[Tapper]

I think this thread is approaching immortality considering there's still posting in it after 2 years.

I don't think I'd like immortality. There's only so much shit you can see and experience before becoming such a cynical bastard you're not worth knowing for others. Everyone immortal... I think murders would increase by a massive percentage. Not to mention, look at how many elderly have problems with today's society because technology is beyond their understanding/ willingness to understand. Now, imagine you're immortal, and this too could happen to you.

Also, consider overcrowding if by technology means this became universally possible. Few people would be able to have kids anymore...

Regarding Heaven: I think my viewpoint of an ideal afterlive does not really mesh entirely with that of a religious/ collective heaven, either - I'm a tad bit too selfish to find sitting at the feet of god until Judgment day a very interesting proposition.

Personally, I'd love an anti-aging treatment culminating in a regular death after a natural life span the best of both worlds.

[Silencer]

Tapper, on 23 May 2011 - 08:42 AM, said:

I think this thread is approaching immortality considering there's still posting in it after 2 years.

I don't think I'd like immortality. There's only so much shit you can see and experience before becoming such a cynical bastard you're not worth knowing for others. Everyone immortal... I think murders would increase by a massive percentage. Not to mention, look at how many elderly have problems with today's society because technology is beyond their understanding/ willingness to understand. Now, imagine you're immortal, and this too could happen to you.

Also, consider overcrowding if by technology means this became universally possible. Few people would be able to have kids anymore...

Regarding Heaven: I think my viewpoint of an ideal afterlive does not really mesh entirely with that of a religious/ collective heaven, either - I'm a tad bit too selfish to find sitting at the feet of god until Judgment day a very interesting proposition.

Personally, I'd love an anti-aging treatment culminating in a regular death after a natural life span the best of both worlds.

Well, assuming the question was only regarding yourself, as in, which would you prefer to...'experience' I guess. Then again, I chose immortality primarily because I don't believe in Heaven, when by definition Heaven is (at least in theory) perfect for everyone, whereas clearly the correct answer for which you'd prefer is 'Heaven' by that defintion - IF you could choose.

Anyway, this is the problem with immortality. Age without youth? Would totally suck balls. Age with youth? Eventually you'd bore yourself into stagnation (or find increasingly insane ways to fill your time). And what of the difference between not dying naturally and simply being impossible to kill? Or if the latter, what of damage? Living for eternity is nice and all, but I'd rather keep my foot/eyes/torso, y'know?

Our tutor tried this in a 'Death and Dying' tutorial. I swear me and my friend were the only ones to realize that the whole exercise was flawed when the so-called 'immortality drug' we were hypothesizing about wasn't defined in any of these facets. Whether people can still die, that makes a difference regarding overpopulation (it adds a facet in deciding whether it is moral or not to mass-release said drug, in context of the question). Whether you can still be physically harmed to the point of practically being disembodied thought alone? Very relevant to how practical the immortality is, how moral it is to make it large-scale.

Hence, the serious complication mass-immortality makes for the question of which to choose. So assuming your family isn't immortal, instead of facing them for dinner every once in a while (and really, how would being immortal affect family ties? Quite a lot, I'd imagine) you'd face eternity without them. Different scenario, yes? Still, similar concern, over whether you'd want to or not.

Anyway, regarding the old-person and tech thing, I think it might be different if you live forever. You might have phases of bitterness/disinterest, but then again, you have a long time to catch back up if you want to later. And I imagine you would, eventually. And what measure is a decade? A century? You're immortal.

And the overcrowding thing is specific to the mass-immortality thing, but you also have to consider that with immortal people, huge construction projects have less burden with regards to time, the biological drive to reproduce is potentially lessened (though again, that depends on exactly how the immortality thing works, plus adds a moral dimension to it, after all, do you then have a responsibility to increase birth control methods?) and you have the best out: space travel. Is not so bad if you make a large enough space-ship. Travel to new planets doesn't bother you so much when you live forever (again, potentially...you'd need enough stable society to make sure people don't go crazy and whatnot, and enough space to not feel cramped for however many years). But that's the problem with mass immortality, isn't it?

Point is, you need to restrict the parameters. Otherwise it's just wild fantasy, and you might as well say "Heaven or God on Earth?" Stupid hypotheticals.

[Tapper]

Silencer, on 23 May 2011 - 09:13 AM, said:

Tapper, on 23 May 2011 - 08:42 AM, said:

I think this thread is approaching immortality considering there's still posting in it after 2 years.

I don't think I'd like immortality. There's only so much shit you can see and experience before becoming such a cynical bastard you're not worth knowing for others. Everyone immortal... I think murders would increase by a massive percentage. Not to mention, look at how many elderly have problems with today's society because technology is beyond their understanding/ willingness to understand. Now, imagine you're immortal, and this too could happen to you.

Also, consider overcrowding if by technology means this became universally possible. Few people would be able to have kids anymore...

Regarding Heaven: I think my viewpoint of an ideal afterlive does not really mesh entirely with that of a religious/ collective heaven, either - I'm a tad bit too selfish to find sitting at the feet of god until Judgment day a very interesting proposition.

Personally, I'd love an anti-aging treatment culminating in a regular death after a natural life span the best of both worlds.

Well, assuming the question was only regarding yourself, as in, which would you prefer to...'experience' I guess. Then again, I chose immortality primarily because I don't believe in Heaven, when by definition Heaven is (at least in theory) perfect for everyone, whereas clearly the correct answer for which you'd prefer is 'Heaven' by that defintion - IF you could choose.

Anyway, this is the problem with immortality. Age without youth? Would totally suck balls. Age with youth? Eventually you'd bore yourself into stagnation (or find increasingly insane ways to fill your time). And what of the difference between not dying naturally and simply being impossible to kill? Or if the latter, what of damage? Living for eternity is nice and all, but I'd rather keep my foot/eyes/torso, y'know?

Our tutor tried this in a 'Death and Dying' tutorial. I swear me and my friend were the only ones to realize that the whole exercise was flawed when the so-called 'immortality drug' we were hypothesizing about wasn't defined in any of these facets. Whether people can still die, that makes a difference regarding overpopulation (it adds a facet in deciding whether it is moral or not to mass-release said drug, in context of the question). Whether you can still be physically harmed to the point of practically being disembodied thought alone? Very relevant to how practical the immortality is, how moral it is to make it large-scale.

Hence, the serious complication mass-immortality makes for the question of which to choose. So assuming your family isn't immortal, instead of facing them for dinner every once in a while (and really, how would being immortal affect family ties? Quite a lot, I'd imagine) you'd face eternity without them. Different scenario, yes? Still, similar concern, over whether you'd want to or not.

Anyway, regarding the old-person and tech thing, I think it might be different if you live forever. You might have phases of bitterness/disinterest, but then again, you have a long time to catch back up if you want to later. And I imagine you would, eventually. And what measure is a decade? A century? You're immortal.

And the overcrowding thing is specific to the mass-immortality thing, but you also have to consider that with immortal people, huge construction projects have less burden with regards to time, the biological drive to reproduce is potentially lessened (though again, that depends on exactly how the immortality thing works, plus adds a moral dimension to it, after all, do you then have a responsibility to increase birth control methods?) and you have the best out: space travel. Is not so bad if you make a large enough space-ship. Travel to new planets doesn't bother you so much when you live forever (again, potentially...you'd need enough stable society to make sure people don't go crazy and whatnot, and enough space to not feel cramped for however many years). But that's the problem with mass immortality, isn't it?

Point is, you need to restrict the parameters. Otherwise it's just wild fantasy, and you might as well say "Heaven or God on Earth?" Stupid hypotheticals.

Well, if you start adding space travel et cetera, you also add circumstantial stuff to the original question. I answered given our current technology and expectations. Immortal to me means 'immune to dying of natural causes' and it is debatable whether or not that includes getting your skull crushed by a falling rooftile, for example

I also think your premises that a decade is nothing to an immortal, is flawed. It is still roughly 3.000 24 hour cycles and that is a very long time to anyone who is bored, and I guess you can create an iPod playlist that would last that time, but even with new music added to it yearly, at some point everything goes stale. The fact you have more time does not make time go faster either.

So, would I prefer heaven? No, I don't believe in it, but I think, if I devote some time to it, that I can design an afterlife I'd personally be happy with. You see, the problem with that is that it is basically a version of how I would love to live my earthly life (but with weather that suits my mood all the time). And that is where the issues start.

In life, (given unlimited funds) you can set things up with other people to your own benefit as an agreement or contract or whatnot (for example, having a private cook). In any afterlife however, I cannot imagine that Michel Roux jr, Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adrià are interested in cooking my lunch and dinner on a daily basis. That might be my heaven, but it won't be theirs, they'd be doing their job, no matter how much they love doing that.

[Silencer]

Tapper, on 23 May 2011 - 09:37 AM, said:

Well, if you start adding space travel et cetera, you also add circumstantial stuff to the original question. I answered given our current technology and expectations. Immortal to me means 'immune to dying of natural causes' and it is debatable whether or not that includes getting your skull crushed by a falling rooftile, for example

I also think your premises that a decade is nothing to an immortal, is flawed. It is still roughly 3.000 24 hour cycles and that is a very long time to anyone who is bored, and I guess you can create an iPod playlist that would last that time, but even with new music added to it yearly, at some point everything goes stale. The fact you have more time does not make time go faster either.

So, would I prefer heaven? No, I don't believe in it, but I think, if I devote some time to it, that I can design an afterlife I'd personally be happy with. You see, the problem with that is that it is basically a version of how I would love to live my earthly life (but with weather that suits my mood all the time). And that is where the issues start.

In life, (given unlimited funds) you can set things up with other people to your own benefit as an agreement or contract or whatnot (for example, having a private cook). In any afterlife however, I cannot imagine that Michel Roux jr, Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adrià are interested in cooking my lunch and dinner on a daily basis. That might be my heaven, but it won't be theirs, they'd be doing their job, no matter how much they love doing that.

But the space travel thing and your Heaven thing are exactly my point about restricting parameters. After all, if we don't, then it spirals out of control. (Plus, as I said, if we have a race of never-dying humans, we WILL develop better technology to deal with overpopulation and hence we WILL have space travel on that scale - unless everyone just gets lazy or bored, which I grant is entirely possible, though in my view extremely unlikely...but the solution/likelihood of that again comes down to how we define immortality.)

As for my assertion of relativity of time - perhaps. I do tend to agree with you that even someone who lives for centuries still experiences the seconds in the same way, unlike how most immortal races are depicted in fantasy...but then, we can't really tell, given, you know, we don't have anyone with eternal age with youth to reference from. Plus, your perception of time does change as you get older - I've noticed differences of how long time feels in retrospect nearly every year for the past decade, for example, and I assume that has to do with the percentage of my life that time takes up (last year, for example, seemed like it had passed by faster than the year before, and so on...presumably because it was 1/19th of my life rather than 1/18th, you see?). Whether this is relevant to a discussion of immortality is up in the air, but I feel it would play a part.

I would contend also that having MORE time makes time less precious, and therefore 'easier' to waste, if you will. And there are plenty of folk out there who do nothing but waste their time. Again, the years piling up probably have an effect on this, but then we're back to debating hypotheticals - and worse yet, a hypothetical based off another hypothetical! It just gets more and more complex and presumptive the further we go, especially when all we have to go off is our own experiences which are, again, limited in relation to what we're talking about. Sure, it's relative up to the point that we're experiencing time - but the way we experience that time is shaped by knowledge that it is not infinite, it's shaped by the fact that we age, that we have biological imperatives, so on and so forth. Heck, immortality might be identical to mortality up until, say, 200 years. Then you start to change your perception?

Anyway, your point regarding Heaven is pretty much the same as my take on it. Hence why I chose immortality when this was first posted. However, again, the idea of Heaven as perfection *technically* makes it stupid to choose otherwise. Then again, it comes back to restrictions - Christian Heaven? Personal Heaven?

Ugh. See my point about hypothetical choices? We are, like that other thread, I think, arguing the same point at its core, Tapper. >.< Why do we keep doing this?

[Tapper]

Silencer, on 23 May 2011 - 10:43 AM, said:

Tapper, on 23 May 2011 - 09:37 AM, said:

Well, if you start adding space travel et cetera, you also add circumstantial stuff to the original question. I answered given our current technology and expectations. Immortal to me means 'immune to dying of natural causes' and it is debatable whether or not that includes getting your skull crushed by a falling rooftile, for example

I also think your premises that a decade is nothing to an immortal, is flawed. It is still roughly 3.000 24 hour cycles and that is a very long time to anyone who is bored, and I guess you can create an iPod playlist that would last that time, but even with new music added to it yearly, at some point everything goes stale. The fact you have more time does not make time go faster either.

So, would I prefer heaven? No, I don't believe in it, but I think, if I devote some time to it, that I can design an afterlife I'd personally be happy with. You see, the problem with that is that it is basically a version of how I would love to live my earthly life (but with weather that suits my mood all the time). And that is where the issues start.

In life, (given unlimited funds) you can set things up with other people to your own benefit as an agreement or contract or whatnot (for example, having a private cook). In any afterlife however, I cannot imagine that Michel Roux jr, Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adrià are interested in cooking my lunch and dinner on a daily basis. That might be my heaven, but it won't be theirs, they'd be doing their job, no matter how much they love doing that.

But the space travel thing and your Heaven thing are exactly my point about restricting parameters. After all, if we don't, then it spirals out of control. (Plus, as I said, if we have a race of never-dying humans, we WILL develop better technology to deal with overpopulation and hence we WILL have space travel on that scale - unless everyone just gets lazy or bored, which I grant is entirely possible, though in my view extremely unlikely...but the solution/likelihood of that again comes down to how we define immortality.)

As for my assertion of relativity of time - perhaps. I do tend to agree with you that even someone who lives for centuries still experiences the seconds in the same way, unlike how most immortal races are depicted in fantasy...but then, we can't really tell, given, you know, we don't have anyone with eternal age with youth to reference from. Plus, your perception of time does change as you get older - I've noticed differences of how long time feels in retrospect nearly every year for the past decade, for example, and I assume that has to do with the percentage of my life that time takes up (last year, for example, seemed like it had passed by faster than the year before, and so on...presumably because it was 1/19th of my life rather than 1/18th, you see?). Whether this is relevant to a discussion of immortality is up in the air, but I feel it would play a part.

I would contend also that having MORE time makes time less precious, and therefore 'easier' to waste, if you will. And there are plenty of folk out there who do nothing but waste their time. Again, the years piling up probably have an effect on this, but then we're back to debating hypotheticals - and worse yet, a hypothetical based off another hypothetical! It just gets more and more complex and presumptive the further we go, especially when all we have to go off is our own experiences which are, again, limited in relation to what we're talking about. Sure, it's relative up to the point that we're experiencing time - but the way we experience that time is shaped by knowledge that it is not infinite, it's shaped by the fact that we age, that we have biological imperatives, so on and so forth. Heck, immortality might be identical to mortality up until, say, 200 years. Then you start to change your perception?

Anyway, your point regarding Heaven is pretty much the same as my take on it. Hence why I chose immortality when this was first posted. However, again, the idea of Heaven as perfection *technically* makes it stupid to choose otherwise. Then again, it comes back to restrictions - Christian Heaven? Personal Heaven?

Ugh. See my point about hypothetical choices? We are, like that other thread, I think, arguing the same point at its core, Tapper. >.< Why do we keep doing this?

Because we play mafia, of course Symping (and dressing it up as an entirely different idea) is second nature.

[Cyphon]

I'd take immortality, only as long as I could be adopted into the Clan MacCloud and have Sean Connery teach me how to fight with swords.