[tenpoundhammer]

Assuming we could keep the human body alive forever, I don't think we could handle it a person would eventually go insane. Also it would get incredibly boring at some point and I imagine the suicide rate would be somewhere near a 100% or at minimum people would allow themselves to die.

I definitely don't want to live forever.

So my answer is No, and no one will ever be immortal.

[pyrrhotech]

What is boring about it? Is living 40 years more boring than living 30? What about living 1000 years instead of living 100 years? At what point does it become boring?

It's hard for humans to conceptualize eternity, so don't think of it in those terms. If I could live in my current body for 1000 years, I'd still never get around to most of my backlog of things I'd like to do.

Boredom is mostly caused by lack of purpose IMO. As long as there is something to learn, something to explore, something to achieve, something new or pleasurable to experience, boredom is the last thing I'd worry about.

[crimsonalucard]

Boredom is a common argument against immortality that is completely derived from pure speculation because nobody has ever lived long enough to experience that feeling of suicidal boredom.

I spend great portions of my life being bored. Never has my boredom ever interfered or had any connection with my desire to live or be immortal. It's pure bullshit to even imply there is a connection.

[Zikes]

I would find it hard to believe there's a single human in all of history that would be bored if they found themselves living in present day. Especially now that we're in the Information Age, more and more boredom is becoming a conscious choice for anyone with an internet connection, rather than an inescapable circumstance.

[crimsonalucard]

I guess it depends on how you look at it. I can be bored and on the internet at the same time.

[jshevek]

Aren't you usually avoiding something, though, when you do that?

[crimsonalucard]

The thing I'm trying and failing to avoid is boredom. In short I try to alleviate boredom by going on the internet, however I am still quite bored.

[tenpoundhammer]

I was bounding this conclusion on the possibility that someone could be alive until the end of time, that could be a million or a billion years . I think under those constraints it's entirely plausible that life would lose all meaning.

[Zikes]

It really depends on what sort of definition you have for immortality. I would say in this case it would be the ability to live until you choose for yourself not to live any longer, not necessarily that you can never die.

I disagree that it would drive people insane, though, excepting the increasing chances for mental illness to set in as we age which I would assume would be solved as a part of the implementation of immortality as a concept. Our perception of time changes as we age, the passing of a single year takes on less and less meaning each time, becomes less of a milestone and more of just another regular occurrence. Depending on how we go about achieving immortality, time may take on dimensions we can't currently understand, and we may even have the option to choose not to perceive its passing at all.

[jshevek]

I don't see how boredom could possibly be a problem. There are so many things I'd find interesting to do, but which are not important enough to warrant the time investment for me - like earn phds in all the sciences, learn a multitude of languages, read and re-read all of the classic literature (in the original language), learn how to paint, to sculpt, to create music. I could spend centuries trying to (re)prove all of the historically important math theoroms. I could spend centuries learning as many martial arts as I could. A few centuries playing chess, a few centuries playing go.

And those are all things I could do without the internet nor virtual reality.

[xjia]

Then I actually wonder how people (with lots of interesting things to do) face death...

[mattmanser]

Siri, what's my favourite memory?

Hi Matt, going on the Mars Safari is your favourite memory.

Siri, store Mars Safari memories, wipe from my soft drive and book a ticket on a Mars safari.

Never bored again.

[crimsonalucard]

I'd rather be bored and alive than dead. Heck a good chunk of my life is already spent being bored.

I'd do unspeakable things for immortality.

[jmorrow977]

Then you should contact me at [e-mail]. Let's cooperate on this.

[xjia]

What if, eventually, you realize it is no longer possible to be immortal?

[crimsonalucard]

It'd be really hard to convince me that immortality is even possible. So it's unlikely I'd get into a situation where I'd be violating certain ethics.

[xjia]

Let me rephrase it like this... How do you face death then? It seems really hard for me now

[Delmania]

It's hard for many people. There's plenty of theories out there that state that much of what we do and much of what we by are motivated by our fear of death and our desire to ignore it. The best way to face death, however, is head on. Look at yourself in the mirror and firmly remind yourself you will die. Find some way to remind yourself of this every day. St. Thomas Aquinas is said to have kept a skull on his desk to remind himself of his morality. At first, you will feel many emotions, fear, anxiety, depression, anger. You may rush around for a bit, trying to get things done. But the more you think about your death, the more you meditate on it, eventually, things will settle down, and you'll ask yourself the right questions: "What do I want to be remembered for? What do I want to achieve before I die?"

[crimsonalucard]

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

[nathan_f77]

Hey, I'll let you die if you want to.

I would personally like to live for as long as possible. I have a lot to live for.

[jmorrow977]

I've made this comment elsewhere in this thread, but if that's the case please get in touch with me. My email is my username @ gmail.com (or see my user profile).