the creation of the universe in time of the Big Bang had to have to exceed this speed limit by a factor unknown.

So its if this theory is true, the universe might be even ALOT bigger as we can observe, and its allready uncomprehencive big, and i doubt its possible to manipulate something that is uncomprehencive large that has forces in it, that can obliterate any form of life in miliseconds.

And for you as immortal enery based beeing, i hope the theory of an multiverse is correct, otherwise you become an cloud of energy in a huge vastness of void.

Welcome to eternal oblivion

[NASAFanboy]

And for you as immortal enery based beeing, i hope the theory of an multiverse is correct, otherwise you become an cloud of energy in a huge vastness of void.

Who knows? We might be able to pull a few stars and planets together from the manner with whatever powers or technology we have, but otherwise, it'll just be a few scattered star systems in a vast, vast void. I do most certainly feel bad for whatever sentient species that evolves on these star systems. Very bad.