Why would people want to be immortal?
Wandering Jew 20 Apr 2008
Aren't you immortalists afraid of ever missing out on Heaven etc? What if there is a heaven ... after all?
Are you atheists? Is it too big of a risk?
Do you think it is really possible to live forever? Do you want to create a heaven on earth?
Edited by Wandering Jew, 20 April 2008 - 04:18 AM.
cyborgdreamer 20 Apr 2008
I don't understand why so many people go through tons of trouble to become immortals. Isn't there an afterlife? Or not?
Aren't you immortalists afraid of ever missing out on Heaven etc?
Do you think it is really possible to live forever? Do you want to create a heaven on earth?
Given what we know about neuroscience, it appears that everything that makes us who we are is in our brain. It doesn't seem likely that there could be any soul that goes anywhere after death. Of course, it's possible that there could be an afterlife but I wouldn't bet my existence on it.
niner 20 Apr 2008
Heliotrope 20 Apr 2008
forever freedom 20 Apr 2008
I don't understand why so many people go through tons of trouble to become immortals. Isn't there an afterlife? Or not?
Aren't you immortalists afraid of ever missing out on Heaven etc? What if there is a heaven ... after all?
Are you atheists? Is it too big of a risk?
Do you think it is really possible to live forever? Do you want to create a heaven on earth?
I do want to create heaven on earth. Then if i happen to die, and there is an afterlife, all the better.
I have more chances of stopping from being conscious if i try it twice; once alive on earth, and if i fail, that is, if i die, then i'll still have another shot with the afterlife.
Ah and there's also cryonics. That makes my chances of radically extending my "consciousness time" increase threefold, comparing to the chances of a person who just believes in the afterlife and doesn't do anything to remain alive for as much as possible on earth.
Edited by sam988, 20 April 2008 - 07:33 AM.
jonano 20 Apr 2008
Sam Sam Sam Sam.
You must understand the cryonics topic more. If they revive you, they will revive you when they will be sure you are immortal. Physically Immortal. Not biologically Immortal.
Well I hope this is the goal of Alcor. Not to revive you sooner, but later, when everything is sure.
I would not personally be born again, in a mortal state.
Well I hope this is what cryonics is. If not then I miss something.
--jon
forever freedom 20 Apr 2008
"Ah and there's also cryonics. That makes my chances of radically extending my "consciousness time" increase threefold"
Sam Sam Sam Sam.
You must understand the cryonics topic more. If they revive you, they will revive you when they will be sure you are immortal. Physically Immortal. Not biologically Immortal.
Well I hope this is the goal of Alcor. Not to revive you sooner, but later, when everything is sure.
I would not personally be born again, in a mortal state.
Well I hope this is what cryonics is. If not then I miss something.
--jon
It's impossible to be physically immortal, at least in any foreseeable future. There will be always the chance that something may go wrong, that there can be an accident.
Shannon Vyff 20 Apr 2008
We simply have no idea if we can ever attain immortality, perhaps if there are parallel universes
On the religious take, sure I'm a cryonicist and if I wake up in heaven instead of on Earth after being re-animated, then I'll be just as happy I teach religion, am religious and feel I've done enough good in this world, and for God--that I'd end up in heaven, or Vishnu's take. Now, if it is the Buddhist take that we are all immortal now, by being a part of everything, our cells etc., then it also doesn't matter--I may get more time with my own consciousness in the future if I'm re-animated from cryonic preservation, or not.
Wandering Jew--there have been some Jewish perspectives of cryonics, even how to address the funeral of a Jewish cryonicist once. Alcor's FAQ has some religious perspectives: http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/index.html
Cyberbrain 20 Apr 2008
I don't think people go through tons of trouble to become immortal, because it's not possible yet.I don't understand why so many people go through tons of trouble to become immortals.
Yes there cryonics and Calorie Restriction dieting, but these only give you a chance at immortality, they don't make you immortal.
We don't know if there's an afterlife. No body does, not even you.Isn't there an afterlife? Or not?
Just because someone believes in something doesn't make it true. And just because someone doesn't believe in something doesn't make it false.
If there is a Heaven thats great! Aside from some philosophical problems as to why heaven should even exist in the first place, we're perfectly happy here for the time being.Aren't you immortalists afraid of ever missing out on Heaven etc? What if there is a heaven ... after all?
BINGO!Is it too big of a risk?
Dying is just too big of risk because there is an exact 50/50 chance that either an afterlife exists or it doesn't. We just love life too much to give it up to oblivion.
Yes and yes. Well, we'd like to expand throughout the cosmos one day because Earth won't be here forever.Do you think it is really possible to live forever? Do you want to create a heaven on earth?
Cyberbrain 20 Apr 2008
The personal transhumanist philosophy I espouse can also be condensed into the three most important corresponding areas of any philosophical system: metaphysics, psychology and ethics. These can also be stated as: what is the nature of the world, the nature of humans, and what is the best way to live? The view that I uphold in correspondence to these three areas is that the world is expanding toward evermore complex structures, forms, and operations; that as conscious life we are imbued with an inborn instinctive drive to expand our abilities in pursuit of ever increasing survivability and well-being. Thus it is in our greatest interest to foster this drive by continually striving to expand our capacities throughout life and therefore by acting in harmony with the essential nature of the evolutionary process we may one day discover a new sense of purpose, direction and meaning.
Cyberbrain 20 Apr 2008
Edited by Kostas, 20 April 2008 - 09:35 PM.
vyntager 20 Apr 2008
Aren't you immortalists afraid of ever missing out on Heaven etc?
What we're told of Heaven isn't that appealing actually. It probably was, a few millenia upto a few centuries ago. It was shaped to meet people's expectations of an ecstatic, paradisiacal life back then. For instance, a similar case would be :
Cockaigne or Cockayne (pronounced /kɒˈkeɪn/) is a mythical medieval land of plenty, where all the harshness of medieval peasant life does not exist.
"the houses were made of barley sugar and cakes, the streets were paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods for nothing."
"roasted pigs wander about with knives in their backs to make carving easy, where grilled geese fly directly into one's mouth, where cooked fish jump out of the water and land at one's feet."
See, I'm not tempted to eat pastry that people would walk upon, and the idea of having roasted undead animals with pieces of cutlery protruding from their corpses, wandering around, frankly freaks me.
Early visions of Heaven, such as New Jerusalem, or the Garden of Eden, are just as out of date nowadays, they don't meet people's expectations anymore. Yet we can't ditch and replace them with modernized versions of Heaven altogether. The result is a growing discrepancy. Heaven just doesn't look as attractive as it did, and this trend will probably be carried on as time goes, because of the necessity to keep the traditional view, to not shatter dogma, whereas that view isn't fitting anymore.
Do you think it is really possible to live forever? Do you want to create a heaven on earth?
Depends, what do you call heaven here ? Immortalists and transhumanists are not longing for the Garden of Eden of old, we're not gnostics or anything like that.
We want to live our lifes to the best of their possibilities. We want to be happy, or to live in a world that we'd like to live in, inasmuch as possible. How we define that world has, however, nothing to do with our will to duplicate Heaven on earth. Specifically, we don't plan to recreate what is seen as "God's Heaven" on earth. Because that heaven is not exactly what we want, nor is it even a decent description of what our future could, and should be like.
What if there is a heaven ... after all?
What if there is ?
cyborgdreamer 21 Apr 2008
Dying is just too big of risk because there is an exact 50/50 chance that either an afterlife exists or it doesn't. We just love life too much to give it up to oblivion.
Actually, given the evidence and Occam's razor, I'd say there's much less than a 50% chance of an afterlife.
Heliotrope 21 Apr 2008
Dying is just too big of risk because there is an exact 50/50 chance that either an afterlife exists or it doesn't. We just love life too much to give it up to oblivion.
Actually, given the evidence and Occam's razor, I'd say there's much less than a 50% chance of an afterlife.
i agree , i thnk there is a close to 0% chance
Cyberbrain 21 Apr 2008
Well I was trying to be fair. In the same way we can not tell if we're living in a simulation/matrix/truman show/etc, the same way we can not tell if there is an afterlife or a universe were our conscious continues to exist after death. All we know of reality is what we perceive through our 5 senses, the rest we interpret it. I'm a hard core materialist/atheist but like a true man of science, I always always leave room for uncertainty. For one can never have 100% certainty in nature. 100% certainty only exists in mathematics.Dying is just too big of risk because there is an exact 50/50 chance that either an afterlife exists or it doesn't. We just love life too much to give it up to oblivion.
Actually, given the evidence and Occam's razor, I'd say there's much less than a 50% chance of an afterlife.
i agree , i thnk there is a close to 0% chance
niner 21 Apr 2008
Kostas, I've been arguing with Nefastor about the exact same thing as this. If we don't know if an event will happen or not, does that mean that we should apply a 50% probability to each outcome? For example, I don't know whether or not if tomorrow morning, a fluorescent purple bird will or will not fly up my butt. Still, I'm pretty confident in applying a probability to that event that is a lot less than 50%. Likewise, I think that we can be fair and leave room for uncertainty, and say that the probability of an afterlife is, for example, small but non-zero.Well I was trying to be fair. In the same way we can not tell if we're living in a simulation/matrix/truman show/etc, the same way we can not tell if there is an afterlife or a universe were our conscious continues to exist after death. All we know of reality is what we perceive through our 5 senses, the rest we interpret it. I'm a hard core materialist/atheist but like a true man of science, I always always leave room for uncertainty. For one can never have 100% certainty in nature. 100% certainty only exists in mathematics.Dying is just too big of risk because there is an exact 50/50 chance that either an afterlife exists or it doesn't. We just love life too much to give it up to oblivion.
Actually, given the evidence and Occam's razor, I'd say there's much less than a 50% chance of an afterlife.
i agree , i thnk there is a close to 0% chance
Cyberbrain 21 Apr 2008
I'm not exactly an expert in probability and statistics, and I'm sure the chance of an afterlife existing is less then 50% (but more then 0% ... probably "tending" or "approaching" to zero ).Kostas, I've been arguing with Nefastor about the exact same thing as this. If we don't know if an event will happen or not, does that mean that we should apply a 50% probability to each outcome? For example, I don't know whether or not if tomorrow morning, a fluorescent purple bird will or will not fly up my butt. Still, I'm pretty confident in applying a probability to that event that is a lot less than 50%. Likewise, I think that we can be fair and leave room for uncertainty, and say that the probability of an afterlife is, for example, small but non-zero.
But I think there is a thoery or philosophy that says due to uncertainty in nature, everything has a 50/50 chance of occuring ...
either there is an afterlife or there isn't
either the sun is going to come up tomorrow morning or it isn't
either I'm going to get an A on my exam, or I won't
and so forth
It's a very weird theory and I don't really like it, but I applied it to the afterlife paradigm because due to the lack of evidence on either side of the argument, it's very hard to tip the balance beam one way or the other ... don't get me wrong, it might be possible to tip the scale, but I'm too lazy to do it ... even with all the theories we have in science, who's to say our entire lives aren't just an illusion, and everything we know about the world is exactly what "they" want us to think? ... lol, I get very epistemological sometimes
niner 21 Apr 2008
I think that the number of consecutive days in which the sun has comes up kind of blows this theory...But I think there is a thoery or philosophy that says due to uncertainty in nature, everything has a 50/50 chance of occuring ...
Darn the luck, no. I'm still waiting. Maybe tomorrow?So, did it happen!?!
Heliotrope 21 Apr 2008
Darn the luck, no. I'm still waiting. Maybe tomorrow?
if you wait an eternity , every combo of possibilities may happen.
so maybe then a purple bird will fly up your _________?
j/k
Shepard 21 Apr 2008
I think that the number of consecutive days in which the sun has comes up kind of blows this theory...But I think there is a thoery or philosophy that says due to uncertainty in nature, everything has a 50/50 chance of occuring ...
Which means it's bound to happen sometime. So, in a week or two....that suckers gotta go.
Wandering Jew 22 Apr 2008
Proud to die a mortal
Shannon Vyff 22 Apr 2008
Cyberbrain 22 Apr 2008
Well even with technology, curing aging, etc ... we'll always be mortal, theres no guarantee that anyone will live forever, we're just trying to buy more time.despite what you all say, I'll be relieved to die some day
Proud to die a mortal
But what if you're wrong, what if indeed there is no God or afterlife ... death might seem meaningless then, but you would have missed out on life.
Edited by Kostas, 22 April 2008 - 06:28 PM.
Shannon Vyff 22 Apr 2008
forever freedom 23 Apr 2008
Edited by sam988, 23 April 2008 - 03:36 AM.
niner 23 Apr 2008
I'll hazard a guess and say that you are under the age of 25. Enjoy!About the idea that "i know i'll die some day", i refuse to have it. I may be being illogical but i really don't have this feeling that even some people here do that they'll eventually die. I think of my future and what i see is endlessness.
JonesGuy 23 Apr 2008
JamesMGallagher 25 Apr 2008
life is a contradiction