I don't want to die

[six7s]

...most people I've met who get that old don't seem too disturbed that they won't live forever.

That has been my experience, too

However, assuming that there's a decade or three to go before you hit your 90s, then there's a chance of a significant development in longevity-related science

 

[Malkuth]

An alternative to death posited often in science fiction is the cyborg. One of my favorite examples of virtual immortality is the Titans and Cymeks from the Dune saga.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(Dune)

 

[quarky]

I find the technological fantasy of endless life to be even more depraved then the religious one.

The sciency possibilities for our future fate, however fanciful, are a more rational possibility than our more wooish constructs. That could be dangerously seductive for an otherwise sane person.

I can fathom nothing more evil than humans beating the aging process. It is the stuff of disturbing sci-fi; the end of youth; the domain of the greedy and insecure. It doesn't require higher math to see where this would lead us.

Wooish religious beliefs and superstitions protect us from this.
Should atheism, science, and logic eventually rule the day, we may very well achieve a sort of endless life, through technological advances.

Nothing could be more morbid.
The value of woo, in this regard, is that it allows a person to embrace death...however pathetic the rationale may be.

Its good to move along; to get out of the way.
Humans over 100 years old are a collective achievement; a reason for pride in our scientific advancements.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, these ancient freaks of nature are a cynical drag on the flow of evolution. It is the opposite of neotony...real enough already, in the first world.

Please check any desire you have to live to be 200 at the door.
Even if the tek is such that you'll still be playing tennis at that age, opt to die. Bail out, and make room for the babies of young lovers.

The need to 'make a mark' or 'leave a legacy' is some neurotic stuff.
For a few, it will happen in spite of themselves. For the rest of us, its simply embarrassing. Fear of death, coupled with scientific advances, could actually create a hell more profound then what churchy people warn us about.

 

[six7s]

I can fathom nothing more evil than humans beating the aging process. It is the stuff of disturbing sci-fi; the end of youth; the domain of the greedy and insecure. It doesn't require higher math to see where this would lead us.

Hyperbole, much?

All I said was 'there's a chance of a significant development in longevity-related science'... I didn't expect allusions to some eternal Spanish Inquisition

 

[Interesent]

I'm prepared to be proven wrong if I somehow survive into my 90s, but most people I've met who get that old don't seem too disturbed that they won't live forever.

Interesting how they would feel if they would get new 20 something bodies.
I like sci fi and I'm looking forward to brain in the watt existence. Just imagine how grate it would be, if after some 110 years when even newly transplanted genetically replicated organs would be failing, in last second before death you could do advanced brainscan and scan your brain model into some digital storage. Then biological processes would be emulated and new experiences also would be recorded, so your new self would also be capable of learning new stuff and changing. Digital you could be hooked up to Internet and some advanced virtual world with billions of digital people just like you.

 

[Cavemonster]

Hyperbole, much?

All I said was 'there's a chance of a significant development in longevity-related science'... I didn't expect allusions to some eternal Spanish Inquisition

NOBODY EXPECTS THE- Wait, let me try that again.

 

[TobiasTheViking]

An alternative to death posited often in science fiction is the cyborg. One of my favorite examples of virtual immortality is the Titans and Cymeks from the Dune saga.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(Dune)

You've got to be ****ing ******** me.

 

[Interesent]

You've got to be ****ing ******** me.

Why? It sounds good enough for me.

 

[Interesent]

I see we are starting to have pretty big division over this question.

 

[Malkuth]

It's not really that much crazier than the people who have their bodies frozen in the hopes that science will one day be able to cure the disease that killed them or reverese the effects of advanced age. Think talking heads in jars in Futurama too.

The titans just took it one step further and had their heads in jars hooked up to mammoth killer robots.

I'd go for that in a heartbeat if the tech was there when I'm on my deathbed. I wouldn't hang around like a bad smell and mess with the young'uns though. I'd hook my monster killer robot body up to one of the starcruisers we'll be building by then, packed with spare killer robot body parts of course, and blast off for space and wouldn't look back.

[/sci fi fantasy]

 

[Interesent]

Exactly. But if robot bodies wouldn't be possible, virtual world would do for some time.

 

[Nogbad]

You are being a bit "the glass is half empty" about this. It is understandable that you want to live, every instinct tells you to survive. However, the purpose of these instincts is to spur you on. If you sit and brood about the inevitability of death then inertia will set in and you will do the opposite. You will waste time worrying about the unchangeable. Worry instead about those things in your power to change.

As Mark Twain, I believe, pointed out. You didn't exist for a hell of a long time before you were born and that was no big deal was it? (or words to that effect).

 

[Malkuth]

Not sure if I'd dig the whole consciousness transfer to digital format thing, unless it was a true consciosness transfer like The Matrix or Ghost in The Machine style.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_machine

I'd much rather keep my flesh and blood brain so I know it's really me and not just a cheap knockoff digital version of me, even if the brainwave patterns etc were an exact copy.

I've read a quite few sci-fi novels where this is a pretty deeply explored concept. In film, think Arnie in The 6th day where he gets cloned and a flashed copy of his consciousness imprinted on the clone. The clone has no idea he's a copy, thinks he's the real Arnie, but the REAL real Arnie is still out there. The copy is just that, a copy. Same as with the digital version I'd imagine.

 

[Interesent]

Problem is that, with current info , no matter what existing brain cells won't lead healthy live much longer than 150. Cells grow old and die off, with all the information what they had in that formation. If you inject new ones, they might work, but also won't contain the same information and it might tweak thinking process a bit. At least that's how I understand what I've heard about it.

 

[Nogbad]

Iain M Banks' books deal with these issues - Fantastic Sci Fi. Excession is a good read.

 

[quarky]

Hyperbole, much?

All I said was 'there's a chance of a significant development in longevity-related science'... I didn't expect allusions to some eternal Spanish Inquisition

It wasn't in response to your post.
Still, try to extrapolate on significant developments in longevity.
I agree, they are a possibility...which is why its so dangerous.

The vengeful sky-daddy scenarios are not to be taken seriously.
whack jobs die. Who cares if they think they're going to heaven or hell?

Science has the power to placate some of human's most neurotic insecurities. This seems worthy of flushing out.

 

[dann]

The problem I have with the entire concept of what happens after death is that, even though it's been probably the most thought about and talked about concept in human history, it remains one of the few things we can have absolutely no idea about what actually does occur.

We do, actually, if you can stomach it.

My thought on the subject is to remember that you can leave a legacy. Make your mark on the world, no matter how small - you will be remembered. That is how an atheist can live forever.

No, that's how atheists deceive themselves. They don't live forever, but some of their thoughts or other works just might exist for a very long time if they are of use to the living after they've stopped being of any use to you. It is a little like the idea of some Darwinists of eternal life through passing on your genes! Well, they may live a lot longer than you, but you'll still be dead.
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it by not dying." (some really old dude)

I find the technological fantasy of endless life to be even more depraved than the religious one.

In a way it is even more deluded than the usual eternal-life delusions. It is a little like the science-fiction fans who look down on fantasy fans because they consider their own fantasies less unreal. At least most ordinary woos know that they are believers. Anti-agers and transhumanists, however, seem to be unable to live with the doubt that is an integral part of every belief. Their need to believe in the reality of eternal life is so big that they spend their lives and their fortunes paying people to deceive them.
Now that is one weird way of wasting the only life you have!
I can recommend Brian Alexander's hilarious book about this phenomenon, Rapture: A Raucous Tour Of Cloning, Transhumanism, And And The New Era Of Immortality.

As for the OP: Death is something we have to come to terms with. Humans tend to like to be, and we don't like to be out of control, and this is something that in principle is completely out of our control, but to some extent we are able to control the things that tend to shorten our lifespans (poverty, war, etc.) and make life miserable (poverty, war, etc.), and they are the things that are worth worrying about.
However, I worry more about your attitude to knowledge than about your attitude to death. I'm in my fifites, and like the rest of my peers in this thread, I think, I find it hard to accept that I should stop being interested in learning new stuff and enjoy life instead. The two things aren't mutually exclusive, you know. On the contrary, I think.
I also don't know many 50-year-olds with enough savings to live happily ever after without working ...

 

[Moochie]

We do, actually, if you can stomach it.



No, that's how atheists deceive themselves. They don't live forever, but some of their thoughts or other works just might exist for a very long time if they are of use to the living after they've stopped being of any use to you. It is a little like the idea of some Darwinists of eternal life through passing on your genes! Well, they may live a lot longer than you, but you'll still be dead.
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it by not dying." (some really old dude)



In a way it is even more deluded than the usual eternal-life delusions. It is a little like the science-fiction fans who look down on fantasy fans because they consider their own fantasies less unreal. At least most ordinary woos know that they are believers. Anti-agers and transhumanists, however, seem to be unable to live with the doubt that is an integral part of every belief. Their need to believe in the reality of eternal life is so big that they spend their lives and their fortunes paying people to deceive them.
Now that is one weird way of wasting the only life you have!
I can recommend Brian Alexander's hilarious book about this phenomenon, Rapture: A Raucous Tour Of Cloning, Transhumanism, And And The New Era Of Immortality.

As for the OP: Death is something we have to come to terms with. Humans tend to like to be, and we don't like to be out of control, and this is something that in principle is completely out of our control, but to some extent we are able to control the things that tend to shorten our lifespans (poverty, war, etc.) and make life miserable (poverty, war, etc.), and they are the things that are worth worrying about.
However, I worry more about your attitude to knowledge than about your attitude to death. I'm in my fifites, and like the rest of my peers in this thread, I think, I find it hard to accept that I should stop being interested in learning new stuff and enjoy life instead. The two things aren't mutually exclusive, you know. On the contrary, I think.
I also don't know many 50-year-olds with enough savings to live happily ever after without working ...

Yes, for me, at least, being idle is a kind of death, so I make sure I always have something to do. If it provides an income, all the better. But I'll never stop working. I'll never retire. When death comes, then I'll retire.


M.

 

[Ysidro]

I think I'd get bored if I lived forever. And if I were dead and, as I suspect, there was no "continuation" (which would still be a form of living forever) then I wouldn't be bored.

 

[dann]

Therefore, as Epicurus famously said, "death is nothing to us." When we exist death is not, and when death exists we are not. All sensation and consciousness ends with death and therefore in death there is neither pleasure nor pain. The fear of death arises from the false belief that in death there is awareness.

Epicurus, according to Wikipedia.

I'm not sure that he got it right. The utter lack of awareness seems to be what worries most people about death, but at least it will put an end to those worries too.