I don't understand why people would want to live forever?

Life is ... well something I just don't understand why anyone would want to live forever at least in this day and age. There's so many health conditions that have no cures you really think medicine has come along way it has but it hasn't we have a lonng way to go. So many people are suffering mentally and physically with no relief if we lived in a world where every illness pretty much had a cured the quality of life would improve of course. But that's just one aspect of life I'm not even touching on financial and work that's a whole nother can of worms.

Or maybe... people are just afraid of death.

For me personally life would be only worth living forever in a scifi reality meaning I could live in my own simulation create the way I look who my friends and lovers are and what my job would be... although that might even get old I would have to create a new simulation or eventually just unplug to death.

As anything but a Highlander, no way.

#77

when people say they want to live forever, they usually imply they also want to be healthy for ever.

And regarding work and finances , i actually think that's easy. For most people l, if they can stay healthy, the longer they live, usually the more money they have.

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Maybe not forever, but as I said, I believe the 21st Century will be centrally defined by a massive one-on-one death race between technological advancement and human stupidity, and my only wish is to live long enough to at least get an idea of which one will win. The stupid yapping ape race is getting their long overdue comeuppance, and this is what I'll be doing all the way:

They just want to live longer. We all know we will die at any point in time. Life is unpredictable at times.

I think it's just a saying. We are entering the world and leaving it with death. It's not meant as to live forever. We carry on to another place, so I guess we in a sense live forever. Medicine can't cure anything we are all getting old and should be responsible for our health. Simple example you drink alcohol and smoke early on by the time you get to your 40 s n 50 s you will not be in the same health shape as a person who doesn't smoke or drink alcohol at all. You will be a part of the people who are ruining the health care system. The mental part of health is mostly because people are behaving stupid and it's getting them mentally sick. Just look at what they've done with money. Its soo poorly managed that some behave like it's a living organism. When in reality it's just a currency system for working and alot of people aren't paid what they deserve.

Living forever would cause a lot of new problems, and it also would go against nature. There would be no point to having offspring to pass on your genes to the next generation, and if no one died then the earth would eventually fill up and we would literally have too many people. There may even need to be a ban on new births. It would be pure chaos, so simply put, death is part of the circle of life and it needs to happen whether we like it or not.

The conditions of forever would need to be very specific for me to agree, but overall I am in favor.

There'd need to be a way for me to "opt out" whenever I chose. Like let's say there's a meteor coming and it's going to blow up the planet, I wouldn't want to be the one remaining person just floating in the void because I Can't die. I would want to be like "Hey, this sucks, time for me to go" and then die.

There would also need to be a regeneration, aging, and control-over-body factor as well. I'd need to be able to survive a harsh environment like space or something, I'd like to be able to control how I age (or freeze my aging around my low-40's or something), and I would need some sort of healing factor.

Basically I don't want to be in one of those "careful what you wish for" Devil bargains where I'm immortal but if my head is cut off then I'm just a disembodied conscious head; no, screw that, my head grows back instantly and my wounds heal and if I am burned for being a which I can tolerate the pain.

Outside of that, I think I would cope well.

• I have non-traditional views on death, so I think I could handle outliving people I love.
• I generally have a positive outlook on life outside of myself, even when the world seems to be going to shit (as it has been for the last 20 or so years).
• I am already depressed as hell and manage to cope with it; if I ever got my shit together, I might actually start to really enjoy my life for myself.
• For me the biggest reason to live forever is answers. I just want to see where things go.

I am not sure why people tend to take a negative view towards immortality, at least not on an individual basis. If humanity as a whole could be immortal, well that would be a HUUUUUUUUUUUGE problem, but if you are just speaking about one person like yourself then that's no issue.

I see nothing but positives and few negatives. Life would essentially become an experience, and not work. As a mortal it's like you're born and then you are forced to do this checklist until you're 18. Then you get a new checklist and you need to do all that stuff by the time you're 35. OK so now you got a job and a wife and a kid, now you get a new checklist to do until you're 65. If things went well, well, now you don't really have a checklist, now you just sort of try to pass the time until you die in a couple decades.

If I was immortal? Shit man, there'd be no checklist. I'd take some money out and hop on a train and travel. When I found a town I liked, I'd stay there and get a job. Get to know the people. Maybe open a business. When I got bored after 20 years I'd hand off the business to the community and then I don't know travel to Vietnam. I'd learn the language and maybe stay there for 100 years, really absorbing the culture until I was in fact a Vietnamese (not in blood, but simply by virtue of living the life).

Maybe there's WWIII and I join up to fight the good fight. That'd be terrible but since I'm immortal maybe I am in special forces lol and I kick some ass, save the day.

Maybe I spend a century or two as a "bad guy" and live as a hitman, taking out targets. Maybe I find religion for a few decades before realizing I've wasted my time, but spent it all doing good charity work.

Then I live to see the new world formed; a post-scarcity, no-currency social utopia like in Star Trek.

Speaking of sci-fi, I wonder when we land on Mars. Colonize mars. Terraform mars into an earthlike planet. I get to find all that out.

Maybe I have kids. Maybe I have A LOT of kids. I get to meet a lot of people, love a lot of women. Maybe some men, too; after all I am immortal, I should try everything.

Ooof, long rant. But yeah being immortal would be great provided it's not like the movie Death Becomes Her.

@madrocketeer said:

Maybe not forever, but as I said, I believe the 21st Century will be centrally defined by a massive one-on-one death race between technological advancement and human stupidity, and my only wish is to live long enough to at least get an idea of which one will win. The stupid yapping ape race is getting their long overdue comeuppance, and this is what I'll be doing all the way:

To be fair, this race has been going on for a long, long time and we are still here.

Humanity has always managed to take the next great advancement and instead of using it for the ultimate good, uses it for the ultimate bad.

Eventually we manage to get it right, or right enough. Yes, internet has created social media which in turn has allowed for genocides to occur; but internet has also allowed surgeons to remotely operate on people in other continents, brought families together with easier communication, and made the world a much smaller place (in a good way).

I think NASA is a pretty good example of this. They use or create technologies and generally have good applications. From Velcro to plastics to rocket engines to medical devices.

@mrbojangles25:

Perhaps, but my reading of history is that up until now, technological advancement has been running mostly independent of or as side effect of human stupidity (see WWII -> V2 rockets -> Wernher von Braun -> NASA for example of the latter). The 21st Century is the first time technology is being asked to overcome major global challenges, while human stupidity continually seeks to undermine those efforts.

NASA continues to be a beacon of technological can-do, and a fantastic value for money, but don't think for one second the Dunning-Kruger Brigade aren't actively gunning for those dastardly "globalists" - in both meanings of the word.

Which is fine by me. Can't lose faith in humanity if you never had one to begin with. Again, I'm going enjoy watching the overgrown hairless chimp race get their due comeuppance.

Because going through a lengthy death is scary. I don’t want to choke after my last breath so yes I want to live forever. That is me anyway.

I can’t think of a good (easy) way to die. I maybe have one close to good way.

Just a bit of a story to relate here.

I’ve recently (in the past month) turned a final corner on a severe chronic illness I was diagnosed at 20 (I’m 44 now). This isn't a turning of the corner in terms of physically surviving the illness or treatment, that’s in the past and all that happened and extended throughout my younger years, ending when I was around 37. It’s far too long a story to elaborate on here in detail of so many aspects, but let’s just say, since that age and the cessation of treatment, I’ve been harboring immense negativity and have been a downright miserable, selfish, bitter, resentful, victimized asshat. Angry and hateful. Blaming everyone and everything else. Wholly unpleasant to be around. This has been reflected everywhere I go to me, even here and on other boards, and I blame no one but myself. I‘ve undergone a bit of an awakening and spiritual rebirth. I‘ve accepted what happened through personal responsibility and accountability towards my own feelings.

I‘ve never known I could be so happy and at peace, and I say that in extremely poor health. Every day I wake up am I feel like I’m the happiest dude on the planet. It’s like a permanent opiate.

I suppose the reason I relay this story is that poor health and suffering…..I wouldn’t want to live in a world without them. Yes, there are absolutely horrific conditions that don’t improve, and that I believe can justify euthanasia. But what I’ve been taught is that life depends entirely upon the mentality you choose to allow in it. I could not have ever fully realized how important that is until my life literally depended upon its embracement. I was, until very recently, on a quick path to self-destruction, and am now free. This change has been life-saving, and I’m forever indebted to my illness for forcing it on me.

Point being…..the blessings that severe sickness can impart are immeasurable. Now that my negativity and hate has been let go, I see that my disease was the best thing that could ever have happened to me. It needed to happen, as I was a downright prick, lol.

It’s just wonderful to be alive, and even should I pass on tomorrow, I feel genuinely at peace and immensely proud to have survived. It’s all surplus from here on out.

There is afterlife after death.

@ghosts4ever: And spiderman is real!

anyways

Thanks for sharing your story.

This. No one is saying they want to live life forever stuck w/ illnesses and no quality of life.

But yeah, why not? I definitely want to.

Yes, thanks for sharing.

I can sort of relate. I'm not suffering from any specific disease that causes me to be hospitalized or anything, but there is depression, anxiety, and obesity. It causes me a lot of discomfort, a lot of emotional pain, and some physical pain because of how physical my job is and the stress it puts on my body.

Anyway I try to put up a good front and I think if you lie to yourself enough you can convince yourself it's true. It's the Dexter philosophy; if you pretend to have fun, you just might end up having fun for real.

Anyway the point I'm trying to make is "mind over matter" is very much a real thing. I think with enough willpower, if you do live forever you can get over just about anything. Watching a beloved pass away sucks, but the flip side is that you got to experience life with them at all; living forever multiplies this.

Embrace the chaos, avoid routine. At least years-long routine. Live one life, move to the next.

It's a fun mental exercise and philosophy to think about, to say the least.

What if there isn't?

I'm not disagreeing with you, I am just curious what you think of the idea of nothing after death.

Me? I find it comforting that things end. I know that puts me at odds with my previous statement of living forever and finding that a nice idea, but I guess I am kind of all or nothing like that. I'd either want a finite life in this world, or an infinite life in this world.

Living forever in someone else's idea of an afterlife is not really a pleasant idea to me unless I have absolute control over that world.

I’m sorry to hear of your struggles, I do seem to recall that you’ve spoken on your weight issues in the past (IIRC you were working out or on a diet, or something similar). Hopefully things are working out better for you. I‘ve always been thin, lucky with the genetics I guess, but there was a time I was about 40 pounds over my desired BMI (I’m 6’ so around 180 is my desired weight). It sucked, and depression and anxiety are absolute monsters to deal with. Depression is what had me eating so out of control.

To your point…..I believe research has proven that people who force themselves to smile are found to be genuinely happier. Not because they actually feel that way, but because there’s a real connection between one’s mood and physical actions. Fake it til you make it.

Mind over matter is no joke, it really is remarkable. In the release of my hate, envy, resentments, bitterness, etc……in that process, I could literally feel the negativity exiting through my fingertips and breathing. I’d love to understand more the mechanism of it, because it is very tangible and I’ve always considered the mind separate from the body when it’s really not. And I have to say, my body was crumbling at 44 under that burden, just crumbling, which was making me even MORE angry because I didn’t understand why I was having such rotten luck.…..and it was all in the mind. I fear irreparable damage has been done to me physically (this hate was in me for years), but it’s just marvelous to be free.

Positivity is where it’s at from here on out, as hate and negativity is a miserable way to exist. For me, and for everyone else.

I believe in Life after death for some,not the majority. Life/death is eternal,from what I’ve learned from chapters/verses/NDE’s from the Biblical standpoint and among other passages from NDE’s books/tv/internet….etc…I know that there’s a Heaven and Hell, I believe in the Rapture and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. I don’t have all the answers and have an infinite number of questions for God. What I’m getting at is that my beliefs is only you decide where you’d like to end up,No Belief in Jesus Christ and Forgiveness ,no Heaven,then you’re spending eternal Damnation. It’s just my Beliefs.

I'm of 2 minds on this. Part of me wants to see what's going to happen but it would probably get old really fast. There are a lot of reruns in human history.

I wouldn't mind living forever, and never aging, so long as my friends and family get to as well. No longer aging would be a wonderful thing to have. Time just goes by way too fast.