Who Wants to Live Forever?

[muichimotsu]

Spirit is eternal; the physical changes to other physical matter. Why not look forward to the eternal Spirit life? There are myriads of mysteries in the universe AND beyond that beckons to me. What lies beyond the finite universe? More will be revealed.....

Even if you qualified this spirit life, I imagine it's fairly common in the supernaturalist perspective. Either we are disembodied existences who are connected with the universe as it truly is/God itself, or we are embodied eternal existences who commune with the universe/God. The variations are possible, but fairly rare, if I had to guess. Eternity, like perfection, is an abstraction that works as a goal, but should never be realized completely.

 

[muichimotsu]

I just answered YOUR question friend. I cannot help if you don't like my answer.

I accept your answer as part of your limited and deluded perspective, but I don't like the answer because it's poorly thought out more than that it's from a religious perspective. One could make bad arguments from a secular perspective and I'd have a similar response

 

[muichimotsu]

I do not know which version of immortality you would like to discuss. Without knowing what you are arguing against, it is difficult to argue for it. It stills seems as though you want to discuss immortality in terms of our mortal world and existence. Death is as much a necessary part of existence as life only because that is how we have always known it. Our experience means nothing to the hypothetical discussion, because we are supposing an extremely different existence. I do not see how you can hope to show an impracticality or inefficiency in immortality if you lose the relations to "the way things are" and address "the way things would be if." Your argument against any immortality still seems based in your understanding of the here, now, and mortality.

If we can build an immortality to discuss, we can try it. I would suggest some of the following. First, there are no great value differences in people in my mind, so if one is immortal, I say all humans are immortal: universality. Second, I say that in the discussion we should present immortality as having always existed, so we do not have to try to explain its coming to be. Third, concerns of death (as far as it applies to humans dying) are over since there would never have been a human death. Maybe there are other concerns to build into the discussion. Any ideas or problems with the ones I suggest?

Immortality being natural from the start could potentially create a worse situation, because people would've never experienced death as something that creates a well functioning and mentally sound population and logically sound universe

If we can't discuss things in relation to how things are, seems like the discussion breaks down to pure speculation, which isn't helpful in the slightest to discussing this as a real life sort of topic relevant to us

There are many kinds of immortality, but I would argue that most, if not all of them, are fundamentally flawed and create a less than human experience of the world and diminish the significance of life itself in that there is no death, which is a necessary balance to life in our experience overall.

Immortality can be proposed in the Christian perspective to coexist with the experience we have now of death, so your opposition only applies to certain schemes of immortality, like ones where it is something that existed from the beginning, which I don't think is very common in discussions. It's usually accomplished or bestowed.

If immortality was natural to the world, it doesn't mean I can't conceive of there being a state of things where people cease to live. It would just be a minority idea, that hardly disqualifies it as having merit.

 

[muichimotsu]

Until we get a representative sample of immortals to scientifically study, isn't there something of the armchair-psychiatrist to our debates about the emotional laws immortals would be subject to? The closest comparison at hand would be the set of senior citizens: how insipid do they on average find continued life to be? (Maybe there's a survey out there related to precisely this question, but I'm not acquainted with it.)

Other than that, although I can easily imagine us having subjective reasons for why we ourselves would or would not find eternity insipid, to extrapolate from a private perspective to a principle of human psychology would be something of a hasty generalization...

Speculative psychology, yes, armchair psychology, perhaps.

I never said this was an absolutely proven principle, but I have not heard an argument for immortality's benefit beyond emotional and idealistic talk of revolutionizing the world or some such thing.

 

[Dave Ellis]

Mourning is a natural part of life as much as death is. It isn't a waste if it is done in moderation. You treat it as if life should purely be about efficiency, which is mechanical and artificial feeling. Life should be organic in that we experience death and realize that while life is fleeting, it should not be taken for granted. If it's about your personal feelings on death, then make your funeral different, like the Louisiana ones where there's a freaking parade almost. But you can't use mourning as a basic human practice related to death as an argument for why immortality is superior, since that reduces humanity to just living and no sense of change, no loss, no give and take.





It shouldn't be about a competition, it should be about seeking knowledge to benefit others and oneself.



If it is an individual immortal, the likelihood of being a hermit increases. But even a group of immortal individuals are not by necessity going to remain social beings forever. Even if there isn't any physical degeneration, we have to consider the psychological aspects of such a prolonged amount of social interaction with no sense of the significance of life in its transience. If I just experience something in perfection forever, I cease to truly appreciate it.




This is a matter of time, though, which still could be comparatively measured, if not on a much larger scale. Eventually the possibilities would dwindle down, even if it took ten thousand or so years.





Unnatural and artificial are markedly different, however. Unnatural is something going against the natural order of things, such as someone trying to create a disembodied existence. Immortality is similar in that it is almost a necessity that things die. The population control consideration has to be brought up too. We have a cap as to how many people can live on this planet and even if food and drink weren't options, there is always the possibility of peoples' baser natures coming into play.



If you have no seeming limitations at all, such as no need for food or water, even sleep perhaps, then immortality would become the worse kind of existence, since you would have no sense of time's limitations, since there would be nothing holding you back. And even if there was, we project a huge amount of time that overrides any of the hindrances of food/water/sleep, so eventually there would be a sense of apathy, in that you have no real motivation, since you can put something off indefinitely.

Assuming there is a remote cutoff point, then immortality is merely delaying the inevitable, since immortality is not necessarily the same as indestructibility. If heaven or some such afterlife is a factor, then that becomes a living hell, does it not? It's one thing to propose a secular immortality, which by its nature would have a limitation of billions of years assuming this solar system outlives its usefulness. And even the universe itself cannot continue forever, so there is a cut off point regardless. But my critique is especially directed towards supernatural immortality, where there is no time frame

I think it's safe to say we clearly have different views on life then. You may very well take an eternal life the way you have described, however I certainly would not. That probably comes down to a difference of personality however.

 

[muichimotsu]

I think it's safe to say we clearly have different views on life then. You may very well take an eternal life the way you have described, however I certainly would not. That probably comes down to a difference of personality however.

I'd always prefer an existence where there are limits on life to one where life becomes a given forever, which, again, suggests we'd have no real appreciation of it, since we could never lose it.

 

[Ripheus27]

I'd always prefer an existence where there are limits on life to one where life becomes a given forever, which, again, suggests we'd have no real appreciation of it, since we could never lose it.

If you were married, would it be to appreciate your wife's value less if you did everything you could (within reason, respecting her autonomy and so on) to make sure you never lost her?

 

[muichimotsu]

If you were married, would it be to appreciate your wife's value less if you did everything you could (within reason, respecting her autonomy and so on) to make sure you never lost her?

Two things.

1) This is a different situation than living in general and misses the point of life coexisting with death. Not to mention seems like it's an appeal to emotion anyway

2) I'd appreciate my wife because she might disappear at any time, not because I can protect her. She shouldn't be treated as a helpless person. Even if it was a family member, the whole point is that people's value increases in the context of an existence where they can die, rather than one where they cannot

 

[Eudaimonist]

It creates an objection that we gain too much control over our lives, to the same extent people have problems with genetic engineering, which is understandable. Do we want to become virtual gods when being human suffices?

They would say: "Why not? Why be sufficient when you can be better?"

But that is a good question in the sense that an ordinary human life is complete in itself. It doesn't need to be eternal or suprahumanly long in order to be meaningful.

That is one important reason why I ended up abandoning my intent to sign up for cryonics. I had realized that in my heart I was more "humanist" than transhumanist.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Ripheus27]

Augh @ my Internet connection (this was a double post).

 

[Ripheus27]

This is a different situation than living in general and misses the point of life coexisting with death. Not to mention seems like it's an appeal to emotion anyway.

Well, appreciation for something seems to be an emotional state, or at least many people would tend to use words like appreciate to refer to something emotional. So my point is that I can appreciate something even if I also try to make sure that I never lose it. And if I both am trying to do so and by chance were given the chance to achieve my goal, it would perhaps be instrumentally irrational for me not to take this chance. So it is possible to very much appreciate my wife while, if I had the ability to, absolutely safeguarding her from being lost to me. Indeed, it might even be that the measure of my appreciation for my wife is reflected in my willingness to limit as much as possible the measure of possibly losing her.

I'd appreciate my wife because she might disappear at any time, not because I can protect her. She shouldn't be treated as a helpless person. Even if it was a family member, the whole point is that people's value increases in the context of an existence where they can die, rather than one where they cannot.

I don't think people's intrinsic value can increase or decrease, but then I think that the intrinsic value of every possible person is infinite.

Consider a Muslim's love for Allah. She thinks that Allah is an absolute beyond all other absolutes. Would she think of Allah as more valuable if He became less absolute? If not, then it seems entirely possible to have the greatest appreciation for something, even if that thing is thought of as necessary instead of contingent. So if it's possible to appreciate something without thinking of it as contingent, then appreciation in general is not grounded in contingency. Perhaps some things are better for being contingent, or would seem better, but this seeming is itself unnecessary.

 

[Crandaddy]

The basic question is this: do you want to live forever and if so, why? Make an effort to defend the position of immortality as something we as humans desire and/or should desire. Ethics are of particular import here, not to mention aesthetics, metaphysics and epistemology to a certain extent.

Yes, I want to live forever in heaven, provided we understand heaven properly.

Whatever heaven will be, we can be sure that it won't be just an eternal continuation of life on earth--not even of the best that this life has to offer. Such an immortality would hardly be distinguishable from hell. (In fact, I believe there's a Twilight Zone episode that addresses this theme, though I can't recall the name of it off the top of my head.)

Actually, I don't think there's a whole lot that we can know about what heaven will be like on this side of the grave, but what we can know, I think, is that virtuous character is good (to the exclusion of vices that might seem to us pleasant), that life is good (as opposed to death), and that right reward/just dessert is good (so that in the end justice is served).

What these goods point to is an eternal life wherein those who are good and virtuous will be duly rewarded. We might not be able to know a whole lot about what that life will be like (in terms of experience), but we can know that it will be, if we can know these goods.

This reward that we can discern by reason as duly fitting for the virtuous is what I call "heaven."

 

[Dave Ellis]

I'd always prefer an existence where there are limits on life to one where life becomes a given forever, which, again, suggests we'd have no real appreciation of it, since we could never lose it.

And I'd argue after you die, you have no real appreciation of anything.

 

[Eudaimonist]

And I'd argue after you die, you have no real appreciation of anything.

Yes, but the point is that you'd appreciate life more before you die.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Dave Ellis]

Yes, but the point is that you'd appreciate life more before you die.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Personally, I would not. I'd value my life equally as to how I do now if I were told I'd never die.

I understand not everyone would look at it that way though.

 

[muichimotsu]

Well, appreciation for something seems to be an emotional state, or at least many people would tend to use words like appreciate to refer to something emotional. So my point is that I can appreciate something even if I also try to make sure that I never lose it. And if I both am trying to do so and by chance were given the chance to achieve my goal, it would perhaps be instrumentally irrational for me not to take this chance. So it is possible to very much appreciate my wife while, if I had the ability to, absolutely safeguarding her from being lost to me. Indeed, it might even be that the measure of my appreciation for my wife is reflected in my willingness to limit as much as possible the measure of possibly losing her.

Wanting to protect someone is not even remotely the same as wanting to keep someone alive forever.

I don't think people's intrinsic value can increase or decrease, but then I think that the intrinsic value of every possible person is infinite.

Consider a Muslim's love for Allah. She thinks that Allah is an absolute beyond all other absolutes. Would she think of Allah as more valuable if He became less absolute? If not, then it seems entirely possible to have the greatest appreciation for something, even if that thing is thought of as necessary instead of contingent. So if it's possible to appreciate something without thinking of it as contingent, then appreciation in general is not grounded in contingency. Perhaps some things are better for being contingent, or would seem better, but this seeming is itself unnecessary.

People have a limit usually, unless they're overly attached to a person

Allah couldn't become less absolute. Necessity is applied to abstract things, not concrete things. Logical and physical laws, that sort of thing

Contingency is how we appreciate those things that are natural. It hardly takes away from the value of something because it can cease to exist. My argument would be, metaphysically speaking, that humans are better off contingent than necessary.

 

[muichimotsu]

And I'd argue after you die, you have no real appreciation of anything.

Of course, it's obvious, since you'd cease to exist. What's your point? Appreciation by necessity requires living

 

[muichimotsu]

Yes, I want to live forever in heaven, provided we understand heaven properly.

Whatever heaven will be, we can be sure that it won't be just an eternal continuation of life on earth--not even of the best that this life has to offer. Such an immortality would hardly be distinguishable from hell. (In fact, I believe there's a Twilight Zone episode that addresses this theme, though I can't recall the name of it off the top of my head.)

Some Christians would argue this, from what I remember. Though this earth will be "changed" in some sense, but it would still be "earth"

Actually, I don't think there's a whole lot that we can know about what heaven will be like on this side of the grave, but what we can know, I think, is that virtuous character is good (to the exclusion of vices that might seem to us pleasant), that life is good (as opposed to death), and that right reward/just dessert is good (so that in the end justice is served).

What these goods point to is an eternal life wherein those who are good and virtuous will be duly rewarded. We might not be able to know a whole lot about what that life will be like (in terms of experience), but we can know that it will be, if we can know these goods.
This reward that we can discern by reason as duly fitting for the virtuous is what I call "heaven."

Life and death can both be argued to be good. Christianity does seem to never really regard death as good, except perhaps as a martyr.

Sounds like you're arguing Kant's position as to why an afterlife should exist: injustice is punished and justice is rewarded, since we see the opposite many times in this life.

So heaven is some undetermined and unspecified place where people are rewarded? At least you're honest about not knowing exact details, but the way you describe it means someone could interpret anything about it, which doesn't really support any argument for it being a good place, besides the judgment of good and evil part, which is a bit idealistic for my tastes

 

[Ripheus27]

Wanting to protect someone is not even remotely the same as wanting to keep someone alive forever.

Ah, but I'm not speaking only of protecting someone from random accidents or whatever. I mean that I absolutely do not want to lose my wife. (Okay, in reality, I'm unmarried and I'm in love with a guy, not a girl, so that sentence is slightly disingenuous.) Absolute loss means loss to nonexistence, among other things.

People have a limit usually, unless they're overly attached to a person

I'm not that into the idea of "overly-attached." I can understand obsessive and controlling relationships as wrong-minded, but wanting a relationship that lasts forever isn't something I find questionable. (In truth, it's what I myself would aim for.)

Contingency is how we appreciate those things that are natural. It hardly takes away from the value of something because it can cease to exist.

If something could change from contingent to necessary, then why wouldn't the reasons for its having value change also? That is, so long as it's contingent, its value is based on its contingency; but once it was transformed, it would be valuable because of its necessity. Moreover, wouldn't it be good enough that it was contingent at some earlier point? For then we could appreciate it for the fact that at some point, we might have lost it.

It's like a game, even. If we win a game, then our status as winners (of the specific game we won) never changes. It will always be true that we won that game. And winning would be good (as long as the game itself is good; note I need not be referring to something competitive). But it would also have been good that we had to strive to win the game; the prior possibility of losing would have meaning, too.

Or think of a work of art, perhaps. I wouldn't want a beautiful drawing to ever cease to exist. It might not even matter that much to me if I only get to see the drawing one time. So if I could make the drawing indestructible, while losing the chance to see it more than once, what would be wrong with doing so?

 

[muichimotsu]

Ah, but I'm not speaking only of protecting someone from random accidents or whatever. I mean that I absolutely do not want to lose my wife. (Okay, in reality, I'm unmarried and I'm in love with a guy, not a girl, so that sentence is slightly disingenuous.) Absolute loss means loss to nonexistence, among other things.

Loss is a part of life, I don't see why that's such a huge problem. The fact that we possess things only temporarily is not something that is a curse, but something we should be grateful for in the limited span of time we have. Greed is what seems to be at the core, in one sense, for this desire to be immortal and never lose anything.

I'm not that into the idea of "overly-attached." I can understand obsessive and controlling relationships as wrong-minded, but wanting a relationship that lasts forever isn't something I find questionable. (In truth, it's what I myself would aim for.)

Forever until death do you part. Even the traditional Christian wedding vows acknowledge death as a separation. Then again, they have a failsafe with the afterlife and all. But forever is idealistic and flowery language. Marriage should last as long as the two people are together and not dead, of course. That's the goal, a lifelong partnership.

If something could change from contingent to necessary, then why wouldn't the reasons for its having value change also? That is, so long as it's contingent, its value is based on its contingency; but once it was transformed, it would be valuable because of its necessity. Moreover, wouldn't it be good enough that it was contingent at some earlier point? For then we could appreciate it for the fact that at some point, we might have lost it.

Necessity can't be acquired, metaphysically speaking, you have it from the start. Contingency is not something that is bad, it's just the nature of our existence. So what if we eventually pass away? Isn't it sensible to appreciate the things as they are, knowing they will eventually not be? That's what makes life interesting

It's like a game, even. If we win a game, then our status as winners (of the specific game we won) never changes. It will always be true that we won that game. And winning would be good (as long as the game itself is good; note I need not be referring to something competitive). But it would also have been good that we had to strive to win the game; the prior possibility of losing would have meaning, too.

Winning one game is irrelevant and insignificant. Competition is a lifelong thing, you win some you lose some. Contingency of winning and losing is what makes competition great. You always have a possibility of victory alongside loss.

Or think of a work of art, perhaps. I wouldn't want a beautiful drawing to ever cease to exist. It might not even matter that much to me if I only get to see the drawing one time. So if I could make the drawing indestructible, while losing the chance to see it more than once, what would be wrong with doing so?

You're clinging, one of the gravest "sins" in Buddhism, that fundamentally binds you to samsara and rebirth. Your greed, your desire to keep things as they are, is a delusion and a mistaken idea in that it goes against what the natural order has put in place. Things are transient, things change. You positing immortality is a way to deny that and gain some sense of security, seems to me.