Immortality.
 

Something that my mind has been grappling with recently is the issue of immortality. Medical technology is ever advancing and it is a real possibility that soon there will be "a last generation to die". But is it wrong for humanity to achieve immortality? If humans became immortal, then childbearing would have to be outlawed. The Earth can only support a certain amount of human beings at a given time. Each successive generation would add continual growth unless it was restricted. If we became immortal, are we denying future generations the right to live? Is immortality immoral as a result?

This is something I seek the answer to.

I'td be good if we reduced reproduction, and just lived maybe 80 years max longer.

But I think this is a good time to say:

IMMORTALITY SUCKS

Immortality only sucks if you have limited imagination.

5 Reasons Immortality Would be Worse than Death | Cracked.com

Read this.

Immortality isn't going to be happening any time soon. There are many reasons why. Most of the life expectancy increases have been due to the great strides in infant mortality. Those who die very young drag the average down a lot. If you base life expectancy with the starting point being age 40, then the advances have not been all that good. I think the extension has been only about ten years since the beginning of modern medicine.

Besides there are still accidents. I'm not some crazy base jumper or anything, but my current recreational activities carry a certain amount of risk. Even if I were immortal from a disease perspective, the law of averages say I would eventually encounter an unfavorable set of circumstances.

5. Watching humanity evolve as an outsider? Awesome. I have incredible curiosity, I want to watch species rise and fall.

4. First off, being considered a god would be amazing. Secondly, I'm immortal, there is no reason for me to stay anywhere, there are 2 billion people on this planet, I could roam for a whole generations worth and never be seen by the same person twice.

3. Got me there, for now. Human expansion slots are moving right along though...

2. Cancels out 1

1. Cancelled out by two, time speeds up, I just have to wait. Something will happen eventually.

6.8 billion actually. :awesome:

Even better.

We ARE advancing more and more every year, but I doubt immortality will ever be accomplished. Even if they found a way for people to maintain perfect health, how will somebody like a murder victim able to live? What happens if a person is mutilated and gets their head cut off or something? I don't think there is any possible way for people to find ways to live through that.

But even if they did manage to find a way through all this, the rest of my post will be in regards to the rest of yours after the part about humanity advancing.

To answer your questions, is immortality denying the next generation the right to live, and is it immoral? I'd have to say no to both. If you think about it, it might seem like it is, but I say no because say we find a way to become imortal, we are doing it to help ourselves. Not to keep the next generation from living. If that, or some other negative action was the purpose for becoming immortal, THEN I think it would be immoral and denying them the right to live. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.


And I know it's really off topic, but I miss watching Avatar too, and also haven't been able to watch it in a while.

I look at immortality as EVE immortality, bridging the gap between machines and our wetwork in the head. Nobody could turn that down, there's too much to experience.

Immortality? I'm glad this came up, I've been doing some quite extensive research into the topic. I believe I have found a way to become immortal by extending telomeres using the enzyme telomerase. There are a few more problems I have to work on though. I also plan to replace my skeleton with either titanium, carbon nanotubes or buckybolts. It would also be logical to implant myself with a system whereby my body regenerates trauma and disease damage at an accelerated rate. I'll make it happen.

Of course I plan to give the technology to no-one, it's far too risky. I intend to be around for thousands of years to come and no-one is going to stop me. This might sound like a joke but I have subtle plans in place already. I will also be limiting my involvement in society as much as possible when my normal lifetime runs out. In a few hundred years I plan to live like this:

http://www.bravenewgamer.com/wp-cont...lusive-Man.jpg

Brilliant game by the way. It's not so far away.

Do you intend to have the eye's as well?

I'll definitely be upgrading my eyes, basically they'll be super adaptive being able to percieve the environment on many different wave lengths. Whether they'll look like that I'm unsure.

It's not that easy. I don't see how anybody could replace their skeleton. Even if they did it piece at a time, how are you going to replace your skull? There is just so much will probably happen differently than it is said. Even if this does manage to work, you can replace anything you'd like, you could still be subject to death. Health-wise, you may survive. But health issues isn't the only thing that causes death.

It may be possible one day to achieve consciousness transfer. In Avatar, the consciousness of Jake was able to be transferred from body to another. As Aihwa mentioned earlier, in Eve Online universe, humans, when they die, have their consciousness transferred to another body by machines that record every single piece of data at the instantaneous moment before death.

There may be ways to circumvent accidents and violent death.