Poll: What's the attraction to being immortal?

[Smurf McSmurfington]

Snip

Well, as mentioned before, the language argument is just plain stupid, you'd easily be able to take over the new language as it evolves.
The other problems are real though... and what I'd like is biological immortality or something (basically, I CAN die, just not as easily), or absolute immortality until I choose to give it up.

Why does the prospect of living much longer than I am actually able to sound like a good thing? Well simply put, curiosity, I want to observe humanity, I want to see where we get to on a technological and cultural level, and how far we'd fall from it, and I'd somehow make a home of sorts which'll somehow not get wrapped into the inevitable future conflicts between humans, I mean I'd like to be a true outside observer, occasionally walking among humans, but not actually making myself known as...well... me.
I want to see the world, more than actually possible during one single lifetime. And in the end, I don't want to die, the very idea of my consciousness(which is basically a series of electrochemical reactions in my brain) stopping altogether, and I'd never exist again... that just scares the hell out of me. Sure one could say that our consciousness stays intact after death and we go to some form of afterlife (Valhalla, for instance... or the Christian Heaven or whatever), but that's something I find ludicrous... though I can see why people irrationally latch onto such insane ideas, despite them not making any sense at all. They(like I) fear death, and they want to believe that there's something better waiting on the other side, so to speak.

But most of all, I want to observe, and I don't want a pesky little thing called death to get in the way of my intellectual curiosity.

As for seeing loved ones die... well they all die some day anyway, and in my case, almost all of them are older than I(I have no children and I'll do my best to keep it that way, for I don't want any either), so I'd see them die either way, it's just this way I wouldn't have to go through it too.

 

[vivster]

your arguments lack coherence
first of all... of course it is only meant the ability to live forever and not to be invulnerable... so if there's an accident you will die
i will not stand still so i don't really know why i wouldn't be part of the language change as well
third i have an eternity to get over the loss of my loved ones... even better i will have a big number of loved ones over the years
also evolution in a few hundred years? you got to be kidding

and last but not least... if i become immortal i definitely won't be the only one to get the chance

i need to be immortal to experience the evolving technology
also how the society will evolve
i mean with all the technology life should become easier every year maybe even to the point where nobody has to work anymore
must be a great life then

 

[shadowsandwich]

Imortality
It's one step below time travel

 

[Odinson426]

Someone has probably already said this but I don't evolution as a major threat to immortals. Living things evolve to better suit there environment but humans don't need to do that. We kinda do the inverse of that, humans change the environment to suit them. Anyway, if you're immortal you're probably going to stop caring what people think after about a normal life time like a normal old person so being shunned wouldn't be a bad thing and there will always be someone around who wants to talk to an immortal. Personally I'd love to be immortal. I'd literally have all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted and after the world is gone in at the latest 4 billion years I'll probably have moved on to another planet, maybe even solar system, on some generation ship. Sounds like a good time to me

 

[dvd_72]

According to time perception, time goes faster when you get old.
After seeing Torchwood I always think about that, and have decided that given the opportunity I wouldn't be immortal, and if I didn't have the choice I would make people worship me as a god.

Uhm... could you source that? I'm finding that hard to believe myself.

 

[Robert Sanders]

I've never seen the attraction to immortality. For one thing, if the immortality was simply being unable to die, then your body would continue to age until you were trapped inside it. If you didn't age, you'd never be able to settle down. You'd have to move every five years. You'd never be able to have a family, never be able to have any true friends.

Saying that you'd float around in space after the world went kaput isn't valid. You'd have to be completely invulnerable and have no need for oxygen or food or water for that to work. Otherwise you'd be constantly going through death. Sounds very much like torture to me.

We eventually die because we age, so an immortal would need to stop aging. As for moving every five years, that depends on when you stopped aging. If you're 10, you got problems. If you're 25 to 30, you can get away with looking the same for a lot longer. Also, the poster was talking about immortality, which is life without possibility of ending. Eternal youth means you don't have to worry about aging, but you can still die from anything not age related(gunshot, starvation, suffocation,etc.). Finally, floating in space. I don't know about torture. We feel pain because something is damaging us, and hunger because our bodies require food. If you're truly immortal, you're not susceptible to injury or outside physical needs, so do senses of discomfort register anymore?

 

[Robert Sanders]

I'd like the kind of immortal that let me die when I want to. If that were the case, then sign me up! Language changes will be easy to keep up with, evolution can be countered through the use of mechanical addons Deus Ex style, and as for loved ones and friends, I can wait until we've developed AI that can also live forever.

You only want eternal youth then, which is a good compromise!

 

[Blondi3]

You can't be immortal. End topic.
But why? Because I want to see how this **** ends.

What this fine gentleman has said holds true for my opinion as well. I want to see humanity breathe it's last breath. Considering this is impossible to begin with. If it were possible, I'd probably just go insane after a while without the actual living "connection" to everyone else and the world around me. Hopefully I'd last long enough to see the world burn though...

 

[Master_of_Oldskool]

But of course not. I mean, who would want to live forever? Knowledge? Why do I want to know literally everything in the universe? Besides which fact, the brain has so much storage space, period. I'd still go senile. Avoiding the unknown of death? Meh. One alien sunrise will begin to look like any other at some point, and I think I'd start to crave an end to the whole tedious rigamarole, especially after watching all of my loved ones die.

Spoiler: And for those who would say But you'd have infinite time to just get over it!

Tell it to the emo Time Lord.

 

[Kae]

Simple, my dream is to acquire all of the knowledge in the world, and within the lifespan of one person that's just plain impossible, immortality would simply give me the time to do so.
As for the loved ones part, well although I do care about my parents they will die within my lifespan anyway as for other people I've never been too friendly, so I don't really have many loved ones to lose anyway, I mean last time I talked to someone I considered a friend was around 5 years ago, so I don't think that would slow me down, as for the other things, well yeah it sounds bad but knowledge is worth every single sacrifice there is to make.

 

[llew]

If you actually wanted to be immortal despite these drawbacks it's because of one of these two reasons:

1.You are comfortable being a sort of outcast who observes the changes the world undertakes as well as how humans advance through the ages.

i could live with that one, thats how i spent alot of my childhood because everyone in my school (up until i moved) was the chavvy sports player who thought they were god's gift to humanity because they played sports. Also the earth is supposed to end in like a billion years so by then i imagine we will have inter-space travel meaning being immortal wouldnt be all bad

 

[Benny Blanco]

Someones been reading cracked, seriously atleast throw some proper credits. And i'd like to be immortal to fuck chicks from every era

Exactly this. There was an article in Cracked some time ago on the topic.

I would also think that banging women in different eras could be fun, but you'd need a time machine to go back in order to really know...

Also, immortality may not confer immunity to disease, so I imagine your pox-riddled wang might prove an impediment to any plans to bone your way through history.

 

[soes757]

According to time perception, time goes faster when you get old.
After seeing Torchwood I always think about that, and have decided that given the opportunity I wouldn't be immortal, and if I didn't have the choice I would make people worship me as a god.

Uhm... could you source that? I'm finding that hard to believe myself.

There are a variety of studies on the subject, look it up, can't find the one I saw the first time.

 

[Andalusa]

Because you don't die.. death is terrifying. Well, more the unknown, but still. You get to live forever.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

To observe the development of the human species, why else? I have no ambitions, no plans, the only reason I wish to continue to live is to witness our fall.

 

[xdiesp]

Life is worthless if it doesn't last forever. Thankfully we believe in heaven and hell for that.

 

[Navvan]

Scholarly interest combined with self interest. I'm curious to see how the world changes, what happens, who does it, etc. I also like being alive, and by the time the sun expands and ends our planet I'm hoping that we've developed intergalactic space travel. So I'll just relocate with humans to another planet, and so forth. The only major concern would be if the Universe ends, at which point I doubt even immortality could prevent me from losing all forms of conscious thought.

Also if time travel is developed, you would live to see it, and could continuously go into the past and avoid that whole "I'm stuck for ever" problem.

Also the whole "You'll be a freak" assumes that their are some rather drastic anatomical evolutions. Its arguable that we are under such selections to the point that can cause a divergent of species. I would likely just end up a very short and frail (in terms of strength) human.

Even if the humans evolved into a drastically different species its not like I won't be known for being immortal at some point. They would just go, Oh hey its the Immortal man when I go out and about.

 

[Xaio30]

Simple. I'd like to know everything, and the time I'm given isn't enough.

 

[Shakomaru]

The only reason anyone has ever wanted to be immortal was the fact that they would be remembered forever. That's the only reason. Well, and the ability to rule over everyone forever.