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Price of immortality


Totenkopf

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I think I'll try answering in 2nd person just for fun.

 

If you were to choose virtual immortality, I'll tell you what you'd give up. You'd give up a good part of what makes you human. Your outlook towards others would change significantly. You would be attending so many funerals of friends and family that you would learn to restrain your emotional attachments. You would become strangely patient with all things, which might appear unmotivated to some and appear wise to others. But in your lengthy life you would feel more and more detached from people even if they made you their philosopher-king. You would become a legend, but no one would be your peer, no one would be your teacher, and no one would be your hero.

 

 

In others words, you'll turn EMO!! *shriek* that's worse than death

 

I'll give up my past for a new future :xp:

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Y'all need to read some Tuck Everlasting =)

 

I agree with tk, the only likely course is depersonalization and/or utter heartwrenching pain. (viz: the first Highlander movie) I'm alright with death, and personally I trust Fate to choose it for me.

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Y'all need to read some Tuck Everlasting =)

 

I have. Pretty interesting book. Ending was quite...depressing, but that was because

the heroine did not take the potion of eternal life.

I took the whole book as an argument against tk's point, living forever can be fun. :) Then again, it was a long time, so maybe I'm remembering stuff differently.

 

There was another book that focused on immortality, but protrayed it in the same way as tk102 would like it. I forgot it's name, but it was written by the same guy as "I Know What You Did Last Summer". Expect horror scenes.

==

Totenkopf, the reason I dislike staying as a human being, despite the assurance of not having fraility, is the fact that I am already human and already having the same limitations as a human 50,000-100,000 years later. Being virtualized can give me some new experiences, allowing for the long lifespan to be a bit more interesting. Glad to know I can choose becoming a virtual being than staying human.

 

One question: Why wasn't there this uprorar against living for a long time in Kavar's Corner's topic of "Immortality"?

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Well, "immortal" does not include "foreveryoung" and regeneration, and such. So really it is a pretty lame deal. You are stuck in a corse-like human shell with virtually no standard of living at all, as probably all your senses would fail and you can barely move if anything. This is hardly fun, more like a torture. You should be PAID handsomely to have to go thru a torture of near-eternalty like that.

 

Now, on the other hand, give me also eternalyouth and regenerations ability(so I can regenerate parts that got hacked off) and I would be happy. Trying galactic travel won't be bad ... you will eventually reach whereever you are. My request would be to give the same package to my love. As for the price? hack just nuke this planet if you want to, it sucks anyways... I am moving to teh deep core.

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Well, "immortal" does not include "foreveryoung" and regeneration, and such. So really it is a pretty lame deal. You are stuck in a corse-like human shell with virtually no standard of living at all, as probably all your senses would fail and you can barely move if anything. This is hardly fun, more like a torture. You should be PAID handsomely to have to go thru a torture of near-eternalty like that.

 

Now, on the other hand, give me also eternalyouth and regenerations ability(so I can regenerate parts that got hacked off) and I would be happy. Trying galactic travel won't be bad ... you will eventually reach whereever you are. My request would be to give the same package to my love. As for the price? hack just nuke this planet if you want to, it sucks anyways... I am moving to teh deep core.

 

Yeah, I refined it so that you could keep your relative youth (ie no more aging/decay) and a certain degree of indestructibility. At least for the purposes of this discussion.

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Oh yeah, I forgot, you'd also give up your girlish curves and supple soft skin.

 

Mummies are what, like 5000 years old? My hunch is that things wouldn't improve much for a 50,000-year-old. Hope you have a good dental plan too. :)

Not really, at one point you would likely trancend into a being of energy. Then you wouldn't need any sort of health plan! ;)

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I would have to know how long I would actually be able to live. If I were able to live an infinite number of years I wouldn't know what I could give up to compensate for that.

 

Also, another thing I would need to know is if it is true immortality (i.e. not dying of sickness, wounds, human injustices, ect.)

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I would have to know how long I would actually be able to live. If I were able to live an infinite number of years I wouldn't know what I could give up to compensate for that.

 

Also, another thing I would need to know is if it is true immortality (i.e. not dying of sickness, wounds, human injustices, ect.)

 

 

See posts #22 & #32 and original post. It wouldn't be a question of could, but rather would.

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Oh yeah, I forgot, you'd also give up your girlish curves and supple soft skin.

 

Mummies are what, like 5000 years old? My hunch is that things wouldn't improve much for a 50,000-year-old. Hope you have a good dental plan too. :)

 

Edit: I think it's time to sleep.

In a few thousand years there will be robots with girlish curves and soft supple skin. Use one of those.

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Immortality has it's price.

 

Your soul.

 

The very thing that makes you human would ebb away decade after decade, century after century no matter how much you'd try to hold on to it until you would become an empty shell of a human with too much knowledge.

 

Ask Connor Mcleod of the Clan Mcleod. How many times do you think he fell in love and watched her grow old and die before he finally swore off love altogether. How many times can you go through that pain?

 

How many friendships would you watch die off as they got older and you never aged? Once people got wise to your condition, how welcome do you think you'd be to the rest of the ignorant mortals?

 

It would be a cold and loney existence with no end in sight.

...an existence of hiding and lying, alone forever.

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Huh?

 

By the way, B5 isn't alone, trancending from flesh to a being of pure energy is not an uncommon occurance in sci-fi.

 

No, but I referred to the idea that sci-fi stuff would come true.

 

Personally, I suspect something far stranger, and much less logical and organised.

 

And possibly involving a great deal of middle-management.

 

Edit: {To not go off-topic}: Some "sci-fi stuff" indeed does come true, Cell Phones/Trek Communicators anyone? Some, like all that glittery futuristic metallic clothing, thankfully doesn't. ;) -RH

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