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Immortality
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Here's a question for the non-religious (the religious already have their answer though I doubt they have thought about the implications that much)
If you could become immortal on the condition you would NEVER be able to die or kill yourself, would you choose immortality?
If you could become immortal on the condition you would NEVER be able to die or kill yourself, would you choose immortality?
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Mr Thomas Gradgrind is the notorious school board Superintendent in Dickens's novel Hard Times, but enough of that.
According to the notion of a "block universe", the past and the future are no less real than the present, (see physicist, David Deutsche). Why believe that consciousness can not exist in the future as well as the past, and why should it only abide in the present?
Conscientiousness might exist in space/time at every instant, past, present and future, in which case 'immortality' already exists.
According to the notion of a "block universe", the past and the future are no less real than the present, (see physicist, David Deutsche). Why believe that consciousness can not exist in the future as well as the past, and why should it only abide in the present?
Conscientiousness might exist in space/time at every instant, past, present and future, in which case 'immortality' already exists.
as to what I'd choose if I really knew what it entailed ... well, I don't know what it entails, so I'd have to make a choice on the basis of ignorance.
But imagine a future in which your body ceased to age. At some point your body slowly switches off, wounds slow down in repairing themselves, your flesh loses elasticity etc etc. But suppose the switch was found and was, so to speak, taped in the On position so that your body remained much as it always was, your consciousness was undimmed by age - that would mean you could go on living as you are now.
And that's what gerontologists are constantly working on. It's not science fiction (which is not to say it's happened yet), there really is something that starts to make you age - at about the point when evolution assumes you've had and raised your children so that your genes have been passed on and your body is no longer of genetic use. Could the trigger for this ageing be found and stopped? It seems quite possible.
But imagine a future in which your body ceased to age. At some point your body slowly switches off, wounds slow down in repairing themselves, your flesh loses elasticity etc etc. But suppose the switch was found and was, so to speak, taped in the On position so that your body remained much as it always was, your consciousness was undimmed by age - that would mean you could go on living as you are now.
And that's what gerontologists are constantly working on. It's not science fiction (which is not to say it's happened yet), there really is something that starts to make you age - at about the point when evolution assumes you've had and raised your children so that your genes have been passed on and your body is no longer of genetic use. Could the trigger for this ageing be found and stopped? It seems quite possible.
We should be a little more humble, and recognise that we only have five senses to experience the whole universe. We can only detect a tiny bit of the electro magnetic spectrum. Are we not arrogant to dispel the existence of that we cannot detect? A spiritual dimension can only be revealed, not experienced. Yet.
The universe will be a cold boring place when the last of the stars burn out. Still the trip into the black hole might provide some excitement. It's one thing to hope for continued existence in places of interest; quite another to forever be stuck here. No sane person would volunteer for an eternity of isolation. They'd not stay sane.
