40 replies to this topic

[TheFountain]

On the subject at hand, I would feel morally compelled to share the finding.

Why? I am always against limits. And keeping such a potential to myself would be a severe limit I could not live with.

The way I see it is that if Einstein kept the theory of relativity to himself a lot of other areas of scientific development would not have come about.

As researchers it is our job to arrive at truths, share these truths and then get out of the way of them so we as a collective can apply it as need be the case, to our evolutionary potential.

I think it is narcissistic to say I know what is best for my species. And keeping such a truth to myself would be the equivalent of that.

[Jakare]

I would share it! To do otherwise would be murder.

Also, to pretend you know what such potentially incredibly smart people will think or do is wasting your time. Probably if I keep it to myself and I become the only long living human...well, power is tempting. One very well may end up being precisely that sort of overpowered alpha male/female dictator. We are only human at the end of the day. No, to keep it to yourself is precisely the most dangerous option and could likely lead to the situation you are dreading.

[albedo]

It is a thought proving question and sorry if try a reply maybe slightly off track.

If I knew it, I will start thinking very seriously about implications and likely go to share it as I feel it is too much power in the hands a single person. Not doing it, I would also be concerned also by my mental sanity. If by "young" I mean healthy status as say a 20 years old healhy person could be today, and by "fovever" I mean till the end of life, whathever that means (100, 500, 1000, ..) I would share it tomorrow for moral implications which btw gives funding SENS and likely stuff lot of sense.

[JohnD60]

I have chosen not to let the world know of my immortality, and it is self evident that other immortal people have made the same decision. Firstly the question presumes that those of us who are immortal, know exactly why we are immortal, we do not. But the decision is more precisely centered around the desire for privacy and security. If it became known I was immortal, I would become the literal target of various fanatics, including but not limited to religious fanatics that would think I was the anti-christ, and Travis Bickle types that have watched 'Highlander' too many times, that movie gives me nightmares.

Edited by JohnD60, 06 August 2013 - 04:00 AM.

[Arjiuna]

I also struggle with the potential choice of giving away such knowledge. Considering the intelligent, ruthless creatures we can be I can only imagine passing information onto specific pockets of culture; only the extremely empathic... and peaceful. The demonstrated caretakers. The ones who are moral without claiming to be. We're doing all this for a more human world. I've asked many friends if they would take the opportunity and most get anxiety at the thought.

[Absent]

For those wondering, when I made this topic I did not have it in mind to be about a person who is naturally immortal, and does not know why, as in the movie "The man from Earth". It was more so focused on the idea of a person who discovers the secret to totally reversing aging, to stay young forever, to be perfectly fit/healthy eternally, when they were not before hand.

Truthfully, I would never give up the secret. I would let people figure it out on their own. I am 100% positive there are people living today who are in excess of 200 years old. If I had the secret I would go live many lives, use my knowledge to gain power, travel around, constantly exploring and learning, and somewhere down the line when this thing called the internet comes out I would post a thread like this to get everybody thinking. What if the secret is right in front of your nose, literally....

Not everyone can live forever, at least not limited to this planet, and I don't believe everyone deserves to either. I believe the secret is better left to those who discover it, to those who seek it out, etc. It somewhat baffles me that some people think it would be inhumane/immoral/greedy to keep such a secret to oneself. Is it any more inhumane/immoral/greedy than anything else we humans do? We are greedy and self-serving by nature. It's the very core of living existence. Survival of the fittest, or rather, survival of the most capable.

[albedo]

.. I am 100% positive there are people living today who are in excess of 200 years old...

I wonder what makes you say that. Are you? Unfortunately I am not. Just trying answering the question, I would probably not going to do it immediately and use some time to weight pro/contra.

Edited by albedo, 21 August 2013 - 09:15 AM.

[Absent]

.. I am 100% positive there are people living today who are in excess of 200 years old...

I wonder what makes you say that. Are you? Unfortunately I am not. Just trying answering the question, I would probably not going to do it immediately and use some time to weight pro/contra.

There are solid reasons why I say that, none of which I can prove to anyone here with any degree of certainty though.

Claiming to be immortal might not be the smartest thing to do,... well actually it probably wouldn't matter, as most people wouldn't believe some random guy on the internet claiming to be immortal. Hinting at it without saying it directly would also be unlikely behavior of an actual immortal, at least online, as many use the internet as an attention seeking get-away. All in all it doesn't matter if anyone here is immortal or not. It would not make them any different from anybody else... well besides the obvious fact that they don't age, etc. Sure they might have a little bit more knowledge than others, and maybe a little bit more money, but what else? More memories? There are ultimately non-immortal people who meet every above criteria(having more knowledge/money/power than others), so someone being immortal doesn't really make them very special, when looked at from a big picture sort of view. They would assumably face the some boredoms over time as everyone else, the same cravings, etc.

This is all assuming such an immortal person isn't some mystical being with magical powers. Looking at the idea from the above perspective, does it really matter if a person is immortal? Does it really matter that humans die(of age)? Being immortal is ultimately pointless if such a person does not seek personal/biological/mental evolution. Humans, whether ageless or not, are inherently flawed in that without a spiritual practice such a Meditation, we will never be at peace. We will always be trying to chase the next thing that we don't have as we get bored of the old things. Many successful people realize this early on, but the realization of this does very little to help the desires.

I made this topic I suppose to get others thinking... do you really think agelessness(mental/physical) would be so great? If you talked to an immortal person and he was barely different from you, or rather, even more depressed, would that change your perspective on immortality? Immortality doesn't make a person great, it simply makes them just that, immortal. It doesn't solve their problems, it only gives them time to solve their problems, a lot of time.... and in that same time more problems will inevitably arise, as is the nature of this physical existence.

But who really knows. Life is what you make it. After a long time some people realize this, and such a degree of freedom really can feel more like a burden than anything else.

Edited by Siro, 21 August 2013 - 09:12 PM.

[TheBatman]

It depends what you mean by stay young forever. Because that would imply that my brain wouldn't be able to progress along with my youth. In which case, my life would be a failure in being destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over. So i guess my answer is no...

[Absent]

It depends what you mean by stay young forever. Because that would imply that my brain wouldn't be able to progress along with my youth. In which case, my life would be a failure in being destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over. So i guess my answer is no...

I think it would be safe to assume that if your body isn't declining, then neither is your brain. Assume they both can stay in their peak optimal shape forever, or rather they can improve continuously without decline

[TheBatman]

It depends what you mean by stay young forever. Because that would imply that my brain wouldn't be able to progress along with my youth. In which case, my life would be a failure in being destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over. So i guess my answer is no...

I think it would be safe to assume that if your body isn't declining, then neither is your brain. Assume they both can stay in their peak optimal shape forever, or rather they can improve continuously without decline

If i were in my prime, whatever that entails, then sure i would share it with others. I'm just imagining a some sort of U shaped curve based off of my happiest years or something, with my optimal functioning in the middle.

But more realistically it makes sense in my mind that if my brain was preserved as part of my body, my memories would be too. I would neither be declining in knowledge or gaining in knowledge, which sounds miserable to me.