Who Wants to Live Forever? And Why?

[Sir Doom]

Saying you want to be immortal but choose when you want to die is the same as saying you want to be mortal but choose when you want to die.

Of course we would all like to live exactly as long as we'd all like to live. I submit to you that in this moment a vast majority of you are not interested in dying and this trend will continue for the rest of your life unless something horrible happens.

Certainly, I would not like to live for an eternity in boiling lava. I would not like to live 10 seconds in boiling lava. Its beside the point. In this moment I do not say, "I can't go on living. What If I end up in lava?" therefore I will not say, "I don't want to be immortal. What if I end up in lava?" I want to be immortal. I want to keep living. I don't want my heart to give out. I don't want my brain to short circuit. I don't want my cells to start rebelling. I don't want to be killed by some other being. I don't want to be killed by an asteroid or a comet or a tidal wave or an earthquake or a fire or anything else like that.

What do I want to be killed by? Nothing at all. If you have a different answer for this, then great. You actually don't want immortality. But if you are like me and would rather not be killed by anything at all. Then you do want immortality. That's just how I see it anyway.

 

[muichimotsu]

Saying you want to be immortal but choose when you want to die is the same as saying you want to be mortal but choose when you want to die.

Of course we would all like to live exactly as long as we'd all like to live. I submit to you that in this moment a vast majority of you are not interested in dying and this trend will continue for the rest of your life unless something horrible happens.

Certainly, I would not like to live for an eternity in boiling lava. I would not like to live 10 seconds in boiling lava. Its beside the point. In this moment I do not say, "I can't go on living. What If I end up in lava?" therefore I will not say, "I don't want to be immortal. What if I end up in lava?" I want to be immortal. I want to keep living. I don't want my heart to give out. I don't want my brain to short circuit. I don't want my cells to start rebelling. I don't want to be killed by some other being. I don't want to be killed by an asteroid or a comet or a tidal wave or an earthquake or a fire or anything else like that.

What do I want to be killed by? Nothing at all. If you have a different answer for this, then great. You actually don't want immortality. But if you are like me and would rather not be killed by anything at all. Then you do want immortality. That's just how I see it anyway.

Provisional immortality would be markedly different in nature and thus why I wouldn't call it immortality in itself

Most people aren't contemplative about death until it becomes more imminent, e.g. old age

Sounds like you want it, but also admit that it is impossible to realize. So in that sense, you seek immortality, but acknowledge its idealistic quality

 

[Mangosteen]

I want my soul to live on forever, but I do not know about forever in this life. There is too much death and evil on this earth. I find enough good in it to want more years (200 years might be nice, perhaps even 500), but not forever.

 

[Sir Doom]

I want my soul to live on forever, but I do not know about forever in this life. There is too much death and evil on this earth. I find enough good in it to want more years (200 years might be nice, perhaps even 500), but not forever.

Exactly what I'm talking about.

If there is not enough evil and death in the world NOW to make you check out, why do you think that will be the case 200 or 500 years from now?

 

[Orias]

Can evil be destroyed? Aren't some of the most ancient aspects of existence considered to be of malicious or evil intentions?

 

[muichimotsu]

Can evil be destroyed? Aren't some of the most ancient aspects of existence considered to be of malicious or evil intentions?

Not sure why I'm resurrecting this thread or if anyone will respond: if we see evil as twisting of the good, then it cannot be destroyed because it has no substance of its own

I wouldn't say death is considered evil: Hades wasn't evil, he was necessary in a sense, same as many aspects of life we don't like, such as hunger or boredom.

 

[Servant_of_the_One1]

It makes perfect sense that all humans wants to live forever.


This is possible in the hereafter

 

[muichimotsu]

Mere possibility doesn't follow to actuality, however.

And just because people want to live forever neither means that it must be so nor that they're actually thinking clearly

 

[illykitty]

I'd want to live forever, because there's many dream I have and want to realise them. Also, who wouldn't want to try space travel and such? I want to see how humanity and science progresses. I want to see what new technologies we come up with. I want to know if there's some awesome alien worlds out there. Are we going to colonise other planets?

I think we can achieve "immortality", biologically, there's progress made with anti-ageing and technology-wise, there's the possibility of things like mind upload and cybernetics. I don't think these things mean that you can't die, however. I think we could still die in an accident, of natural disasters, of murder, of diseases (if there's still things that don't have a cure yet) or even voluntarily. Not sure it'll happen in our lifetime but supposing we can find a way to slow down ageing on time, then slow it enough to reach a point where we can stop it and then reverse it... And so on, well, I'll describe below what I think I would do.

I think there's tons of possibilities to life, there's so many things I haven't seen and experienced. And when you've done everything you wanted on Earth, there space, or even, there's virtual reality. Imagine having millions of different worlds online... Spending years to explore one... Then move to the next. There's the possibility of never being bored. For instance, how many people wanted to be on the planet in the movie Avatar? That's one possibility. You could live thousands of years exploring those worlds, and then when you want to go back to reality, the outside world would have changed a lot, there would be new things to see. I can see myself doing this.

Of course it would all depend on which path humanity goes down, if we get our act together and don't end up destroying ourselves then we can achieve great things I think. I wouldn't want to live forever in a dystopia, obviously.

 

[Marisa]

I voted no in all possibilities. This is just a concept which I don't get. In an undoubtedly juvenile attempt to defend my position, and given, I'll just say that if accepting any of the gods that man has created to this point in our species' occupation of the plant is a requirement, I see no reason to enslave myself to them. Some of them are quite vile, particularly the Abrahamic. If immortality were just a feature of the "being human", we'd have overrun the planet long ago. Despite the fact that I have no wish to live forever, I'm also in no rush to die. Realizing that my time is finite makes me appreciate the here and now all the more (despite many religious people's belief about atheists). So I recognize that if it's important to me, I'd best get on with it.

 

[Aiviu]

I want the love i feel to live forever and i want to be with the one i got separated from.
The last wish wants to leave tomorrow but i know that there is no love for the selfish of myself.

If i would physically live forever then I would search for this one until i am found. Then, ... frame me ... in love's halo. Forever.

 

[jonathan180iq]

We value life because it is finite.
Living forever diminishes the value of life.

 

[George-ananda]

Well, I want to live not quite forever but for a very, very long time; maybe an eon or so.

In my religious views (Advaita, non-dual; God and creation are not-two) all consciousness is one and eternal. It temporarily separates itself from itself to have finite these finite experiences. In the end we are that eternal consciousness God/Brahman.

 

[illykitty]

We value life because it is finite.
Living forever diminishes the value of life.

Why? I hear this response a lot but it never has any explanation.

I don't value life because it's finite. I value it because of the experiences we have, because of what we accomplish, etc.

 

[muichimotsu]

The finiteness of life makes it valuable because we cannot have it forever. Something is not valuable merely because of experience, but because it fluctuates in whether we experience it in a positive or negative way. Life changes, but it cannot persist forever in an individual sense or it loses the value in the sense of having fulfillment rather than always seeking something new.

The latter is admirable, but life becomes more hollow the more we experience. It's not impossible for the perspective to improve, but biologically, we have a limit to begin with, and psychologically, long life in the sense of surviving forever or indefinitely can remove a sense of realism to life as something we understand as finite to begin with.

 

[illykitty]

The finiteness of life makes it valuable because we cannot have it forever. Something is not valuable merely because of experience, but because it fluctuates in whether we experience it in a positive or negative way. Life changes, but it cannot persist forever in an individual sense or it loses the value in the sense of having fulfillment rather than always seeking something new.

The latter is admirable, but life becomes more hollow the more we experience. It's not impossible for the perspective to improve, but biologically, we have a limit to begin with, and psychologically, long life in the sense of surviving forever or indefinitely can remove a sense of realism to life as something we understand as finite to begin with.

I can't say I agree with any of this at all but thanks for replying.

 

[jonathan180iq]

Why? I hear this response a lot but it never has any explanation.

I don't value life because it's finite. I value it because of the experiences we have, because of what we accomplish, etc.

I value experiences too, but how many experiences can you have before you get the impression that you've seen everything? How many places can you visit before you start to feel like everything is the same? How long does it take you to get bored?

We may not actively reason that we appreciate life because it is finite - but that's one of the drivers for our lives. It's why bucket lists exist, and why people dream of going places or doing things before they get old. If there is no time limit on getting something accomplished, or no sense or urgency, then people tend to stagnate. You can probably see this in your regular life, if you've ever gone through a period where you feel stuck, or get bogged down in an endless routine. For the first 50 or 100 years or whatever I'm sure living forever would seem like an awesome idea. But at some point, as with anything else, you'll get tired of it and you'll get bored, and there will be very little left to motivate or inspire you... If life never ended, we would get tired of it.

 

[illykitty]

I value experiences too, but how many experiences can you have before you get the impression that you've seen everything? How many places can you visit before you start to feel like everything is the same? How long does it take you to get bored?

We may not actively reason that we appreciate life because it is finite - but that's one of the drivers for our lives. It's why bucket lists exist, and why people dream of going places or doing things before they get old. If there is no time limit on getting something accomplished, or no sense or urgency, then people tend to stagnate. You can probably see this in your regular life, if you've ever gone through a period where you feel stuck, or get bogged down in an endless routine. For the first 50 or 100 years or whatever I'm sure living forever would seem like an awesome idea. But at some point, as with anything else, you'll get tired of it and you'll get bored, and there will be very little left to motivate or inspire you... If life never ended, we would get tired of it.

I don't think so, ever play video games? I've been doing so since I was a child. Still not tired of it. Heck I play Nintendo games, which reuse the same characters, just have slightly different settings and stories, sometimes revamp the gameplay too, my favourite series being The Legend of Zelda. I'm still looking forward to the next one.

With things like virtual reality, you could potentially explore/live/play in millions of worlds. And there's also space, as I imagine someday we'll set out and explore it too.

There's also many examples I could give in real life of things people do repeatedly and don't get bored of. I don't see how that would be possible as time advances, new things are discovered, we get new technology and new places to go to.

But that's my opinion. Also, I don't think an indefinite lifespan means people will live forever, if we're talking about a realistic scenario and not an imaginary one where people are forced to live forever and not be able to die in any way.

 

[bobhikes]

I had a thread before elsewhere called "The Desirability of Immortality", though I think this Queen song works much better

No in all possibilities. Death is the only way I will finally have peace. Death is the only thing that makes life valuable.

 

[Gambit]

I would argue that immortality is probably the worst curse one could wish on a person, since there is no real sense of progress, time, etc. I would sooner wish to be reborn/reincarnated, if there was no option for nonexistence, than to live forever, either as a disembodied spirit, or in some immortal body.

I would argue that rebirth and/or reincarnation qualify as immortality. Of course, the goal of Buddhism is to be liberated from "samsara" (the repeat cycle of life, death, and rebirth).