Will science finally be able to fix the “problem” of death? In a provocative interview, Jason Silva explains how very soon you may live forever.
Filmmaker Jason Silva
Jason Silva is not your average 26 year old.
The Venezuelan-American filmmaker is a prolific “gonzo journalist” and founding producer for Current TV, the groundbreaking network started by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
Jason also co-hosted the first ever Pangea Day in 2008.
But lately, Jason’s found a flaw in the human condition that has been troubling him. That flaw is death. He confesses he tried to find answers in a variety of religions and philosophies, until settling on science.
First, watch Jason’s short film “The Immortals”
I caught up with Jason to interview him on his short film, and to uncover the deeper issues on the end of death.
The Interview
BNT: What philosophies did you explore prior to science? What answers didn’t they provide?
JASON: I’ve always been an analytical thinker- trying to understand the human condition. Perhaps it comes from being a bit of a control freak- to understand something gives me the feeling of control.
One of my majors in university was philosophy- I loved existentialism and I loved a course titled “philosophy of space and time.” I was also an avid individualist and read a lot of Ayn Rand’s work.
I loved the idea of man as a heroic being- one that should never bow down before stifling religion or collectivist political tyranny. I was looking for an answer to the problem of existence- I suspected it had something to do with meaning but at the same settled I for mindless hedonism (fun, but ultimately unsatisfying).
Today, however, I know that’s not enough because it doesn’t solve the problem of finitude.
You mention that seeing old photographs and footage fills you with melancholy. How do you feel when looking at photos/videos from previous travels?
Watching old footage from previous travels usually enlivens me and reminds me of the sublime. I become filled with the “happy-sad” sensation- the bitter-sweet euphoria of seeing something inspiring while being aware that the moment is gone.
Old footage gives me a taste of immortality because I get to “return” to a moment, (usually one of revelatory ecstasy)… where I passionately bombarded the camera with exactly why this moment meant something to me- That’s the highest of highs.
What I really like to do is add a piece of music to the footage that elicits precisely the type of visceral feeling that I felt at the moment I recorded the footage.
That’s the point: It provides a forced reflection/examination of a moment that mattered! This prevents me from ever taking perfect moments for granted. The exquisite and the sublime are sacred.
You quote The Immortalist in your film – how did you come across it and why does it resonate with you?
After watching the brilliant film Vanilla Sky, I spent hours on the internet researching Cryonic Suspension.
If we removed finitude from the human condition, life could be transformed into an eternal now- no more existential anxiety.
This idea that we could preserve ourselves until the technology was there to repair the wear and tear of aging and eventual pathology.
Like the lucid dream that was presented in the film, if we removed finitude from the human condition, life could be transformed into an eternal now- no more existential anxiety.
I started reading about Ray Kurzweil and Aubrey de Grey, brilliant thinkers who professed that through scientific engineering we would someday conquer death.
The philosophical implications and motivations behind this, however, were best described by Alan Harrington’s masterpiece, “The Immortalist”- a manifesto of sorts that dared to challenge our cosmic inferiority complex and complacent attitude about our “inevitable” demise, and instead challenged us to engineer (with SCIENCE) an ageless and divine state of being.
This is where science would satisfy the yearnings of existential man, who for too long was suffering as a consequence of being aware of his mortality.
Photo by kangster.
“Eliminating death is playing God, but doing triple bypass surgery is just fine.” This is an excellent argument against the people who believe humans should not tinker with death. In what other ways do we already intervene against the natural biological processes?
I believe humans have always overcome their biological limitations. It is what has brought us out of the caves and onto the moon.
We have cured ourselves of diseases, we fly remarkable machines through the air at 500 miles per hour. We communicate instantly and wirelessly across the world.
Why is it such a stretch to imagine us re-programming our biochemistry (much like computer software) so that we may alleviate suffering, decay, and death?
You explore science’s answer to the “problem” of death. Why is death seen as a problem that needs to be fixed?
It is our memories, our loves, the images and dreams that define us. Death takes this all away.
Death is a profound tragedy. Human consciousness is basically a profound (and valuable) pattern of information residing in a complex biological machine.
This machine can repair itself for a certain period, but over time it wears out and decays at a faster rate than it can fix itself. This is why we die.
Today, however, we are at the verge of correcting this. Death is the loss of everything that matters- It is our memories, our loves, the images and dreams that define us- the songs that moved us and the films that shaped us. Death takes this all away.
I argue that in the same way we feel compelled to preserve the works of Shakespeare and other great works of art, why shouldn’t we extend this into our physicality?
Besides, by labeling death a problem, it shifts our complacent attitude about death and turns it into an engineering problem, one that we can solve, much as we have solved impossible problems in the past.
You say “evolution can be cruel” since it does not allow for the variable of human consciousness. But many other spiritual teachers believe that human consciousness is the direct result of evolution. How do you reconcile these two views?
Evolution is a blind process which has peaked at human consciousness.
Suddenly we have a species that can reflect on the evolutionary process which has allowed it to emerge, and can make calculated and measured decisions about how to redirect this process to include and take into account “the meaning of individual life” as a variable in the design.
Blind evolution doesn’t care about how much I love my mother- It doesn’t care about my love of theater and learning and reading- evolution cares only about my progeny.
But I, as an arbiter of value and meaning, have decided that I do care about these things and I don’t want to surrender them just because “that’s the way things are.” I say change the way things are.
If the end goal is to “live forever,” what do you think life would be like if immorality is achieved?
Life would be an unending adventure, sculpted moment to moment, building on itself into an ever more sophisticated and complex symphony.
I think Nietzsche said something like this: “Man is walking on a tightrope between ape and Overman.”
Overman is the emergence from within us of something infinitely more sublime than us. It is our potential. It is a divine state of being, what we long for hopelessly in all our churches.
Photo by Guillaume Goyette.
U.S. General Omar N. Bradley once said, “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.” To me this can also apply to the search for immortality.
While I agree humans should continue pushing the boundaries of science and technology, I wonder if we’re asking the right questions. Would immortality solve the world’s ills? Would it make us happier? Would it answer the fundamental search for meaning?
Ernest Becker’s masterpiece The Denial of Death presented death anxiety as the primary problem of man and also the root of all evil and anxiety.
He says man creates illusions under which to live in order to distract himself from the awareness of his mortality, which is unbearable.
I believe, along with many others, that eliminating death as a certain consequence of being born would eliminate all of our anxiety and aggressive impulses.
I imagine it would make us all into philosophers and scholars. Joseph Campbell-style heroes returning from the edge of death having become something far greater- an immortal hero.
It would satisfy the primal issue of importance– what Miguel de Unamuno wrote about in “Tragic Sense of Life”– mankind’s necessity for personal immortality.
“Do not go quietly into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light” – Dylan Thomas
What do you think about the end of death? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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82 Comments... join the discussion!
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I've never thought of death as a flaw, or as inherently tragic. In fact, I've never worried or thought much about death at all (at least, not my own), and always been puzzled by those who do.
"Why is it such a stretch to imagine us re-programming our biochemistry (much like computer software) so that we may alleviate suffering, decay, and death?"
I'm with you on alleviating suffering, but I think "decay" is a natural process (and a relative concept!) and I frankly have no desire to eliminate (natural) death. Would you really want to live forever? I don't mean to be too flippant here, but I can't think of a way to make life more tedious than eternity.
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Hello Eva,
Then on what day of perfect health will you choose to die or which specific discomfort caused by your failing body will you willingly suffer when it can be cured?
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I'll tell you when I get there. In the meantime, I don't plan on spending my life worrying about it. Look, this entire interview is predicated on the acceptance of death as a "flaw" — and I just don't see it that way, so it's a non-starter for me. Every story needs an ending.
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I'll tell you when I get there. In the meantime, I don't plan on spending my life worrying about it. Look, this entire interview is predicated on the acceptance of death as a "flaw" — and I just don't see it that way, so it's a non-starter for me. I think every story needs an ending, and that's my right as one of 6 billion "complex biological machines."
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You are welcome to your right and I support it. I want another right. I want the right to live and that relies upon a capability. That capability, the capability to continue life, is one you yourself would choose for who knows how long – you don't know. And I want it. You want it. We all want it and if we didn't we wouldn't have doctors and medicine.
Death is a flaw if it gets in the way of what you'd rather be doing and if there's nothing you'd rather be doing than dying there are already plenty of ways to fulfil that desire. There is already death in abundance and it doesn't need your support. So in place of regarding death as a bonus, why not realise it is a prize so easily won by anybody that seeks it and instead give your support to those that wish to give us the choice to continue?
If you have felt the last heart beat of someone you love beat so weakly that you can hardly feel it in your fingertips then you know death is no prize to be won. It is the end of you or someone else. I welcome your right to end, but I do not welcome it. It is a loss. We should overcome it.
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Again, you misunderstand me. The "right" I spoke of was my right to an opinion, not the right to die. I found your first comment overly dismissive and contemptuous of my opinion, and took issue.
"If you have felt the last heart beat of someone you love beat so weakly that you can hardly feel it in your fingertips then you know death is no prize to be won."
And please spare me the assumptions about what I do or don't know about death. You know absolutely nothing about me or my experiences.
Honestly, the vaguely threatening comments from people on this thread that those of us who don't want to live forever should just go ahead and die now are twisted and alarming.
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I found this interview really interesting, but I was wondering how any discussion of "death prevention" could avoid tackling the logistics of such a "development." How would population be affected, for example? Beyond the presumed individual benefits, what would be the larger social implications of the ability to live forever?
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I read somewhere that even with the elimination of sickness and aging, it's statistically impossible to live to 1,000 years unless we can reduce the risks of falling off cliffs, getting electrocuted, getting hit by cars, etc. Still, that's on average. So there would be some people living for thousands upon thousands of years.
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"I believe, along with many others, that eliminating death as a certain consequence of being born would eliminate all of our anxiety and aggressive impulses. I imagine it would make us all into philosophers and scholars."
Despite having very limited time, people still work jobs they hate to accumulate wealth they can't take with them. If our material wealth could be kept FOREVER, wouldn't we strive even more aggressively, and perform even more unfulfilling tasks, to accumulate it?
Also, I'd posit that the mystery of death makes us more philosophical than immortality ever could.
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"Also, I'd posit that the mystery of death makes us more philosophical than immortality ever could."
I don't think any useful philosophy was motivated by death or its mystery. I think a subject is pondered and pursued by intellectual giants merely for its own sake. I think giving these giants another few hundred years to live will prove just as insightful as their first hundred.
As for death being the source of all aggression and conflict, I think that's bunk. Well, only partially. Fear of death is a big source of conflict, but immortality will not solve it. Unless these immortals don't need to eat and drink, the conflict over resources will be ever more real, and aggression is the natural result of any sort of conflict or competition.
I'm not convinced overpopulation will be the real problem, because affluent cultures have *negative* population growth, and globalization is encouraging growth in third and second-world countries where population growth is the highest. As these countries become more affluent, their population growth will also eventually become negative. Without some corresponding factor to either encourage more offspring, or to delay inevitable deaths, humanity will become extinct.
In such a world, immortality will practically be a survival necessity.
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"Also, I'd posit that the mystery of death makes us more philosophical than immortality ever could."
I don't think any useful philosophy was motivated by death or its mystery. I think a subject is pondered and pursued by intellectual giants merely for its own sake. I think giving these giants another few hundred years to live will prove just as insightful as their first hundred.
As for death being the source of all aggression and conflict, I think that's bunk. Well, only partially. Fear of death is a big source of conflict, but immortality will not solve it. Unless these immortals don't need to eat and drink, the conflict over resources will be ever more real, and aggression is the natural result of any sort of conflict or competition.
I'm not convinced overpopulation will be the real problem, because affluent cultures have *negative* population growth, and globalization is encouraging growth in third and second-world countries where population growth is the highest. As these countries become more affluent, their population growth will also eventually become negative. Without some corresponding factor to either encourage more offspring, or to delay inevitable deaths, humanity will become extinct.
In such a world, immortality will practically be a survival necessity.
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Is that really true? Negative population growth? I would like to see some numbers for that. I just find that hard to believe. Without looking up on the Internet, isn't the population of affluent countries like Canada and the US growing? In the end, people will still have babies. I do believe that educated and affluent folks are having LESS babies (and later in life). But still, if no one's dying, these are net new humans, no? Unless people are dying faster than babies being born, by means other than natural death (falling off cliffs, getting eaten by crocodiles, etc) the population will grow.
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We're growing, but only because of immigration…
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…and Burger King! (See which)
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People have babies, but on average not enough to replace the existing population. Immigration is the only reason our populations are growing. I posted a detailed reply below with links, since most of the comments on this thread had disappeared at the time.
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To me, it seems that there are people who don't want to live forever, and people who do. So, let some die, let some live. Either way, people who want to live forever should be allowed to if they so choose. But something has to be done about population control as well, like not allowing immortals to have kids until we can colonize other planets, thus keeping the population from exploding while we are stuck on Earth.
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Eva, if you describe your life as “tedious” I find it is no wonder you could see no desire to continue for longer than you need to. I believe you are overlooking that if you had to only submit to what you find as “tedious” for say 40 years then could do whatever you wanted, perhaps life would become more of an adventure–one that you would not want to end. If you were constantly meeting new people, going to new places, learning new things, experiencing new experiences, why would anyone want to stop? There are so many things I have yet to learn and want to experience, that I cannot envision what it would be like to have two hundred, three hundred, or even more years of health in which to experience them… as the author put it, I certainly would not have the exasperation and anxiety that comes with each 24-hour day and trying to fit 30 hours of life into it!
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I didn't describe my life as tedious, I described eternal life as tedious. For the record, my days aren't filled with exasperation and anxiety, either.
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I hear that – consider the best party you've ever been to. Imagine it went on…and on…and on… eventually even the best experiences would become tedious eventually.
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There's a scene from a Simpsons episode where Homer and Marge are in a theme park, and the theme of this one restaurant is New Year's Eve…over and over and over and over and over again…is that what you mean Ian? "Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind…"
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Ha, that's EXACTLY the scene I was thinking of.
And the guy who works there who's like "Kill me."
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Nobody said you couldn't leave the party if you wanted to.
But for those who wish to stay, it should keep on going.
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Where did all the comments go? Am I the only one who can't see them?
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What'd you do, Eva? Quick, give the squirrel a carrot so he'll start running again!
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No seriously, can you see all of yesterday's comments? Please, helpful answer required. Am I losing it? I can only see my last comment, and your squirrel reply.
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Nope. Comments all gone. However, I can't be of much help as to whether you're losing it or not.
Now that it's just you and me, Eva: let's arm-wrestle. I'm gonna take you DOWN.
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Ha, well, good to know it's not just me, then! We'll leave the broader question of whether I'm losing it for another day…
Fighting words, eh, Harbecke? Perhaps I can offer you a ticket to the gun show?
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I think it's a bug. I've emaild Intense Debate support so should be fixed soon!
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All gone for me too.
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I think this is an inevitability – but not one that I embrance without some serious hesitation:
If we conquer death due to natural aging, the remaining causes of death become random accident, disease and murder. I believe this could leave us consumed with avoiding the "un-natural causes" of death, because the consolation that "I will die anyways" is now gone. Life becomes a death-avoidance game, because you know it is no longer your destiny.
If we cast aside evolution, accept that we no longer need natural selection, we've implicitly decided that we can do it ourselves. The effect is that we become beholdent to our human subjectivity, to select the traits that we believe will allow us to flourish and advance. Human creativity seems endless, but does the human mind have limits – will our power to engineer reach a threshold? If so, will be become reliant on an intelligence outside ourselves to bring us to a higher state of development? Will this thing be a logical being of our own creation?
With death limited to un-natural causes, we need to control the birth rate to a greater degree than we do at present. Perhaps our wil to procreate will be dampened because we won't feel the need to immortalize ourselves in our children. But given that unnatural death is still a possibility, we will likely still feel the will to replace ourselves "just in case". Who gets to arbitrate those who have the right to have children? When we abandon natural death, we also abandon natural birth – and I don't believe there is a fair way to make this determination.
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I've been saying this to my friends for years! If you just think about how far science has come since the industrial age, and how slow technological progression was for thousands of years before that, it's absolutely true that it is on an exponential curve. What kinds of cures and treatments have been discovered/engineered in the past 30 years? How much further will this be pushed in another 30 years?
Saying that, there should be a discussion about the implications if a "cure" for death is ever found. Each new generation learns from the previous generation and hopefully corrects some wrongs. I am looking forward to the day when all the climate change deniers die off. Otherwise what will these people contribute as they live ever longer (perhaps forever?) lives?
Who will get to live forever? Obviously, those with money. What about those who won't be able to afford it? What if they want to live forever too? What will they do in order to get money to pay for this cure?
I'm with Eva…as much as I'd like to live longer, I don't think I could handle forever. Sometimes, with the way the world is these days, I wouldn't mind leaving it a bit earlier. Is the cure for death going to magically cure the ails of the world – no, actually, not ails of the world – ails of humanity too?
Great topic…can't wait to continue the discussion…
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I too wondered where all the comments had gone, since numerous people had responded to my earlier post.
In any case, VagabonderZ had asked whether it was true that affluent cultures are correlated with negative population growth. It is indeed true, and is known as Demographic-economic paradox [1]. Most first-world countries sustain positive population growth by immigration from poorer countries.
To be specific with the terminology, these countries' fertility rates are below replacement value, though population growth is positive (immigration + fertility rate). Wikipedia has all of the pertinent information of fertility rates by country for those who are interested [2]. Generally speaking, fertility rates less than 2 indicate negative growth for citizens (replacing mother+father), and so positive population growth is by immigration.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_an...↵ -
Thanks for the explanation, appreciate it.
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People who want to live forever should have the choice. But People like me, who are curious about what happens after death, I'll put in my 80 years and kick the bucket. The only problem is, if I'm offered the cure to whatever I have in 80 years…it be really hard to say no…
Die a painless death! (fingers crossed)
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You may be curious. But death wont necessarily answer that curiosity. If there's nothing after death you'll never learn that through dying. However, after several hundred years of scientific research into the subject, you might just get your answer.
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Well, if they do figure out what happens after death through science…And it happens to suck…then maybe I'll change my mind haha
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VagabonderZ, so you don’t have to look on the Internet, here’s the best researched article on the Baby Bust that I’ve read in years. There are others that are well researched, but I think you’ll find the source respectable:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040501faessay83307/phillip-longman/the-global-baby-bust.htmlHere’s one of the most telling quotes and it makes sense: “Today, the average woman in the world bears half as many children as did her counterpart in 1972. No industrialized country still produces enough children to sustain its population over time, or to prevent rapid population aging. Germany could easily lose the equivalent of the current population of what was once East Germany over the next half-century. Russia’s population is already contracting by three-quarters of a million a year. Japan’s population, meanwhile, is expected to peak as early as 2005, and then to fall by as much as one-third over the next 50 years — a decline equivalent, the demographer Hideo Ibe has noted, to that experienced in medieval Europe during the plague.”
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Well said!!
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I guess it depends on your view of "life and death." Many people believe we are "spirit" in a human body having a human experience, therefore, we never really die. After we leave our "human form," we go into the "non-physical" aspect of living until we decide to "reincarnate" into human form for another lifetime.
I started my "spiritual" journey in March 2007 by reading The Secret (I know), but it has lead me on a quest to know more about our physical/human experience. I'm very intrigued with Quantum Physics and Metaphysical readings. Can we really alter our reality? Do thoughts become things? Can we heal our bodies through focused thinking, meditation, and "feeling" our way to our desires?
I've never read a book by Nietzsche, maybe I was not ready to do so. I do know that 2009 will be a continuation of 2008, except on a deeper level. Perhaps I will rent the movie Vanilla Sky because I did not "get it" the first time I saw it. Maybe I was not ready for the information.
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>Many people believe we are "spirit" in a human body having a human experience, therefore, we never really die. After we leave our "human form," we go into the "non-physical" aspect of living until we decide to "reincarnate" into human form for another lifetime.
This whole "afterlife" business has two separable components. On the one hand, the existence of an "afterlife," assuming you can define it adequately, could potentially become the object of empirical science. On the other hand, we have inherited all these conflicting and apparently arbitrary beliefs about an "afterlife" from the childhood of the race. What if we discover scientific evidence for the existence of an "afterlife," but then find out that it doesn't last forever? Will people postulate the existence of an after-afterlife, inhabited by the ghosts of ghosts?
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What if we discover scientific evidence of an afterlife, but nobody's there? Most importantly, who do we sue?
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I think it's human nature for people to promote their own well-being at the expense of everything else around them – including other people.
Everyone has a secret desire to escape the dread of death, but if you think about it a little longer, 6 billion mortals sharing the planet with X number of immortals goes quickly past comedy and right into nightmare. Just because you can do a thing (i.e. potentially "cure" death) doesn't mean you should, and I pity the cat who goes on that remarkably lonely and inevitably boring trip.
"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon." – Susan Ertz.
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That's a great quote! Of course, that's predicated on the belief that it's better to be dead than bored. Perhaps, if a cure for death is found, that they should also find a way to make "bored to death" literal. That way, if you get too bored you will just die. This would take care of the overpopulation argument too.
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What a great, thought provoking topic. I watched Jason Silva's short video above, and was left with the notion that he equates not wanting to live forever with a belief in a God. I do not believe in God, but at the same time I do not want to live forever. Another assumption made by Jason Silva and his cadre is that if let live forever, all human beings would want to pursue noble causes such as the advancement of science, the pursuit of knowledge, they enjoyment of music, etc. However, what if despots such as Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot were also allowed to live forever? What if Jack the Reaper were still alive, terrorizing the world with his antics?
While I would certainly love to live longer, I do not want to entertain the idea of living forever. I accept death and respect its inevitability. I like how it humbles man and makes him realize his true insignificance of his role in the Universe. I am also a fan of Ayn Rand's work, and can see where Jason Silva got his ideas from, but I doubt whether living forever can bestow the necessary significance to some of the most intense feelings known to man, such as joy, love, sorrow, feelings that are that more relevant when one realizes that their passage through Earth is merely temporary. Life would not be as intense and 'miraculous' if it were allowed to go on forever.
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How wings are attached to the Backs of Angels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRHVzbJVx8I
I feel this beautiful film is somewhat related to this discussion. "In this surreal exposition, we meet a man, obsessed with control. His intricate gadgets manipulate yet insulate, as his science dissects and reduces. How exactly are wings attached to the back of angels? In this invented world drained of emotion, where everything goes through the motions, he is brushed by indefinite longings. Whether he can transcend his obsessions and fears is the heart of the matter. A film without words."
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It's not the quantity, it's the quality. Some people swear they'd never live "hooked up to a machine" after some horrific accident, but how is that different from hyper-extended life? What they really mean is "I don't want to live a meaningless life," and many of the best things in life are made so because they're precious. You can no longer "give your life" to a cause because the choice is removed. You can no longer say "til death do we part" because all you have to do is wait. And as we mature past childhood, then adulthood, then middle age – how do you tolerate that again, or tolerate being in a class of your own?
In the end, all that "eternal life" would do is take the choice from old age, but not from fate or your own hand. It would inevitably end in accident or suicide, so "eternal life" is still a myth.
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Oh, I fully agree with you. Was just playing "devil's advocate" for a second there. That quote also brings to mind these people who say "time is money", willing to pay all costs (monetary and environmental) for convenience, then are perfectly content to plop themselves in front of a telly for hours a day.
Life without death is yin without yang, peanut butter without jelly, sonny without cher…
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Oh, I fully agree with you. Was just playing "devil's advocate" for a second there. That quote also brings to mind these people who say "time is money", willing to pay all costs (monetary and environmental) for convenience, then are perfectly content to plop themselves in front of a telly for hours a day. But I digress…
Life without death is yin without yang, peanut butter without jelly, sonny without cher…
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Children complain about boredom a lot. If your 8 year old says "I'm bored," does that show she has already lived too long and should die?
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It's hard not to answer that facetiously – but, assuming you're not asking facetiously…
Kids aren't yet qualified to know the difference between meaning and pastime, so no. But an adult with a clear idea of their life and what they want it to be? Different situation. Quality of life and impatience aren't the same thing. Hopefully
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It's hard not to answer that facetiously – but, assuming you're not asking facetiously…
Kids aren't yet qualified to know the difference between meaning and pastime, so no. But an adult with a clear idea of their life and what they want it to be? Different situation. Quality of life and impatience aren't the same thing. Hopefully.
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>Kids aren't yet qualified to know the difference between meaning and pastime, so no. But an adult with a clear idea of their life and what they want it to be? Different situation.
What about the difference in scale with radical life extension? A 25 year old person would immediately recognize the immaturity in a 5 year old's complaints about boredom. Perhaps to someone 1,000 years old, a 200 year old's complaints about boredom would sound analogously childish.
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Now that would be a question to ponder when/if the time came where yodas were wandering the earth. In the meantime I think we can only go on what we know.
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You're right. Give the kid the keys to the car. I trust their judgment. In other words: huh?
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Now that would be a question to ponder when/if the time came where yodas were wandering the earth. In the meantime I think we can only go on current realities.
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You're right. Give the kid the keys to the car. I trust their judgment. In other words: huh?
No, seriously – you're getting hung up on the word boredom. It's really about meaning and meaninglessness.
> Perhaps to someone 1,000 years old, a 200 year old's complaints about boredom would sound analogously childish.
If so, they should both be put to death!
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What kind of ghosts? What about "so-called" Earth bound spirits who roam the Earth because they do not realize they're dead? What about people who want to "freeze" themselves so science can bring them back to life?
The only way we will know for sure what happens is when we depart from this Earth. So far, none of my deceased relatives have come back to tell me about the afterlife, if there is such a thing. My departed this Earth in May 2004 and sometimes I dream about him. He has not "manifested" before my eyes to tell me about his experience in the "non-physical" realm. He's probably having too much fun and is in shock because the auto industry, which he worked for, screwed up a good thing.
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People who believe in an afterlife tend to assume arbitrarily that (1) it lasts forever; and (2) the entities in that state don't find it objectionable. The reincarnation version of this belief, where these entities try to get back into physical bodies ASAP, even the bodies of nonhuman species, suggests that perhaps they don't care for the afterlife after all.
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Did you interview everyone who believes in the afterlife? Some people believe that the "soul" reincarnates until it learns its lessons once and for all. I don't know if this for sure because I have not investigated it; I just find it interesting. Like I said, no one has come back to speak to me about the "afterlife." I'm not going to make assumptions; I know what assume means. I prefer to draw my own conclusions and go from there. This seems to be a hot topic!
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>However, what if despots such as Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot were also allowed to live forever?
Then with a turn of political events they could eventually face trial for their crimes instead of dying in their beds, bunkers or mansions in Texas.
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I've been to several talks and seminars about how to stop aging, and I've heard that scientists figure that medications or "dietary supplements" will be available within the next twenty years. Other methods, like caloric restriction, are already being put into practice. This reality isn't as far off as we think.
It's hard to imagine the consequences of living forever. You pretty much never retire. You can go to school, have a thirty year career and then repeat the whole process dozens of times. Family reunions involve seven or eight generations. Women can (theoretically) have hundreds of children since they never need worry about menopause. Our definition of marriage will have to change, unless you really can love your spouse forever.
What worries me is the cost, above all else. People in first world countries already have better life expectancies than people in third world countries, so what happens when it's only the upper classes in first world countries who can afford to live forever? How does it feel to outlive your friends and family who can't afford this kind of medical intervention?
And yes, Mugabe, Pol Pot and anyone else who had the money could live forever. Money is the defining factor here, not morals.
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I'm way to late to this conversation, but I highly recommend Robert Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love" as an exploration into the theorectical postulations of a (I belive) 1,600 year old man.
The premise of the book is that the protagonist has lived for over 1,600 years and their isn't anything he hasn't done; thus, he wants to die. The only people that care about his continued existence are his progeny–they care about his stories.
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I feel overall we are a bit pretentious about today's technology, thinking it's nearly able to do things like sustain lives eternally. The way the world works is not a matter of how far we can zoom into the subatomical arena. A human life is wrapped around its environment and biology, and all sorts of cycles and processes go out of whack when things are tampered with.
As a person grows, their body continually reconstructs itself. When it reconstructs itself (growing and shedding cells), it changes bit by bit to fit its past lifestyle. It continually becomes *less and less* like its original state. This can be easily understood with my analogy of a ball of clay. Say when we are born, we are a perfect sphere. Every experience after that would cause the sphere to shape into something different. Because of this, every person becomes unique from one another. And furthermore, the sphere's future shape is affected by its previous shape. However, with time (even with no injuries or sicknesses) the sphere will grow into certain directions for such a long time after birth that it will no longer be sphere-like enough to sustain its shape, and will no longer be a sphere–or "die." If we were to live eternally, I feel we must address this issue, and that it would be necessary to achieve plasticity in the adult stage. I'm not an expert, but I believe this happens in our proteins, that they becomes weaker and weaker in order to adapt to something other than their original identity. ( And a bit more radically, I feel that the analogy of gravity does equal justice–gravity is essentially a small thing being affected by a large thing. We are smaller than everything around us, so we are affected and absorbed into what is around us. )
Aside from it being nearly impossible for our "modern technology," I feel eternal life would tamper too much with aspects of life that have already been tampered with in some of the super-safe societies that we live in. The consequences are depression and disease. We are deprived in many ways. We are surrounded by non-living objects (cement walls) and unhealthy radiation, computers, microwaves, et cetera.
Interesting enough, our body has all it needs to live a very long life! Our high-tech lifestyles are so far from appropriate that we are hurting and depriving ourselves from living long and healthy. A perfect example is diabetes, I realize some cases, specifically hereditary, aren't so avoidable–but some are. Diabetes can be a self-given condition when people eat before they're even hungry. This doesn't allow the body to send the signal of hunger to the brain, and thus also doesn't allow the body to decide when to do things like produce insulin, and eventually it's like a muscle that is never exercised, unable to operate well enough. Actually, I do not feel our immune system has much flaw in it, it is capable of defending itself quite well if it is exercised so.
From the ambitions I've been reading on this site, it seems we want to achieve eternal life by the same means we've achieved pharmaceuticals, microwaves, and many other things that do not adhere to what the human life has evolved to live with. Our lives can be lived healthily by obeying what our body tells us–hunger, pain, sleepiness. Sleep at night, eat when hungry. It goes on and on about how our lifestyle is unnatural. But it's also a dilemma because some of these unnatural things help us lead civil lives.
I should stop writing… Basically, I think eternal life would ultimately bring depression and more cancer-like consequences. Try some meditation, mindfulness, yoga, fresh food, kneeling chairs, and all that sort of stuff. And yes I agree with the others, let's not help ourselves live longer when the price for a nose-job could feed a child for a year. We would need to start thinking about whether paying for an extra 200 years for us is better than an helping 10 people live 50 years longer (that's 500 years). And to think we want to end suffering by making our own lives more comfortable…
***Also remember that around the 1900's people thought humanity was at its peak of medical achievement.↵ -
I wonder how being able to live for ever would affect human risk taking. Would people have sailed to unknown and dangerous waters if they didn't know they'd die sometime, and now would people volunteer to be astronauts for the same reason.
It might lead to less people willing to risk their lives in war, or more people being forced into fighting wars as slaves.
I'm middle aged now, and have done a lot that I wanted to do, but have also a lot of things to do, or that I've missed out on.
I feel that I would like longer to do everything, or to have been able to live my mind's life within a few bodies, which is taking the discussion in a related but different direction.
But I also wonder whether I would have done many of the risky things, which are some of my most memorable and valuable memories and achievements, if I knew they jeopardised eternal life.
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Steve Jobs says it best:
"For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something…almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose."
That is exactly how I feel.
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I agree whole-heartedly.
I've come up with one solution/conclusion to some of these new problems that arise when we become immortal that you might find interesting. First, I imagine, that beyond conquering aging we will inevitably become immortal by uploading our consciousness into a computer virtual reality. So even if our bodies can still die from unnatural causes our minds and personalities will be able to live forever (or as long as the computer is still functional).
Also, I like to imagine that over-population won't be a problem if we also advance space travel technology. With advanced space travel we can be constantly exporting humans to discover the universe, and all the while keep popping out more babies. Almost like a bacteria that multiplies and spreads, we will be the adventurous exploring disease of the universe.
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I am definately going to live forever. I remind myself everyday with full belief, and who the hell is going to tell me otherwise. Ever heard of the story of the woman who’s lover went off to war and died in battle. Well she was 45 years of age the day he went to war and she wholeheartedly believed she would see him back again the next day or so and would then marry him. He sadly never returned but the lady kept this belief that she would marry her sweetheart and she would be as young and beautiful upon his return. 40 years later she still looked in phsical appearance like the 45 year old that he left behind the day he went to war. to me that speaks volumes of infinate mind power and the human condition.
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Even if we could one day find a “cure” to death, that would not eliminate the existance of poverty, hunger, money and simply the concept that there are not enough resouces to go around. People would still die from these things and wars would still go on. You envision eternity in this life as if as soon as it we have achieved this standard, all those things will be wiped away. That is simply not logical. Corruption, war, malnutrition, sickness and even the most basic forms of evil would still be in the world just as much as it is today. The greed in a greedy man ends the moment he dies whether naturally or not…. give that same man an eternity and his entire purpose in life will be about bettering himself and his greed would be immortal. If we have given Hitler the will to live forever he most likely would have still done what he had done for it was not fear of death that made him kill millions of people but because he was (in the most simplest of words) idealy and morally wrong in what he thought was the right thing. Those things will not just magically cease to exist because everyone has a potion to make them live “forever”. I know I wouldn’t take that pill/potion/shot or whatever it will be because there is no reason to desire to live forever on this planet for this planet is full of corrupt wretchedness and those things would not cease to exist but only expand upon themselves. The poor will still be poor, the rich will still be rich… none of that would change. I will take my 80 years and live my life to the fullest to make other’s lives better but I will not spend those 80 years on trying to find a way to cheat something that happens to not only us but every atom and imagionable thing in this universe and beyond including our sun, galaxy and even black holes. At least in this life, and on this planet, mankind was never meant to live forever and in its present state… it shouldn’t.
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If there was no death…hmmm
1.) Where would everybody live?
2.) Who controls new births?
3.) Do we want someone (or group) to have that control?
4.) Why would tomorrow matter if your just going to live forever?
5.) Would I have to work a 9 to 5….FOREVER?There’s many questions involved with this issue.
I know one thing though…..if we do away with death…..it won’t be you and me that live forever (thank God)….it will be the elite Evil forces of the world that must endure this hell for eternity.
I’m fine with “death”. No matter how “scary”, it is a must. Plus….I don’t beleive anything ever truly dies.
I hope people that stress about this find peace within themselves. I don’t think they have truly contemplated everything involved with living forever!!
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i would love to live forever. and those people who say your playing god to live for ever arnt they realy playing god by stoping people from it. it should be a choice if i want ti be 28 four ever and some one els wants to grow old and die then it should be done. think of the money to be made and the good it will do emagine if a scientist lived for 1000 years think of the reasrch he could do no more looking thourgh old journals to see what some guy was thinking no just ask him. i dont see one bad thing about living forever. and thouse who do must knot be real happey in life so go kill your selves and let me talk to your great great great grand doughter.
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I watch Still Up and I thought that Jason Silva is a hedonist. If so, why would he want to live forever? Just look at what people look like when they’re 100: old and wrinkly. Now imagine that deterioration process continuing forever. By the time we hit the 1,000 year mark, our appearance will be absolutely grotesque. For a hedonist, that’s a reason NOT to live forever.
Besides, what about population control? Will we have to have a quota on the immortals and eventually just not biologically produce children? I mean, China’s already got enough problems with their one child policy. Sad but true: you don’t want all the oldies hogging up all the space.
Finally, I think that death gives significant meaning to life. It can inspire people to appreciate life and influence important artwork. We wouldn’t even have the concept of life without the concept of death.
I think Silva’s theory should die. Wow, that was bad. But I couldn’t resist!
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Do they arm-wrestle there, too?
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"I'm not even at all certain that you have an opinion that I could be contemptuous of. "
"You don't have an opinion, in the same way a knee jerk reaction could not be considered choreography."
Yup, no contempt here. Not at all.
Look, I'm not sure why you decided to pick a fight with me over my stated willingness to die eventually — that's really nobody's business but my own. It's not like I am out there burning down medical research centers in order to prevent YOU from "living forever" — whatever that even means. ("Eternity" is a human construct, after all…)
I'm done arguing with you. I think you are rude, hostile, and you make unwarranted assumptions about people. I really don't see what was so crazy about my initial comment (essentially, a statement that I don't spend a lot of time worrying about death) to invite so much hostility.
Maybe you are the one who should get on with making life good?
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"I'm not even at all certain that you have an opinion that I could be contemptuous of. "
"You don't have an opinion, in the same way a knee jerk reaction could not be considered choreography."
Yup, no contempt here. Not at all.
Look, I'm not sure why you decided to pick a fight with me over my stated willingness to die eventually — that's really nobody's business but my own. It's not like I am out there burning down medical research centers in order to prevent YOU from "living forever" — whatever that even means. ("Eternity" is a human construct, after all…)
I'm done arguing with you. I think you are rude, hostile, and you make unwarranted assumptions about people. I really don't see what was so offensive about my initial comment (essentially, a statement that I don't spend a lot of time worrying about death) to invite so much hostility.
Maybe you are the one who should get on with making life good?
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"I'm not even at all certain that you have an opinion that I could be contemptuous of. "
"You don't have an opinion, in the same way a knee jerk reaction could not be considered choreography."
Yup, no contempt here. Not at all.
Look, I'm not sure why you decided to pick a fight with me over my stated willingness to die eventually — that's really nobody's business but my own. It's not like I am out there burning down medical research centers in order to prevent YOU from "living forever" — whatever that even means. ("Eternity" is a human construct, after all…)
I'm done arguing with you. I think you are rude, hostile, and you make unwarranted assumptions about people. I really don't see what was so offensive about my initial comment (essentially, a statement that I don't spend a lot of time worrying about death) to invite so much hostility.
Maybe you are the one who should "get on with making life good"?
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Death is inevitable for the person getting hit by a train or shot in a war. Medicine was created to help a man live more comfortably while he is around to make the most of his time. Medicine is also a form of power and control and method for obtaining wealth and social status. For the most part, I see a bunch of know-it-alls claiming that death is the end of us….. forever.
Well, how do we know that we don't go on living in some other way? How do we know we don't just get transferred and stay in a lucid dream or evolve into a different being? Or morph into our computer screens?And what about Quantum Suicide/Immortality?
I think some of these folks are just trying to sell pharmaceuticals/herbs/cleanses to give folks the impression that they can save themselves from DEATH"S SCYTHE which only causes more anxiety and worry about the end of their life AND more psychological trauma and imbalance in the world. This is a huge scam. Either way we will die. In one way or another, psychologically, physically WE ARE DYING.
Right now, I'm might be squinting at this screen, causing myself to suffer from carpal tunnel/arthritis, dealing with a headache and should probably be out walking in the woods……but here I am staring at a screen….DYING.
Anyway, I guarantee if they do find the trick for us to live forever…it will be for the rich and the world will get even more evil. There is no Utopia in living forever. We cant even take care of what we have now. Look around you people!! Wars, Famine, Poverty. Eliminating death is sooooooo far fetched even when Kurzweil preaches his accelerating blah blah bullshit. Anyway, I still love him and all of this and am enjoying the books, On a A Pale Horse and Death with Interruptions.
Have a great night. Drink a green organic smoothie and try not to die in the morning, go swimming
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Name one unwarranted assumption?
You're the one that reads discussion as an argument, questions as threats, and conversation as hostility. My only unwarranted assumption was that someone who posts a comment is inviting discussion. Clearly this is not the case.
Don't bother replying.
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Kieron: Maybe I misunderstood your first comment. I took it as sarcastic and dismissive of my "willingness" (in quotes because I honestly don't believe we'll ever have a choice about it) to die eventually. I believed you were suggesting that I couldn't possibly mean what I said, and that your question about my chosen time and place was rhetorical. Was I wrong? If so, please tell me.
As far as unwarranted assumptions go, I was referring to this: "If you have felt the last heart beat of someone you love beat so weakly that you can hardly feel it in your fingertips then you know death is no prize to be won" — which I took to mean that you were assuming I haven't been in that situation, that you don't believe I could both hold the views I do and have any experience with death.
Look, death is a reality. An interview with a "gonzo" journalist (and one that's pretty lean on the promised science, too) is not going to change that. Given that reality, we all have different ways of coping. Mine is to choose not to dwell on death, or to agonize over what could be, "if only" there was no cancer, no heart attacks, no AIDS, no car wrecks, no suicides…
I believe there are people that die content, not struggling or suffering or feeling like they're being torn away too soon. I'd like to be one of them. Perhaps that answers your initial question?
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I've neither made or intended any threat so whatever you are alarmed at exists purely in your own imagination.
I'm not even at all certain that you have an opinion that I could be contemptuous of. Pretty much all you've said is "death is natural" and saying that something is natural seems to excuse most people from any further thinking that might otherwise have resulted in an opinion being formed.
Cancer is natural. Tuberculosis is natural. HIV, cot death, haemorrhoids, arthritis, IBS, heart disease and so on. All natural. I'm pretty sure you want to avoid all and a much much longer list of ailments. The body doesn't die because it gets old. It dies because it gets sick because it's old – it suffers, it breaks, it succumbs to disease. So we're ok to cure everything but we're still going to die? How will that work? As I asked previously, which curable avoidable cause of death will you put your hand up to and shout "Yes, over here"!
You don't have an opinion, in the same way a knee jerk reaction could not be considered choreography. Living would be tedious? Maybe sometimes, probably not though because you've got forever to get on with making life good. New options would be presented every day, but maybe your idea of the future is a stagnant and static endless repetition of an average day. Maybe you didn't think about the possibilities.
Now go ahead, read some threats into that somehow. "That guy who says he wants me to be able to live forever is threatening me". Right…
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