If You Could Live Forever
The Boomer generation is without a doubt, living with age-denial syndrome. We not only want to live forever, we want to live forever young. We want health, wealth, and good looks, and we want it now. Every generation must have some weakness; ours is shallow, wishful thinking.
Suppose, for the sake of pros and cons (and because it is interesting to think about) that you could live as long as you desire. Add to this good health and wealth enough to sustain you as long as you live. But the most important aspect of this hypothetical situation is, you can terminate yourself any time you want. Absolute Immortality with no way out is too fraught with problems to even consider
This is not as absurd as you might think (or maybe it is). Consider this NYT article: Could We Live Forever?
”There is no fixed life span,” says Dr. James Vaupel, no wall of death dictated by basic biology that we are edging toward. People are living longer and longer, he said, and he sees no reason to think the trend will slow or stop in the foreseeable future. He should know. Dr. Vaupel is the director of the laboratory of survival and longevity at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany.
Would you still want to live to say, 200 years old? What are the pros and cons of living beyond 100 years old? We live in a time when there are about 5.3 million people in the world who are centenarians. Does length of life equate with quality of life? After a point, for most people, I don’t think it does.
Here is a fine excerpt from The Physics Forum:
If I were to live forever then I would have so many memories that I wouldn’t know how to deal with it all. Generation after generation would pass by me and I would feel so left out. There would be no family, no friends that would last. One day they would be children and in retrospect it would seem a short time before they would be dead. By removing myself from the natural evolution of the species I would selfishly cheat myself out of any long term enjoyment. Death is a part of what makes life so valuable.
At first this may seem a bit shallow, but consider how long human being have been looking for the fountain of youth. Given the opportunity, what would you do?
Mari Adkins:
Given the opportunity to live forever? I’d jump off the nearest bridge.
July 2008Hal:
I hope you don’t mean immediately! :-)
July 2008Mari Adkins:
Yes. I find the whole idea that unappealing!
July 2008Hal:
I read this somewhere? yesterday:
Only Two Things to Worry About
There only 2 things to worry about. Whether you are sick or well. If you are well, there is nothing to worry about, but if you are sick, you must worry about whether you will die or live. If you live, there is nothing to worry about, but if you die, you must worry about going to heaven or hell. If you go to heaven, you have nothing to worry about, but if you go to hell, you wont have any time to worry because you will too busy shaking hands with old friends.
Don’t know the author.
July 2008Mari Adkins:
You know what that reminds me of? We used to recite this in like the third grade:
A man jumped out of an airplane.
Oh, that’s good!
No, that’s bad. His parachute failed.
Oh, that is bad.
No, that’s good. He landed in a haystack.
Oh, that’s good!
No, that’s bad. There was a needle in the haystack…
July 2008Hal:
I remember that.
A fundamental process of elimination. Or, nothing is either good or evil, unless we make it so.
Aside: As I look at that sentence, “A fundamental process of elimination” it almost sounds like a basic hygienic function, or in other words, your basic dump. Sorry, couldn’t resist that. :-)
July 2008Mari Adkins:
ROFLMAOPMP I needed that just now! LOLOL
July 2008Hal:
Now that’s funny!!!!!!!
July 2008sablonneuse:
When you consider the runaway technological advances made in our lifetime it would be interesting - or maybe frightening to see what the next 100 years will bring (assuming we don’t destroy the world by then).
July 2008However, the prospect of immortality would be awful if you were the only one, and totally unmanageable if millions of people were to live forever. In a way, research to prolong good health is linked to longevity but I, for one, hope they concentrate more on preserving us from illness than on making humans immortal.
Hal:
I don’t know if its vanity or fear based, but the boomer generation seems obsessed with immortality. I believe many would jump at the chance to live forever simply because they are afraid to die.
“If God were to tell you, ‘Tomorrow, or at best the day after, you will be dead,’ you would not, unless the most abject of men, be greatly solicitous whether it was to be the later day, rather than the morrow - for what is the difference between them? In the same way, do not reckon it of great moment whether it will come years and years hence, or tomorrow.
July 2008– Marcus Aurelius - Meditations