Imagining the Downside of Immortality!

[Gerald]

“The Fountain of Youth,” painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1546, illustrates our long obsession with immortality.

Berlin

IMAGINE nobody dies. All of a sudden, whether through divine intervention or an elixir slipped into the water supply, death is banished. Life goes on and on; all of us are freed from fear that our loved ones will be plucked from us, and each of us is rich in the most precious resource of all: time.

Wouldn’t it be awful?

This is the premise of the TV series “Torchwood: Miracle Day,” a co-production of Starz and the BBC that has been running over the summer and ends in September. The “miracle” of the title is that no one dies anymore, but it proves to be a curse as overpopulation soon threatens to end civilization. The show is a nice twist on our age-old dream of living forever. And it is right to be pessimistic about what would happen if this dream were fulfilled — but for the wrong reasons. Materially, we could cope with the arrival of the elixir. But, psychologically, immortality would be the end of us.

The problem is that our culture is based on our striving for immortality. It shapes what we do and what we believe; it has inspired us to found religions, write poems and build cities. If we were all immortal, the motor of civilization would sputter and stop.

Poets and philosophers have long been attuned to the fact that the quest for immortality drives much of humanity’s peculiar ways. But only in recent decades has scientific evidence backed this up.

In a study that began in 1989, a group of American social psychologists found that just briefly reminding people that they would die had a remarkable impact on their political and religious views.

In their first experiment, the researchers recruited court judges from Tucson. Half the judges were reminded of their mortality (via an otherwise innocuous personality test) and half were not. They were then all asked to rule on a hypothetical case of prostitution similar to those they ruled on. The judges who had first been reminded of their mortality set a bond nine times higher than those who hadn’t (averaging $455 compared to $50).

These psychologists — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski — were testing the hypothesis that we have developed our cultural worldviews in order to give us the sense that we might defy death. They reasoned that if this were not the case, when faced with reminders of mortality, people would cling more fiercely to their beliefs and be more negative about those who threatened them. This is just what happened with the judges: when reminded that they would one day die, they were more severe in punishing those who violated their worldview.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/op...me&ref=general

Note: August 27, 2011

[Anthony W.]

If we found a way to live forever, the first thing I'd try is probably to give a nuke a hug - while it goes off

Or jump from a commercial jet

Or drive a smartcar head on into a semi truck

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by Anthony W.

If we found a way to live forever, the first thing I'd try is probably to give a nuke a hug - while it goes off

Reminds me of a short Sci-Fi story I once read, where a guy invents an inpenetrable shield and tests it by sitting next to an A-bomb while it explodes. The shield worked, he was unscaved, but blown into orbit where he suffocated in space

[Skybird]

Western culture is highly individualistic - and thanatophobic. I see a link between both. We value the individual and it'S rights and freedoms extremely high. and by that it seems that we lose the meaning of death out of our sight. Avoiding leads to no longer learning. Lack of insight leads to fear. And by this, we become obsessed with the idea of wanting to live forever/stay forever young.

A rough and extremeley shortened summary, I know. But you may get the principle idea.

The art of living we can only learn by losing our fear of death. But the fear of death we can only lose when understanding that there is no use in clinging to life at all cost. Don't be ahead of events, don't lack behind. Do not resist, nor cling for it. That way, the art of living and the art of dying become one. And fear may lose its fangs to insight.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Anthony W.

If we found a way to live forever, the first thing I'd try is probably to give a nuke a hug - while it goes off

Or jump from a commercial jet

Or drive a smartcar head on into a semi truck

And any arguments in favour of why you should live forever?

Edit:
Just remembered this older movie with Sean Connery, "Zardoz". Still a good one.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Betonov

Reminds me of a short Sci-Fi story I once read, where a guy invents an inpenetrable shield and tests it by sitting next to an A-bomb while it explodes. The shield worked, he was unscaved, but blown into orbit where he suffocated in space

LOL

[Oberon]

Sounds like a job for Torchwood

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by Anthony W.

If we found a way to live forever, the first thing I'd try is probably to give a nuke a hug - while it goes off

Or jump from a commercial jet

Or drive a smartcar head on into a semi truck

Reminder; nobody promised exemption from experience of pain.

[Torplexed]

I figure after about the first 750,000 years of immortality the thrill of everything would be gone.

[Reece]

Dieing doesn't bother me, it's the way I might go about it!!

[Jimbuna]

I wouldn't care to be around seeing my family die.

[Armistead]

I remember watching band of brothers and someone wanted to know what made one guy such a great and fearless soldier, he simply replied..

"I've accepted I'm already dead."

[FIREWALL]

Death is nothing to fear. It just needs to be understood.

Example: You are very old and your body is wore out.
You are in alot of excruciating pain and the paim meds at the
Hospital\Nursing Home aren't working anymore.

You've outlived all your Old Friends and loved ones.
You might financially even become a burden on your children.

If you look at Death then, it's not so scary and in someways
even become a Friend. It will give you the Release from all the
above.

If this is well thought out it, could be the answer that was always
there but Fear was keeping it unexamined as an Option.

Talk to your Dr. And excludeing the Pain meds. You stop all other
treatments and over extending methods. (Hope i said that right)

Life Support in a Nurseing Home just, isn't, for me for the above
reasons and, I'm sure I could come up with a few more.

To sum it up there's alot more things to fear than Death.

I wish you all a Happy and FULL life.

[kiwi_2005]

An eternity in heaven would be far better than an eternity in hell!

There is a well known vid on youtube of a atheist all his life who one day in his late 40's had a heart attack and claimed he went to hell and back he explains hell and what happened to him and how he was saved. He was dead for 7 min but 7 min in hell is a lifetime.

[Feuer Frei!]

Immortality? No thanks.
No parent should have to see their child(ren) die before they do!