Thread: Immortality or not?

If you have a body that doesn't age, you still need to keep it from being killed. Only a limited number of people can be immortal, due to limited resources. Since they don't die, at some point you have to use force to stop new mortals from becoming immortal. Or you have to stop mortals from creating more mortals. And you have to compete with mortals for food. Wars, famines, and other disasters come and go. Or else long periods of authoritarian order that suppress the wars and famines, and that power becomes corrupt, in cycles. Eventually you have to commit atrocities to get through it all. You may not have an ethical problem with that, but it requires that you keep your conscience and empathy in a stunted state, to be able to live with yourself. And that mostly precludes attaining wisdom.

The only other alternative is to solve the problem of evil so that you can have both your heart and your immortality. But if that problem even has a solution, its not going to be attained in the pursuit of technological immortality. Find a solution and you already have conscious immortality as a side effect.

Originally Posted by LouaiB

This boils to one thing:

_Why does an immortal need wisdom of death?
_Is wisdom a mean of knowledge association? Do only we experience wisdom, only intelligent creatures? Is self awareness needs for wisdom, or is it needed only for death wisdom?

Wisdom is what we conclude. Wisdom is knowledge. A man can read a war book, and gain wisdom about war, pain and suffering. You might say he needs to be there to see the real stuff, but that just depends on empathy/sympathy and the book's credibility.

Wisdom is what you learn from experience. A book gives you theory, not experience. There is a profound difference between wisdom and knowledge. You can have knowledge of death, but you have no wisdom of it because (in theory, since I don't have the experience of being you) you've never been present with it. Radical changes happen to people that have brushes with death that would not happen anyways. But you don't need to have a near death experience to see this, you can practice a meditation and be present with death, as well. Then you can gain the wisdom to understand the profundity of the advantage in all its aspects. Only then, otherwise you don't know.

Hmmm... OK, sounds interesting.
Death meditation? Makes me real...dead, in a way?

I've been noticing that the poll, which started out deeply in favor of immortality, seems to be headed for a tie. Yes, 18 DV lurkers does not a survey make, but you do seem to have made an impact, O.P.!

Perhaps I've missed something obvious, but how do we know death meditation is remotely close to actual death? Especially if death meditation leads to a simulation of nothingness, when the reality (which we can't actually prove) is that there is an afterlife.

Death meditation makes one present of the temporary sensation of life. It allows you to account for everything that is not oblivion and see it is fleeting and precious.

You can't imagine oblivion, but you can paint around it by discovering everything that it is not. What you have left over is still a sensation of peace, but the meditation is not really about being comfortable with the sensation of being dead, it's about being comfortable with the sensation of the temporary phenomenon of life.

The way I was originally taught, you imagine your body rotting, maggots and all. The link doesn't go so gruesome, and takes special measure to tell you not to be distracted by your initial depressing reaction to death. I no longer find death a depressing topic, personally, buuut I suppose I can see how one would.

I suppose the fact that it is fleeting and precious is one of the reasons why I would seek to prolong it. As I said in another topic, I believe that life is a rare and, in the majority of cases, a very precious and beautiful thing, to say nothing of sapience and sentience. As such, both life in its entirety and individual instances should exist for as long as possible, if not indefinite.

Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not about to dive into a bomb shelter, whilst wrapped in cotton wool at the drop of a hat. And I would even give my life if I believed the cause was good enough. If its more associated with the temporary sensation of life, shouldn't it really be called mortality meditation? Makes more sense to me, anyways. Either way, I already appreciate life as is, and, while the temporary nature may make me appreciate it more than I would otherwise, I'm still not entirely comfortable with oblivion and I doubt meditation, however accurate or not to the real sensation (not an entirely accurate descriptor, but bear with me), is going to do much to change that.

You are attempting to grasp the concept free from the experience, I will not give you the satisfaction. If you want to understand it, practice it.

Well I am really not a religious person but I don't desire immortality. I`m kind of afraid of it, i think that it could bring a lot of problems. Let`s say that you can achieve it: nobody is going to die anymore--> overpopulation--->increase in food, water, wood, coal, oil and all other ressources demand----> in a few years earth is going to be dryed of ressources--> fight between nations for the remaning ressources---> huge wars---->nations destroiyng eachother---> the number of humans would decrease a LOT---> people doing some really bad stuff to survive---> lack of what makes us ''humans''. This is my opinion about it. And if this does not happen, the human mind its not designed to remember more then 1 century information, so if you would live for 1000 years if you don't ''note'' your identity you`ll forget who you are. Maybe others don't think like so but this is how I see things.. And by the way I`m not a religious person, I`m the kind of guy who combine the religion with science (Like thinking that God created the universe trough big bang) so this would make me a religious person, but its a difference: I don't believe in prayers, in going to church, in heaven or hell and all that things....

A valid point and I agree with you, though we might find ways to remedy those problems over the years (hopefully, before it got really out of hand). I think the question was more asking for personal immortality, so, just you.

Who's to say we'll be stuck on Earth forever? And it's not like we won't still die from disease, etc.

Originally Posted by Sageous

I've been noticing that the poll, which started out deeply in favor of immortality, seems to be headed for a tie. Yes, 18 DV lurkers does not a survey make, but you do seem to have made an impact, O.P.!

Yeah me too.
Well, death makes my awareness disappear, so there is no fear or anything at all when dying. This means it is not scary, but I still feel the want to live forever this joy that I have now.

Well, honestly, I think the thread reached to it's conclusion, right?

I actually deeply fear immortality. I am terrified of being forced to live forever.

(On that note, I fear the idea of a life after this one as well. The lack of freedom to become nothing is rather nerve wracking.)

Originally Posted by Soulless

I actually deeply fear immortality. I am terrified of being forced to live forever.

(On that note, I fear the idea of a life after this one as well. The lack of freedom to become nothing is rather nerve wracking.)

No one said you would be forced to live.

Originally Posted by TimeDragon97

No one said you would be forced to live.

Generally, immortality means you couldn't kill yourself.

Originally Posted by Soulless

Generally, immortality means you couldn't kill yourself.

The immortality we're talking about only encompasses not dying of old age. Things like starvation, disease, and injury could still kill you.

I was thinking of something else.

We don't know what happens after we die, but it's possible that there is a continuation and that we're here for a purpose, and that purpose is temporary. Worse comes to worse, I face Oblivion which is just oblivion, but potentially I could face something else entirely, I could wake from this dream to something I can't even imagine. I don't really want to remove that potential just because I don't have any certainty of it.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

I was thinking of something else.

We don't know what happens after we die, but it's possible that there is a continuation and that we're here for a purpose, and that purpose is temporary. Worse comes to worse, I face Oblivion which is just oblivion, but potentially I could face something else entirely, I could wake from this dream to something I can't even imagine. I don't really want to remove that potential just because I don't have any certainty of it.

How do you know what criteria exist to determine a continuation. Perhaps only those who strived for immortality may join the gods, or perhaps those who were nice to others get sent to oblivion.

As far as you know, there is potential that anything may happen, and you can't predict it.

In fact could be that you are removing your potential for continuation just by having posted that.

Indeed it could, it could also be that what comes after I die is, in fact, a very preferable change from this current existence. Maybe it's easier, the Tibetan Book of the Dead claims being human is the most difficult (and spiritually rewarding) type of incarnation. While I acknowledge the preciousness of such an existence, it might be tremendously relieving to move on to lighter modes of travel.

Again though, it's a personal type of preference. Maybe you'd choose not to give death the benefit of the doubt and instead say since you can't know what happens, best just live forever.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

Again though, it's a personal type of preference. Maybe you'd choose not to give death the benefit of the doubt and instead say since you can't know what happens, best just live forever.

Well the point of my post was that I give neither the benefit of the doubt.

No form of reasoning can discern the reality behind the situation logically. Whether I should live or die and the consequences therein are undefined and will remain so as long as I do not have the meaning of life.

I currently choose to live out my natural life and then die, purely because I do. I want that because to me it feels natural, but how that feeling originated or whether it is the right thing to do I cannot know.

In a way there is a beauty in this situation in that, no decision can be faulted or praised.

I do not necessarily grant death the benefit of the doubt, I play with possibility.

I almost feel like you're taking basic absurdism and transforming it into a nihilistic approach. Almost, it's not quite hard headed nihilism of course. An incapability of knowing does not remove the fruit of the search for knowledge, and a lack of objective meaning does not devalue subjective meaning, inherently. The concept of meaning is not irrelevant simply because it is untouchable.

It's a funny thing we do as existentialists. We advocate in concept that we grasp no essence and merely play a part for a purpose beyond the reasoning of the part we play. But as long as we play, we may as well play it out, our reasoning suggests. Experientially, of course, we instill essence into everything and even if logically we know the essence is granted subjectively, it's only in very brief moments of confrontation with the absurd that we ever truly act like it.

Really, the information, or lack thereof, exists and causes us to choose. The choice you make may simply be acceptance of your nature, but if so and immortality became a possibility would it be your nature to make that choice? And if not wouldn't you be advocating the authentic wild course of natural selection over the directional pivot of civilized man? We accept that man has made all sorts of technology we utilize and it's as natural as a crow dropping nuts from a traffic light. But in some instances we choose to steer away from the potential technology gives us, for example where it's risky or ultimately detrimental. We don't know the outcome, whether we pursue or steer clear of particular technological potential. We make choices based on data and predictions.

You may need to make the choice whether to die, for all you know. This choice has to be based on some amount of data, or lack thereof. Advocates of immortality say there's not enough information to prove an afterlife so they may as well just keep going. I also agree, but I think there's not enough data to prove most things, and though when I was 13 I decided that I should act as though god and the afterlife don't exist since I can't know for sure, I've since moved on from that position. Part of the reason I moved on is because I've compiled such a tremendous amount of data about different cultures' beliefs on the afterlife and it's moved me into a position of more confidence. But what's really helped is ascertaining the nature of consciousness and understanding I can ultimately be free of my identity and the irrational compulsion to continue it. Granted, I can't make the choice to die unless I were in tremendous pain or something. I've very briefly (both in death meditation and DMT) hit that ineffable and insightful feeling I'm trying to promote its examination but if I lived in a world where the only way I had any certainty I would die is if I chose to do so, I don't know. I mean, essentially one also caresses the unknown which, with death, sits at our shoulder at all times anyways, but it's an easy poltergeist to distract yourself from, especially if you have no certain knowledge of its inevitable visitation.