Do you want to live forever?

[Fluttershutter 2,543]

That all depends on the type of immortality. Don't really care that the topic arbitrarily applied such rules as still being able to die.

 

Even if I could, that doesn't mean my mindset for how to respond to pain would be the same. Especially if survival, one of the main reasons pain is unpleasant in the first place, is no longer a factor.

 

As for the development of space travel, anything could happen. If I had to I could do it myself. I'd have the time to make it happen either through funding or doing it myself.

 

Technically we already have space travel. The issue is with sustainability of resources in environments not suited to human life.

Okay, have fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like pizza

Edited February 12, 2017 by Fluttershutter

[Denim&Venöm 19,384]

I would actually. There's so much to do in life, and so many great things to experience. I want to have time for the present and see what greatness the future has in store. 

 

Live until I die of proton decay. Or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 millenia

[Widdershins 9,960]

I just want to say I am really surprised a lot of people genuinely say no. I was always confused about why, when you read books, when immortality comes up, theres always something like, "no one would want to live forever, its a curse". Which personally I always considered extremely contrived and just bad writing for being 'unbelievable and out of character' that everyone just accepts this philosophy unquestioningly. But actually, a lot of people don't want to live forever... who knew?

   Take Doctor Who & his companions for example. Or Captain Jack Harness (I'm guessing here, didn't like him enough to fully remember his name) who was the one companion who did gain immortality and his own spinoff show. Actually, Jack & Who have two different types of immortality. The Doctor can still die, feel the pain of it, but Jack is simply unstuck in time & his body just resists time.

   But anyhow, The Doctor still remembers his friends, the ones he didn't save. You still keep with you the bad memories of their bad ends. He can still distinctly remember a good 20 out of 50 companions who have died because he couldn't help them in time. So how's he going to react knowing full well his life style is a danger to anyone who tries to reach out to him in friendship? When you know your a permanent fixture but nothing else is, it weighs on you pretty heavily how temporary everything is. When you can take a bullet for your friends, you'll feel the urge to protect alot better because you can. But that responsibility wears you down too.

    It's the comparison really. Superman can literally do everything & be everywhere, but if he does that he becomes a god where everyone comes to him at every moment of the day for help, or get pissy when he can't. What good does immortality grant you when you see your friends age, experience life, raise families and your still in the same shape, with the same goals, and still you. Unchanging.

 

   Turtles are known for their long life spans & their slow, heavily defended & calm. Trees have the functional immortality that the Original Poster brought up & their even less sentient. A tree doesn't care if you nail a several inch thick spike into its flesh because in a few decades that gaping wound will just seal shut again.

     Immortality brings with it a sense of pointlessness. Granted, we kind of all go through a nihilist streak in our youth, but age brings acceptance. To a point. I think the Doctor Who series brings up the topic quite frequently. I think that's why the Doctor is the way he is. He's lived so long, that even if he did have children, they would have wandered off into the void of space & time by now and could be doing anything for as long as he's been around. ( Jenny's forgotten story COUGH COUGH) It's why he helps people, because only in the here & now, when things are at a crises point does he still know that he's making a difference because he can still see it. It's why he's rather petulant, silly, frivolous, grumpy & sullen at times. Because as long as he keeps running he keeps seeing new things, finding new things to live for. If he stops to look at himself, he dies a death he can't live with.

[Jon the VGNerd 887]

If only it was possible. Sure most people don't wanna live forever and love to see Heaven, but they have to realize Earth is dying as a result of economic depression, social instability, governmental allegations, constant deforestations, you name it. Some of us want to stay a bit longer and try to save Earth ourselves to try and fix the aforementioned issues or die trying.

[Snow Frostflame 3,568]

Not really... I would kinda like to live forever so long as I don't age, and can't die from age, but I can die from everything else.

 

Though if I could I would also love to carry all my memories with me if reincarnation is really a thing. Sure I believe in heaven, but I also believe in past lives.

[Fixedys 501]

Well, not immortal, but longer than the average human life span. But if I had to live forever, i'd love to as long as I don't age.

[Valeska 184]

I wouldn't mind living to be an old age as long as I am healthy and not in pain. I don't want to live forever in this world. It would get really boring and tiring.

[Princess_Bellalatanya 1,053]

I would like to live forever,but when i die as a human,id become a pony in equestria and live there eternally

[Le Trotteur Sauvage 13,052]

Live forever ? To see my family my friends die before me ? To see my own child die ? To be alone in a world that keeps going on but on my head I will be stuck on the 2000's ? To see new war, new terror, new disease...?
No, I prefer my life as a mortal !

[Cosmic Breeze 51]

Funny how one of my own characters (not in the MLP fandom, mind you) is going to go through this exact ordeal of not being able to die from age (and is locked in that certain age as well).  He can still theoretically die from other causes though.  How I'm planning to write it out is that it's most definitely a curse, and that is also my opinion on it as well.  Sure, you may see astounding technologically advancements in the future and distant future, and may even become the smartest of them all because of how long you might live to study it all, but what kind of life is it to watch all of your friends and family fall to the clutches of time while you're left behind?  And even if you make new friends, and maybe even have children, countless times, it'll be the exact same fate.  You'll see them born, live, die, and repeat; born, live, and die, while you just keep on living.

 

You'll be the only one free from the chains of time while everything else just decays.  I could only imagine what that would do to someone's mind, to live like that.  It might make them live such a bitter, cold life, or drive them insane eventually.

 

So yeah, the only pros I see in living an eternal life is not experiencing death, and being able to stick around for an entire species (or more) worth of history before extinction or evolution.  The cons being that you will see everything slowly decaying, all of your friends and family, old and new, dying over and over, and possibly going insane since we really don't know how living eternally may affect the human mind.

 

It'd be a different story if you are able to have a group of friends or family also become immortal with you.  Maybe then, I might be alright with it.

[Sir Hugsalot 9,352]

I am suprised nobody did this:

 

Not anymore

 

As for me... yes. Of course I am well aware of issues, like watching the ones I love dying, but honestly? As much as seeing people die around me hurts it never was some kind of unbearable pain that caused me to suffer from depression. I can handle it. Only catch is I'd rather not get older than 40 years old physically :v 

 

And why? What to say? I, just like most people don't want to die. I don't want my life to end abruptly, wether there is something after death or not. There's much to see in this world, most of it I probably will never witness and this is a thing I simply don't like. Deep inside I want to travel a lot and one life is too short for it D: 

[Violet_S 785]

Nope. Nope. Nope. and Nope. I prefer to live as a mortal >.< having to see everyone you meet in your life die at some point while you stay the same could be heartbreaking... there will come a time in which I'll feel completely alone ... 

[WokeSmeed 124]

Not forever, but a long time? Sure. I'd love to see how the world's like in the distant future. I'd love to see if we manage to start up a colony on the moon or Mars. I'd love to see the Andromeda galaxy collide with ours. I'd love to see how the continents end up. I mean, there's also the issue of seeing people I love die and stuff. That's been written a thousand and a half times, so I don't know what else I could say other than "it would suck."

 

So, I guess I'd like to be able to not die of old age. On the subject of choosing what inevitably kills me off, I'd prefer to stay away from diseases or overdoses or relatively anticlimactic stuff. It might be my stories speaking, but I'd like something a little more exiting, or at least to have a purpose. 

[Widdershins 9,960]

I wouldn't mind living to be an old age as long as I am healthy and not in pain. I don't want to live forever in this world. It would get really boring and tiring.

 

 

 

The cons being that you will see everything slowly decaying, all of your friends and family, old and new, dying over and over, and possibly going insane since we really don't know how living eternally may affect the human mind.

 

   Perhaps, my own viewpoint is a tad askew from my own personal experiences but I feel there's an important question there that I want to ask. Isn't that what life already is? What difference is there between living a million years or two decades?

 

   Sure, not many have the poor luck to watch numerous beings in their life pass on before them. Be it some shell-shocked soldier from a war where he was the only survivor of his band of friends or... you've just lost an awful lot of pets in your lifetime. No matter how long you live, chances are high you'll still outlive somebeing you care about or have dull moments. But life is life regardless of its length or quality. I still hold that immortality is something no one should wish for.

 

   I feel there is two types of immortality. Being simply stuck in time & invulnerable(like the Doctor, Jack Hartness & possibly the Royal Sisters of this fandom) and simply not being capable of dying. (Like Deadpool, Wolverine and... well, okay, my own OC!)

  It's said that you'd be surprised what the human body can survive, but how much would you really want to? Take Wolverine for example. A bullet to the brain isn't going to kill him as he can just regenerate around it. But... there still is a bloody bullet in his bloody brain that still bloody well hurts! Sure, your own immortality's rules may hold precedence, but what life is being kicked around as just a wise-cracking head? But that's what I see life as, the experience.

 

  Even if your stuck in constant pain, or spending entire decades in boredom, you live on in spite of those experiences; you live on FOR those you have outlived. As negative as it can be, that's where I feel the blessing to the curse is. With Immortality you know there will always be more time to do something about it, to make things right, to have more happiness ahead. No matter how horribly past experiences turned out, you know there will always be time to just sit down & be a good friend.

 

"Every Curse has its Blessing."

Huh, I oughta write that one down!

[Ando333 135]

If I was  given the opportunity to choose, I would choose yes. Although odds are that I would feel very isolated once I go beyond the average life time, the same way now I don't feel very identified with people that are 10 years younger than me (because everyone close to my age would eventually die except for me). But I would still choose to live forever since that's not my main priority I guess. I feel I don't have anything to lose by living forever except for that detail.

Edited March 1, 2017 by Ando333

[wastedtoaster 2]

Depends if I don't look like bones by age 120, then I will be fine with living to at least 400 years old, or until the world ends.

[I used to be a stranger 7,994]

This post has been redacted by the author.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Blue

[Guest]

To me eternal life sounds like the biggest torture ever. Anything lasting forever, without stopping, sounds not only boring, but also absolutely horrifying.

[GiFTGewEhrSCHutzen-4 8,828]

In the current state I'm in right now. Yes. I want to live forever! As in like Deadpool-live-forever-despite-how-many-times-get-blown-to-bits-and-pieces Forever. :=:

[Buck Testa 5,505]

I really don't understand peoples aversion to living forever, Especially when it doesn't mean you'll age as time goes on. Once your dead, you're gone. That's it. 

 

Not to mention that we would basically NEED to figure out how to live forever or at least for an extremely extended period of time if we want to travel to habitable planets and have such a thing be feasible. Either Warp travel would need to become a thing, or the crew needs to be alive and functional by the time they get there, probably with generations of people along for the ride by then. 

 

So yes, I think it would be a great idea, and an inevitability if we want to colonize other worlds. 

[Crypty Scribbles 5,382]

Yes. I'm always interested what will be next. It's really exciting to have a possibility to watch a history of humankind and even participate in it ^-^ I'm super happy that I live now instead of century ago, but sad that I will never see how it will be a century after.

 

Random pic of eternal princess:

Edited March 14, 2017 by Crypty the Explorer

[Kronos the Revenant 1,971]

If one were to extend their lifetime by any amount of time, even if it's just once, that would possibly lead them to not try a lot of different things. Do you know why people try to make their lives as exciting as possible? Mortality. It's our absolute mortality that motivates us to do our best in life and to do the things we all want to do as soon as possible. Having an extended lifespan would just make us all put those ambitions on hold for an unknown amount of time. That being said, since you put the condition that we can still die from mortal causes and the only thing we're extending is the amount of years we can live and not exactly be immortal by any means, I would still try to live a normal life so that I can at least be motivated to do what I need and want to do while I still have the time.

[man dude man 555]

I really don't understand peoples aversion to living forever, Especially when it doesn't mean you'll age as time goes on. Once your dead, you're gone. That's it. 

 

Not to mention that we would basically NEED to figure out how to live forever or at least for an extremely extended period of time if we want to travel to habitable planets and have such a thing be feasible. Either Warp travel would need to become a thing, or the crew needs to be alive and functional by the time they get there, probably with generations of people along for the ride by then. 

 

So yes, I think it would be a great idea, and an inevitability if we want to colonize other worlds. 

It is already organically conceivable....you just have a new medium for your consciousness. as it stands, your body will die no matter what, and many of your organs continue to deteriorate, this is about continuing your consciousness with new organs except for your brain... humans also have been cloned before, but the last wasn't particularly successful, and there is a large outcry  against such a thing, for moderately good reason... it depends when or if we get to a point where we can replicate our own organs, and keep them electronically functioning in an artificial medium for the man or woman.. this is currently more plausible than trying to infuse bionics internally with our human organs... you can recreate your consciousness and become your own donor indirectly, by cloning a comatose version of yourself, which indirectly has the entire make up of your consciousness, and even memory.. Right now, patchwork is possible... the only thing that is beyond home work is creating a means to keep the brain active when transferring bodies, which biologically... IS POSSIBLE.... your consciousness is not  from your heart, and in a long run, if there was a hollow medium for your brain, your consciousness can live in many things, if you have a way to keep the electric pulse in your mind.. duplication an artificial life already exist.. but the methods are a lot more complicated than just taking dna, and taking it from A to B. You need a lot more than just DNA, unless you want to create a malnourished abomination that cant live long term or yet even control its consciousness.(some minds have been preserved... for this reason) and also, you will have to bionically or organically find a way to give your nerves response, and at the very least create a way to create periphery all the same... but as I spoke about using duplicates of ourselves, would be the most efficient and compatible way to achieve conscious immortality. Being a home surgeon however is just an inefficient way to improvise with the anatomy you understand, without sanitary clearing, or years of practice and credentials, on your own, you will most likely never achieve immortality, but you are capable of more than you believe as it stands...

Edited March 14, 2017 by Rose Coil

[Buck Testa 5,505]

It is already organically conceivable....you just have a new medium for your consciousness. as it stands, your body will die no matter what, and many of your organs continue to deteriorate, this is about continuing your consciousness with new organs except for your brain... humans also have been cloned before, but the last wasn't particularly successful, and there is a large outcry  against such a thing, for moderately good reason... it depends when or if we get to a point where we can replicate our own organs, and keep them electronically functioning in an artificial medium for the man or woman.. this is currently more plausible than trying to infuse bionics internally with our human organs... you can recreate your consciousness and become your own donor indirectly, by cloning a comatose version of yourself, which indirectly has the entire make up of your consciousness, and even memory.. Right now, patchwork is possible... the only thing that is beyond home work is creating a means to keep the brain active when transferring bodies, which biologically... IS POSSIBLE.... your consciousness is not  from your heart, and in a long run, if there was a hollow medium for your brain, your consciousness can live in many things, if you have a way to keep the electric pulse in your mind.. duplication an artificial life already exist.. but the methods are a lot more complicated than just taking dna, and taking it from A to B. You need a lot more than just DNA, unless you want to create a malnourished abomination that cant live long term or yet even control its consciousness. 

 

As someone who's written a bunch of transhumanist threads on this site I totally agree with you on this point that it is possible via integrating with technology. However such a proposal has limitations on the evolutionary front, at least in terms of biological evolution. 

 

Also the type of immortality you are describing with the clones is just copying your brain. YOU would no longer exist, it would just be an exact replica of you with all your memories. Not exactly an ideal scenario. If you however took your brain and put it into another, younger body, that would maintain your particular self without copying your consciousness. The brain has to be in tact for you to still be you so to speak. 

 

However I would propose genetically engineering a more durable and capable species organically from humans. Make them more resilient to radiation, harsher conditions, more variable gravity conditions, bodies that do not break as easily, and an echo system to go along with these new people. Biological Evolution still has far more benefits and versatility than technology at the moment, and I'd rather be on par with the A.I when the singularity of human level intelligence happens than be trounced by something billions of times smarter than us lol.  

[man dude man 555]

As someone who's written a bunch of transhumanist threads on this site I totally agree with you on this point that it is possible via integrating with technology. However such a proposal has limitations on the evolutionary front, at least in terms of biological evolution. 

 

Also the type of immortality you are describing with the clones is just copying your brain. YOU would no longer exist, it would just be an exact replica of you with all your memories. Not exactly an ideal scenario. If you however took your brain and put it into another, younger body, that would maintain your particular self without copying your consciousness. The brain has to be in tact for you to still be you so to speak. 

 

However I would propose genetically engineering a more durable and capable species organically from humans. Make them more resilient to radiation, harsher conditions, more variable gravity conditions, bodies that do not break as easily, and an echo system to go along with these new people. Biological Evolution still has far more benefits and versatility than technology at the moment, and I'd rather be on par with the A.I when the singularity of human level intelligence happens than be trounced by something billions of times smarter than us lol.  

This is where the Cyborg conundrum comes from, what purpose is there to be in this fleshy vulnerable body when I can transcend such a thing, including more worldly desires and convictions, my body will live forever, and create consciousness electronically..(which our brains already do many do not know. ) and as for keeping the brain intact to speak, this is what I mean by creating a medium to keep your consciousness alive whlen going from A, to B, for Immortality, there would INDEFINITELY have to be a C...