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Immortality

Posted January 4th, 2012 at 7:54 AM by twocows
This was a reply to some post on another site that I made a few minutes ago. The thread was about choosing between a number of options, such as eternal childhood or infinite political power or whatever.

Quote:
But I want immortality and the experiences that come with it. I'm happy now, I have purpose and love for living. Eternal childhood? My childhood sucked. I want to forever be able to pursue the things I enjoy. I want to live through the ages and watch the evolution of man. I want to play all of the good games, read every good book, watch every good movie. When humanity dies, even then I want to live on, learning all the knowledge of man, all of the secrets of trillions of men and women throughout history. Once I've learned all that remains, I want to spend the centuries or millennia creating. I will build the technology to travel the stars and explore the universe. Eventually, I will find the means to create life itself (AI or otherwise). I will be a creator. With infinite time, I can do anything possible within the realm of physics, can aspire to any goal and create or do anything. I can recreate the great experiment of man by myself.

That is my wish, and it is not among the choices.
People always talk about immortality (as in permanent immortality, not just eternal youth) like it's a given that it's a bad thing, that it's a given that you'd go insane from the boredom and loneliness. I don't think that's true at all. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so. I think I'd be genuinely satisfied with immortality.
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Comments

  1. Old Comment
    Esper's Avatar
    I don't know about other people, but immortality always sounded great to me. I'm a big procrastinator though.
    Posted January 4th, 2012 at 8:29 AM by Esper Esper is offline
  2. Old Comment
    Charizard★'s Avatar
    ^ Same. I've always found immortality interesting, it gives you much more time to reach your goals.
    Posted January 4th, 2012 at 9:14 AM by Charizard★ Charizard★ is offline
  3. Old Comment
    Livewire's Avatar
    *Cough excellent thread idea cough cough.*
    Posted January 4th, 2012 at 10:04 AM by Livewire Livewire is offline
  4. Old Comment
    Mr Cat Dog's Avatar
    And THIS is why I voted for you as Best Blogger in MOTY, twomoos! :D
    Posted January 4th, 2012 at 12:04 PM by Mr Cat Dog Mr Cat Dog is offline
  5. Old Comment
    I wouldn't enjoy being immortal, not because of the 'given' reason, but because I wouldn't bear watching others die while I stay alive.

    Things would definitely change if there was at least someone else, immortal like me.
    Posted January 4th, 2012 at 12:25 PM by Truality Truality is offline
  6. Old Comment
    Oryx's Avatar
    Immortality is a bad idea for me because I'm bad at teaching myself things. I would constantly get off task and never actually create anything of worth and waste time for eternity in a world without humans, haha.

    Plus what if immortality doesn't mean health, just that you can't die? Like you can get fatal diseases, you'll just go through all the pain of them and then not die and then you're too weak to do anything because you got like 20 different fatal diseases in your immortal life and you can't get rid of them but you can't die either ))):
    Posted January 4th, 2012 at 12:39 PM by Oryx Oryx is offline
    Updated January 4th, 2012 at 1:18 PM by Oryx
  7. Old Comment
    -Jared-'s Avatar
    [QUOTE=Truality;bt73491]I wouldn't enjoy being immortal, not because of the 'given' reason, but because I wouldn't bear watching others die while I stay alive.

    Things would definitely change if there was at least someone else, immortal like me.[/QUOTE]

    This is how I feel. If there was another immortal person I could live wit, immortality might be interesting. But even then, watching my family die while I live on would be devastating to me, so I odn't know if I would even choose it then. :\
    Posted January 4th, 2012 at 5:00 PM by -Jared- -Jared- is offline
  8. Old Comment
    twocows's Avatar
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Toujours View Comment
    Plus what if immortality doesn't mean health, just that you can't die? Like you can get fatal diseases, you'll just go through all the pain of them and then not die and then you're too weak to do anything because you got like 20 different fatal diseases in your immortal life and you can't get rid of them but you can't die either ))):
    Since immortality is already an impossibility, I can just decide what it means. And I can just exclude that. :P
    Posted January 5th, 2012 at 1:02 PM by twocows twocows is offline
  9. Old Comment
    J's Avatar
    if i were able to switch my consciousness on and off at will-- only then would i consider immortality. (so as to eliminate boredom while traveling across interstellar distances or waiting for intelligent life to emerge and the like)
    additionally, i would also like to gain total sovereignty over my ego and to only feel as i wish to feel, and to desire what i wish to desire.
    (but there's a paradox here; you must have some "root desire" in order to desire whatever it is that you desire. so how would i know what it is that i "want to desire?")

    alternatively, i could just be a god
    -> reality warping powers
    Posted January 8th, 2012 at 5:14 AM by J J is offline
  10. Old Comment
    [url]http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=267020&page=4[/url]

    Although it's not what you're getting at, what do you think about this concept?
    Posted January 8th, 2012 at 5:15 AM by Overlord Drakow Overlord Drakow is offline
  11. Old Comment
    twocows's Avatar
    @Drakow: could you link a specific post and not just the page?
    Posted January 8th, 2012 at 5:20 AM by twocows twocows is offline
  12. Old Comment
    Kura's Avatar
    If you're immortal, would you really make the most of every day? How many people do you think try and make the most of every day anyways? Hmm.. would you need to change for the appropriate times you think? So much to consider!
    Posted January 8th, 2012 at 7:31 AM by Kura Kura is offline
  13. Old Comment
    twocows's Avatar
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kura View Comment
    If you're immortal, would you really make the most of every day? How many people do you think try and make the most of every day anyways? Hmm.. would you need to change for the appropriate times you think? So much to consider!
    I think I would always seek out enjoyment, at the very least.
    Posted January 8th, 2012 at 7:32 AM by twocows twocows is offline
  14. Old Comment
    [url]http://www.pokecommunity.com/showpost.php?p=6995238&postcount=80[/url]

    There you go.
    Posted January 8th, 2012 at 8:42 AM by Overlord Drakow Overlord Drakow is offline
  15. Old Comment
    J's Avatar
    [QUOTE=Kura]If you're immortal, would you really make the most of every day? How many people do you think try and make the most of every day anyways? Hmm.. would you need to change for the appropriate times you think? So much to consider![/QUOTE]

    assuming that the total 'objective meaningfulness' of a system is a constant represented by "m", and that the 'meaningfulness density' of your life is given defined as p= m/t, (t being the elapsed time plus the range of the system, or the four-dimensional subspace which meaning occupies,) consider the following:[LIST]
    since the universe is not infinite, m must have some upper limit (the total objective meaning of the universe) this can be demonstrated as follows:[LIST][*]assume that meaningfulness is a physical property of a system.[*]when a system A is [U]completely[/U] identical to a system B, (across space, time, etc.,) then we can assume that p[SUB]A[/SUB]=p[SUB]B[/SUB]. this allows leniency for causal origins and other factors. (to illustrate, we are not talking about pixels in a single frame of animation; we are talking about pixels across the entire film)[*]let our system span across the entire universe.[*]as shown above, any state of the universe A would have the same meaning p as some some state B iff they share the same particle-space configuration.[/list]consider:[list][*]the amount of energy/mass/particles in the universe is arguably finite.[*]spacetime is arguably finite.[*]thus the total possible configurations of the universe U (that is, the ordering or positioning of all the particles in the universe, without regard to physical impossibilities,) is limited (though it should be some insanely large number).[*]combining with the above, the total possible amount of meaning in the universe is limited.[/LIST][*]since you're immortal, you are defined as "undying." thus you would have infinite time. thus t goes to infinity.
    [*]p = m/t; limiting t to infinity for some constant m, p approaches zero.[/LIST]thus, immortal people's lives have almost zero meaningfulness density!
    QED

    unless of course[LIST][*]time doesn't go to infinity or[*] if the universe spontaneously generates meaning ex nihilo at a rate faster than dt/dt (which is actually 1) (but that is a violation of thermodynamics).[/LIST][SIZE="1"]These arguments don't work:[LIST][*]allowing space to go to infinity to work around the finiteness of U doesn't work, since you would still have to limit t to infinity, p inevitably dropping to zero.[*]arguing that a system can have an infinite amount of causal origins require infinite time, again causing p to go to zero.[/LIST][/SIZE]
    but since the former objection of the former category (i.e., time does not go to infinity) seems to be true-- rejoice! for your life has non-zero meaningfulness density. but on the downside you don't get to have an infinitely long lifespan.

    now let's see how many logical fallacies/longjumps/errors i committed here. and that's not even to include my vague definitions of m and t. (t may be composed of several other rates i have not the diligence to examine.)
    Posted January 10th, 2012 at 3:35 AM by J J is offline
  16. Old Comment
    twocows's Avatar
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Drakow View Comment
    What good is being remembered if you aren't around? I'd rather live a single day longer than be remembered for thousands of years.
    Posted January 10th, 2012 at 5:07 AM by twocows twocows is offline
 

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