Immortality

[Fast Gunn]

How do you want to achieve immortality?

Some people hope to achieve it through their work.

The comedian, Woody Allen said that he did not want to achieve immortality through his work.

. . . He wanted to achieve immortality through not dying!

[KenMonk]

I would go with the not dying part. Can we turn life into Futurema and they can put my head into a jar so I can still be alive. That would be what I would want.

[Fast Gunn]

Really?

You must be quite insane to want that, Mr. Frankenstein.

. . . I think the humor totally flew over your head, but, maybe it's because it's so low to the floor and encased in a jar!

[JD Barleycorn]

To me the idea of being conscious, alive, and only a brain without any way to interact would be hell. Like being buried alive.

[I B Hankering]

Hector, Achilles, Odysseus and Ajax all achieved immortality for their work; as did Leonidas. As Greek heroes, they inscribed their names in history, and have been remembered for ever after. Odysseus in particular is significant because when he was offered the choice, he chose to be mortal and in doing so became immortal.

[Jackie S]

Pick one of the greatest persons that has ever lived before 1897.
Who ever you picked is dead.
Nobody gets out of life alive.

[Fast Gunn]

Well, of course, everyone who has ever lived has had to eventually face death.

Death is an immutable fact of life.

However, many giants who lived among us have achieved immortality through their work.

Geniuses like Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Isaac Newton live on through their great work which have endured through the centuries and will continue to live on after we have all "shuffled off this mortal coil".

. . . Woody Allen in his goofiness just wanted a more direct path to immortality!

[joe bloe]

The only real possibility (probably remote) is based on future advances in technology. Assuming that the human brain is essentially a computer whose function is to store memories and generate consciousness, then at some point in the future it may be possible to download all the data stored in the brain and transfer to another body, probably a clone of yourself. It would be like getting a new computer, you just transfer the stored information to a new hard drive. The stored information, the memories, the sense of self awareness is who you are. The body is just a dwelling place.

Or at some point in the future we may be able to do brain transplants if we can figure out how to severe the spinal cord and reconnect without leaving the patient a quadriplegic. A brain transplant would allow for virtual immortality by cloning yourself and transplanting your brain to a new body.

Eventually we will probably have a cure for the aging process as well as virtually all disease. Then the only cause of death will be murder, suicide, and accidents. Of course over population will become so bad that the state will probably be forced to set a maximum life span; or by then we may be colonizing other planets which may be the ultimate solution for over population.

[JD Barleycorn]

If you legally set a maximum life span how do you decide between Stephen Hawking and Osama Bin Laden? Do some people get more and others less. You give Hawking more time based on his intelligence and can't someone sue because they did not get the IQ to compete? Can you just imagine someone evil, rich, and connected living forever. Do we really need a 500 year old Charlie Sheen?

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

If you legally set a maximum life span how do you decide between Stephen Hawking and Osama Bin Laden? Do some people get more and others less. You give Hawking more time based on his intelligence and can't someone sue because they did not get the IQ to compete? Can you just imagine someone evil, rich, and connected living forever. Do we really need a 500 year old Charlie Sheen?

There certainly would be ethical and legal issues as a result of dramatically increased life spans and over population. It's similar to the ethical and legal issues connected to pulling the plug on a coma patient that can be artificially kept alive or aborting a baby that we know will be imperfect because of information learned from ultrasound or amniocentesis. We have to change our culture to adapt to advances in technology.

As far as life expectancy, I suppose the state would give everybody the same allocation of years as long as you were law abiding. We already do a variation of that with the death penalty.

Of course I would vote for the allocation of years based on how conservative you are

[Fast Gunn]

I believe that nature already has a built-in system to thin out the herd that works with grim finality.

The system in place is called "Survival of The Fittest".

The system is really brutal as hell and is totally unfair, but in this world, you don't get to choose the cards you are dealt.

. . . The rules are that you can only play whatever cards you are dealt as shrewdly as you can!

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by Fast Gunn

I believe that nature already has a built-in system to thin out the herd that works with grim finality.

The system in place is called "Survival of The Fittest".

The system is really brutal as hell and is totally unfair, but in this world, you don't get to choose the cards you are dealt.

. . . The rules are that you can only play whatever cards you are dealt as shrewdly as you can!

The natural system of the most fit living longer and breeding more (natural selection through accidental variation) has been short circuited by the social welfare system. Now the least fit out breed the most fit. We are going backwards in America and most of the western world.

The Europeans are not reproducing sufficiently to maintain current population levels. A fertility rate of 2.1 is necessary to keep the population from shrinking. Native Europeans reproduce at a fertility rate of 1.3. Population growth in Europe is due to immigration and a high fertiltiy rate for recent immigrants, mostly Muslims. European Muslims have a fertility rate of 3.5. Muslims are taking over Europe mainly by outbreeding the natives.

The most popular name for boy babies in London is Muhammad.

[KenMonk]

I got the joke... you seemed to have missed mine.

[Fast Gunn]

I think maybe we all missed your little "joke" if you really meant it as a joke or just saying it was now.

. . . But maybe you could add a little rimshot to your dead pan humor act to cue in the punch line!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH5p5iMEbrE

Originally Posted by KenMonk

I got the joke... you seemed to have missed mine.

[JD Barleycorn]

Darwin was always afraid that his theory would be used incorrectly. He was speaking of Darwinism as a microcasm of evolution and not this thing called "social darwinism". The term "survival of the fittest" is also inaccurate. It is more accurately survival of the most adaptive. An organism can be the strongest, largest, fastest thing out there but all of those functions can work against survival when being smaller is better, and freezing in place is preferrable to moving fast and giving away your position.

Historically reality; George Bernard Shaw, the English writer, was a member of the Fabian Society. He went public in saying that every couple of years a person should be forced to justify their existence. If they fail then they will be painlessly put down like an animal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBZsTf6oLfY He was also a supporter of the concept of the Holocaust if not the execution.
Now we have some ethicists proposing after birth abortions. They theorize that small babies (not sick babies) have no personality yet and are just a blob of flesh. http://www.slate.com/articles/health...anticide_.html

Be careful of the extreme left. They have a love affair with death.