who would like to Live Forever ?

[Swan Black]

if one could live forever, i suppose anyone could live forever

and wouldn't that be hellish, if you think about it...

marc

[Robert Camp]

There's a big difference between "can live forever," and "must live
forever."

[Dana Tweedy]

I wouldn't necessarily want to live forever, but I'd like to live as
long as I want to.


DJT

[SortingItOut]

With or without aging? I assume you mean without.

In my 20's, I would have said that living forever sounds great. But now that I'm in my 50's, extreme boredom seems inevitable. Maybe I've already aged too much.

[jillery]

My impression is boredom isn't a function of biological aging, but is
instead a perceived lack of variety and/or limited opportunities.
--
This space is intentionally not blank.

[Bill Rogers]

Well, if I could live forever in good health, and if my wife and a few friends could, too, then I'd be in.

[John Bode]

On Thursday, April 7, 2016 at 4:22:25 PM UTC-5, Swan Black wrote:

If you could arrest your physical age to around 28 or so, it would be
awesome. For a while.

The most recent season of Doctor Who adressed this in a way with Ashildr
(later known as Me), a girl the Doctor "saved" with alien technology that
made her truly immortal. The problem, as she put it, was living an infinite
life with a finite memory. She couldn't remember anything of her life more
than a hundred or so years back, and she'd lived for thousands of years by
the time they wrapped up her storyline. She'd had multiple families that
she couldn't remember. She wrote everything down in journals so she
wouldn't completely forget about her past life, but after enough time had
passed it was like reading about somebody else.

I'll be happy with my three-score-and-ten (ish). I would not look forward
to working another 100 years before retirement. Nor would I look forward
to the explosion in population growth as the death rate plummets to 0 if
*everyone* gets to live forever.

[Kalkidas]

Hellish for some. For them, there is the amnesia imposed on them by the
system of transmigration.

[Robert Camp]

Transsexuals who cross borders forget everything?

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 7 Apr 2016 21:21:45 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by SortingItOut
<eri...@home.com>:

Time to take up flyfishing. ;-)
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[czeba...@gmail.com]

If I stayed about 30 forever hopefully I could figure out a way of doing it without a job. I mean, goodbye Social Security...

gregwrld

[Oxyaena]

Yeah, it would. Given the ultimate fate of the universe, it'll be a
lonely place. If Earth still exists, the night sky will be nothing more
than a few lonely stars, all the galaxies would have gone too far away
for their light to reach us. In a far more soon timescale (~5 billion
years from now), the sun will expand into a red giant, swallowing up
Mercury, Venus, and quite possibly Earth, if not Earth will still be a
dead husk of a once vibrant, active planet, dead, cold, nothing
noteworthy about Earth in 5 billion years time, all the oceans would
have boiled away by that time, due to the fact in 1 billion years the
sun's luminosity will increase to the point it'll get too hot for liquid
water to continue to exist, thus causing life to go extinct.

One would observe the Milky Way-Andromeda collision, with quite
catastrophic effects, either the Solar System being thrown into the
center of the galaxy or out of it entirely, think of the "Antennae
Galaxies" and you'll get a good idea. The Milky Way and Andromeda will
form a new galaxy called "Milkdromeda" (yeah, I know, not that
original), being quite possibly an elliptical galaxy in the same vein as
IC 1101, the largest galaxy known to man, being six million light years
in diameter.

One would observe the inevitable extinction of mankind, possibly due to
climate change, or nuclear holocaust, choose your pick. It would be
quite hellish, indeed.

--
"We are all atheists about most gods humanity has ever believed in, some
of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins

http://oxyaena.org/

[Earle Jones27]

*
Remember Woody Allen. He taught us:

"Forever is a long time – especially the last part."

earle
*

[jillery]

For a hilarious take on this issue, I recommend "Death Becomes Her".

[jillery]

On Fri, 8 Apr 2016 23:16:11 -0400, Oxyaena <oxy...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

>Swan Black wrote:
>> if one could live forever, i suppose anyone could live forever
>>
>> and wouldn't that be hellish, if you think about it...
>>
>> marc
>>
>Yeah, it would. Given the ultimate fate of the universe, it'll be a
>lonely place. If Earth still exists, the night sky will be nothing more
>than a few lonely stars, all the galaxies would have gone too far away
>for their light to reach us. In a far more soon timescale (~5 billion
>years from now), the sun will expand into a red giant, swallowing up
>Mercury, Venus, and quite possibly Earth, if not Earth will still be a
>dead husk of a once vibrant, active planet, dead, cold, nothing
>noteworthy about Earth in 5 billion years time, all the oceans would
>have boiled away by that time, due to the fact in 1 billion years the
>sun's luminosity will increase to the point it'll get too hot for liquid
>water to continue to exist, thus causing life to go extinct.
>
>One would observe the Milky Way-Andromeda collision, with quite
>catastrophic effects, either the Solar System being thrown into the
>center of the galaxy or out of it entirely, think of the "Antennae
>Galaxies" and you'll get a good idea. The Milky Way and Andromeda will
>form a new galaxy called "Milkdromeda" (yeah, I know, not that
>original), being quite possibly an elliptical galaxy in the same vein as
>IC 1101, the largest galaxy known to man, being six million light years
>in diameter.

Pedantic point: There would be few effects to the Solar System if it
left the galaxy, apart from a different night sky.

Even when our galaxy collides with Andromeda, as is almost certain,
what might cause problems for whatever life exists is not in leaving
the galaxy itself. The stars themselves are too far apart for
collisions to be likely, or even for passing stars to affect the
orbits of their respective planets.

Instead, IIUC the greatest danger lies in hanging around for the
inevitable burst of star formation, as interstellar gas clouds
necessarily collide and compress.

[Steady Eddie]

Would you care to share what would cause you to want to end your life?

[Walter Bushell]

In article <0a80bef6-77d4-4b6a...@googlegroups.com>,

John Bode <jfbod...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'll be happy with my three-score-and-ten (ish).

You might change your mind when you reach my age.




Now of my 3 score and ten
72 will not come again.
And take from 70, 72
Leaves me only minus twom.
Which gives me little time
To see the cherry trees in bloom.

--
To terrify children with the image of hell,
to consider women an inferior creation is that good for the world?
Christopher Hitchens

[James Beck]

On Fri, 8 Apr 2016 07:09:31 -0700 (PDT), John Bode
<jfbod...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, April 7, 2016 at 4:22:25 PM UTC-5, Swan Black wrote:
>> if one could live forever, i suppose anyone could live forever
>>
>> and wouldn't that be hellish, if you think about it...
>>
>> marc
>
>If you could arrest your physical age to around 28 or so, it would be
>awesome. For a while.
>
>The most recent season of Doctor Who adressed this in a way with Ashildr
>(later known as Me), a girl the Doctor "saved" with alien technology that
>made her truly immortal. The problem, as she put it, was living an infinite
>life with a finite memory. She couldn't remember anything of her life more
>than a hundred or so years back, and she'd lived for thousands of years by
>the time they wrapped up her storyline. She'd had multiple families that
>she couldn't remember. She wrote everything down in journals so she
>wouldn't completely forget about her past life, but after enough time had
>passed it was like reading about somebody else.

Interesting plot device, but I didn't find her character very
plausible. I hardly remember yesterday and I don't care.

[J. J. Lodder]

Swan Black <21bla...@gmail.com> wrote:

> if one could live forever, i suppose anyone could live forever
>
> and wouldn't that be hellish, if you think about it...

Oui. L'Enfer, c'est les autres,

Jan

[rnorm...@gmail.com]

Are you just cynical or deliberately being sartreonic?

[Robert Carnegie]

I'm not that bad although I'd have to think hard to remember
what I had for dinner yesterday or how old I am. And if you
can't answer things like that then you may be put in a home.

Longevity and immortality are obviously attractive in
simple terms. Science fiction on the other hand has
to present more-or-less realistic characters for a
reader to identify with, and that's difficult if they're
all 10000 years old, although that is a foreseeable
outcome if the robots don't take over and exterminate
us first. So a lot of stories have to assert that
their future setting doesn't include hyper-longevity
or immortality because that state is undesirable in
some way.

_Doctor Who_ in particular has represented immortality
several times as unsatisfactory, despite cheating
by having a central figure who is hundreds of years
old and usually just gets better when he is mortally
injured. Proposed drawbacks that do partly make sense
are that you get tired of being alive eventually -
although still preferring it to the alternative -
and that you may forget who you were and who your
friends are or were, so you're not even the same
person any more - so why would your old self care
whether your new self lives or dies? But I'd still
try it. Oh, and the other angle used in some stories
is that immortality is just ridiculously expensive
and therefore very selfish. (Especially the kind
that requires the blood of virgins at frequent
intervals, that sort of thing.) So only a very
selfish person would want that.

_Star Trek_ is interested in that and also in
super-evolution. I don't know if there was an
overall policy, but it seems to me that a recurring
theme is that a society that develops too quickly,
or a human who is advanced by genetic meddling
or by a cosmic encounter, is a danger to themselves
and to others. In "The Apple", a small community
of immortals live as stupid tribesmen serving the
computer which maintains their environment.
I don't remember if "Plato's Stepchildren" are
immortal, but they're certainly jerks. And in
"Return to Tomorrow", the survivors (in big globes)
of a super-scientific society that foolishly
exterminated itself demonstrate that they didn't
learn enough when that happened.

Would it really be like that? Well, old people can
be cranky, and some smart people, too. But I don't
think that those states preclude being nice.

I think the main problems of being old are when your
body hurts and/or your body and your mind stop working.
That is quickly tedious.

[John Bode]

On Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 1:57:19 PM UTC-5, Walter Bushell wrote:
> In article <0a80bef6-77d4-4b6a...@googlegroups.com>,
> John Bode <jfbod...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'll be happy with my three-score-and-ten (ish).
>
> You might change your mind when you reach my age.
>

Eh. My family history is such that I'll be lucky to make it to retirement
age. Given that, yeah, I'd be happy to make it that far.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <346f28e1-fe1c-4037...@googlegroups.com>,

rnorm...@gmail.com wrote:

> Oui. L'Enfer, c'est les autres

Hell is ourselves, which is one reason we cultivate friends and they
cultivate us. The point of the play is, exactly that. If any of those
people where happy in themselves, it wouldn't be Hell for them.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <0a80bef6-77d4-4b6a...@googlegroups.com>,
John Bode <jfbod...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'll be happy with my three-score-and-ten (ish). I would not look forward
> to working another 100 years before retirement. Nor would I look forward
> to the explosion in population growth as the death rate plummets to 0 if
> *everyone* gets to live forever.

That is from someone under 70 I have no doubt.

Now of MY three score and ten,
72 will not come again,
That leave me only minus 2.
And that leaves my heat with rue,
For all the good I didn't do.
And besides leaves very little room,
To see the Cherry trees in bloom.

After A. E. Housman, of course.

<http://www.bartleby.com/103/33.html>

[Walter Bushell]

In article <19d3828f-0ae1-456c...@googlegroups.com>,

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

> (Especially the kind
> that requires the blood of virgins at frequent
> intervals, that sort of thing.) So only a very
> selfish person would want that.

Bujold's uterine replicator universe has life extension by
creating a clone and having a brain transplant into the clone.

You gain a new life, by killing literally literally killing your own
flesh and blood.

Chilling enough?!

[Robert Carnegie]

On Tuesday, 3 May 2016 03:08:26 UTC+1, Walter Bushell wrote:
> In article <19d3828f-0ae1-456c...@googlegroups.com>,
> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> > (Especially the kind
> > that requires the blood of virgins at frequent
> > intervals, that sort of thing.) So only a very
> > selfish person would want that.
>
> Bujold's uterine replicator universe has life extension by
> creating a clone and having a brain transplant into the clone.
>
> You gain a new life, by killing literally literally killing your own
> flesh and blood.
>
> Chilling enough?!

Unpleasant from the clone's point of view, if he or she
has a point of view. And probably expensive and time-
consuming if it's not the "person Xerox" type of clone
but grows at the usual rate from infancy to whatever age
you want to insert your own brain. I suppose growth
maybe can be accelerated, like with chickens...

I was recently reading about how a baby's brain and skull
grow after birth (I hope I understood right) as bone plates
that aren't firmly fused together - after reading about
someone who was treated for a semi-rare congenital
condition where a joint /is/ stuck and needs to be
surgically treated, so that, I don't know, head doesn't
explode or something. So you don't want to put your
brain inside a baby-sized skull. Although in old age
they shrink.

I read an unpleasant story in comics where a crazy
scientist wanted to install a human teenager's brain
to replace a gorilla's. There wasn't enough room,
of course, so, he trimmed it. But the patient was
fine afterwards, only, not particularly verbal.

[James Beck]

I haven't bothered to remember the trivialities of life since I was a
little boy. It's useful to remember that I like pizza, but I don't
care when I had it last.

>Longevity and immortality are obviously attractive in
>simple terms.

As a boy, I observed that my parents thought that they would die in
their 50s. When in an audience and asked whether they wanted to live
to 100, neither raised their hand. My father is dead, but my mother's
attitude is now quite different.

>Science fiction on the other hand has
>to present more-or-less realistic characters for a
>reader to identify with, and that's difficult if they're
>all 10000 years old, although that is a foreseeable
>outcome if the robots don't take over and exterminate
>us first. So a lot of stories have to assert that
>their future setting doesn't include hyper-longevity
>or immortality because that state is undesirable in
>some way.

Like priests, they try to rationalize death in an entertaining way.

>_Doctor Who_ in particular has represented immortality
>several times as unsatisfactory, despite cheating
>by having a central figure who is hundreds of years
>old and usually just gets better when he is mortally
>injured. Proposed drawbacks that do partly make sense
>are that you get tired of being alive eventually -
>although still preferring it to the alternative -
>and that you may forget who you were and who your
>friends are or were, so you're not even the same
>person any more - so why would your old self care
>whether your new self lives or dies?

Mainly because there's no implicit discontinuity between my old and
new selves, much as there's no discontinuity between me now and me in
first grade. Actual mortal injuries aren't so bad. It's the ones you
survive that really suck.

>But I'd still
>try it.

Makes sense to me.

Yes. I expect that people get tired of pain, not of living, per se.

[eridanus]

I am not sure about the interest of immortality, even if had
been used in literature. But what about a new glacial age? It
can be rather dramatic, if it happens in repeated bouts of advancing
cold, with little intervals back of balmier weather. A sort of jittery
advancing cold, making the winters last longer.

Other dramatic argument is the exhaustion of fossil fuels. How things
develop. New forms of collecting energy, a promise of the drama being
solved, but that eventually fail. There is more oil that is said, but
the oil companies are restricting the extraction to profit from higher
prices. I remember some decades a go, a mechanic said he invented the
motor that run with water instead of petrol. It is a great thing, but
but the oil companies make him look like demented. They do not wanted
that such a wonder machine would develop and ruin their business of
selling petrol.
But eventually, the oil companies, driven by their lust for greed were
extracting less and less oil, profiting from this "artificial" scarcity
just to the point that Stock Exchange collapse in all parts of the world,
including Russia; it resulted that Russia was also a part of the world
and even have an Stock Exchange as well (malevolous people those Russians).

The culprit of all this were the multinational corporations, I believe. That
was the main reason that the oil got exhausted; or perhaps a punishments of
the gods. The gods were upset for the humans made machines to rise up very
high and reached the heavens. As the gods were partying in the heavens, they
got often offended as some devilish human machine passed nearby roaring; disrupting thus the divine parties. We need to do something with this insensate proud humans. The best thing we can do, said goddess Athena, is
to dry those damn oil wells so they would learn a little modesty. They had
become more and more proud with this damn noisy machines. And the gods
accorded by unanimity to make the oil wells dry.
eridanus

[Robert Carnegie]

On Tuesday, 10 May 2016 10:38:04 UTC+1, eridanus wrote:
> I am not sure about the interest of immortality, even if had
> been used in literature. But what about a new glacial age? It
> can be rather dramatic, if it happens in repeated bouts of advancing
> cold, with little intervals back of balmier weather. A sort of jittery
> advancing cold, making the winters last longer.

In the context of immortality, we do see older people
migrating to live closer to the equator. It may be
an Ice Age in London or New York but still comfortably
warm in southern Spain or in Florida.

But if the world gets warmer and you don't have
air conditioning, it can be bad. Old people die
in hot weather.

> Other dramatic argument is the exhaustion of fossil fuels. How things
> develop. New forms of collecting energy, a promise of the drama being
> solved, but that eventually fail. There is more oil that is said, but
> the oil companies are restricting the extraction to profit from higher
> prices. I remember some decades a go, a mechanic said he invented the
> motor that run with water instead of petrol. It is a great thing, but
> but the oil companies make him look like demented. They do not wanted
> that such a wonder machine would develop and ruin their business of
> selling petrol.
> But eventually, the oil companies, driven by their lust for greed were
> extracting less and less oil, profiting from this "artificial" scarcity
> just to the point that Stock Exchange collapse in all parts of the world,
> including Russia; it resulted that Russia was also a part of the world
> and even have an Stock Exchange as well (malevolous people those Russians).

Do you mean "marvellous" or "malevolent" or a word that
you have invented, that I have not read yet? ;-)

> The culprit of all this were the multinational corporations, I believe. That
> was the main reason that the oil got exhausted; or perhaps a punishments of
> the gods. The gods were upset for the humans made machines to rise up very
> high and reached the heavens. As the gods were partying in the heavens, they
> got often offended as some devilish human machine passed nearby roaring; disrupting thus the divine parties. We need to do something with this insensate proud humans. The best thing we can do, said goddess Athena, is
> to dry those damn oil wells so they would learn a little modesty. They had
> become more and more proud with this damn noisy machines. And the gods
> accorded by unanimity to make the oil wells dry.
> eridanus

The OPEC really do try to agree to extract less or more
of their oil in order to make the most profit by selling it.
Perhaps they have other activities. This is the one that
we hear about.

Apart from them, however, it may be as we are told,
that when oil is sold at a higher price, some sources
of oil are worth digging up although it is expensive
to dig; when oil is sold at a lower price, those
sources are not dug up, they are left for another time
when the price rises again - but this isn't a plot
to /make/ the price rise.

But there isn't new cheap oil being made underground
(although some people actually believe that there is,
or, they say they believe it), so, when the cheap oil
is all burned, then you can only buy the expensive oil.
That will 'e at the higher price.

Other factors are that industry uses oil as fuel,
so, when the economy grows, more oil is used; when the
economy is less, less oil is used, and so the price of
oil is reduced. Also, there are some electric cars
now, and people who live in cold countries have
better insulation of their homes, so they spend less
on heating.

[eridanus]

all this is correct. I was thinking of oil as a god, an infinite being
that is eternal, or so they say. As I am a damn unbeliever I resist the
idea that oil is an eternal stuff, unable to get exhausted; so we can
afford to burn it much faster each year; with bigger machines. Oil is
eternal. Humans beings would become extinct a way or other, but not the
oil; for it is infinite.
eridanus

[eridanus]

El martes, 10 de mayo de 2016, 13:23:04 (UTC+1), Robert Carnegie escribió:

in Spanish we say "malevolo" that begot melevolous. It happens all the time.
eri

[Earle Jones27]

On 2016-05-11 20:03:35 +0000, trol...@go.com said:

> eridanus wrote:> El miércoles, 13 de abril de 2016, 14:57:07 (UTC+1),
> Robert Carnegie escribió:

>> I am not sure about the interest of immortality, even if had
>> been used in literature. But what about a new glacial age? It
>> can be rather dramatic, if it happens in repeated bouts of advancing
>> cold, with little intervals back of balmier weather. A sort of jittery
>> advancing cold, making the winters last longer.
>>

>> Other dramatic argument is the exhaustion of fossil fuels. How things
>> develop. New forms of collecting energy, a promise of the drama being
>> solved, but that eventually fail. There is more oil that is said, but
>> the oil companies are restricting the extraction to profit from higher
>> prices. I remember some decades a go, a mechanic said he invented the
>> motor that run with water instead of petrol. It is a great thing, but
>> but the oil companies make him look like demented. They do not wanted
>> that such a wonder machine would develop and ruin their business of
>> selling petrol.
>> But eventually, the oil companies, driven by their lust for greed were
>> extracting less and less oil, profiting from this "artificial" scarcity
>> just to the point that Stock Exchange collapse in all parts of the world,
>> including Russia; it resulted that Russia was also a part of the world
>> and even have an Stock Exchange as well (malevolous people those Russians).
>>

>> The culprit of all this were the multinational corporations, I believe. That
>> was the main reason that the oil got exhausted; or perhaps a punishments of
>> the gods. The gods were upset for the humans made machines to rise up very
>> high and reached the heavens. As the gods were partying in the heavens, they
>> got often offended as some devilish human machine passed nearby
>> roaring; disrupting thus the divine parties. We need to do something
>> with this insensate proud humans. The best thing we can do, said
>> goddess Athena, is
>> to dry those damn oil wells so they would learn a little modesty. They had
>> become more and more proud with this damn noisy machines. And the gods
>> accorded by unanimity to make the oil wells dry.
>> eridanus
>>
>

> Athena is the goddess of atheists.
>
> This is clearly understood from etymology.
> 'A' means without. 'Theos' means 'of god'.
>
> Communists all worship Athena because they
> are atheists. They regularly invoke her
> name so that they in their minds can
> 'prove' that 'god is not true'.
>
> Ask a Hindu if the existence of Vishnu
> 'proves' that Ganesh is a false god or
> if the existence of Ganesh 'proves' that
> Vishnu is a false god. They will say that
> this reasoning is the product of insane
> and twisted minds.
>
> Communists hate all wealth and hate all
> machines and so they wish to destroy them
> all wherever they can be found. They of
> course control Athena and tell her what to
> do because they are 'atheists'.
>
> This is the origin of this 'myth'.
>
> The carrying capacity of the entire Earth
> without fossil fuels is about one to two
> billion human beings. Yet humans have
> reproduced well beyond this.
>
> This is because they are animals. They also
> die because they are animals.
>
> There is nothing else.

*
Shouldn't there be a smiley face Emoticon about here?

earle
*