The Possibility of Eternal Life: Could it Exist?

[alexsok]

I just read about a new reserach where they found a way to "slow down" the aging process... the article concluded by saying "maybe eternal life is not that far away on the horizion...".

So my question is... if in fact someone finds a way to prolong this earthly life indefinetly, then how exactly will be it "eternal" if for example tragedies and accidents are inevitable anyway? Say someone lives for 200 years, gets bored and decides to off themselves - how will the "lack of an aging process" and his "eternal life" be any more useful to him if he is going to kill himself anyway (meaning that if not by natural cosmic process, he will die by his own hand or by some other accident).

Now, the above scenario takes into account the status-quo of today's medicine, meaning that it "might" be able in the future to keep the aging process at bay, not the Ghost in the shell type "consciousness shifted into a body manufactured by some third-party company" scenario.

Your opinion guys.

 

[rkkane]

well i reckon we'll have a hell of a population problem. apart from that how boring would it be to live forever?

Also you can pretty much say goodbye to evolution until of course our sun decides to die and then we really need to be a more advanced species to survive that, then in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion and so on years when there is nothing left except a huge universe with almost nothing in it how are we going to survive?

Nothing lasts forever and I'm glad of that tho i wouldn't mind a few thousand years extra... can our brain hold that much data? i thought it could only hold about 1000 years of life.

 

[alexsok]

rrkane - so you wouldn't want to live forever? I can see where you're coming from, and like you, I don't particularly like the idea of living forever, but adding a few hundred or thousand years would do the trick for me.

The other side of the coin is whether you expect any alternatives to the "boring life" or is it simply eternal rest?

 

[0TheSwerve0]

Are our minds equipped to live that long? I think we have a ways to go before we're capable of mentally handling so long a life. I wonder how the elves manage it =P

oh, and you've confused eternal with immortal.

 

[loseyourname]

oh, and you've confused eternal with immortal.

To elaborate, something that is eternal has neither beginning nor end. An immortal human would have no end, but would have a beginning.

 

[alexsok]

Oh yeah, I just realized this :) Thanks for the correction ;)

 

[rkkane]

Are our minds equipped to live that long? I think we have a ways to go before we're capable of mentally handling so long a life. I wonder how the elves manage it =P

oh, and you've confused eternal with immortal.

i'm suprised some people are mentally equipped to reach 75.

the elves are depressed

like queen said, who wants to live forever? its a long time and eventually you will run out of things to do. this puts a whole new perspective on whether we would like to go to heaven, no chance would i want to last forever to "be with my family" i don't like them much just now and it's only been 22 years.

 

[0TheSwerve0]

True. Reincarnation sounds better in those respects.

 

[RAD4921]

Physical immortality is probably impossible since organisms process energy and there is PROBABLY only a finite amount of energy in the universe, unless an organism can somehow recycle used up energy, physical immortality is doomed.
Even if one could stop the aging process one has the problem that eventually the sun will burn out. The only option then is to go to another star system that can support life but then that star will burn out and eventually all the stars in the universe will burn our. One would then have to develop a way to extract energy from dark matter. Even if one could go this far I am sure the problems of physical immortality is a doomed idea for reasons beyond these I have already mentioned

 

[hmm?]

I feel the true satisfaction in obtaining immortality is not the fact of the immortal life, but that human-kind has surpassed the threshold of being controlled by natural course, arguably entropy. As for the contingency of outside forces acting upon, and eliminating us without our consent is still great, and in fact, may serve as a harsh reminder of our incapability (oh what little people we are! Universally speaking) of "REAL" immortality. That is, real immortality is to totally controll a situation, or to have eradicated all conflicting possibilities that might threaten the continuity of life; this idea is undoubtedly approaching a godlike status.

All in all, I'm pro-prolonging life--I'd rather be dreaming, than inundated in a realistic nightmare.

 

[rkkane]

i want to live as long as there is something left to do. once I've done everything i would then like oblivion. even if there is a finite amount of energy it will never be lessened however much of it we use. it will become less useful over time until all that's left to do with our long life is gather useful energy.

 

[Universe_Man]

I would like to live a couple hundred years or so, just to see how far technological advancement goes. I would like to live long enough to see if interstellar travel becomes possible, and perhaps just to learn more than I ever could with give or take 90 years.