Immortality

[Ferocitus]

I don't know about lobsters, but one would expect (far) simpler organisms to be "immortal", cause they don't have that many organs to regenerate anyway. Maybe something as simple as a type of worm, or a clam like the one in the link
Not that worms are likely to survive in the wild; iirc they are the main food of a vast category of predators.

Re human ageing, apart from biological factors psychology plays a role too. Living for 1000 years would be tougher, i think, even assuming you can not actually age much. Ferocitus' point about being familiar with the state of things in the world is very good; can you even imagine children not suffering from depression if they guess how things are from a very early age?

Those studies of "perfect recall" are like a folie a deux between the researchers and their subjects. (I bet the reports invariably end with a request for more funding!)
I'd also bet that a few questions by an experienced court lawyer would expose the nonsense very soon.
The Ship of Theseus would sail into view within moments.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics prohibits the "immortality" of an organised system.
Next!

The second law of thermodynamics dictates heat death will catch up to us. But this doesn't prevent us from resisting our own entropy for an extremely long time by foisting it elsewhere, until there is no elsewhere.

Usually people would just call this immortality rather than "almost immortality until billions/trillions of years from now" because it's simpler (and almost nobody would last that long without some fluke accident given the non-magic immortality variant), but it's true that not even 10 trillion years is "forever".

 

[Ferocitus]

So, we've argued it down from infinite to finite.

After a very long time, all other celestial objects have moved so far away from us that that our "immortality" has left us in a dark, cold region of space (not unlike Canada in winter); the light from other those other objects no longer reaches us, or is far too feint to perceive.

Party like there's no tomorrow (almost) immortals!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So, we've argued it down from infinite to finite.

After a very long time, all other celestial objects have moved so far away from us that that our "immortality" has left us in a dark, cold region of space (not unlike Canada in winter); the light from other those other objects no longer reaches us, or is far too feint to perceive.

Party like there's no tomorrow (almost) immortals!

It has to be finite, unless our universe isn't. That goes against best evidence we have.

Last I heard expansion won't actually overcome gravity at galaxy levels, so there would still be stars in the sky (of some other planet after Earth gets roasted) until the red dwarfs go out. After that you're stuck with whatever energy might be dragged from gas giants and/or black holes, but even those won't last forever, though black holes are supposedly the last things that will exist.

 

[Ferocitus]

So, we've argued it down from infinite to finite, and now also from possibly really great fun, to like being in Canada in winter for a very, very long time.

Black hole sun
Won't you come
And wash away the rain

 

[Lexicus]

That goes against best evidence we have.

AFAIK the best evidence we have is that the universe has a flat curvature suggesting it is infinite in extent.

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, we've not ruled out that it's infinite in size. Obviously, that's the best we can do.

But it's not infinite in time, from any practical standpoint. Or, at least, that's the current suggestion. I will admit that it's a potential roadblock for true immortality. But, there also seems to be closer problems that deserve attention.

I'm in the strong camp of 'we should push back the damages of aging' when it comes to wanting medical progress. I'm technically an immortalist, but only in a way that doesn't mean much. I think that involuntary death is a problem worth tackling.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

AFAIK the best evidence we have is that the universe has a flat curvature suggesting it is infinite in extent.

Hmm you're right, though in practice unless we break FTL somehow what any theoretically immortal human being could access is finite regardless of the fact that in principle you could travel in a straight line and get further away from where you started forever.

 

[zazazuzu]

Anyone who's older than 35 or so has experienced, after being teens themselves, suddenly not understanding teens anymore. Ok. Now just project that almost infinitely... How would immortal beings understand, and value, and interact with human mayflies, mortal beings? Do you think those immortal beings would have the best interests of the mayflies in mind as they go about their timeless business? I don't.

Lots of great responses, but I have a limited time here, so I'm just making my blurb here for the time being. I'll be black, as Space said, once.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Anyone who's older than 35 or so has experienced, after being teens themselves, suddenly not understanding teens anymore. Ok. Now just project that almost infinitely... How would immortal beings understand, and value, and interact with human mayflies, mortal beings? Do you think those immortal beings would have the best interests of the mayflies in mind as they go about their timeless business? I don't.

Lots of great responses, but I have a limited time here, so I'm just making my blurb here for the time being. I'll be black, as Space said, once.

Teenagers might not have been your best pick for an analogy. You'd have a difficult time making a case they have their own best interests in mind based on behaviors vs outcomes.

We don't know how someone who has lived multiple centuries would think, but that's not a convincing argument against striving for the capability.

 

[El_Machinae]

Anyone who's older than 35 or so has experienced, after being teens themselves, suddenly not understanding teens anymore. Ok. Now just project that almost infinitely... How would immortal beings understand, and value, and interact with human mayflies, mortal beings? Do you think those immortal beings would have the best interests of the mayflies in mind as they go about their timeless business? I don't.

Lots of great responses, but I have a limited time here, so I'm just making my blurb here for the time being. I'll be black, as Space said, once.

You're concerned that there will be a subclass of persons created, it seems. That there will be a group of people that are 'mortal' and a group that are not. I think that this is inevitable, but I don't think that it's inevitable that it will be a very long period of time. That said, we already severely discount the quality of life of many animals, and treat them like cogs in our industrial machine

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You're concerned that there will be a subclass of persons created, it seems. That there will be a group of people that are 'mortal' and a group that are not. I think that this is inevitable, but I don't think that it's inevitable that it will be a very long period of time. That said, we already severely discount the quality of life of many animals, and treat them like cogs in our industrial machine

It might actually be a long time. More people I've talked to than not said they would turn down immortality even under the hypothetical scenario of it existing as an option. If immortal people were restricted in terms of reproduction this would have further selection effects.

I also don't trust for a second what people say offhand now vs what they'd actually do are anywhere near consistent on average. Results could swing either way pretty significantly.

 

[Ferocitus]

Anyone who's older than 35 or so has experienced, after being teens themselves, suddenly not understanding teens anymore. Ok. Now just project that almost infinitely... How would immortal beings understand, and value, and interact with human mayflies, mortal beings? Do you think those immortal beings would have the best interests of the mayflies in mind as they go about their timeless business? I don't.

Lots of great responses, but I have a limited time here, so I'm just making my blurb here for the time being. I'll be black, as Space said, once.

If some of this is too sciencey for your tastes, maybe something like H.P. Lovecraft's stories about "The Deep Ones" might be more to your liking.

 

[zazazuzu]

If some of this is too sciencey for your tastes, maybe something like H.P. Lovecraft's stories about "The Deep Ones" might be more to your liking.

I'll check it out. My posts here are based on my personal experience. As I (and my cohorts) get older and more detached from the biological basis of existence, can I be trusted to make sure that biological genesis will continue to endure?

 

[Ferocitus]

I'll check it out. My posts here are based on my personal experience. As I (and my cohorts) get older and more detached from the biological basis of existence, can I be trusted to make sure that biological genesis will continue to endure?

I'm 64. After what I've seen of humanity, my bet is that ants, bacteria and viruses are going to inherit the Earth. Humans are a dead end.
Incidentally, there are some Actinobacteria that are estimated to be around 1/2 million years old.
I wonder what they think of teenagers.

 

[El_Machinae]

It might actually be a long time.

It could be. But not necessarily in the sense of any type of geological time. I cannot predict culture, obviously, but I think that there will always be a spread between the cost of ending aging for people and the ability to do so, and that this spread could shrink over time.

I don't see how it's necessarily true that the ammortals will lose their humanity faster than humanity fails to help everyone. There could be some type of diaspora, I guess, where the ruined Earth is left behind. But no idea if that becomes permanent.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

So, we've argued it down from infinite to finite, and now also from possibly really great fun, to like being in Canada in winter for a very, very long time.

Winter in Canada can be cold (witness my electricity bills in February and March due to needing a space heater to keep from freezing). But unless you're near the Arctic Circle, it isn't that dark. Granted there's not a lot of daylight in December, but there's enough.

Anyone who's older than 35 or so has experienced, after being teens themselves, suddenly not understanding teens anymore. Ok. Now just project that almost infinitely... How would immortal beings understand, and value, and interact with human mayflies, mortal beings? Do you think those immortal beings would have the best interests of the mayflies in mind as they go about their timeless business? I don't.

Has nobody in this thread ever watched the Highlander series? (TV show, not movies).


What folks here should do is read what I consider to be Isaac Asimov's greatest short story: The Last Question . This is what can happen when humans keep asking "How can entropy be reversed?" (if it could be, that's how you achieve immortality).

If you don't want to read it yourself, here is Asimov reading it:

 

[zazazuzu]

Winter in Canada can be cold (witness my electricity bills in February and March due to needing a space heater to keep from freezing). But unless you're near the Arctic Circle, it isn't that dark. Granted there's not a lot of daylight in December, but there's enough.


Has nobody in this thread ever watched the Highlander series? (TV show, not movies).


What folks here should do is read what I consider to be Isaac Asimov's greatest short story: The Last Question . This is what can happen when humans keep asking "How can entropy be reversed?" (if it could be, that's how you achieve immortality).

If you don't want to read it yourself, here is Asimov reading it:

Excellent, Valka. For me it brings together the ideas that, not only is immortality a horrific concept, it's also ultimately an empty, completely meaningless one.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I probably wouldn't want to live forever, but I'd like to have the option.
You can always call it quits when you get bored after a few centuries. If you can't relate to younger people, just hang out with people of your age.
The real problem is resource distribution. Who gets to be immortal ? Everybody ?
There are already too many humans for one planet.
We would have to find a few new suitable worlds and a method to get there.

 

[civvver]

Live forever at what stage though? Like if I could be my 30 year old self forever ok why not, but do I want to be 90 with all the physical limitations a 90 year old, even a healthy one, has? Plus I thought scientists determined some practical limit of when our cells would just die, and it was like 200 years old or something. Well short of immortal.