Live forever?

[Shadow_Storm56]

Anyone else wonder if it will ever be possible to never die of old age? Like conciousness transferred to a computer and keep living on as a robot forever.... or in a new host body? Maybe we will figure out how to regenerate telomeres so DNA does not degrade and old age does not happen? I just have this in my head is all, what do you think? Or will earth be uninhabitable in 50 years and humans extinct?

[Guest]

We would be able to extend live, maybe to hundreds of years (experts think shy over 1000 with current technology - see Aubrey De Grey), but really we will all die. Personally life's a bit shit to live forever anyway. Overrated. 

[Bananasplit_00]

I think that we will get biological imortality, when is hard to say but i think it will be possible. I wouldnt mind living for hundreds of years, would make exploring space viable which is a dream. Isac Arthur has a lot of great videos on stuff like this if you are interested

[RejZoR]

The key here that most people don't ever question is about consciousness. Specifically, how we'd transfer it. In most movies they actually copy it and let the original body die. That doesn't actually solve anything because it's not you anymore that continues to live, but your copy. Which is useless and only serves for your persona to continue to live, but not your actual self. You'd still actually die and your existence would end with your death. You don't continue to experience life, your copy does. This was particularly apparent in movie "The 6th day" (really good movie btw).

 

There are others that address this, like Altered Carbon where consciousness is actually transferred between "sleeves", meaning that your very existence is transplanted from one body to another, a situation where your perception of world and your memories are actually moved and not copied.

 

So, it really depends on what approach humanity will take. The first one is frankly useless and doesn't really solve anything. The one from Altered Carbon however does. Then we just need to figure out how to build sleeves from scratch, coz it would suck to get some random body as a sleeve

 

I don't think we'll be able to figure out how to prevent cells and DNA degradation entirely as that would be like defying laws of thermodynamics so to speak. We've already extended it pretty much to its peak with medicine. The reason we have so much cancer and Alzheimers and other degenerative diseases is because we live for very long now and shit just goes weird after such long time. Just 200 years ago, it was normal for people to die in their late 30's. Now it's generally considered "early" if people die before 80's. It's possible we could extend this further by using stem cells, but we'd have to harvest and store them from our very beginning of life to use them later. I guess we'll have to wait and not see, coz we'll probably be dead before it potentially happens

[CookieSmasherGus]

Oh man, there are just so many options for living forever (at least in theory) - cryogenics, cybernetics, getting new sleeves, somehow uploading yourself online, genetic engineering, putting your brain in a vat... Living a long time sounds appealing, but then I would be concerned about the constantly rising population and no one actually dying and earth getting overcrowded. Or maybe eternal life will be reserved for the ultra rich and us poor lads will be left to rot. Yeah, I think it's going to be reserved for the rich, doesn't matter if it's synthetic bodies or some eternal digital existence - only a minority will be able to afford it. Making it available for everyone just causes more issues. Doesn't sound fair but life never is.

[Velcade]

No one should outlive their usefulness. 

[N1tro199]

I think that our life should be used to impact the world around us in a good way and once our "job" is done, it should be over. I don't know for you guys, but life is painfull. I wouldn't want to live forever if it's to be this way. Unless we figure out a way to fix all problemes (I.E Mental illnesses, I have anxiety), besides being disconnected from reality with drugs, I'll just do what I feel I'm supposed to do on this earth and then leave it when my time comes.

 

But on a side note, living forever and doing everything because you don't have the time factor, would be amazing. Learning anything you want, working a lot to make money and then use it to finance your dreams. That sounds amazing!

[Velcade]

29 minutes ago, N1tro199 said:

But on a side note, living forever and doing everything because you don't have the time factor, would be amazing. Learning anything you want, working a lot to make money and then use it to finance your dreams. That sounds amazing!

Imagine running a race with no finish line... Sounds terrible.  If you live forever you'll never have enough money to retire.

[circeseye]

if that ever came to be it would be a catastrophe. if everyone lived forever population would skyrocket beyond sustainability. plus living forever would have to suck after a while....now if there was space travel involved that would be cool.

[Shadow_Storm56]

9 minutes ago, circeseye said:

if that ever came to be it would be a catastrophe. if everyone lived forever population would skyrocket beyond sustainability. plus living forever would have to suck after a while....now if there was space travel involved that would be cool.

Personally I would be hoping for the human body to live 100-130 years without old age. Then basically put into a robot or not depending on what you want, yes this is somthing we would want to be exploring other planets first. Already overpopulated 

[N1tro199]

4 hours ago, Velcade said:

Imagine running a race with no finish line... Sounds terrible.  If you live forever you'll never have enough money to retire.

True but the only reason you retire is because you're getting too old to work. But in this case, you never get too old to do anything. Like I said, there are other reasons why this is bad idea. But if you fix the rest, why not?

[aezakmi]

12 hours ago, Shadow_Storm56 said:

will earth be uninhabitable in 50 years and humans extinct?

yeah probably

[gcubed]

I am just kind of curious as to what the OP thinks could render the Earth uninhabitable and humans extinct (other than feminism as aezakmi hinted). I mean really, we are quite a bit like cockroaches, you can kill us in large numbers but some of us always reach the safety of the walls when the lights go on.

[duncannah]

Sounds scary.

[TetraSky]

I'm already bored out of my mind doing the same routine every day, I'd want to kill myself if I had to do that for the rest of eternity.

[Radium_Angel]

7 hours ago, Velcade said:

No one should outlive their usefulness. 

That would eliminate 95% of all people in gov't, worldwide...

 

..how would be liv....come to think of it, I'm okay with that!

[SpaceGhostC2C]

13 hours ago, PrinceNorris said:

Dying is the best opportunity for a human to be remembered forever.

Remembered =/= alive, though.

 

 

7 hours ago, Velcade said:

No one should outlive their usefulness. 

Define usefulness? Everyone find others useful or useless, depending on who you ask. Or you mean it in a dystopian, salve-to.the.system sense?

6 hours ago, Velcade said:

Imagine running a race with no finish line... Sounds terrible. 

Life is no race, though. Unless you are a lemming.

 

6 hours ago, N1tro199 said:

I think that our life should be used to impact the world around us in a good way and once our "job" is done, it should be over.

That's a path you can choose, although I don't personally recommend it. It's a valid choice still.

 

6 hours ago, circeseye said:

if that ever came to be it would be a catastrophe. if everyone lived forever population would skyrocket beyond sustainability.

By definition of "sustainable", you cannot simultaneously have everyone living forever and an unsustainable situation. Everyone living forever sounds like a very sustained situation  

 

[Shreyas1]

If we were all immortal, medical and food industries would crash, putting many out of jobs

 

Then again, we wouldn't need jobs as we would be immortal, so there is nothing we actually need

 

This is, of course, assuming we cannot die from anything at all and not just have unlimited age or something

[iLostMyXbox21]

dude i barely even wanna be alive knowing that life is gonna end

 

 

 

id be pissed if i was immortal

[FrostyRob]

From a global standpoint extending life beyond what it is now would lead to further depletion of resources and overpopulation.  Countries such as india and china would not be able to sustain their populations' needs.  Infrastructure would need to be vastly improved on a global scale.  For all we know, extending life far beyond what we know is already possible but will never see the light of day due to the inevitable problems that will arise from it. 

[THraShArD]

Live forever and keep paying taxes ? F- no , lol

[wasab]

I do not wish to be immortal. Immortality is for the weak, cowards, and those who can never escaped their biological instinct for self preservation.

 

Life itself is an illusion. It is just a complex biomolecular interactions among none living matters. Carbon is not alive. Hydrogen is not alive. Oxygen is not alive. If they bonded together to form organic compounds, they are still not alive. If these compounds managed to self replicate and consume/expand energy, they become freaks of nature. We are freaks of nature. Normal molecular structures do not so discriminately seek ways to replicate themselves. 

 

We consume energy to replicate, we maintain homeostasis to replicate. We grow aka increase out biomass until sexual maturity again to replicate. It is all in the spirit to making copies iof ourselves simply because due to natural selection, those who do not replicate, cease to exist. 

 

So the meaning of life really means to duplicate and self replicate. Nothing more. Isn't that just stupid, boring, and pathetic? Why would you desire something so stupid? Why would you desire life?

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, wasab said:

So the meaning of life really means to duplicate and self replicate. Nothing more. Isn't that just stupid, boring, and pathetic? Why would you desire something so stupid? Why would you desire life?

Would prefer not to self-replicate

[Sauron]

Even if we were able to copy our consciousness to a robot body or something, the original would still die - so what would be the point? Death of old age is good, earthly immortality severely decreases the meaning of life.

[Shadow_Storm56]

28 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Even if we were able to copy our consciousness to a robot body or something, the original would still die - so what would be the point? Death of old age is good, earthly immortality severely decreases the meaning of life.

I guess you guys are right. Maybe it would be better if it was just the ability to not get old an feeble. So you could enjoy life and all ur favorite things right until the end