Immortality

[greenetuckian]

Okay here is a good philosophical debate to kick off 2009.

It appears that we are quickly approaching a time when science may indeed find a gene that controls our aging process and perhaps with that knowledge a “cure” for old age. In other words a real honest to god “fountain of youth”. Now just suppose that the news of this “fountain” is out and no government can cover it up so a board is convened to explore the implications and how to proceed with the understanding that at least some persons will become if not immortal at least capable of attaining very great life spans.

Now let's say that this “immortality board” requests every person in the world to offer their ideas and opinions on the matter. What would you say?

[GoodDaughter]

well, to play the devil's advocate here, I'd have to say it would be a world that I would not care to live in.

[greenetuckian]

well, to play the devil's advocate here, I'd have to say it would be a world that I would not care to live in.
That would probably sum up the reaction to a good many people around the world. I imagine also if you were to have asked the world about creating an atomic weapon capable of destroying an entire city with one bomb a good many would have also said that it would be a world they "would not care to live in".

To play "devils advocate" myself I will say that like harnessing the power of the atom, immortality could be a great boon to mankind however also like atomic engineering the banishment of aging would present significant problems also.

Perhaps not in the next few years but in the near future someone out there is likely to find a way to if not stop or reverse the aging process then at least greatly retard it. This will open up a great philosophical and ethical debate.

I had hoped that perhaps we could have a piece of that debate right here.

[wax]

Green- with the understanding that at least some persons will become if not immortal at least capable of attaining very great life spans

Wax- The key of course is "at least some people" and it throws a monkey wrench into the whole question.

There are a couple of extremely nasty problems with the entire concept of course but the first is so basic it almost negates the rest.
Man is an animal.
He might be able to fool himself (or convince would be a better term I guess) that he has somehow progressed beyond animal status but... well I have a pig who is convinced he is a dog but bacon is bacon.

Accepting that man is an animal (a predator or otherwise but that designation has true meaning as well) the fact is that man can not violate the basic laws that nature creates concerning survival.
He has already stretched them a great deal by pushing this particular envelope to a very negative degree but what you suggest would actually snap it!

Populations are controlled by limits in resources and resources are designed to encourage competition which controls resources which controls population which controls... there is a pattern here.

So along comes man... not as special as he might claim to be.
He is a pack animal genetically designed to work cooperatively by violently replacing leadership every ten years or so. This insures genetic revolution and this insures population stability.
Man doesn't like it so he forms a false construct (religion and finally society itself) to extend that decade cycle.
This of course re-inforces the pack mentality of a pack hunting predator and "us" becomes established as well as the obligatory "them."

30 is a fine age to die for a man as far as nature is concerned. Give birth at 14 or 15 and you can hold grandchildren on your knee before a mammoth or a cave bear kills you... or the group decides feeding an old man is a waste of resources.
Very quickly man became so good at surviving in a hostile environment that the normal age of death rose by a third or more and by five thousand years ago an age of fifty was not rare... then sixty became almost a standard... now 75... 80... there are many 100 year old people living in the western world today!

But that is still "us".
In order to understand the point one must at least look at "them".

More than half of the population they have are under 18 years of age but you wouldn't really notice this because close to half of all children born die before the age of 10.
There are some "old" but not as many as one would think here in the western world because life is not that valuable for "them".

They starve for two reasons really: they are not us and they are nice to have around to warn us when times might be getting bad.
Haiti isn't any better today than it was a century ago and Ethiopia doesn't have any new pictures coming out of it. It doesn't really need new pictures the kids with extended bellys look the same today as the ones from the 80's that Sally Fields put in front of the camera spending millions of dollars to raise funding for western managers to earn bonuses yet somehow never produces a sandwich for.

We could feel bad about all of this but we won't (unless we have convinced ourselves we are no longer the animals that we are) because they are still them and not us.
Instead we declare Katrina worse than the tsunami that wiped out hundreds of thousands... because that was supposedly us and not them.

Green- Now let's say that this “immortality board” requests every person in the world to offer their ideas and opinions on the matter. What would you say?

Wax- Back to the point I guess. I would do everything in my power to gather my resources and hunt down and kill anyone on the “immortality board”. Because they would not be us and I could not afford for them to become well... "them".
Immortality could only work if we outlawed birth... and killed off one half of every human who lives today.
The fact is that we can not sustain the numbers we have today!

But there is "good" news... depending on how you view the "news" in question.
My great grandchildren (if any survive) will live in paradise.
I will likely die a very violent but somehow elated death.
And my children and grandchildren will take my sacrifice as a lesson and lead a new culture from the ruins of one that dreams of immortality as if man had somehow become more than he is!
If they are very lucky; and if they follow the teachings I have given them; they will start over and perhaps this time leave a singular diety out of things (but perhaps not).
They might take the lesson that paper can not replace gold no matter how much one pretends it can and that leaders must burn out twice as fast and twice as hard as those who labor to allow that leadership.

Progress is a funny thing because it's meaning is at once universal and at the same time singular.

[flatwater]

There is a fountain of youth or immortality as you put it but this is the wrong board to talk about it. No use in re-inventing the wheel. But with that said, I will say this. Would this immortality make you younger or just stop your aging the age that you are ? I would want something that would make me 22 again in body and strength but keep my knowledge where it's at now. Who wants to live for ever if your 80 ? good question though.

[EarthMama]

Perhaps not in the next few years but in the near future someone out there is likely to find a way to if not stop or reverse the aging process then at least greatly retard it. This will open up a great philosophical and ethical debate.

I had hoped that perhaps we could have a piece of that debate right here.

I don't know why that process should open up any greater a philosophical or ethical debate, more than any other medical breakthrough, Greenetuckian. Think of how much longer people are living now, than they did even 100 years ago. Or 200 years ago. If people who lived 200 years ago, could see and experience the lifespan that we have now, they'd probably think we already have found the "fountain of youth".


;D

[FZRaven]

I'm not for immortality for a few reasons. First off that planet could not sustain the amount of people that would inevitably come out of such a thing. It's bad enough right now, I can only imagine what it would be like if people lived forever.

The idea of some people living forever, or at least a very long time does sound good on the surface. Take for example Einstein, having a guy like that around for a few thousand years might be a rather good thing. But it would also cause many problems, as people would get rather upset that some people got to live forever and some didn't.

We would also have to limit the amount of children born, and after some time allow no more to be born. Having a child is one of the basic instincts of humans, what effect not being able to have a child would have I do not know. But I don't imagine it would be a good thing in the least.

My own personal beef with immortality is this. It might be good to live for a couple hundred years, maybe even a thousand or two. But sooner or later your going to get sick of it, and you're going to kill yourself. Which I guess would be the only way out if you are immortal, that or an accident.

This is also one of the reasons that I actually find the idea of an after life not so appealing. It would be nice to live for a while, but after some time it would turn into hell. You can't very well kill yourself in the after life, so your stuck forever just existing. And that's what it would turn into after a while, no meaning, nothing new to learn, just existing.

In short life without death is not something I would want, life has no meaning without death.

[greenetuckian]

I will agree with EarthMama that life spans have been extended but when I started this post I was thinking more about conquering the aging process. Whatever stops our bodies from growing and starts them deteriorating. I did not really mean it in the literal sense of unable to die just not dieing from old age.

I will also agree with FZR that the world would indeed become a very crowded place if we continued procreation unabated. Another good point would be in how the decision as to who would become immortal would be made. I figure it would be mostly who could afford it and possibly some organizations or governments might sponsor those they believe desirable to keep around.

As for FZRs other point about immortality getting boring, my thoughts if I had been born a few centuries back and had not been killed in an accident or caught a fatal disease then think of all of the things I would have seen. Granted if I was the only person I knew then it would be hard watching friends and family pass on. (see The Man From Earth movie).

As for the afterlife issue I have thought about that one myself. If there is an afterlife and there was nothing to explore nothing to learn would one not quickly get bored? Perhaps that's what earth is for, a vacation of sorts. Be mortal for awhile, explore, conquer, take chances, etc. but then again that would kind of negate FZRs concept that without death. life has no meaning.

Just some thinking out loud.

[FZRaven]

I will agree with EarthMama that life spans have been extended but when I started this post I was thinking more about conquering the aging process. Whatever stops our bodies from growing and starts them deteriorating. I did not really mean it in the literal sense of unable to die just not dieing from old age.

I will also agree with FZR that the world would indeed become a very crowded place if we continued procreation unabated. Another good point would be in how the decision as to who would become immortal would be made. I figure it would be mostly who could afford it and possibly some organizations or governments might sponsor those they believe desirable to keep around.

As for FZRs other point about immortality getting boring, my thoughts if I had been born a few centuries back and had not been killed in an accident or caught a fatal disease then think of all of the things I would have seen. Granted if I was the only person I knew then it would be hard watching friends and family pass on. (see The Man From Earth movie).

As for the afterlife issue I have thought about that one myself. If there is an afterlife and there was nothing to explore nothing to learn would one not quickly get bored? Perhaps that's what earth is for, a vacation of sorts. Be mortal for awhile, explore, conquer, take chances, etc. but then again that would kind of negate FZRs concept that without death. life has no meaning.

Just some thinking out loud.
Yes indeed John Oldman (lol) did see a lot, I still think the movie missed one very important point. You'd simple get sick of living after a while, no matter if there was new things to learn and see. It would become a burden after a while, everything would merge together. I think the one thing you might be missing, your mention of living a few centuries got me think about it. A few centuries I can see going by ok, I think it would be rather easy to handle. The real problem starts after that point, say a few thousand years or even greater still a million years. Could you even adapt to that much change, everything around you would change. All the animals we see today would not even exist that far into the future. The world itself would be so much different than it is today, heck life as we know it might not even be possible. If you live long enough you'll see the earth fall. That's not really something I want to be around for, the end of man.

The other thing to think about is how would your brain handle it? Would it simple purge information to make way for new information. Or would it at some point become so overloaded that you go insane. I think the hardest part would be keeping your sanity after a few thousand years.