Can Humans Mentally Handle Immortality?

[Ferris_bg]

Let's imagine in the near 2k years humans find a way to stop aging, would they be mentally ready for living forever? How will you fight the saturation in the brain, when you have experienced everything practically possible?

 

[Char. Limit]

There is always new stuff to do.

If you run out of things to do, attempt to amass all knowledge you can.

Hmm... get a degree in everything?

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Let's imagine in the near 2k years humans find a way to stop aging, would they be mentally ready for living forever? How will you fight the saturation in the brain, when you have experienced everything practically possible?

Just stopping aging doesn't guarantee you'll live forever. Accidents, homicide, infectious diseases, disasters of all kinds will eventually kill you if you live long enough.

But suppose you could live a very long time by replacing organs that are damaged. What if your brain is damaged? Maybe it could be replaced in 2k years, but would you still be you?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Let's imagine in the near 2k years humans find a way to stop aging, would they be mentally ready for living forever? How will you fight the saturation in the brain, when you have experienced everything practically possible?

Read some Greg Bear. In at least one of his books there are side descriptions of the things people in the world do that live extra long lives. The one that always stuck with me was learning and inventing languages with trends in popular language.

 

[Pengwuino]

Man, If I could live forever, I'd finally get around to reading Arfken cover to cover :)

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Let's imagine in the near 2k years humans find a way to stop aging, would they be mentally ready for living forever? How will you fight the saturation in the brain, when you have experienced everything practically possible?

How much would you forget, and how quickly?

 

[glueball8]

I heard (from "quarks and quirks") that you life expectancy is around 2000 years if you don't age.

I do want to live forever. At least until protons starts to decay.

 

[Zubin]

Let's imagine in the near 2k years humans find a way to stop aging, would they be mentally ready for living forever? How will you fight the saturation in the brain, when you have experienced everything practically possible?

If the combination of all the knowledge of several groups of experts in various fields equates to less than one percent of consequential knowledge in the world then I don't think biological immortality will necessarily result in eventual boredom.

 

[Ferris_bg]

Hmm... get a degree in everything?

Yes, you could try to accumulate as much knowledge as you can, but eventually you'll run out of knowledge to learn or out of will to get any new.

Just stopping aging doesn't guarantee you'll live forever. Accidents, homicide, infectious diseases, disasters of all kinds will eventually kill you if you live long enough.

But suppose you could live a very long time by replacing organs that are damaged. What if your brain is damaged? Maybe it could be replaced in 2k years, but would you still be you?

Let's assume the percent of any accidental death will be extremely small.

Any medical intervention to the brain (let's say simulating amnesia, removing memory blocks or replacing some brain "parts") is not a solution to the problem because you will just "restart" a previous state of you or "create" a new one.

Read some Greg Bear. In at least one of his books there are side descriptions of the things people in the world do that live extra long lives. The one that always stuck with me was learning and inventing languages with trends in popular language.

Yes, Norman Doidge recommends when getting at age near 60 to start learning a new language to stimulate the memory and the brain work as a whole, but this won't be a solution to the problem, because you won't get old and let's suppose that you will constantly improve your way of life and work (not have a monotonous life like old people).

How much would you forget, and how quickly?

Let's say the people after 2k years won't have any causes of stress like we have now (they will be able to do only the things they want and work a job they want with no warring for terms or money, they won't worry about diseases etc). They will have a database with the whole current knowledge for humanity, clustered for different levels of understanding of the people, so you would be able to start learning something new from zero and slowly advancing. So we can assume that a person with average intelligence will forget too slow and will be able to find out very quickly what he has forgot from this database.

I heard (from "quarks and quirks") that you life expectancy is around 2000 years if you don't age.

I do want to live forever. At least until protons starts to decay.

Isn't this thing hypothetical? Anyway, let's assume for the discussion that humans after 2k years would be able stop any cause of aging or natural dying.

If the combination of all the knowledge of several groups of experts in various fields equates to less than one percent of consequential knowledge in the world then I don't think biological immortality will necessarily result in eventual boredom.

Yes, but what if the speed of discovering new knowledge will be extremely slow? Actually it will, looking from now to the past.

 

[leroyjenkens]

If you stopped aging, I think eventually you'd start feeling the effects of being alive for so long; like heavy metal accumulation or something like that which only affects you in extended periods of time. Also, the chance of you developing cancer would be really high. Like if you lived normally for 100 years and you had a 10% chance of developing cancer; if you lived 1000 years, that would be 100%. It probably doesn't work that way but it sounds good.


But to answer your question: Some people live for 100 years in the same town and are perfectly happy. With the whole world to eventually explore, which would be constantly changing over the years, with no time limit (infinite lifespan), I don't think anyone would get bored.

 

[Borek]

Like if you lived normally for 100 years and you had a 10% chance of developing cancer; if you lived 1000 years, that would be 100%.

More like 75%. 1-0.9¹⁰.

 

[leroyjenkens]

More like 75%. 1-0.9¹⁰.

I knew it wasn't 100. You could live forever and it would never be 100. But how did you get that calculation? My math isn't too good.

 

[Monocles]

I do! I'd always figured that once I'd done everything, I'd just do it again on hard mode.

 

[Borek]

I knew it wasn't 100. You could live forever and it would never be 100. But how did you get that calculation? My math isn't too good.

10% in a life time means 90% chances of not getting ill. After two life times your chances of still being healthy are 0.9*0.9 - and so on.

 

[rootX]

I like the things the way they are ... not want to live a bit longer.

 

[Jack21222]

I hate the thought of not existing, so I'd want to live until thermodynamics finally wins.

I didn't exist for almost the entire history of the universe. Look how much I missed!

 

[rolerbe]

Death, there's just no future in it.

 

[Redd]

"Need a good death, death gives us size"

Although the timelord that said it was about 906 years old...so maybe he is a bad reference.

 

[Evo]

So when people stop dying, do they also lose their ability to produce offspring? If they keep reproducing, there will be plenty of problems to keep them occupied, boredom won't be a problem when there is no place to live and no food to eat.

 

[Pinu7]

 

[rewebster]

there's a good book I read a long time ago by Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, about living 'forever'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love


It had a lot of good 'sayings' by the guy throughout the book.


Near the end the guy got tired of it all as he had done so much, and one new suggestion was flying through a star, and the guy said 'done that already'.

 

[George Jones]

 

[whitay]

So when people stop dying, do they also lose their ability to produce offspring? If they keep reproducing, there will be plenty of problems to keep them occupied, boredom won't be a problem when there is no place to live and no food to eat.

Sacrifice the Evil and breed the good. I mean at present there is no shortage of evil people.

Heh! Would the number of children over an immortal's life time be relative to that of our regular mortal's life time?

Evo. Imagine popping 2 or 3 kids out ever 100 years?

Statistically you'd also have to factor in still-borns etc. Would babies still suffer from sudden infant death?

 

[Char. Limit]

I would hope that once we conquer age, we'll have conquered SIDS

 

[glueball8]

I remember there's a research that says something like Aging increase as you grow older but around 110+_20 aging almost stops. Now if we could make that stopping point to w/e age, like 20 or 30... then we might be able to live a lot longer.

 

[ideasrule]

Nerd response: does immortality involve immunity from injury (or at least, death as a result of injury)? Many organisms have biological immortality because their cells do not undergo senescence, but that doesn't prevent getting eaten.

Non-nerd response: I'll spend the first million years watching humanity advance technologically. Then I'll spend the next million spying on some poor aliens and watch them develop technologically. The 3rd million years will probably be boring. After that, I'll go from bored to depressed, from depressed to maniacal, from maniacal to suicidal, and from suicidal to insane (because suicide isn't possible).

I think our mortality gives life a sense of urgency and is a crucial element of progress. Would people rush to become famous scientists or achieve great things if they knew they could procrastinate as long as they wanted?

 

[Galteeth]

I remember there's a research that says something like Aging increase as you grow older but around 110+_20 aging almost stops. Now if we could make that stopping point to w/e age, like 20 or 30... then we might be able to live a lot longer.

I think it stops because you die.

 

[Danger]

I think it stops because you die.

I have no idea what the answer to the original question is, as to what happens if we could live forever, but I'm an experimentalist so I'd like to give it a try and find out.

 

[hamster143]

Information density of the human brain is limited. Either we need to forget things we already know as we go along (which we already do - how much do you remember of yourself 10 or 20 years ago?), in which case the person that's causally linked from me 2k years from now is not really me and has very little in common with me, or we need off-site memory storage.

Personally, I'd like to go back to the beginning of time and watch the whole thing unfold. I'd like to see early humans learn to use tools and paint cave pictures. I'd like to see neanderthals interact with cromagnons. I'd like to see the first person to set foot in North America, the first pharaoh, and the first emperor of Rome. If you could live forever and you're in no hurry, there's so much that you could see and learn. And perhaps find places for some fine touches that make the world better off.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Yes, Norman Doidge recommends when getting at age near 60 to start learning a new language to stimulate the memory and the brain work as a whole, but this won't be a solution to the problem, because you won't get old and let's suppose that you will constantly improve your way of life and work (not have a monotonous life like old people).

And what does that have to do with anything? You need to be old to learn new languages and to find interest in them? Imagine the whole new worlds of literature that would open up to you with every new language you learn.

 

[rootX]

Sacrifice the Evil and breed the good. I mean at present there is no shortage of evil people.

Heh! Would the number of children over an immortal's life time be relative to that of our regular mortal's life time?

Evo. Imagine popping 2 or 3 kids out ever 100 years?

Statistically you'd also have to factor in still-borns etc. Would babies still suffer from sudden infant death?

And, I will decide who is evil

 

[Noxide]

I do.

 

[bassplayer142]

I read that if the whole population was forced to reproduce at a older age, then we would extend our life expectancy. The people who die in middle or young age would have to survive late life affecting genes. But if they reproduce before these late life genes were to apply, than it doesn't matter what happens to them after they reproduce. Tell me if this is not clear, but it does make sense in a way.

 

[Matterwave]

I think the question is "indefinite" or "forever"?

I'd have no real problem with having an indefinite life-span. Meaning, that I don't age and won't die unless some catastrophic event kills me. There'd be plenty of stuff to keep you interested for that (even 1 million years or more). But, as far as forever...that's a damn long time. Will I outlive even the Universe? Cus after trillions of years, all the stars will have stopped shinning and I'd be stuck in eternal darkness for the next googol years as all the black holes die of Hawking radiation. I'd be seriously seriously depressed.

Maybe I could pass the time if I had some companions with me...are other immortals allowed in this scenario?

 

[Noxide]

I read that if the whole population was forced to reproduce at a older age, then we would extend our life expectancy. The people who die in middle or young age would have to survive late life affecting genes. But if they reproduce before these late life genes were to apply, than it doesn't matter what happens to them after they reproduce. Tell me if this is not clear, but it does make sense in a way.

This is obvious. The fact that you think it's new information speaks volumes about you.

 

[jobyts]

Who wants to live forever?

Pick me, pick me...

My bad... I was a bit late in responding. Are all the slots filled now?

 

[rolerbe]

Information density of the human brain is limited.

If you live forever, you will have plenty of time to devote to the problem of transferring your conciousness to an expanded medium (e.g. a suitably larger 'electronic' brain). Brain 2.0

 

[bassplayer142]

This is obvious. The fact that you think it's new information speaks volumes about you.

And what exactly does that supposed to mean. My only intent was to spread information to people who may not have known it. Any sarcasm from anyone is less constructive than so called obvious knowledge.