Why do people want to be immortal?

[Jaime_Wolf]

The question gets really silly when you try to talk about things like the end of the universe. Look at the question of heat death for instance:

If you're immortal and retain the ability to act, the heat death can never occur since you yourself can generate entropy. But how do you get the energy to continually do this in an otherwise no-entropy universe?

So for the end of the universe to make any sense, all of the information that comprises you would necessarily be annihilated, in which case it makes no sense to speak of you as immortal since there is no sense whatsoever in which you exist.

If we assume that you DO have magical abilities to generate entropy, given infinite time there's no reason you couldn't play god and set a whole new universe in motion. If you wanted to, you could re-engineer humanity and do that whole dance over again.

 

[MortisLegio]

I dont want immortality. If there is no end then life is meaningless.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I imagine it's because most people fear death.

 

[Zio_IV]

Most of the people who replyed against immortality in the recent threads seem to bring up two points: Losing loved ones, and the possibility of having immortality ONLY (ie. living forever without the endless youth part.)

To that, I say, fine. Immortality doesn't sound good to you, then. That's OK. It does to me, though.

I don't have any family (at least no one I actually give two ****'s about.) So that part is totally covered on my end. As for the whole immortality only thing, this does seem like a big problem, but this is also immortality we are talking about. It's impossible to begin with. A fantasy. So in the spirit of that, speculating that you could possess immortality WITH eternal youth is what I'm going to do, since it makes no difference in the end.

OT though, I want to be immortal because I would relish the chance to see everything that comes to pass during the lifespan of humanity. We are just too damn weird and chaotic for it to become boring. And when the time comes where humanity dies out (it has to eventually), I'll just go somewhere else. Even if it takes forever to get there, who cares? I'm immortal.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Simple enough question. Every few days it seems a thread involving immortality comes up and I have to ask, why do some people want to be immortal?
I used to wish to be immortal until I realized that would mean I would have to see the death of everyone I grew close to. I would be cursed to live to see the entirety of the human race go extinct, to see civilization crumble, to experience the pain of the Earth being engulfed by the Sun, then be left floating out in space when the Sun consumes our solar system for all of eternity, helpless.

Anyway, that's my view on immortality. What say you?

I say that our lives only have any meaning whatsoever if we are still alive. The dead can't feel anything, can't care about anything, can't want anything, and can't accomplish anything.

 

[EdgeyX]

Because people are afraid of death.

 

[Korolev]

Biological immortality yes - physical immortality no. You make an excellent point: in one billion years, the sun will swell due to its fusion process. It will swell so much that it is expected to make life on Earth impossible, unless we invent INCREDIBLY advanced shielding and heat dissipation technology. Even if we move to Mars, the expanding sun will make Mars too hot as well. Whether or not the Sun will swell up enough to actually engulf the Earth is still a matter of debate - as the sun outputs energy, it loses mass and its gravity grows weaker, which might allow for the planets to enter a wider orbit - but even if the Earth and Mars aren't devoured by the sun, it will get far too hot to sustain any sort of life. Even if life manages to barely cling on, in another 5 billion years the sun will run out of fuel ENTIRELY.

Being physically immortal and indestructible means you'd have to eventually witness the entire destruction of the Earth and the eventual extinction of the Human species. Odds on us managing to find another inhabitable planet and reach it is slim. Even if you could - humanity WILL go extinct at some point. No species can last forever - hell, the universe is expected to eventually die or become so stretched out that eventually the universe ends up being a cold empty void. All the stars WILL eventually die out, all the planets WILL eventually become lifeless. Until you develop the technology to tunnel into another universe, or start a new one, the future of a physically indestructible immortal seems pretty bleak - imagine, 13 billion years from now: you are the last human being, sitting on a dead planet, and in the sky a dying sun beats down on you while you stare at the ruins of a previous civilization. If you are physically indestructible, you can't even kill yourself. You'd go mad.

But if you are merely ageless and biological immortal, you'd still be able to kill yourself right quick. I want BIOLOGICAL immortality. Not physical immortality.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Well I would prefer that to some things.
I would like to be immortal until I decide to die.

 

[tthor]

Simple enough question. Every few days it seems a thread involving immortality comes up and I have to ask, why do some people want to be immortal?
I used to wish to be immortal until I realized that would mean I would have to see the death of everyone I grew close to. I would be cursed to live to see the entirety of the human race go extinct, to see civilization crumble, to experience the pain of the Earth being engulfed by the Sun, then be left floating out in space when the Sun consumes our solar system for all of eternity, helpless.

Anyway, that's my view on immortality. What say you?

My hope of immortality is not one of genies and magic wishes. My hope of immortality is through advance medical science. Once extended longevity is created, everyone can become immortal. It's not as far away as you might think, we may even be the last generation that has to truly suffer old age. Hopefully

 

[theultimateend]

Because I don't want to die.

Simple as that.

This and I expect we actually will survive long enough to go into space. I'd like to be around to watch the whole thing unfold.

I suspect immortality would net you at LEAST ten thousand years of interesting advances before things might go to crap.

I dont want immortality. If there is no end then life is meaningless.

Maybe it is because I'm tired but this was one of those lines that gave me that silverman face.

I imagine it sounded way smarter in your head maybe?

 

[Thyunda]

Look at it like this. Life is brief. It's like peering through a keyhole into the outside world from a windowless prison. You can see so much happening...maybe good, maybe bad, or a mixture of both. Maybe your jailers will even let you hold somebody's hand while you look at it. But then, you're pushed away from the keyhole, and thrown back into your box. Despite what you saw through that keyhole, there is more. You know there is more. So much more than one glance can offer you.

And that's what immortality is. Immortality is to own that window, so you can see everything that happens. You could use your undying power to help people, to further your own gain, or just to watch.

 

[idodo35]

simple
death is scary
people would like avoiding death
people want to be imortall.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

Because I can cope with lose. I can't cope with my own death. Being immortal would also mean that I could help prevent the fall of mankind by offering the centuries of knowledge and wisdom I would have aquired.

 

[Baron Samedi]

Well, I don't want immortality. Not because I don't want to suffer from the infamous event of watching the world and everyone in it slowly die, but because it would take all the fun out of my life.

I mean, you're immortal: you can't die and chances are any damage done to your body will reverse itself. You don't age and have all the time in the universe. Since you can't die, you'll probably do everything and ANYTHING you could ever want to. It may be fun to repeatedly through yourself of skyscrapers or get shot without consequence but, give a couple of thousand years, you will find that you've done everything and nothing will feel new or exciting and you will be eternally board.

A good example of this is Wowbagger, "the infinitely prolonged" from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the hitchhikers universe people who are born immortal know how to cope with it, but anyone who isn't becomes board and miserable with life. So, Wowbagger had an accident with something like a particle accelerator and a few other objects and thus became immortal. But after living for a few centuries he became board and miserable like an old granddad. Eventually he decided to keep himself busy by taking a time machine and using it to insult everyone who ever lived. Just look him up on wikipedia or something for more details or a better description.

Anyway, like Wowbagger, if I became immortal I would become board with life after doing pretty much everything. Also, if you did become immortal you would have to think of how the world will react to your immortality rather than yourself. I mean, you could be ridiculed and harassed by the public and religious groups who may see you as some sort of threat. Also, the military may want to use you in wars since you can't die and even run tests on you to try and make others like you!

In short, immortality would suck.

 

[Soods]

I'd love to see the future, and sadly the easiest way to see the future is to not die for a few hundred years. Thus immortality would suit my needs perfectly. Also: no more fear of death and nothingness.

 

[odanhammer]

Its human nature to not want to die. Being immortal is a human dream. In the next 50 years people will be able to life to 150 with some ease in a 100 years that might double with the way current medical trends are going.
Myself i would be interested to watch the next 10,000 years of human history , even if it turns out that humans kill themselves off in 100 years. Life will always find a way , and being around to watch it grow and come back and evolve would be amazing.
I loved the movie The Time Machine for its travel parts, however it was a pretty bad movie otherwise.

 

[gnaskar]

There are two types of people in the world. The one's who want to be immortal, and the suicidal. When it comes down to it, the question is that simple: do you want to die? And humans are genetically geared towards answering that question with a resounding no.

To clarify: I don't want to live forever. I want everybody to live forever. I want to experience zero gravity, other star systems, virtual reality games, first contact with an alien race.

 

[Yan007]

Pretty much everything we do is to sustain ourselves and stay alive. Becoming immortal would pretty much mean you won the game of life.

 

[Boom129]

end of the day, dying is bad, its that simple

then explain why every organism dies

Dying is natural in no way is natural synonymous with good.
Things die because the system is too damaged to maintain function or repair itself, its similar in many ways to writing off a car, the whole purpose of reproduction is that when death does happen the species doesn't go with it