The Paradox of Immortality

[Glossophile]

This is one of those things that I stumbled upon some time ago in one of my more pensive moments, and I'm curious if anyone else has wondered about this.

Science is making great strides in both understanding and thus potentially combating human senescence (i.e. aging).  If I recall correctly, some optimistic estimates posit that the first people to live into quadruple digits may have already been born. I think dramatic life extension will almost certainly be possible at some point.  But what about indefinite life extension?  Is immortality even theoretically possible?  This isn't about any hard physical limits that may get in our way or even the obvious Malthusian issues of population control, nor do I consider the possibility of upgrading our consciousness to any higher form to be relevant here.  My brainstorm is a bit more philosophical than that.

Even granting tremendous power to future science and technology, I don't think true immortality will ever be possible, and here's why.  Death can only be prevented by mitigating its various causes, and in order to mitigate those causes, we must first be able to foresee them.  It may certainly be possible to curtail all of the obvious natural causes (e.g. disease, aging, etc), but we still have more man-made issues to contend with (e.g. murder, war, automobile accidents), which are less predictable due to the complexity of the agents involved.  In a way, the only means of assuring that those don't truly kill anyone might be to figure out how to actually reverse death.  Even granting the fantasy of resurrecting the dead or otherwise neutralizing those more artificial threats, it will still almost inevitably rely on the posterity of certain infrastructure and institutions, which may themselves not be immortal.  It'll be pretty hard to summon the know-how and technology to revive anyone if we're in the midst of a zombie apocalypse or a second Dark Age.  Being even more generous, even if we could somehow make such resilience inherent to our biology so that it wouldn't rely on external support (perhaps through some very ambitious genetic engineering), again, we can only steel our bodies against threats we can foresee.

But what about any physically possible cause of death that relies on such a specific, contrived, and improbable confluence of circumstances that we have no hope of even imagining it beforehand?  I'm talking about something so extremely improbable and contingent on such narrow parameters that it wouldn't occur to a single person even in a population, say, quadrillions strong.  Of course, the good thing about such unfathomable and yet technically possible fates is that they are, by their very nature, astronomically unlikely.  But here's the clincher.  In this scenario, since we are at least theoretically immortal, such fates have a theoretically infinite amount of time in which to transpire.  And what happens to even the most infinitesimal likelihood given an infinity of trials?  It becomes a certainty.  So arguably, in rendering ourselves immortal, we have paradoxically sealed our fates.

[SYZ]

I guess at my age I've long given up on this sort of philosophising as it's of little
interest to me, plus I have many more current own life issues to concern myself
with.  Briefly no; I don't believe that homo sapiens will ever become immortal
or fail to age and die.  I've seen plenty of people around me approaching their
centenary year, and it hasn't always (seldom) been a pleasant encounter for me or them.

Is it a human vanity to wish for immortality?  Is it an unfounded fear of death by
the living?  I've seen enough changes—far too many—in my lifetime, as society, the
economy, and the physical state of the planet all deteriorate before my eyes.

If I had access to a time machine, would I choose to go forward 100 years, or go back
10 years?  For me it'd be easy; back a decade.

—Good talking point all the same.     

[mordant]

I believe that biological immortality is possible but quite a bit more elusive than our current crop of transhumanists want to imagine.

We will always be able to die of misadventure, even then.

Putting those two facts together makes me wonder about whether, if the only way to die is by accident, society will become structured to be highly risk-averse. To truly run such a thought experiment, you have to think about the limits of things like dread of death, boredom, and just a whole raft of stuff that the short, mean existence we now "enjoy" don't give us time to really learn about and have experience with.

Would even the most vivacious among us actually want to live indefinitely? Would experiences still be new, and life still fascinate us, even after countless centuries and millennia? Are there limits to how our brains are evolved that would guarantee we'd just go mad after the passage of time, not because there's anything biologically wrong, but because the motivational structure of our minds can't overcome hedonic tone forever?

I have my doubts. I feel quite strongly that I'm already well past my "best used by" date, and while biological health and vigor and high quality of life might give me a second lease on life at this point, I'm not sure how long I'd actually want to have new experiences. Everyone doesn't feel this way by their early 60s, of course; how durable one's lust for life is, is a function of personality, genetics, epigenetics, and experience. Still, I sense that it's not endless, even for the sturdiest of us.

Maybe the irony of biological immortality will be that people just voluntarily take their peaceful pill after three or four hundred years, in a "I came, I saw, I conquered, then said meh" sort of way.

Or maybe in a stable and humane and free enough society, without the subconscious pressure of a finite, set lifespan, we'd find whole new ways to experience reality.

Ian Banks, in his "Culture series" of novels, explored what it might be like to live in a society where this is all a reality, and technology has advanced to the point that many people live in vast spaceships exploring the cosmos. He envisions things like "glanding", where you can arrange to have glands that secrete at will to make you as happy, alert, sexual, calm, or even morose as you wish or need to be at any moment. Also, people changing genders and sexual orientations and so forth at will, just to see what it's like.

Bank's premise, though, is that even in such a utopian society, there will still be a need for Machiavellian government operatives, misfits and soldiers of fortune used by the government to selectively shape less advanced cultures so that they don't produce the threat of war beyond their own worlds, and can eventually be ready to join "The Culture".

Interesting questions but I seriously doubt even the youngest of us here will live to test any of these theories.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

I believe that biological immortality is possible but quite a bit more elusive than our current crop of transhumanists want to imagine.

True immortality is 100% impossible in our current understanding of our universe. The heat death of the universe will put paid to any attempt, no matter how well designed. Very, very long lived, millions, maybe billions of years? Maybe, even likely, eventually. True immortality? Nope.

[Minimalist]

Not to mention war.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Shit breaks down, the center doesn't hold, and who wants to live forever anyway? Christ, we've got enough to worry about without worrying about dying too. Better off worrying about living, I think.

Oh, and wait until Microsoft stops support on your OS and your vascular chipset goes tits-up.

[Bucky Ball]

With genetics moving so fast, I'm sure the aging process at some point will be stopped or reversed, genetically.
I also think at some point in the future, humans will learn to manipulate spacetime and speed/direction. Time travel.
In that sense, there may be ways to return to the past, and stay there or return to any point in the past.
Someone will probably also invent a "brain in a vat" thingy.

[Chas]

I guess at my age I've long given up on this sort of philosophising as it's of little
interest to me, plus I have many more current own life issues to concern myself
with.  Briefly no; I don't believe that homo sapiens will ever become immortal
or fail to age and die.  I've seen plenty of people around me approaching their
centenary year, and it hasn't always (seldom) been a pleasant encounter for me or them.

Is it a human vanity to wish for immortality?  Is it an unfounded fear of death by
the living?  I've seen enough changes—far too many—in my lifetime, as society, the
economy, and the physical state of the planet all deteriorate before my eyes.

If I had access to a time machine, would I choose to go forward 100 years, or go back
10 years?  For me it'd be easy; back a decade.

—Good talking point all the same.       

And have to relive 2020?  That's crazy talk!

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

One of Sir Terry Pratchett's first books 'Strata' had a society where "The Company", who's main buisness was building entire worlds from the core up. Paid its employees (And the novel's heroine) in 'Days'.

 Effectivly, for as long as you worked for The Company  you were immortal/immune to aging.  Though Sir Pritchett did mention aspects to which the human phsyche succumbed thence usually pealeading to "Demise by misadventure".

 Though said immimmortality was a side note to the greater story/message/theme at large.

[Little Lunch]

You can't know if you're immortal until you've lived forever.

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

You can't know if you're immortal until you've lived forever.

 Or untill strangers with swords start trying to cut your head off.

  "There can be only one!"

   

  Also that wonderful Queen song from the same movie "Who wants to live forever."

[Cavebear]

I believe that biological immortality is possible but quite a bit more elusive than our current crop of transhumanists want to imagine.

We will always be able to die of misadventure, even then.

Putting those two facts together makes me wonder about whether, if the only way to die is by accident, society will become structured to be highly risk-averse. To truly run such a thought experiment, you have to think about the limits of things like dread of death, boredom, and just a whole raft of stuff that the short, mean existence we now "enjoy" don't give us time to really learn about and have experience with.

Would even the most vivacious among us actually want to live indefinitely? Would experiences still be new, and life still fascinate us, even after countless centuries and millennia? Are there limits to how our brains are evolved that would guarantee we'd just go mad after the passage of time, not because there's anything biologically wrong, but because the motivational structure of our minds can't overcome hedonic tone forever?

I have my doubts. I feel quite strongly that I'm already well past my "best used by" date, and while biological health and vigor and high quality of life might give me a second lease on life at this point, I'm not sure how long I'd actually want to have new experiences. Everyone doesn't feel this way by their early 60s, of course; how durable one's lust for life is, is a function of personality, genetics, epigenetics, and experience. Still, I sense that it's not endless, even for the sturdiest of us.

Maybe the irony of biological immortality will be that people just voluntarily take their peaceful pill after three or four hundred years, in a "I came, I saw, I conquered, then said meh" sort of way.

Or maybe in a stable and humane and free enough society, without the subconscious pressure of a finite, set lifespan, we'd find whole new ways to experience reality.

Ian Banks, in his "Culture series" of novels, explored what it might be like to live in a society where this is all a reality, and technology has advanced to the point that many people live in vast spaceships exploring the cosmos. He envisions things like "glanding", where you can arrange to have glands that secrete at will to make you as happy, alert, sexual, calm, or even morose as you wish or need to be at any moment. Also, people changing genders and sexual orientations and so forth at will, just to see what it's like.

Bank's premise, though, is that even in such a utopian society, there will still be a need for Machiavellian government operatives, misfits and soldiers of fortune used by the government to selectively shape less advanced cultures so that they don't produce the threat of war beyond their own worlds, and can eventually be ready to join "The Culture".

Interesting questions but I seriously doubt even the youngest of us here will live to test any of these theories.

The problem with immortality in existing bodies and brains is that you would probably go insane from all the bad memories. One solution would be routine "brain-wipes" every century. Another would be advanced therapy to accept them. The "easiest" might actually be some sort of fully-functional robotic body (all sensory functions working) with a transferable basic personality.

[Little Lunch]

They say that if someone came here from the future, their technology would seem like magic.
When we achieve immortality, all the little problems will be ironed out using magic. :-)

[Cavebear]

They say that if someone came here from the future, their technology would seem like magic.
When we achieve immortality, all the little problems will be ironed out using magic. :-)

"They say"...

"When we achieve immortality"...

"Magic"..

Right. That will solve everything.

[Dānu]

I believe that biological immortality is possible but quite a bit more elusive than our current crop of transhumanists want to imagine.

We will always be able to die of misadventure, even then.

Putting those two facts together makes me wonder about whether, if the only way to die is by accident, society will become structured to be highly risk-averse. To truly run such a thought experiment, you have to think about the limits of things like dread of death, boredom, and just a whole raft of stuff that the short, mean existence we now "enjoy" don't give us time to really learn about and have experience with.

Would even the most vivacious among us actually want to live indefinitely? Would experiences still be new, and life still fascinate us, even after countless centuries and millennia? Are there limits to how our brains are evolved that would guarantee we'd just go mad after the passage of time, not because there's anything biologically wrong, but because the motivational structure of our minds can't overcome hedonic tone forever?

I have my doubts. I feel quite strongly that I'm already well past my "best used by" date, and while biological health and vigor and high quality of life might give me a second lease on life at this point, I'm not sure how long I'd actually want to have new experiences. Everyone doesn't feel this way by their early 60s, of course; how durable one's lust for life is, is a function of personality, genetics, epigenetics, and experience. Still, I sense that it's not endless, even for the sturdiest of us.

Maybe the irony of biological immortality will be that people just voluntarily take their peaceful pill after three or four hundred years, in a "I came, I saw, I conquered, then said meh" sort of way.

Or maybe in a stable and humane and free enough society, without the subconscious pressure of a finite, set lifespan, we'd find whole new ways to experience reality.

Ian Banks, in his "Culture series" of novels, explored what it might be like to live in a society where this is all a reality, and technology has advanced to the point that many people live in vast spaceships exploring the cosmos. He envisions things like "glanding", where you can arrange to have glands that secrete at will to make you as happy, alert, sexual, calm, or even morose as you wish or need to be at any moment. Also, people changing genders and sexual orientations and so forth at will, just to see what it's like.

Bank's premise, though, is that even in such a utopian society, there will still be a need for Machiavellian government operatives, misfits and soldiers of fortune used by the government to selectively shape less advanced cultures so that they don't produce the threat of war beyond their own worlds, and can eventually be ready to join "The Culture".

Interesting questions but I seriously doubt even the youngest of us here will live to test any of these theories.

The problem with immortality in existing bodies and brains is that you would probably go insane from all the bad memories.  One solution would be routine "brain-wipes" every century.  Another would be advanced therapy to accept them.  The "easiest" might actually be some sort of fully-functional robotic body (all sensory functions working) with a transferable basic personality.

What if you could selectively erase memories easily. You regret that date with Lisa Simpson. *poof* It's gone. Would we be forever wondering what we'd forgotten or would it be okay?

[Dānu]

The biggest problem in thinking about immortality is figuring out what would need to be preserved. Are we just our memories? Is a body necessary? What about enhancements, like new emotions?

[Cavebear]

I believe that biological immortality is possible but quite a bit more elusive than our current crop of transhumanists want to imagine.

We will always be able to die of misadventure, even then.

Putting those two facts together makes me wonder about whether, if the only way to die is by accident, society will become structured to be highly risk-averse. To truly run such a thought experiment, you have to think about the limits of things like dread of death, boredom, and just a whole raft of stuff that the short, mean existence we now "enjoy" don't give us time to really learn about and have experience with.

Would even the most vivacious among us actually want to live indefinitely? Would experiences still be new, and life still fascinate us, even after countless centuries and millennia? Are there limits to how our brains are evolved that would guarantee we'd just go mad after the passage of time, not because there's anything biologically wrong, but because the motivational structure of our minds can't overcome hedonic tone forever?

I have my doubts. I feel quite strongly that I'm already well past my "best used by" date, and while biological health and vigor and high quality of life might give me a second lease on life at this point, I'm not sure how long I'd actually want to have new experiences. Everyone doesn't feel this way by their early 60s, of course; how durable one's lust for life is, is a function of personality, genetics, epigenetics, and experience. Still, I sense that it's not endless, even for the sturdiest of us.

Maybe the irony of biological immortality will be that people just voluntarily take their peaceful pill after three or four hundred years, in a "I came, I saw, I conquered, then said meh" sort of way.

Or maybe in a stable and humane and free enough society, without the subconscious pressure of a finite, set lifespan, we'd find whole new ways to experience reality.

Ian Banks, in his "Culture series" of novels, explored what it might be like to live in a society where this is all a reality, and technology has advanced to the point that many people live in vast spaceships exploring the cosmos. He envisions things like "glanding", where you can arrange to have glands that secrete at will to make you as happy, alert, sexual, calm, or even morose as you wish or need to be at any moment. Also, people changing genders and sexual orientations and so forth at will, just to see what it's like.

Bank's premise, though, is that even in such a utopian society, there will still be a need for Machiavellian government operatives, misfits and soldiers of fortune used by the government to selectively shape less advanced cultures so that they don't produce the threat of war beyond their own worlds, and can eventually be ready to join "The Culture".

Interesting questions but I seriously doubt even the youngest of us here will live to test any of these theories.

The problem with immortality in existing bodies and brains is that you would probably go insane from all the bad memories.  One solution would be routine "brain-wipes" every century.  Another would be advanced therapy to accept them.  The "easiest" might actually be some sort of fully-functional robotic body (all sensory functions working) with a transferable basic personality.

What if you could selectively erase memories easily.  You regret that date with Lisa Simpson.  *poof* It's gone.  Would we be forever wondering what we'd forgotten or would it be okay?

How would you know what you forgot? But the point would be to erase the least important memories that clutter the mind so as to free it for newer trivial memories. That childhood annoyance of being forced to finish dinner? Poof. The memory of that special meal with a friend? It stays. A leaf falling from a tree? Poof. Your child catching it and smiling? Stays. Its not like I said I knew how it would work.

[Little Lunch]

They say that if someone came here from the future, their technology would seem like magic.
When we achieve immortality, all the little problems will be ironed out using magic. :-)

"They say"...

"When we achieve immortality"...

"Magic"..

Right.  That will solve everything.

Nope. You've sort of missed it all together.
I guess I'll spell it out for you then.
If we ever achieve something that resembles immortality, there will be other scientific achievements that would seem like magic...to you.
And you could not even fathom what they might be, but they would probably benefit the solving of all the little problems everyone is mentioning.
You could do with learning to read between the lines sometimes.

[Minimalist]

By bed time every day my knees tell me that "immortality" is not such a hot idea.

[Little Lunch]

By bed time every day my knees tell me that "immortality" is not such a hot idea.

By bedtime?
I'm like that 'evolution of man' picture from the car to the house when I get home from work. :-)

[Cavebear]

They say that if someone came here from the future, their technology would seem like magic.
When we achieve immortality, all the little problems will be ironed out using magic. :-)

"They say"...

"When we achieve immortality"...

"Magic"..

Right.  That will solve everything.

Nope. You've sort of missed it all together.
I guess I'll spell it out for you then.
If we ever achieve something that resembles immortality, there will be other scientific achievements that would seem like magic...to you.
And you could not even fathom what they might be, but they would probably benefit the solving of all the little problems everyone is mentioning.
You could do with learning to read between the lines sometimes.

When I "read between the lines" I'm told I am making assumptions about people. Not that I'm ever wrong, but no one keeps good score on that. And you say I should. Well, I'm stuck "betwixt and between", huh?

You have too many "ifs".

I am very much aware of the idea that science is like magic to the unknowing. I could probably bore you to tears about that.

But what I will say is that what you are suggesting has no basis in reality. Could it some day? Sure. I don't know the future and neither do you.

[Little Lunch]

"They say"...

"When we achieve immortality"...

"Magic"..

Right.  That will solve everything.

Nope. You've sort of missed it all together.
I guess I'll spell it out for you then.
If we ever achieve something that resembles immortality, there will be other scientific achievements that would seem like magic...to you.
And you could not even fathom what they might be, but they would probably benefit the solving of all the little problems everyone is mentioning.
You could do with learning to read between the lines sometimes.

When I "read between the lines" I'm told I am making assumptions about people.  Not that I'm ever wrong, but no one keeps good score on that.  And you say I should.  Well, I'm stuck "betwixt and between", huh?

You have too many "ifs".  

I am very much aware of the idea that science is like magic to the unknowing.  I could probably bore you to tears about that.  

But what I will say is that what you are suggesting has no basis in reality.  Could it some day?  Sure.  I don't know the future and neither do you.

"I'm told"...

"Not that I'm ever wrong"...

"I don't know"... 

:-)

[Cavebear]

Nope. You've sort of missed it all together.
I guess I'll spell it out for you then.
If we ever achieve something that resembles immortality, there will be other scientific achievements that would seem like magic...to you.
And you could not even fathom what they might be, but they would probably benefit the solving of all the little problems everyone is mentioning.
You could do with learning to read between the lines sometimes.

When I "read between the lines" I'm told I am making assumptions about people.  Not that I'm ever wrong, but no one keeps good score on that.  And you say I should.  Well, I'm stuck "betwixt and between", huh?

You have too many "ifs".  

I am very much aware of the idea that science is like magic to the unknowing.  I could probably bore you to tears about that.  

But what I will say is that what you are suggesting has no basis in reality.  Could it some day?  Sure.  I don't know the future and neither do you.

"I'm told"...

"Not that I'm ever wrong"...

"I don't know"... 

:-)

The "I'm told" is here on various pages.

"Not that I'm ever wrong"... I'll give 2 examples in general. Once in a performance review my Team Leader said "well no one is always right". I challenged him to provide a single example ever of when I was wrong in my voice telecommunications program management. He couldn't and he had 5 years of records.

Second, I was at the grocery store and challenged a price. The supervisory manager at the front desk said I was wrong. I said I was never wrong and that I challenge prices about once a month. She said "only God is never wrong". I repeated that, in years, I had never been wrong once about a price. She repeated about God. Guess what? I was was right about the correct price.

"I don't know"... " About the future. No one can. Only charlatans and fools think they do.

You'll have to do a LOT better than THAT! LOL!

[Minimalist]

By bed time every day my knees tell me that "immortality" is not such a hot idea.

By bedtime?
I'm like that 'evolution of man' picture from the car to the house when I get home from work. :-)

Retirement does help that a bit.

[no one]

Susan Ertz:
Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.