I don't know what happens after death. Nobody knows what happens after death. I can't convince myself there's an afterlife or reincarnation because I haven't seen any evidence that can't be disproven, so I'd rather not die. I know what's going on here. I hate a lot of it, but I'm comfortable with it too, so I'd rather not die.
Why do people want to be immortal?
- Thread starter lionrwal
- Start date
you could stay hidden and attain the knowledge of millions of years of civilization from your fellow humans. There's always the prospect of creating or, better yet, becoming a technological singularity - by understanding precisely how your brain works, increase your intelligence(cybernetics maybe), which only makes you better at improving yourself. Your intelligence explodes, and you become omnipotent. Of course, you'll lose your humanity, but maintain your sapience and your curiosity.
Then become a space ship, roaming the universe (think Sovereign, only ever improving), eat entire stars for energy, and assimilate anything you see, in a journey to find meaning, for eternity. how's it sound?
Then become a space ship, roaming the universe (think Sovereign, only ever improving), eat entire stars for energy, and assimilate anything you see, in a journey to find meaning, for eternity. how's it sound?
Not really, death is generally a very good thing. Death promotes change. Death promotes evolution. The death of the old makes way for the birth of the new. Also, the body is nothing more than a complex machine, and machines break down and stop working over time. I don't know about you, but I would rather die than sit around forever while my body decays. It's bad enough that I might live long enough to see myself lose my sense of hearing, sight, my memory, my ability to reason, my strength and dexterity, my mobility, my flexibility, my ability to fall on my face without breaking every bone in my body ... following that to its logical conclusion gives a horrifying picture, does it not? I would much rather skip all that.Boom129 said:
I'd like to not be able to die non-voluntarily.
I'd simply like to experience and learn all the universe has to offer. That, and I don't have any reason to die yet.
I'd simply like to experience and learn all the universe has to offer. That, and I don't have any reason to die yet.
It's simple for me. I just want to help people. If I never die I can always be there to help someone.
There are many things I'd like to do which require more time than I have. Perhaps immortality is a bit too far, but if I lived for, say, 500 years instead of 70-100, I could actually devote all the time I want to painting, writing/composing/arranging music, learning to play Piano/keyboards or drums would be great since I currently play guitar/bass/mandolin, having more time to use for work or with investments, much more time to save money, earn money, donate money, more time to spend with my grandkids, etc...
You know the Buddha once said that some people who do great deeds in this lifetime will be reborn as heavenly beings, existing in a state of joy and contentment for thousands of years before passing back into the physical world. A monk said something along the lines of, "That's awesome, let's do that" and the Buddha said something along the lines of, "But what great sorrow there still is for them to exist at all."
I agree with the Buddha here. Life is full of pain and I'd rather live what I've stumbled into and then go when my body fails. The oblivion of death after a life well-lived is the greatest happiness. To keep going on forever is to grasp at a contentment and joy that you just won't find. It sounds ironic, but if I knew that I would never die, I'd probably kill myself right now.
I agree with the Buddha here. Life is full of pain and I'd rather live what I've stumbled into and then go when my body fails. The oblivion of death after a life well-lived is the greatest happiness. To keep going on forever is to grasp at a contentment and joy that you just won't find. It sounds ironic, but if I knew that I would never die, I'd probably kill myself right now.
I wouldn't mind the opportunity to master every instrument, learn every language, and walk the whole of the Earth. As it stands now: I'm decent with a six string, passed the fluency test for German, and I've walked around most of Oregon.
As far as other people, I don't care. Never have, not even as a child, not sure why; it's probably some undiagnosed mental defect, meh.
As far as other people, I don't care. Never have, not even as a child, not sure why; it's probably some undiagnosed mental defect, meh.
Anyone that doesn't want to be immortal. Should really just step aside, and give someone else their spot in the universe.
Seeing everyone you love die is sad the first few times it happens, but as with anything it just stops being a problem after a while... Your psychology would adapt to cope with this.
An argument ive heard is to do with knowledge retention, but i believe this wont be a problem, when was the last time you couldnt think of something recent because you couldnt stop remember your first birthday party? you brain develops ways of controlling this information, and i believe that if a human body was to acquire immortality, without the added strain of become senile and physical degeneration (yes, immortality comes hand in hand with eternal youth unless the immortality is magically bestrowed upon you by a dry humoured genie.) Your body i believe would go through mutliple puberty phases, where you would biologically alter to adapt to added strain on your mental abilities. Sure this isn't a thing but the human body is a complicated mechanism and its by far more capable of adapting than anything else. Hell, i would even find some level of personal 'evolution' would occur. Doctors develop increased radiation resistance through there lives, the human body adapts to its conditions on an individual level as well as an evolutionary one.
But yes, become immortal would raise you to a point where your life would be considerable different to a mortal humans, firstly i would have a plan. I would first hide, and show off my immortality to only a select few whom i would use to spread rumours about myself and eventually lead to the forming of a secret society and eventually a worldwide religion. I would tour the planet proclaiming myself a god, eventually i would form my own following, the governments would have to recognise me as being something different. Frankly this part would be interesting to see unfold. I would have a level of following too high for them to confront of hide me at this point without risking worldwide rebellion. I would find trusted people that i would proclaim rightful rulers of the countries, kings and queens to run the world; Governments would refuse my word but this would only cause rebellions and uprising in the countries. The big powers of the world would have to withdraw their military from other countries in order to defend themselves; and one by one the countries would fall. And eventually i would merge them, keeping countries themselves seperate but place rulers of groups of countries, adding levels of control. Eventually after many years of earth-wide civil war, i would have control of a mostly peaceful planet, i would encourage scientific developments in my name; pushing for exploration of the natural wonders of the universe. Drug research, technology, space travel and colonisation. I would push for the entire world to move forward, for the human race to spread and colonise all that could even be called home.
Eventually i would begin the project for a self sustaining spacecraft designed for exploration, many of them infact, and i would push for the development of finding a way of quickly transporting oneself vast distances in moments by two points in space connected via a currently undetermined method of bending space-time.
I would produce self sustained biodomes, found within space, to protect species native to earth, and potentially other life sustaining planets, creating ecosystems with can stand the test of time, and potentially produce intelligence over time, eventually most of these species would develop some level of intelligence, meaning eventually the majority of species i know now as mindless animals, i will know them as intelligent beings, whom i welcome to my empire.
But the eventual problem would arise, should the universe end up collapsing upon itself, there would be a problem. And i would use the massive empire i have available to me and the massive resources i have at my disposal to develop a way of averting the disaster, or finding a way to avoid it, be it to migrate entirely out of our universe into some different alternate dimension, with a massive military force and scientific crew to conquer and continue to expand, using the new technology developed to survive the end of the universe in order to expand the empire towards new universes themselves, potentially compacting the span of the empire by having multiple parts of the empire exist in one location, allowing for even more expansion and understanding.
So yeah. Immortality rocks.
An argument ive heard is to do with knowledge retention, but i believe this wont be a problem, when was the last time you couldnt think of something recent because you couldnt stop remember your first birthday party? you brain develops ways of controlling this information, and i believe that if a human body was to acquire immortality, without the added strain of become senile and physical degeneration (yes, immortality comes hand in hand with eternal youth unless the immortality is magically bestrowed upon you by a dry humoured genie.) Your body i believe would go through mutliple puberty phases, where you would biologically alter to adapt to added strain on your mental abilities. Sure this isn't a thing but the human body is a complicated mechanism and its by far more capable of adapting than anything else. Hell, i would even find some level of personal 'evolution' would occur. Doctors develop increased radiation resistance through there lives, the human body adapts to its conditions on an individual level as well as an evolutionary one.
But yes, become immortal would raise you to a point where your life would be considerable different to a mortal humans, firstly i would have a plan. I would first hide, and show off my immortality to only a select few whom i would use to spread rumours about myself and eventually lead to the forming of a secret society and eventually a worldwide religion. I would tour the planet proclaiming myself a god, eventually i would form my own following, the governments would have to recognise me as being something different. Frankly this part would be interesting to see unfold. I would have a level of following too high for them to confront of hide me at this point without risking worldwide rebellion. I would find trusted people that i would proclaim rightful rulers of the countries, kings and queens to run the world; Governments would refuse my word but this would only cause rebellions and uprising in the countries. The big powers of the world would have to withdraw their military from other countries in order to defend themselves; and one by one the countries would fall. And eventually i would merge them, keeping countries themselves seperate but place rulers of groups of countries, adding levels of control. Eventually after many years of earth-wide civil war, i would have control of a mostly peaceful planet, i would encourage scientific developments in my name; pushing for exploration of the natural wonders of the universe. Drug research, technology, space travel and colonisation. I would push for the entire world to move forward, for the human race to spread and colonise all that could even be called home.
Eventually i would begin the project for a self sustaining spacecraft designed for exploration, many of them infact, and i would push for the development of finding a way of quickly transporting oneself vast distances in moments by two points in space connected via a currently undetermined method of bending space-time.
I would produce self sustained biodomes, found within space, to protect species native to earth, and potentially other life sustaining planets, creating ecosystems with can stand the test of time, and potentially produce intelligence over time, eventually most of these species would develop some level of intelligence, meaning eventually the majority of species i know now as mindless animals, i will know them as intelligent beings, whom i welcome to my empire.
But the eventual problem would arise, should the universe end up collapsing upon itself, there would be a problem. And i would use the massive empire i have available to me and the massive resources i have at my disposal to develop a way of averting the disaster, or finding a way to avoid it, be it to migrate entirely out of our universe into some different alternate dimension, with a massive military force and scientific crew to conquer and continue to expand, using the new technology developed to survive the end of the universe in order to expand the empire towards new universes themselves, potentially compacting the span of the empire by having multiple parts of the empire exist in one location, allowing for even more expansion and understanding.
So yeah. Immortality rocks.
I don't mind dying. I'm not gonna queue for it ever, but I'm not scared of it or anything. If I were to be immortal, it would be for 2 reasons, #1 to see the technology and games of the future, and #2 to record everything that happens so that no one gets shit mixed up lol.
I'd want to have it just for the sake of seeing space travel I'm a sci-fi lover and it sucks to know I will not see space travel beyond possibly Mars. I got a pic of a sunset on Mars, it's beautiful to me, dead planet whatever it's ANOTHER PLANET a place where no matter how rich, how strong how smart you are you will NEVER, EVER get to go to, another planet.
I think the point of the question is that all those things are temporary, and you are not, so as great as those things would be, they would be greatly outweighed by the inevitable eternity of nothingness.Deathleaper said:
OT: Because why would you want to die? Death is a great motivator to experience life, up until the point you actually die. If you were immortal, instead of having death as a motivator, you would have life as a motivator to create a means by which to avoid that eternal nothingness (maybe create a watch that creates new universes and allows for travel between them, so that if all life in the universe ends, you just hop on over to a new universe).
People, including me, want to be immortal so that we can see how the human race evolves and maybe even play a role in it past our normal lifetimes. Maybe the human race will end on Earth, or maybe the human race will one day transverse the entirety of the universe. The only way to find out would be to see it.
Think about if every human on Earth was immortal. Think about the massive amounts of people being born every day. Think about the massive amounts of resources required to maintain a population of that size. As Napoleon said "An army marches on its stomach.
Think about it. Time is the one thing that you can never get more of and is the ultimate resource. We judge things on how long it takes to finish versus how much we'll benefit from it. With immortality you have infinite time which means you can do as much as you want. You can take your time and enjoy yourself. Learn as much as you want. Travel wherever you want to go. Meet who you want to meet. And money becomes so much easier when you can take the long, but safe, route.
When you're immortal, you are no longer running the race everyone else is. Or at least you no longer have a time limit.
When you're immortal, you are no longer running the race everyone else is. Or at least you no longer have a time limit.