Immortaity plausable or unplausable

Immortality

It seems many are interested in the subject of Immortality, or at least I'm. I have thought of the consequences of being immortal, the pleasures and pains etc. I have read from physical to spiritual immortality related books.

After a long list of books, and a long thought process I have come to agree with a wise man before me who once said - "Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon."
Susan Ertz

Why do we get old?

Hayflick limit - "The Hayflick limit was discovered by Leonard Hayflick in 1961,[1] at the Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, when Hayflick demonstrated that a population of normal human fetal cells in a cell culture divide between 40 and 60 times. It then enters a senescence phase (refuting the contention by Alexis Carrel that normal cells are immortal)...."

Free-radical theory - "Free radicals are molecules or atoms that have an unpaired electron. In order to be electrically balanced, these molecules or atoms will grab an electron from a nearby atom, thereby creating another free radical, eventually resulting in a cascading chain of damage to cells and organs.

Free radical formation may not account for all the symptoms of aging, but it probably does play an important part in accelerating cellular damage. Free radicals are unavoidable. They are an inevitable consequence of living in a physical body. However, there are steps we can take to slow down free radical damage, such as avoiding pollutants, and eating a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables."
www.buzzle.com...

The Telomere Theory - "Telomeres are special types of chemicals that seem to have some ability to protect the chromosomes inside our cells. Every time our cells divide, the telemeres become shorter and less able to protect the chromosome. This may explain why the cells eventually become damaged and die. Scientists are currently trying to find out how to repair telomeres and stop the damage to the cells."
www.buzzle.com...

Glycation - "When proteins in your body react with excess blood sugar, the proteins become damaged. This process is known as "glycation". These sugar-damaged proteins may contribute to the breakdown of many other systems in the body. People who have diabetes or problems with insulin resistance are particularly vulnerable to glycation damage because of abnormalities in their blood sugar levels.

If it turns out to be true that glycation plays a major part in causing the negative effects of aging, we may be able to slow it down by making sure we avoid excess blood sugar levels."
www.buzzle.com...

All these theories do not bring us any closer to a possibility of immortality, it only brings us closer to a longer life.

My idea

I think immortality is plausible if we transfer our consciousness from body to body. How is this possible? Well we have seen machines do the simple human body functions, we even have machines replacing human organs - "With some almost fully functional, artificial lungs promise to be a great success in near future.[citation needed] An Ann Arbor company MC3 is currently working on this type of medical device." en.wikipedia.org...

We are continually transferring our simple body functions to robotics. Now it has reached a level where important body organ such as hear, lung, liver etc can be replaced by robotics.

We currently have technology which can act all our body functions in coordination with our brain, but not without our brain.

"A monkey successfully manipulates a robotic arm controlled by its own brain to feed itself fruit."

This chip will be implanted to people eye. A glass with camera also needed here, this glass will transfer the images data to the chip that has been implanted. And this chip works to received data and transmit it to the brain.

I'm thinking, how long will it take for us to replace the brain with a difference material than cells? That in my opinion is the secret to immortality, to use different materials to construct ourselves, to survive. It is a race, who lasts the longest.

There is limitless possibilities, of how you could construct your own body.

reply to post by P3ACE0WAR


hate to be boring and deep but immortality IS already. Yet again this is coming from an omnipresent/omnicient perspective. Everything we are and know to exist was here and will be here forever after we 'seem' to disappear, butif we are what already was and is, then won't we forever be what was, what will be, what IS?

I booooooo my own reply because it's blah and unsubstantiated and like i said, boooooooooooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiing, but still something to think about

Interesting thoughts.. but... if we had immortality of the form (body) I think we would wish for death to take us within the first 200 years.

Can't imagine being the same person for more than 70 years.. I would dislike it intensely. In fact I want to shuffle off the mortal coil at about 70 years of age as I see no point to being around longer in a world that is so forcefully limiting as it has become. I struggle with the small-thinking/small-mindedness of the populations as it is now and without major changes occuring soon, I see it can only become far worse before it will ever get any better.

So, I want out of here around 70 (19 years to go yay!!)... and Pfffft to Physical Immortality.

Immortality is reproduction. When you pass on your genes you are cheating death. It's a miserable cycle..

Originally posted by heyJude
Immortality is reproduction. When you pass on your genes you are cheating death. It's a miserable cycle..

I've thought this before, people just reproduce to give their miserable lives meaning and in turn are bestowing that burden on their kids.

Pretty grim view. But that begs the question...is murder a favor?

reply to post by P3ACE0WAR



Check it out...if there is a beginning , there is an end.


Don't know for sure if that is the case, but considering how ripped I am, why not..?





I went the way of ALCOR...religion just didn't meet my standards, so I chose to gamble on technology.


Only time will tell, but that's another tripped out thread...but I think a better subject matter is the pros and cons of immortality.


Either way, great subject...

I got to say if I could take a pill every day that would reverse my age back to about 20-25 and keep me there I would do it but if I was told I had to download my self into a type of computer program or robot to live forever I wouldn't. I have this book but I haven't read it yet, I hate to put the link out with out reading it first but here it is: www.raidersnewsupdate.com...

NVM...

but if I was told I had to download my self into a type of computer program or robot to live forever I wouldn't.

I wouldn't mind, as long as my consciousness is passed on, and from there me and my colleagues can work towards perfecting alternative bodies.

reply to post by P3ACE0WAR


They have found methods of reversing Mice Aging, I think through the "telomere theory" which I posted in the OP.

The Harvard group focused on a process called telomere shortening. Most cells in the body contain 23 pairs of chromosomes, which carry our DNA. At the ends of each chromosome is a protective cap called a telomere. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres are snipped shorter, until eventually they stop working and the cell dies or goes into a suspended state called "senescence". The process is behind much of the wear and tear associated with ageing.

At Harvard, they bred genetically manipulated mice that lacked an enzyme called telomerase that stops telomeres getting shorter. Without the enzyme, the mice aged prematurely and suffered ailments, including a poor sense of smell, smaller brain size, infertility and damaged intestines and spleens. But when DePinho gave the mice injections to reactivate the enzyme, it repaired the damaged tissues and reversed the signs of ageing.

"These were severely aged animals, but after a month of treatment they showed a substantial restoration, including the growth of new neurons in their brains," said DePinho.

We don't actually want immortality. We think we do when we forget parts of ourselves coming here, because we forget that we know death isn't the end, and when we believe it may be the end it becomes something to fear for many and so immortality is sought.

The problem with immortality is that if everyone were immortal then reproduction might stop and so no new consciousnesses could experience this universe through human eyes, and even if reproduction didn't stop the carrying capacity of every place we could reach would eventually be met and reproduction would forcibly stop there else we come crashing down on ourselves through sheer numbers and population density.

Immortality - Plausible but not preferable.

Edit: The first thing I thought when I read transferring consciousness was of the Asgard in Stargate SG-1. They clone themselves whenever they need a new body and simply move their consciousness through a computer into the new body. Of course, imperfect cloning (like photo-copying) has led to a slow degradation of the clones rendering them eventually unusable. Anyway, point is, another possible negative outcome.

reply to post by Nostradumbass


Some would say so.

In some cases it most definatly is; the mentally disabeled, the brain dead (vegetables), those that are physically disabled to a point where they are a burden on themselves and society, the insane, those that are born with debilitating physical deformities.

I think the poor should be steralized.

I am obviously in favor of eugenics.

reply to post by heyJude


Eugenics is an extremely controversial topic because the definition of being "physically fit for society" is totally subjective and arbitrary. That type of thinking is what led to the Holocaust and various other genocides throughout history.

I personally don't think it would ever be desirable because the ones at the top of the food chain will simply start to kill off people they deem too deviant from society.

And why should the poor be sterilized? Being born into a poor family doesn't mean you're automatically doomed to failure.

reply to post by AlphaZero


People should have equal opportunity through the government. Those who are born in rich families, good for them, those who are not should be helped by the government to make the play ground fair and equal.

There are those who claim life is not fair, therefore no point trying to make it fair. That is like saying "just hang yourself", don't even try to achieve because life is unfair.

The same should go for immortality, everyone should have equal opportunity to live longer if they wish. Now we have found an important cause of aging, now slowly scientists are understanding and reversing aging. It has already been accomplished in Mice.

Immortality is not for man to attain. We arent built to withstand its coldness, its infinity. The little.joys that make life so.sweet would hold no pleasure for us, and our souls would fall to cynisisim as we saw the world around us crumnle. Every year science brings us closer to imortality and every year our minds get further away from being able to handle it. On another note, there is always the possibilty that our souls are immortal and we just dont know it. Perhaps God reuses souls when they are needed, which may account for the phenomenon of people remeberimg past life experiences.

Originally posted by facelift
reply to post by P3ACE0WAR

 

Check it out...if there is a beginning , there is an end.

What if there was never a beginning?

It would require a supreme balance in order to maintain a physically immortal body, it would probably be a boring life. In terms of the idea of a soul, then even a soul if it is some kind of physical energy, would also have a life-span. I would think, that ultimatley, a self is some kind of reality unto its own, a point of complete unknowing that exists irregardless of surrounding variables. There is a debate to whether we are all the same being, or if we are all separate, however, such ideas are limiting as they assume a mathematical kind of "self" - like a picture with many pieces - in reality, the consciousness is the thing that we all are, however, it is unfathomable to us, and we are all separate individuals within its vastness. In another sense, we are all realities, we are all universes, and through our similarities our perceptions converge into a collectivley perceived reality that we call the "world" that we live in, however, at some later stage in our evolutions, we might become so separate to each other, that we all have completley unique perceptions and experiences, the same object can be seen in multiple perceptions, and the object itself perceiving other objects in different ways than perhaps even the objects perceive themselves. We are probably young beings, that are still in a kind of nursery, a kind of collective reality.

Our souls are a higher state of energy than anything physical, and are immortal. We are both one beyond this life and separate within time and space. We die so that we may move on to other experiences and make room for other souls, and sometimes we come right back to experience this from another perspective.

Physical immortality of a single embodiment is silly and pointless.

it is the mind which seeks immortality. it seeks anything to continue its apparent existence. if we identify with mind and body we experience all the joys and sorrows in creation. its a world of opposites. behind all of this is pure awareness, this is proven by the unchangeing constant that knows who we are during lapses of consciousness or sleep. then we awake and are caught up with all our particular desires and fears that mask this pure awareness. as time rolls on, we become disenchanted with many of our desires, or outgrow them, then replace them with others. robbing a bank or building a hospital will both distract you from the pure existence that we all are. when sufficiently tired of all these games, serious enquiry begins and accelerates when intensity of yearning develops. intensity is essential, or much more time will pass in the "illusion".
however, for anyone fascinated with life extension, go to india and with a large dose of good karma you may meet a yogi who has mastered the art of immortality. the process takes about 3 months and you will get a new "life charge" and become similar to a 25 year old and begin ageing again. hopefully you will use this new health to arrive at your real self, because thats all there really is, and absolutely nothing else will ever satisfy you.

cheers.

I agree with an above poster where if there was some form of pill to take that would keep me at 23 years old then damn right I would take it

At the moment I hate life I'm trapped but I know I will be able to get out eventually I just wish there was something to help me claw the years I have lost back. Recently an old friend of mine committed suicide he was the same age as me and it got me thinking how short and precious life really is. There are so many beautiful things worth living for most of them simple that we would take for granted one of my personal favourites is the sound of birds early in the morning, I find this relaxing. On a bigger scale I love the feeling of joy I get from watching my favourite team win the league. I could carry on forever but my point is life IS worth living and 75-90 years just is not enough.

Jesus is recorded as saying...

"...my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:40

"And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die." John 11:26

...but it is too simple for most to believe that immortality is a gift.