Somebody here (lots a dots I think it was) recently said that they didn't think humans would ever live longer than 150 years. In the past of course humans live much shorter lives and the potential is there for us to live longer and enjoy life longer. In the future who knows where science could be?


I like science fiction and it's visions of the future but would living forever ever be possible and would you want to. I guess your views on the after life might have some impact on how you feel about it. Perhaps our mortality is our main motivation to do anything though.


If I could live life forever and be healthy I might be o.k. with the idea for a while but I am also in a way looking forward to dying in a non depressing sense.

What would happen about population growth if people stopped dying? Or would we be living on other planets by then? Thinking about my favourite sci fi movies the future is usually technologically advanced but usually every bit as fucked up sociologically speaking.



Hmmm

The more technology advanced we become, the more of a shit society we become.

maybe if we lived forever we'd care about the long term consequences of our actions today
i think its good people die off though, it puts a stop to certain patterns of thought and culture and allows new ones to flourish. i dont know what would happen if we lived forever.. would it all become stagnant and homogeneous?

Even with stem cell treatments in the future i just don't see a way to stop the natural aging process.

All it takes is a visit to an old folks home or nursing care facility for me to know that i don't want to grow old.

For the majority of people over 70 years old life seems like a painful struggle.

Living forever could be possible though. We might not have any idea of how that would work but in years to come science could make huge leaps that we simply can't imagine right now. Just as some advances of today were probably hard to imagine years ago.

i-baster wrote:
I just don't understand what could stop the natural aging process.

Who knows? Spare parts. Science could regenerate tissue and organs. Possibly we could live without an actual body.

I like there to be some degree of intervention, to repair broken bones & treat medical illnesses - to help people live to a natural life expectancy age in as much comfort as possible, but the kind of intervention that would be necessary to make this life infinite would seem too unnatural for me to be happy with it.

And we don't know what happens at the end of this life-cycle. We probably all have theories, but we don't really know.

I'd rather accept death when it comes, in the expectation that there's some form of different, continued existence to be experienced, whatever it might be.

.......... wrote:
They are getting younger in those facilities, maybe like devolution instead of evolution, the age process may be starting to reverse, and actually peaked out in longevity with the world war 2 generation that have lived so long, but only because of creature comforts and climate control the lifespan seems to have extended up but now going back down as for bad health and dieing young. imo

i-baster wrote:
Now your starting to crossover into the topic of transhumanism.

Gilly wrote:
I've always liked the idea that we create the afterlife we will experience. If you think you're on the way to heavenly bliss or a hot time being punished than maybe that's what you'll get.
Saying that, I'm in the camp of multiple existences for our consciousness (us) to experience. Any after or between life experience we have is just another step and another lesson to learn. IMO

It's Valhalla for me! I'm looking forward to a bit of quaffing and carousing before the next journey. Pass the ale, Odin!

I read a book years ago by someone who claims to be a proficient astral traveller (sorry, can't recall the author's name), and he claimed to have visited some plane of existence where he witnessed many people who'd died, and were experiencing a period of time in 'heaven / hell', before they moved on, because they'd believed ardently in that while 'alive', that their minds sort of created it for them.

They'd only progress when they twigged that it was their own creation & imposition of this 'reality', and there were other things they could be exploring instead.

I'm not saying I take it to be factual, but it's interesting to contemplate.

I'd already wondered if the belief of people like my husband, that when you die, that's it, there's nothing else - might actually hinder them from moving on after death. I can picture the scene - a spirit guide appears to lead the way, & he says stubbornly, "No, you're not real & this isn't happening. I'm dead. Sod off!"

My son, on the other hand, got into a flap at having to walk past graves on the school grounds when he first went - kept panicking about not wanting to have to 'live' under a stone when he's dead, and fretting that he wouldn't know where to go & what to do when he dies. He was really scared, & it kept preying on his mind, so I told him that it's nothing to worry about, and I'll come & show him.

That eased his mind, but then his dad said I was filling his head with rubbish. I've always told him to decide about religion(s) when he's old enough to understand them, and not before, but I couldn't stand seeing a tiny boy worrying about death! Not just his own, but mine & his Gran's. So, if it's possible to meet him when he passes over (as I actually suspect it is) I'll be there.

I like the idea that we get to walk in the clouds and see all of our relatives when we die.

So i understand why people find comfort in Religion.

i-baster wrote:
Whoever said this, based himself on this article, of a scientist who claimed this.

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-...laims-scientist.html

NOTE: IF people live to be a 1000 years old, people would live without fear of death.
Maybe that would be the good side to it.
Living in a world that is not fear-oriented for once, would be great.

batou wrote:
I don't like this programme as I don't like John Barrowman but ended up watching it because the rest of my bunch do... it's Torchwood and they had their own version of what it would be like if we started living forever. You might want to watch it

A super computer interfaced with the brain making constant backups/downloads of everything stored in the brain.
Once dead, all we'd need are some empty vessels to upload the information into...

I must say that I'm not scared of death, and I want to live as long a life as possible, but I am scared of the process of dying. Having watched my grandfather slowly wither away from cancer, this is a truly horrendous process, particularly if you're strong like he was and your body fights the disease. It's a very sad thing to see someone who was very strong, who would have been able to absolutely hammer me at arm wrestling (not a huge achievement, admittedly!) well into his seventies, just slowly but steadily wither away.

The last few weeks are particularly horrible when he was confined to a home, and went through a pretty horrendous process while he simply waited to die. Everyone knew that he was going to die, and we sort of assumed that he knew too, but then one day he said he wanted to get better. Eventually he couldn't do anything for himself, and he used to have a massive appetite, but could barely eat anything at all, and had to be fed by others. I wasn't there for the last 48 hours, but apparently this was particularly bad as he came in and out of consciousness frequently, with the cancer obviously inevitably going to win the war, but his body battling it to the bitter end.

So I'm quite scared of that.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
I can relate to much of that. Although my mum was not an arm wrestler she was by no means weak. She had cancer beaten despite the local gp failure to diagnose it until late on. Then it came back while she was getting back to her old self. Then came a time when she was just waiting. On the plus side we got to say goodbye. I feel she could have either beaten it or at least lasted longer had the gp been more competent. He was slow to diagnose the second time too for the record. I would have liked time for her to meet my wife and see her grandkids. Perhaps we meet again somehow and longer life as we know it is not a big deal and maybe it is just selfish to want a few more years. After all mortality rates are brought down by dead babies. It is odd to imagine a heaven with a baby you never got the chance to know as a person you know?

I do wonder about how crowded heaven could be and can your relatives meet Elvis or Tupac for example. Then again maybe we go around again.

I just wonder.

This may sound totally off the shelf and as mad as a box of frogs but myself, my other half and our best mate have all made a rather unusual pact. Whoever get's to the point first where some form of disease has taken us to the point where we are no longer ourselves, then either of the other two will assist this one to die. And the same for the next one. Whoevers last gets the short end of that stick obviously.
It may sound crazy but its gave all three of us a weird sense of calm in regards to old age due to a stronge bond of trust we have.

Time will tell

@i-baster, I'm sorry you had to experience that, it's not a pleasant experience.

@psketti, I think it's a pretty sensible decision actually, and it certainly gives you an incentive to be nice to them in the meantime!