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Would you want to be immortal? Are there conditions you would want if so? I'm reading a sci-fi novel called "Excession", and there's a lot of ideas about immortality in there. Sentient ships that live for millennia (who pass the time by running elaborate universe simulations), consciousness storage so that the mind could survive the destruction of the body, and "sublimation", where a society's technology and knowledge transcends the trappings of ordinary existence leading to a withdrawal into a kind of pure contemplation.
For myself I couldn't imagine choosing immortality. Maybe it's because I am a depressed person whose ability to experience joy is very diminished. I'm not sure that if technology were so advanced that I could be "fixed", if that would change my aversion to the thought of life going on and on. In the book, when people get tired of living, some choose euthanasia, while others choose to be put into storage and woken up when certain conditions are met, such as their society sublimating, or when some other personal event occurs. I don't know if I'd want that "wait and see" option, instead of finding out with lies beyond death, even if it is oblivion. It all feels like hubris to me... perversely turning away from what we were all destined for.
On the weekend I resurrected my old raspberry pi and got the pi-hole ad blocker working on it. Also was successful writing a python program to count letter frequencies in Wordle. Really rudimentary stuff but it felt good to have a little success as a perpetual sucky noob at programming. Think next weekend gonna check out python data visualization to hopefully make some useless graphs. If I lived thousands of years like those sentient ships I would still probably be doing neophyte computer stuff and writing shitty blogs.
 
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France12906 Posts
Living forever seems as scary to me as dying, since nothing would make much sense either in that case
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Norway28719 Posts
FOREVER is too long, like, I don't want to be the only remaining thing after the heat death of the universe is over or whatever. But if I had the option of ending it myself at some point, yes, absolutely.
It would require a bunch of contingency plans though. Like, figuring out a way to avoid potential eternal imprisonment (as a consequence of society realizing that I'm immortal and considering me a danger for that reason). Maybe strapping a bomb to myself (I'll survive the blast anyway), or doing the whole relocate and change ID every 20 years just as people are becoming suspicious of my non-aging. Living for 1000 years instead of close to 100 would be an absolute yes yes yes yes yes yes (assuming I don't deteriorate at a normal rate and spend years from 95+ being wheelchair bound in a nursing home  ).
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I've already spent billions of years not being alive, and I don't recall it being so bad, so I try to be sanguine about the fact that I'll be returning to that state after this short respite. And I wouldn't want to literally live forever; everything is temporary, including everything that makes life enjoyable. The earth will at some point no longer exist, humans will no longer exist, stars will no longer exist, even matter will at some point no longer exist. I'd want to stop long before I was just floating alone in the void. If I could stick around for long enough to find out how the story ends, how the rest of human history plays out, that would be neat, though. Ideally with some kind of option for a quick and painless end if I found that life stopped being worth living.
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I assume immortality is reached through technological advancement which means I would not be the only one.
Either there is a way to keep the body and mind from falling apart over time(rapid zell regeneration or something along those lines) or disconnect body and mind and be either a robot/ android kind a beeing or clone new bodies and connect the mind again.
First option count me in.
Second option, not so sure. Probably yes
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I don't want immortality. I want to live long enough to pilot a ship through the milky way.
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depends on physical movements. I do not want to live 10++++ years on a wheelchair or unable to go upstairs.
Doctors and Scientist should look how to extend our physical movement, so that you walk/move like a 40y person if you are 75 years old.
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Wanting to be immortal is a bet on this state of being being better than the next. You lose your 'I', but who's to say that the next you wouldn't be better off? In that regard the theory of reincarnation doesn't seem far off, so humans are free to create their own paradise, or hell depending on whether they place more worth on the quality of their current life rather than a possible future life. And who's to say that a new you can't 'respawn' on other planets?
Life at its core just gives two goals: To survive and procreate.
In my ignorance I wouldn't be willing to spend an eternal lifetime on earth.
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Northern Ireland26179 Posts
I think I’d rather like 100/200 years as a late 20s early 30s person than being immortal.
I’d also take being some kind of non-corporeal being just observing what humanity does next, that’d be kind of cool.
One thing I hadn’t considered, and I wish I could find the article but our brains aren’t wired for immortality. Aside from actual physical decline, we’re kind of plugged in to a certain cadence of existence.
You could conceivably go mad existing far beyond what our brains have naturally evolved to process. It’s rather uncharted territory and quite intriguing to consider
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I really would like to be immortal granted that my body and my mind would mantain a reasonable good shape. I am frankly surprised no one seems to desire it: there are so many interesting things to do, to learn, to see that the more time I could have the more i will be happy
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Eh, depends on if like, i'd be operating out of a super old body. Like would I be immortal in a 40 year old body or would it be closer a 90 year old?
I don't think I'd like to be immortal immortal, but a few centuries of life would be great.
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EPT
