Would be willing to be forever young?

[2D8HP]

How old would you eb willing to get if this hypothetical scenario real?

Since I was in less pain three weeks ago I could go for that.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

For the people who know at which age they should have locked themselves in, who using hindsight can say "I would want to be that age forever": would you actually have locked yourself in at that right moment had it been an option? Or would you have been too early, or too late? At which age do you think you'd have first said "okay, this is exactly old enough"?

[Liquor Box]

For the people who know at which age they should have locked themselves in, who using hindsight can say "I would want to be that age forever": would you actually have locked yourself in at that right moment had it been an option? Or would you have been too early, or too late? At which age do you think you'd have first said "okay, this is exactly old enough"?

My ideal age is a range, and Im pretty sure I would have got within it.

[factotum]

For the people who know at which age they should have locked themselves in, who using hindsight can say "I would want to be that age forever": would you actually have locked yourself in at that right moment had it been an option?

It's impossible to say, really. When I was 20 I didn't really worry much about what I was going to be like at age 47, and I'm pretty sure that my 20-year-old self would look at me now and wonder how the heck I got to here from there. When I started getting my regular back pain I was only in my early 20s, so I wouldn't have looked at that at the time as being something related to aging, because it demonstrably wasn't.

[2D8HP]

Spoiler: On aging

Show

[Bohandas]

If a new form of technology was created that allowed you to be forever young and stop aging would you do it?

Yes, and furthermore I would be willing to commit war crimes to acquire such a thing.

[Bohandas]

I was think more in the sense of not aging and not immortality, you would still die, one day your body would just give up and you can still die by trauma, infections and accidents, you just won't age.

But you can't die of old age though, right?

Because my previous respomse was predicated on not dying of age or age related disease and being able to live forever in a bunker somewhere

[Potato_Priest]

But you can't die of old age though, right?

Because my previous respomse was predicated on not dying of age or age related disease and being able to live forever in a bunker somewhere

I'm with you on that interpretation.

Honestly, the only bad part of this deal would be watching your friends get old and die without you, but I imagine that that still beats dying of old age yourself.

[Blackjack3004]

Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?

[arcas]

Yes. Being forever anything is better than being dead right?

[Bohandas]

Yes. Being forever anything is better than being dead right?

Exactly. Furthermore not being dead is the only reason anyone tolerates being old; or middle aged for that matter

[factotum]

Yes. Being forever anything is better than being dead right?

Er, no? Let's say you got an offer--you can live forever! Unfortunately you'll stink so bad everybody within a mile of you will projectile vomit, and you'll be in constant debilitating pain. Would you really take that offer? Because I certainly wouldn't.

[Zollqir]

I would take eternal immortality and youth (I'm 22) in a heartbeat. I want to get to the future with all the flying cars and space exploration!

[Frozen_Feet]

Yes. Being forever anything is better than being dead right?

Time and life is an illusion. Eternalism is true, all you have been, are and will be is already decided and will be so forever. This includes all those points in the continuum where you are nothing but dust in the grave.

[CosmicHobbit]

No. Think of this: if you were forever young, and never died of old age, you could live forever. But none if your friends and family could. You would live to see the deaths of everybody you love. You would see the deaths of everybody you love's children. On and on. Witnessing death after death. You would have infinite life, but also see infinite funerals. And when the time finally comes, you would die from the end of Earth. Or not, depending on what you believe. The point is, it would be depressing to see your brother have a kid, but know you'll see your brother, your nephew, and youe great nephew die, as well as everybody descended from your great nephew, or to meet the perfect soul mate for you, then watch as they age and die while you stay young. I couldn't handle that. I just couldn't handle seeing everyone I love or have ever loved die.

[2D8HP]

...I just couldn't handle seeing everyone I love or have ever loved die.

You may be surprised by how much you can handle.

[Bansheexero]

I'd go for it as long as I could still die from other causes. Never understood why people like immortality, after the planet blows up and the sun goes out, what would you do then?

[S@tanicoaldo]

You may be surprised by how much you can handle.

Sounds like soemthing an immortal would say.

I'd go for it as long as I could still die from other causes. Never understood why people like immortality, after the planet blows up and the sun goes out, what would you do then?

Float?

[Bohandas]

I'd go for it as long as I could still die from other causes. Never understood why people like immortality, after the planet blows up and the sun goes out, what would you do then?

In that situation you could, over a very very long period of time, spawn a new planet from your blood or hair

[factotum]

I'd go for it as long as I could still die from other causes. Never understood why people like immortality, after the planet blows up and the sun goes out, what would you do then?

Travel to a different star system? The journey will take centuries, but you're immortal!

Mind you, something that happened in the Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman occurs here...he had a chap in that who was immortal (thanks to a bet between Death and Dream), and at one point he fell on hard times. As he asked of Dream at their next meeting, "Do you know how hungry a man can get if he doesn't eat, but can't die?".

[Frozen_Feet]

Travel to a different star system? The journey will take centuries, but you're immortal!

In that situation you could, over a very very long period of time, spawn a new planet from your blood or hair

*groan*

I mentioned people assuming immortality gives you other arbitrary superpowers. These are two cases in point.

First: immortality does not itself give any sort or form of space travel ability. If you'd be jettisoned to the void for whatever reason, chances are you'd be entirely at the mercy of gravity and unable to control your course. Plus, space is a big and sparse. It's entirely possible to end up drifting for millions of years without hitting anything, before falling into a sun or a black hole, where you can't do anything but suffer.

Second: why are you assuming that any sort of immortality which allows you to survive planetary devastation actually allows for any parts of yourself to leave your body? Even if we take for granted an ability of perpetual motion, there's no guarantee any energy produced by you is easily convertible into matter. You might as well be a sealed, impervious container giving out low levels of blackbody radiation, and nothing else.

[factotum]

I mentioned people assuming immortality gives you other arbitrary superpowers. These are two cases in point.

First: immortality does not itself give any sort or form of space travel ability.

Um, if I'd meant some sort of magical space travel ability in my post, I'd have said so. What I obviously meant was that you build a rocket and leave this solar system *before* the place goes kablooey? Still no easy task, don't get me wrong, but considering you've got a few *billion* years to prepare for the event, I'm sure it's not beyond human wit to come up with some way of doing this.

[InvisibleBison]

No. Think of this: if you were forever young, and never died of old age, you could live forever. But none if your friends and family could. You would live to see the deaths of everybody you love. You would see the deaths of everybody you love's children. On and on. Witnessing death after death. You would have infinite life, but also see infinite funerals. And when the time finally comes, you would die from the end of Earth. Or not, depending on what you believe. The point is, it would be depressing to see your brother have a kid, but know you'll see your brother, your nephew, and youe great nephew die, as well as everybody descended from your great nephew, or to meet the perfect soul mate for you, then watch as they age and die while you stay young. I couldn't handle that. I just couldn't handle seeing everyone I love or have ever loved die.

I've never understood why people say that they'd have this sort of problem with immortality. Seeing lots of people you love die isn't some sort of unbearably miserable fate worse than death - it's something that eventually happens to literally every person who has ever loved someone. Personally, I consider seeing thousands of friends and family members die a reasonable price for the opportunity to have thousands of friends and family members.

[Jay R]

I've never understood why people say that they'd have this sort of problem with immortality. Seeing lots of people you love die isn't some sort of unbearably miserable fate worse than death - it's something that eventually happens to literally every person who has ever loved someone. Personally, I consider seeing thousands of friends and family members die a reasonable price for the opportunity to have thousands of friends and family members.

I have a wife, who is an essential part of who I am.

Yes, I know that the odds are that either I will die first, and she will live without me, or she will die first, and I will live without her. Nonetheless, the plan and desire is that we live as much of the rest of our lives together as possible.

My Mom has now lived ten years without Dad. And she's done well. But he was central to her life for 55 years, and that was at the core of their happiness. I hope I have as long with Diane, because that is the core of my happiness.

Similarly, I have friends who have been part of my life for the majority of my time on earth, and are a part of who I am. I have no desire to start over with new friends who weren't a part of my maturation, my schooling, my development, etc.

I still fence with somebody who started fencing the same day I did, 45 years ago.

My life is a story, and it includes people who have been crucial to me for most of that story. Immortality (for myself alone) means that that would not be true.

I'm not suggesting everybody should feel this way. I have no reason to believe that everybody should. But this is how I feel.

You said you didn't understand how somebody could feel this way. I'm not trying to convince you to feel this way, just to help you understand how people could say it.

[Zebalas]

Is floating around is the void of soace really so bad? The view is quite nice.

[2D8HP]

I've outlived:

A son

My father

My grandparents

A girlfriend

My best friend

(and DM)

Nine customers (of the motorcycle shop I worked at for seven years)

At least six co-workers

Other friends

Countless pets

Sorrow lingers, but tears dry.

Being alone with the heat death of the universe might be a bit much though.

[S@tanicoaldo]

People assume loss is devastating sure it's bad but you can survive it, that's the greatest human virtue adaptability. You get used to it.

That's why I like sandman take on a immortal man:

Spoiler

Show

The argument is that when a immortal see all his loved ones die and he doesn't, he gives up the idea of immortality, people who asusme that in my view are ignoring human adaptability.

People do lose loved ones, they do lose everyhting they had, and they move on, why would immortals be any different?

Besides as the comic shows an immortal can see things change and evolve, tecnology and all the comfort they bring, can you iamgine the tecnology that is going to come and make life more awesome? You can't because it's not here but if you were immortal you could for exemple go to other planets somethign we won't be able to do.

So when I see a immortal get all emo and stuff I don't buy it, I belive immortality brings tragic situations and a lot of angst but not in the way the do in most media.

[thorgrim29]

There's a lot of critical things to be said of Aubrey De Grey but I really like his baseball bat to the head analogy. I'm sure I'm not quoting him correctly here since it's been 5 or 6 years since I listened to that TED talk.

Imagine that every morning since the dawn of time everyone gets hit in the head with a baseball bat. It's an accepted, normal fact of live, as normal as growing old and dying is. Sure in recent years helmet technology had advanced and the baseball bat hurts less and leaves less bruises but every morning here it is. In that world if you were to suggest that we should look for a way to remove the baseball bat entirely you would probably run into much of the same objections that people looking into rejuvenation or more singularity-ish technologies. The baseball bat gives meaning to life, without it how would you tell the passage of time, it's a central part of the human experience, is God didn't want us to get hit by a baseball bat he wouldn't have created it, etc...

[Bohandas]

I'd go for it as long as I could still die from other causes. Never understood why people like immortality, after the planet blows up and the sun goes out, what would you do then?

Dream. .

[S@tanicoaldo]

Dream. .

Masturbate? ;p