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Arguing for Immortality

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Re: Arguing for Immortality

#51

Post by pjscott »

repsilat wrote: post #49
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #28

I noticed a lot of people confuse "realistic" immortality (which is presumably achievable through advances in medicine, but does not imply an infinite life span - only a very very long one and the absence of mortal disease) with forced (mandatory) immortality (which means you are sentenced to live forever, you can't die no matter what you do). I am perpetually surprised how few people realize that only the first kind…

> So you start talking with them about realistic, scientifically achievable, immortality, and you end up answering arguments against mandatory immortality. WTH? In a society in which life-extending practices are widespread and accepted, an intentional "failure to take your medication" could be tantamount to suicide. Most governments don't currently support a person's right to choose to die, often acting to prevent su…

How many governments today will punish people for failing to take their medicine? Usually they go with some bizarre double-think law where killing yourself is forbidden, but passively allowing yourself to die is fine.

Of course, even if someone passed a mandatory life extension law, it would be easy enough to get around if someone decided that it was time to die. Someone in good health who's actually serious about suicide is hard to stop, considering how many things are lethal.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#52

Post by brownbat »

I like the inductive argument.

How much do you hope to die in this coming year? (Definitely / A bit / Not at all?)

Living this past year, did it make you less fond of life? Do you really expect people slightly older than you will not reply 'not at all'?

The same people who don't want to live forever, I bet we'll find they are perpetually in favor of living 'a bit longer.'

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#53

Post by AngryParsley »

Helianthus wrote: post #46
orangecat wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again I defer to an alternate version of Harry Potter: "Uh huh," Harry said. "See, there's this little thing called cognitive dissonance , or in plainer English, sour grapes . If people were hit on the heads with truncheons once a month, and no one could do anything about it, pretty soon there'd be all sorts of philosophers, pretending to be wise as you put it, who found all sorts of amazing benefits to being hi…

the thing about Eliezer's rather snide take on cognitive dissonance is it doesn't really address the issue at hand. people dying does clear out old ideas. the leopard doesn't change his shorts. or at the very _least_ you could make an argument that people can be changed, that old hard-line racists can be won over, instead of claiming that any idiot who thinks immortality might have its seamy side is just displaying '…

Yes, there are benefits to aging. One of those benefits is that old ideas will go away faster. Another benefit is that it will slightly reduce population growth. People who want indefinite lifespan do not disagree with these points. We simply think that these benefits are not worth the destruction of 150,000 human beings per day.

Replace "aging" with anything else that kills people (malaria, AIDS, cancer, etc) and people want to fix it. The only difference between those diseases and aging is that aging kills many more, since we all get it.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#54

Post by meric »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #48
yesbabyyes wrote: post #15

Death cleans out old ideas. I have a hard time getting over the feeling that an older civilization is also more conservative. Especially a civilization where the people with money and power are the ones who are older. "Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent, it clears out the old to make way for the new." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd_ptbiPoXM

I'm pretty sure the benefits would outweigh any perceived drawbacks: 1. Like elves in Tolkien's works, people who can only die by disease or by being slain might be much more careful about starting wars that could kill them (politicians probably wouldn't, but those who have to do the fighting might). 2. Imagine a world where the Einsteins, Hawkings, etc. don't die just as they've come to master their field, but conti…

Robert Mugabe, forever.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#55

Post by delinquentme »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #28

I noticed a lot of people confuse "realistic" immortality (which is presumably achievable through advances in medicine, but does not imply an infinite life span - only a very very long one and the absence of mortal disease) with forced (mandatory) immortality (which means you are sentenced to live forever, you can't die no matter what you do). I am perpetually surprised how few people realize that only the first kind…

" Most people create this coping mechanism to enable them to deal with the prospect of their own demise, and end up unconsciously hostile to the idea of immortality."

bingo.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#56

Post by andrewflnr »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #15

Death cleans out old ideas. I have a hard time getting over the feeling that an older civilization is also more conservative. Especially a civilization where the people with money and power are the ones who are older. "Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent, it clears out the old to make way for the new." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd_ptbiPoXM

Given an infinite lifespan, you'll probably figure out how to change your mind better.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#57

Post by delinquentme »

delinquentme wrote: post #27
presidentender wrote: post #11

Philosophy of mind can progress, and the immortal can keep up with newly born and educated mortals for a while. Having a few immortals running around is probably not a bad idea, actually, because stores of experience in the form of really old people would be able to give excellent advice. The problem that I foresee is that eventually, philosophy of mind and new schools of thought just won't be able to keep up with th…

" interesting pet at best " ?

nice downvote... how about an explanation?? this quote is fodder.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#58

Post by delinquentme »

pjscott wrote: post #43
delinquentme wrote: post #24

the big question: " Do we believe this to happen eventually" ... if so, why not within our lifetimes?

Incidentally, even partial progress within our current life expectancies can extend our lifetimes, perhaps enough for more progress to be made which will extend our lifetimes more, and so on. This gives longevity research more runway, which is nice.

degreys "longevity escape velocity"

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#59

Post by Zakharov »

What happens if somebody puts you in a barrel full of concrete and dumps the barrel in the bottom of the ocean? Or worse, blasts you off into space? Given an immortal lifespan, it seems inevitable that someone would at some point do this to you. For this reason I wouldn't take perfect immortality. Immortality plus teleportation would work, though.
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