would you want to live forever?

vorbis

I was bored yesterday so went looking at web pages dealing woth the above factor. It seems that scientists have identified what effectively renders us doomed to die. Apparently our cells self divide only a limited number of times. After that they descend into senscence. Interestingly though, that could be changed with technology. Some tres in nature have been discovered to have such immortal cells that effectively prolong life indefinetly. It is not inconceivable that the same could not be done to human cells.
So a simple question, would you avail of such an option to prolong life indefinetly or is 100 years more than enough on this earth?

Sparks

Silly question. Do I want to live forever? 'Course I do. Should I live forever? That's a question for you, given our population's rate of increase, our finite set of resources and our woeful plans for obtaining new resources when we exhaust those we have.

(And immortal human cells have been discovered, they form the basis for cell lines used worldwide. Unfortunately for the woman concerned, they originated in a cancer that killed her.)

Shinji

I'd love to live forever.

On the other hand, I'm 22.

Ask me again in fifty years time

simu

Well, first of all, one would live LONGER, not forever.

And yes of course, personally, I love life and I would love to live longer:)

However, if extending the average human life cycle were to become a feasible option, it would cause radical changes in society. Apart from the depressing idea of this option being available only to the super-rich and presuming some way was found to provide resources for a larger and, on average, more elderly population, it would change the way societies evolve.

I believe social changes would come about much more slowly as new generations with new ideas would be confronted with a much larger bulwark of older ppl with more rigidly entrenched mindsets. Imagine what it would be like today if most ppl lived to 200 years of age - there would still be a lot of ppl around who had grown up during Victorian times - can you imagine how reluctant they would have been to accept 20th century developments in the areas of technology, equal rights etc?

It would be far more difficult for upcoming artists, scientists, intellectuals etc to make their mark as they would be confronted with elders who would had held their positions for many decades and would likely be considered near absolute authorities in their fields of study. If you ever found arguing with an older lecturerer intimidating, imagine how much more so this would be arguing with a lecturer who has held their position for 100 years!

The generation gap would become an chasm!

I'm not saying, however, that these problems would be insurmountable but they are factors that are often over-looked when ppl discuss extending the human lifespan.

Wook

nopes not forever, and certainly not by getting old.
but i do wish i could stop time and start again a thousand year later or so.

Wolf

Well tbh if I was able to live forever and not age (ie stay young and fit) I would absolutly love to! Also Im presuming that you would be able to kill yourself?

Sounds ideal to me.

JohnK

Yes I would. I for one, don't ever want to die and to be honest death scares the sh*t out of me.

Washout

Welll I beleilve in reincarnation so down to my beliefs

technically Im here allllllll the time.

Death scares the **** out of everyone. but as some wise person once said The ultimate truth to life is death. so why try and live the lie that it wont happen.

woosaysdan

in the words of some other boards member "if i was immortal i'd kill myself"

Some tres in nature have been discovered to have such immortal cells that effectively prolong life indefinetly. It is not inconceivable that the same could not be done to human cells.

but wouldnt certain functions fail like your heart and brain??

Shinji

but wouldnt certain functions fail like your heart and brain??

Your heart wouldn't fail, because it'd constantly be renewing itself in the same way as the rest of your body was.

Your brain on the other hand... Well, it wouldn't fail as such, but after a few centuries, I suspect that the capacity to create new memories would start to have interesting side effects. New memories would over-write old ones, or would simply fail to be formed at all.... We only have limited brain capacity, and we have no idea how full that gets after a normal human lifespan, or how much more elbow room there is in there.

Trebor

I plan to live forever just have to figure out the how

DeVore

I'm not scared of dying but I'm terrified of not living.

Yes I would want to live forever I think.

DeV.

Shilo

Eugh...what a horrible thought. No, wouldn't want to live forever, even if all my loved ones were still around with me.

Don't think my kids'd be too impressed either!

Anyway, another reincarnator here so it'd sort of defeat the purpose!

amp

I think medicine will eventually find a way to stop physical aging. But what I would find interesting is the brains capacity to store memories. How would it cope with data storage it wasn't designed to handle.

Personally, I don't know about forever, as that's a long time. I wouldn't like to be living if the universe itself died and I'm floating around in space with no Scrubs re-runs to watch.

I wouldn't mind living to 150/200, as long as I'm still in relatively fit condition (which would be an improvement tbh )

Sangre

Originally posted by Wook
nopes not forever, and certainly not by getting old.
but i do wish i could stop time and start again a thousand year later or so.

Hey, they should make some sort of animated show about that. They could call it 'The Boy who didnt die'

Ant

I have previously thought about the concept of immortality on a number of occasions. Simu's comments on the implications for society are interesting and would be important issues if medical technology were to progress to this stage. I hadn't previously considered those points myself as the class implications were always the first issue that I'd have a problem with.

From a personal point of view, I'd say that it depends on the quality of life. If my body didn't deteriorate and suffer the effects of old age (I'm already losing hair while in my late 20s), I'd be quite happy to live for a VERY long time. Although I have a feeling that if was forever, at some stage I'd get bored and I'd lose my present "joie de vivre".

When I was younger, I used to think that I'd rather be dead than die slowly from a debilitating condition such as cancer, MS or even Alzheimer’s. Of course it's quite likely that I'll feel differently in 30 year's time.

I also used to think as a child - and Christian - that living forever in Paradise would become boring. Interestingly, in my experience, most Christians who believe in a better life after death - aside from the likes of the Flanders(eses) who are earnestly waiting for Judgement Day and The Rapture - are very reluctant to transcend to this higher existence. An understandable sentiment but as an atheist I would have more justification for wanting to remain on this mortal coil.
[I'm also well aware of religion's function as the "opium of the masses".]

On a related note, Anne Rice in her Vampire Chronicles explores in great detail the psychology of what it would be like to become a vampire and avoid aging and the other consequences of human mortality. She paints a very romantic picture which would make one seriously consider the option if offered the chance to become one of the undead. However the exploitative nature of such an existence would compel me to turn down such a "gift".


Incidentally, I'm currently reading "Immortality" by Milan Kundera.
(It refers to the kind of immortality achieved by people such as Shakespeare.)

---

Death would scare me unless she manifested herself as the Neil Gaiman character.

Beëlzebooze

live forever? and have the same shings anoy you day in day out for the next umpteen millenia? not bl00dy likey.

how about going into some kind of hypersleep, and waking up every 50 years for a year or so. so you could see progress over the next 2000 years. that sounds like more of a plan to me

woosaysdan

wouldnt you run out of birthday candles aswell?
happy two thousand birthday to you
happy two thousand birthday to you
happy two thousand birthday woosaysdan
happy two thousand birthday to you!!!

McGinty

No I don't want to live forever. I beleive the fact that we have a limited time on this earth is what in a sense makes it exciting. Death does scare me as it is the big unknown, but if you lived forever there would come a time you would get bored, you'd have seen it, done it and so forth. I like my limited mortality. Also I would still like to be mortal even if I had the option of staying younger.

Sarky

Would anyone care how long they lived if they knew what happened afterwards?

I for one would like to know that before deciding on immortality. If there's an afterlife or reincarnation, lifespan wouldn't really matter to me. If there's nothing, or if it's only hell, then I think I'd like to hang onto this life as long as possible, wouldn't you?

Being the pessimist I am, I'd probably go for immortality, y'know, just in case...

Chaos-Engine

I don't want to live for ever. But i would like to live for say 250 years. Imagine if there was a process that could extend your life to 250 circa years. You would get it probably. Imagine the effects on the world(leaving population control out of it - assume the treatment stirises you). If people live that long they would see the effects of human existance on the planet. They could see the long-term effects on global warming. Humans would have more respect for each other and teh planet. Sustainable Development would be the order of the day.... I think Humanity could benefit greatly if it had people that could have been alife over 150years before you were born.... Society would be less chaotic and more stable.

Caesar_Bojangle

tbh death scares the crap out of me. Ideally i'd like to live to 250 or even 200 because at that stage i'd be willing to die. As i'd have offered the world all that i possibly could, and have sampled all that was humanly necessary. 70 years is far too short

bug

definitley not!! although I'm not afraid of death at all. Im not interested in genetic enginneering that would make you live longer. I think that knowing life is short allows you to take more risks. I think that living forever would take the essence and the point out of life in the first place.

Spenguin

Well, if I was going to live forever I have no doubt that the people around me would try to kill me as soon as possible, so its not really an option for me.

STaN

Originally posted by amp
I think medicine will eventually find a way to stop physical aging. But what I would find interesting is the brains capacity to store memories. How would it cope with data storage it wasn't designed to handle.

I'm sure they will come up with some sort of way to upload our knowledge into some sort of mass storage device. :ninja:

But really, they have determined a number of componants in cells that define cell life. Deactivating these mean that the cell does not die.

The brain controls this process of recycling cells. When we are young, our cells are constantly being recycled, it is what makes us grow and flesh out. As time goes on, this process slows and cells are actually being lossed. A chemical is triggering the body to self destruct.

They have been able to doubled the life cycle of rats by genetically engineering them to reduce this effect. So applying this to humans would most likely be possible. Although it will probably be our children who are the ones to benefit not us.

My take on it, is that the period of childhood would be doubled, the teen phase would be doubled and our prime phase would also be doubled. Who knows what effect it would have on the latter phase in life if the whole thing was spread out. Or maybe the middle part of our life is extended and we reach a certain point where the body just goes into rapid degeneration.

We still have to fight heart disease and cancer if we want to live to 140 or so which will probably kill most people before they can realise the full cycle.

mumble, world population explosion, massively contageous killer virus, boredom, the old stagnating the young ... mumble

Beëlzebooze

Longevity is ok for us "ordinary" folks with a curious disposition, but think about the idiots of the world living for an extended period of time, the Bushes, the Rumsfelds the Castros...

doesn't bear thinking about

Chaos-Engine

Originally posted by Beëlzebooze
Longevity is ok for us "ordinary" folks with a curious disposition, but think about the idiots of the world living for an extended period of time, the Bushes, the Rumsfelds the Castros...

doesn't bear thinking about

Perhaps after 100 years reflection they would realise the error of their ways and top themselfs(wishful thinkin :rolleyes: )

La_Gordy

Personnally i don't want too, its only going downhill sure!

50Cent

Death scares the ****en daylights out of me. I wish there was no such thing as death. Its far too scary. Especially when someone dies(who you know personally), everything is so eery and freaky seriously. I dont like thinking of it, it really really really REALLY scares me.

Zukustious

I don't want to live forever. I'd get bored after a while. I would however like a lifespan of about 500 years.

popinfresh

I'd like to live forever, that is if humans were to extend through the universe. Imagine you being on a planet of 6 billion and you were the first person there. And also I dont really think it would get boring, you'll always find something to do. But personally if at all possible I'd like to live till about 130, you never know what science holds for our generation when we all start to die

azezil

Originally posted by Shinji
On the other hand, I'm 22.

LIES!!


I'd like to live forever provided i would never grow old, or even better get to choose my age and never get sick.

There's so much to do and see in life it really is too short

Dissident Aeon

I'll just quote K's Choice song....says enough


And I don’t want to live forever
But as long as I do, I’d love to live
For real.

That's it, I guess:rolleyes:

Samara

I'd like to live forever but never grow old, the thought of growing old and feeble creeps me out, imagine having the same mind you do now, except of course much expanded through years of 'maturing' but being unable to walk very far or fend for yourself because your body is just too old!!

If you could live forever with no ill effects on the body I'd grab it with both hands. I'd spend years in every town and every village, I'd learn every language, read every book, heck I'd write books, build towns and villages, create my own languages....we would of course have to restrict the access to immortality or else we'd breed ourselves into extinction, natural resources would run out, food supply etc...we'd need good planners

The Corinthian

Would one want to outlive the stars?

Forever is a very long time.

Samara

Ah but surely you would have an achilles heel, some vulnerable point, a way to die if you so chose!!

Stark

The thought of non-existence scares the crap out of me, but then again so does living forever in this world (what happens when the sun burns out etc.). Would be good though to read every book ever written, every film ever made etc. An afterlife would be the ideal situation IMO, live forever in security.

Gaz

Whats stopping you from learning a new language now ? What makes you think that if you lived for hundreds of years you would be more motivated ?

vibe666

I was listening to a radio interview with some geneticist a couple of years back and he was saying that with the current state of genetics and other medical practices, there was no reason why anyone unde rthe age of about 25 would ever have to die of old age.

He reckoned that anyone of that age would be able to lead an 'active' life up to at least 120, and by this time technology would have advanced enough for that to be extended indefinately.

Sounds cool to me anyway. Who'd want to be dead? that'd be no fun.

Samara

Originally posted by Darth Homer
Whats stopping you from learning a new language now ? What makes you think that if you lived for hundreds of years you would be more motivated ?

It's not a question of motivation, I am learning a new language, but how many years would it take to become fluent in every language in the world?? Particularly asian languages!! After so many years in school from age four I'm still far from fluent in even Irish!!