Regular readers know that I am not afraid of death, and in fact consider it a positive good. And so, though I understand why people might want to have a little extra time on this plane, I can’t understand ruining the quality of the whole merely to drag the end out for a few extra years. Nor do I understand the obsession with or demonization of a natural process; all things die, including nations, species, worlds, suns and even the observable universe itself. Furthermore, the idea that extending human life would also extend productive life is science fiction; even now people tend to “run out of steam” over time, and even though people in developed countries live longer on average than they once did, there’s no evidence that canalization of the brain takes place any later than it did in ancient times. What that means is, if you like working your arse off to support the decades-long retirements of a bunch of old dinosaurs whose cognitive norms formed a generation before you were born, just imagine how much you’d love it right now if 90% of the population were born before the Second World War, and a sizeable fraction of the people voting on stuff like sexual rights came of age in an era when it was still considered OK for humans to actually, legally own other humans. The current rulers of our world were mostly born in the 40s-60s, and their ideas provide ample proof of that; imagine how it would be if most of them had been born in the 19th century.
Even if you believe in souls (as I do), you have to recognize that most of the popular ideas about such life-forces (such as the belief that they are somehow connected to rotting corpses after death) are absurd, childish and impossible. There is no such thing as changelessness; there are only differing rates of change. The idea of a changeless entity existing literally forever is utterly ridiculous, and frankly, I think people who imagine they want to live forever – even as a disembodied soul – have not done much thinking about what eternity actually looks like. Compared to Eternity, the 15-billion year life of the current observable universe is exactly the same as Planck time. I don’t mean similar; I mean exactly the same. Indistinguishable. 15 billion years, or 15 trillion, or 15 googols of years (that’s 150,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000), or 15 googolplexes of years, are all exactly the same compared to Eternity. Eternity is an infinite amount of time, which means any finite number, no matter how incomprehensibly large, is exactly as insignificant in comparison to that as the tiniest number one can define. Eternal life wouldn’t be a gift; it would be a horror literally beyond imagining.
I used the read some of the novels for the Shadowrun RPG universe. One of the series dealt with a shadowy group of immortal elves who’d been alive for about 10,000 years at that point (and known each other for most of that time too). Eternally youthful (as far as appearance), nigh-invincible, magically powerful, etc etc. I remember reading a fan complaining that the group of immortals were doing too much bickering and displaying ‘immature, petty’ behavior and that they should be more wise. But I’m thinking, “They’re bored, they’re old, they’ve seen it all, and they’re mostly sick to death of one another. Of course they’re bickering and petty!” One character in particular, Aina, was especially tired of being immortal.
Yeah, immortality might be fun for a couple centuries, but it’d get real old, real quick.
I find this silly. It’s like saying no one should be allowed to keep their car running once it’s 20 years old. It’s ultimately Logan’s Run thinking.
If someone’s life is no longer fun because of boredom, he should get treated for depression.
Not remotely. You go right ahead and strive for eternal life if that’s what you want, and no authoritarian – violent or otherwise – has the right to stop you. I’m just telling you that what you want is both impossible and, though you may disagree, undesirable.
If you have gotten a taste of how good life can be, you want to have more. Living forever is probably going to be impossible, but living a bit, or much longer than a typical lifespan of today is maybe possible.
It might look like science fiction, but what’s science fiction today can be reality of tomorrow. Smartphones is an example of what would have looked very much like science fiction to most people only 20 years ago, but now being a reality.
Well said. Personally I also believe that this existence is a hybrid one and that the body is the part of it that definitely dies and while the other part does not, it may be rather incomplete without a body to run on and has to go looking for a new one to be “somebody” again. Or not. But if I am wrong? So what. Then Monty Python applies with “You come from nothing, you go to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!”. And on the plus side, dying is not something you can fail at. Sure, you can die badly, but in the end, everybody gets there.
One sure way to definitely screw up this life is to be deathly afraid of death. Death is, rather obviously, unavoidable. The only thing you can do is do something worthwhile with the time you have. The ones trying to stay alive as long as possible have lost sight of the difference between quality and quantity. They have sacrificed their rationality to fear. And hence, they lose, at the very least, this life and often also have negative impact on others.
And the perversions they go to to justify their stance… Incredible!
Now, whether eternal life is a problem or not depends very much on the circumstances. If you have a part that only changes very slowly (the “soul”) and a part that gets reset every 30-300 years or so (the body), I think this may work rather nicely. If, however, the whole thing becomes mostly static after a while, that would be a problem and a pretty bad one.
Wanting to live long don’t need to depend on fear of death, but instead, appreciation of life. If you do whatever you can to survive, there is no point in having any fear.
Also, I don’t understand why living healthy should mean not having a good quality of life. By staying away from unhealthy habits you improve your well being, not decresing it.
My take on an endless eternity of life is here: https://paulmurray.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/last-night-i-dreamed-of-heaven/ .
“Living Forever is a Horror”, never really thought about it like that. Life and Death and Time itself are always going to be interesting subjects for those of us that really don’t have an answer for tomorrow and hold on to the hope that what we do in our present is going to carry over into the future. I like that tid-bit about how a lot of people in power still hold on to the mindset of the previous century. Where it was ok to OWN someone. This should not deteriorate the onset of the next century continuing to push forward towards these 30-300 year old bodies in a positive fashion. When we speak in eternal-tense we have this idea of a static existence because we can not perceive a world without our present need for erratic change. (I have always found it interesting how people believe their is no productivity without a physical show of it. Those that hold this belief also feel if they are not moving at any point no change has occurred. “Validation Seekers.” I care for an 84 year old woman who believes she owns me and fits the description very well of a person born in the 19th century, and we have these arguments all the time. She insists that unless she does something no change will occur. Which is sad because the world has been in constant flux, with or without her.)
It is amusing a lot of the time because she will say something that lets me know she is back in the 50’s in her mind and does not really mean what she is saying if she believes she is living in this present.
My issue is the 50’s was only 68 years ago. So how long does it take for our logical= (internal, the soul) to catch up with our physical=(corporeal) selves?
Is it as fast as a thought.
See I am a Dream Weaver and though many don’t believe we can live based on thoughts alone I have been doing it for 30 years now. I “:think it” and the occupation becomes conceptualizing or creating the thought. Wouldn’t that stand to reason of being a better eternal presence, One in which we are no longer hindered by anything and free to create what we think.
Of course even that will be argued and considered childish after a fashion; or science fiction.