Thread: If You Could Achieve Immortality Through Technology Would You Do It?

If given the choice I would want immortality through my contributions; my poetry, my humor, my charity. I don't need to see it all or know it all; if that were possible it would all be worthless, and an eternity of that sounds horrific.

If it affects the accounting process, I'm in the nonbeliever column.

Originally Posted by Felicity

Why do people feel that they need to know everything? --or want to? Wonder is a wonderful thing!

Yet it sounds like you don't like to wonder.

For example, just before you said you have an immortal soul. That's the opposite of wondering, it's presupposing.

Originally Posted by FreeWare

Yet it sounds like you don't like to wonder.

For example, just before you said you have an immortal soul. That's the opposite of wondering, it's presupposing.

Awe, rather than presupposition.

I don't discount that I could be entirely wrong. If I am, I am sincerely wrong.

However, faith is not a presupposition--it is a response to the experience of awe. So I have faith in that which I do not know for certainty.

Originally Posted by Blackrook

I'm not in a hurry to die but I do not fear death either.

Preferring to live is not the same thing as fearing death. Why fear nothing? One does not need to be afraid of dying in order to prefer living.

Originally Posted by Blackrook

I saw a story on the news which said that a form of immortality may soon be acheived through nanotechnology.

But even if that falls through, I think it's highly likely that technology may advance to the point where a form of immortality can be acheived. It will probably happen within our lifetime.

And if that happens, what will we do?

Will we take the pill, or the surgery, or whatever, to live forever?

Or will we choose to die naturally of old age?

I have already decided this question long ago as I am a fan of science fiction so this kind of problem naturally occurs to me.

But I will not reveal my answer until I hear from some of you.

So what will it be? Live forever through technology? Or die a natural death at the end of a normal lifespan?

It won't happen. It's simply an impossibility. The longer you live, the more errors occur in DNA replication/translation/transcription, etc.

Buddhism is about ways to avoid the appaling prospect of living forever - that is what is so appealing about it. Still, no accounting for tastes, is there?

Originally Posted by perdidochas

It won't happen. It's simply an impossibility. The longer you live, the more errors occur in DNA replication/translation/transcription, etc.

I haven't read the article he refers to, but I expect that the nanotechnology would maintain the body in an everlasting form, repairing everything as it gets damaged back to a preprogrammed state. How this could happen, I have no idea, but more probable then not it could happen in the near future considering the speed of technological progression in the last 200 years(even faster in the last 20 years).

Personally, I'd like to live forever with the guarantee that I can opt out whenever I wish to. I'd like to live a while considering how much will be going on in the next 100 years, but living just because is not a life I want. Better to have a restful death.

Originally Posted by Felicity

Awe, rather than presupposition.

I don't discount that I could be entirely wrong. If I am, I am sincerely wrong.

However, faith is not a presupposition--it is a response to the experience of awe. So I have faith in that which I do not know for certainty.

Ok, faith is awe. I'm sure some will also say it's love. Or submission. Or whatever emotion is prevalent for that person. No problem.

But it's not true that faith is not based on presupposition. In fact, that is all it is for the very simple reason that something that can never be evidenced can only be maintained by presupposition.

Originally Posted by FreeWare

Ok, faith is awe. I'm sure some will also say it's love. Or submission. Or whatever emotion is prevalent for that person. No problem.

If you like. There are many ways to characterizes the myriad nuances of faith.

But it's not true that faith is not based on presupposition. In fact, that is all it is for the very simple reason that something that can never be evidenced can only be maintained by presupposition.

God can be evidenced to an individual. I have been given ample evidence in my life to believe. I do not fully understand it, but I believe based on the evidence explicit in my life. Perhaps at one point in my life, it was a "presupposition," but I never was the sort to believe in anything without reason. I have always been somewhat suspicious of people in power and their "authority." So, I really doubt there was a time I accepted without reason (which "presupposition" implies).

Anyway--my faith is a response to the evidences (which inspire awe in me) manifest in my experience of this life. --Nothing "provable," mind you--simply ample evidence for my trust in what I experience and hold to be true.

Originally Posted by Blackrook

I saw a story on the news which said that a form of immortality may soon be acheived through nanotechnology.

But even if that falls through, I think it's highly likely that technology may advance to the point where a form of immortality can be acheived. It will probably happen within our lifetime.

And if that happens, what will we do?

Will we take the pill, or the surgery, or whatever, to live forever?

Or will we choose to die naturally of old age?

I have already decided this question long ago as I am a fan of science fiction so this kind of problem naturally occurs to me.

But I will not reveal my answer until I hear from some of you.

So what will it be? Live forever through technology? Or die a natural death at the end of a normal lifespan?

life extension rather than immortality your probably not indestructible um id live until i got sick of it with technology if i could, can I get some enhancements to my intelligence while I’m at it?