Live forever?

[farscapeone]

If somebody offers you the power to live forever, would you actually accept it? If you have to choose without the possibility of coming back, what would you do and why?

I know many people wish to live forever but have you ever seriously thought about it?

 

[DeadBattery]

I wouldn't accept an offer to live forever. Eventually, I'll get old and life will be painful and I'll want to die.
Currently, I'd like to live. This will change hopefully about 80 years later.

 

[krofunk]

erm...It is a tough question, obviously most would jump in and say yes. I however would find it hard to be friends with anyone knowing that they would die off and I would be left alone.


...Of course if you like to be alone then this could be fine, but I think it would get to you eventually + I think you would be rejected by society as a freak and such.

 

[carl6969]

I do not want to live forever, but I do hope to live for a very long time. I am planning on breaking 100 before I cash in the chips. I enjoy life and enjoy living and wish to continue enjoying life far into the future if possible, but not forever.

There is an important variable that was not brought up in the original post which might have considerable influence on a persons desire to live forever or not. What would quality of life be? Would one continue to age and be afflicted by a steadily increasing number of ailments, aches and pains? If so I would imagine that a time would come when death might be welcomed.

 

[ShadowmasterX]

I agree with carl, I do want to live for a long time, but forever is too much. Eventually, you do want to die because you are so tired of life, the pain, and you just want to rest in peace. As a young person currently, I have so much to explore, but I would not take that offer.

 

[galaxyAbstractor]

No. If I would accept, in the beginning it would look like an awesome idea. Everything would be nice, but after a while it will prove itself being a really bad idea (unless maybe if you could wish to die when you were ready or something).

Read a short story from my favorite author about a man that finds away to have death recognize him and not killing him when the time has come. He tries to make the same deal with death for his wife too, but it kills their baby and the man goes to prison and becomes insane. When the man get out of prison he is so depressed so he tries out if he really can live forever, so he binds some rocks to his body and jumps into the ocean. But when he reaches the bottom he discovers that every part of his body gone numb and he cannot undo the rope. He will stay at the bottom of the ocean forever.

What if something like that would happen? Wouldn't be nice

 

[farscapeone]

There is an important variable that was not brought up in the original post which might have considerable influence on a persons desire to live forever or not. What would quality of life be? Would one continue to age and be afflicted by a steadily increasing number of ailments, aches and pains? If so I would imagine that a time would come when death might be welcomed.

That part was left out intentionally

 

[patriotseminar72]

I would choose the offer to live forever, but I would end up going into reclusion and observe the world from an outsiders perspective. I would try to understand human nature completely and eventually would come out of hiding and try to help humanity by educating and showing the error of the world. I would try to find the answers to how humans decide what they believe, and how certain parts of our lives effect the rest of us.
Also, adding to what carl said - without that bit of information it is impossible to actually decide what one would want. I feel like mine would work either way, but if you stay fit and at your current age then there would be no question for many people. If you grow old and weak and hurt, then it will still be no question for many people. You have to set something like you slow your aging down dramatically, but there are other problems with your way of life. Or something like that.

 

[John Klyne]

If I lived forever, or if people in general lived forever...without consequence, ...

It would bring me to think, food is not a necessity, water is not a necessity, nothing is a necessity....with such assumptions, living forever would also mean I do not age past age 21 for example....I would not mind.

If I could live forever, I would choose that option, as long as there is someone else to spend that time with, as long as life is, as it currently is, but without necessities.

I would live forever, to make money, and build, or obtain what I do not have. A mansion, a castle, create an army, take over land, only to have it retaken and so on. Without death, I would not mind. I would love to enjoy life, more than I am currently enjoying it. I would love to live forever, and just go on, living forever, with everyone else,

BUT if it were only me to live forever, and never age past 18 for example, or at my prime, I would accept as long as people still exist in their current state, as long as I can still have someone or multiple people to live with for a period of time. Would I live forever, that is no question within my mind, I would accept, as long as there is, no aging, and no necessity for myself and that I have one or multiple people throughout my never ending life to spend it with.

From John Klyne....I have thought about this...and as always I choose to live within conditions.

 

[truthguild]

short answer - no.

more elaborate version of that answer - even under the most ideal of all circumstances, for instance what many perceive as heaven, where there is no aging, sickess, suffering, or death, and that is shared by everyone present. i would actually have difficulty trying to imagine a worse torture for a sentient being then eternity. sure, it might be nice for the first few thousand years or so, but after i had done everything i could possibly think of to do, mastered every one of the arts, learned everything there ever will be to learn, etc, for all intents and purposes eternity would have just barely begun and there would be no end in sight.

i feel that it is mortality that gives life it's sense of purpose and urgency, it's meaning if you will. without that, it would become a rather empty existence.

 

[bhupendra2895]

I will love to live forever and enjoy life.I will love to see what technical advances are happening around the world.There is lot of things in universe which I don't know, especially who created the universe and who is the creator of creator and...... Universe is infinite and there are infinite fields to explore.So my thirst to live is not going to die.With my age my experience will increase, so I can help people with it.May be one day I will become the president of world thanks to my popularity and experience.Death is ultimate truth in this planet, and by living forever I shall be able to make this principle false too.

Although with age may be my body get old but I do know some yoga and exercise, with them I can maintain my body's health and who knows in future, any scientist develop medicine to stay young forever.Another big thing I will lose with time is my relatives and so I would learn the lesson that CRUD principal of nature applies here.So I will create new relations.But never my desire to live can die, yes I will love to live forever.

 

[John Klyne]

short answer - no.

more elaborate version of that answer - even under the most ideal of all circumstances, for instance what many perceive as heaven, where there is no aging, sickess, suffering, or death, and that is shared by everyone present. i would actually have difficulty trying to imagine a worse torture for a sentient being then eternity. sure, it might be nice for the first few thousand years or so, but after i had done everything i could possibly think of to do, mastered every one of the arts, learned everything there ever will be to learn, etc, for all intents and purposes eternity would have just barely begun and there would be no end in sight.

i feel that it is mortality that gives life it's sense of purpose and urgency, it's meaning if you will. without that, it would become a rather empty existence.

Holy ...that just changed what I might say as an answer...good thinking

 

[SniperFox]

My thoughts are "No" - mainly because I'd rather not outlive friends and family - or the planet itself. You now, that inevitable end of the world? The moment in which all life basically stops for our solar system? The sun finally burns out, and eventually supernovas, wiping out pretty much everything? ( If I'm not mistaken, I think they say it has about 5,000 years left in it's life. )


Yeah, don't want to live through that, and be left in the nothingness that follows.

That said, I WOULD like to have eternal life, in the sense of Dorian Gray. Having an item, like a portrait, that ages while you stay young, and should you look upon the item - if it's aged too far, you die. Being able to know I could die when I felt I was ready would be a very comforting thing.

But pure, unending, eternal life? No thanks.

 

[dhennen]

I believe that we shall all live forever in either Heaven or Hell. I would like the former and dislike the latter (if I may make a towering understatement). I assume, though that this question comes more from a Dracula-like assumption of living forever in this life. My answer to that question is the archetypal "grumpy old man".

As time passes, normal historical change removes things you once valued and replaces them with things you hate. Yes, sometimes things change for the better, but unless you stand for nothing and have no roots, you will eventually become an anachronism far outside your own time. Looking at the social changes that have occurred in his life, my dad feels like he has moved to a foreign country, though he lives just 10 miles from where he was born. I must admit that I'm not far behind him.

We're all foreigners in this passing life, living on a world that had a beginning and will also end. What we make of ourselves here will make us really at home in the eternal Heaven or the eternal Hell.

I must make a clarification on the concept of eternity expressed earlier in this thread. You would not run out of things to do then be bored forever with endless time on your hands. The concept of an eternal heaven does not see eternity as linear time running forever into the past and future. It is a state outside of time as we understand it. If boredom is time weighing heavily upon you, then boredom could hardly happen outside of time.

The Native American concept of the Happy Hunting Grounds states it most simply: all the happy moments in life rolled together into a single moment, and that moment lasts forever.

The Christian idea is not much different, with a God for whom "a day is as 1000 years and 1000 years are as a day". I assume the other two Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, and Islam) have similar notions of eternity.

Happy forever, folks, in a place better suited to it!

 

[GtoXic]

I'd help other people like the guys out in war fighting for their countries, assuming, of course, I wouldn't die if I was shot. I'd do this because I have a friend who's dad is in the army fighting in afganistan. Also, a few people from my family have been in the war.

~John

 

[callumacrae]

assuming, of course, I woudn't die if I was shot

I think that's the rules. If you get shot, you die.

~Callum

 

[isiynen]

It is my belief that my soul is eternal, so in that sense I'm already immortal. Also, I believe that I choose what's in this life so that I can learn from it. Then I die, I choose another life, rinse and repeat. From this perspective, I wouldn't choose an eternal physical life. If I did, I couldn't move on in my evolution.