im curious...what does it take for someone to be immortal?

Dresden

im curious...what does it take for someone to be immortal? i was having this argument with a friend, but was never finished, and we never seem to be able to start again... anyone care for a duel?

nannoh

They'd have to be made of energy (which can be neither created nor destroyed).

Wait! Everything is made of energy so everything is immortal. Problem solved.

Dresden

just because they are made of energy, that does not mean that they are immortal. the engergy itself is never ending, however it CAN change form, therefore WE can change form, hence die as we would not have the same human (or animal) form

Rade

First from various dictionaries:

1. Not subject to death: immortal deities; the immortal soul.
2. Never to be forgotten; everlasting: immortal words.
3. Capable of indefinite growth or division. Used of cells in culture.
4. One whose fame is enduring.
5. Exempt from oblivion; imperishable

Thus, your OP question, "what does it take for someone to be immortal",
two options are open, the first relates to physical existence (do not die, or have indefinite cell division)--perhaps someday given advances in genetics ?

The second option is more likely for humans--to have fame enduring, to never to be forgotten. For example, Aristotle is immortal in this sense of the term.

But I would suggest that the concept can be expanded to existence itself (and not just humans as presented in the OP) , and would offer that ....to be immortal is to be in infinite motion ...

nannoh

These are good points Rade. But my question is how can we know or even recognize "infinity"? How can we know immortality if it "never ends". The idea of never ending requires the contrast of something actually ending. How can one know with absolute certainty that eternity never ends? Pretty well goes on faith I guess.


Is it because someone told us about eternity that we know about it or is it a Jungian-type collective ideal of some sort?

ptalar

Does this energy have an eternal conscious that transcends all forms it takes? I think not because I can't remember my former forms that I was in the past. Any thoughts?

Rade

We know it "because" it never ends. For example, consider the limit (L) of the calculus, no matter how hard you try you can never reach (L), the process of trying to reach (L) = infinity. Second, consider the number line, both positive and negative, no matter how hard you try you can never find the "ends of the line", --again, the process of taking a new number and forming union with the line = infinity. The immortal is like the infinite, it is never whole, it is never complete, it is always "taking a part outside what has been already taken" (from Aristotle, Physica, Book III, Chapter 6).

nannoh

Theoretically this makes sense. Mathmatically it does as well. But, as observers we are in no condition to prove infinity exists. We tend to transform into a corpse or dust after approximately 100 years so we are unable to experencially prove infinity, eternity or immortality exists. Its also my opinion that even if something or someone had existed the full 13.- billion years this universe has proportedly existed, there would still be the uncertainty about whether or not it would be existing for another second, minute, day or week. Makes you want to live for the moment.

Dayle Record

TS Eliot said
"Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know."

He perhaps took a fatalistic view of infinity, and I take the view that if we are as aware as we are able to be, then we are eternal beings at certain still points in our lives. Then strung together, these still points are our inhabitation of infinity. The mundane business of living takes on the numinous promise of infinity, if it is respectfully attended to, and proper attention is paid.

The math of it is undeniably there, one piece of infinity is between another, and another, and another, and we, for whatever reason, are attendants to the process, and note that it exists, in so doing we are a part of this infinite process, and denial, or dogma, or acutely measured cadence of any sort, is just another part of the process, of the eternal from which we will never be separate.

Rade

True, but we are in a condition to intuit that infinity exists [see here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_%28knowledge%29]. And don't put much weight on the fact that humans cannot "prove", such is not the way of science.

nannoh

Well, I guess you have a point. Humans are not in a position to prove anything. The proof must come from the evidence. We simply put the pieces together to satisfy our theories. But do we have a biased selection process when it comes to the pieces we choose?

The link you gave was a "bad title". The error sites invalid characters or something.

Rade

Sorry, try this:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_%28knowledge%29