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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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'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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"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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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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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.

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