You and me, Lightnin. Live forever or die trying to.
I say take it, use my powers to convince everyone I’m the second coming or what-have-you and start a new religion where people actually have to treat each other decently, instead of just giving lip-service to the idea.
Sure, it’s basically uberblasphemy and I still haven’t solved the whole “watching all my friends and loved ones die” thing, but if there’s a realistic possibility I could bring about world peace it’s got to be worth considering, no?
Not a chance. I’m content with a finite existence. Going back to nothingness is as it has been and as it should be.
I dunno.
I’m of two minds about this.
Let me try this Immortality thing for 2 or 3 hundred years, & then I’ll see if I like it.
I’d do it, exactly as laid out in the OP. Sadly, I know (because we’ve had this exact convo) that my wife wouldn’t. I do love her, but , well, hello? IMMORTALITY!
Hell, yes, I’d do it. An escape clause would make it more appealing, but I’d probably go for it regardless.
I really can’t fathom the boredom comments. I’m 36 and already aware of all the things I won’t have time to do, even assuming I live to be 100. And that’s just the stuff that already exists!
I like the ancient Egyptian view of the afterlife-your spirit (“KA”) was free to do whatever it wanted, and live as a human in paradise. But it HAD to return to the mummified body periodically-or it would cease to exist. I think the “KA” would rest up periodically, when immortality got boring!
No way. Live forever? Psh. I’m forty and I’m bored already.
Yeah, I don’t think boredom would really be a problem. I’ve already forgotten much, maybe most of what I learned in college twenty years ago for instance. So it’s not like I’d learn everything and get bored. I figure every 20-30 years it’d be time to learn a new vocation and in the meantime I’d forget most of all my former vocations.
I just thought of a problem though. The OP says “when humanity comes to an end, you will die with it.” What about evolution? Do I get to evolve along with everyone else? Or, in 100,000 years will I be the shortest, weakest, ugliest and most stupid person on the planet, even though technically we’re still the same species?
Do I die when humanity eventually does become a new species?
It would really be a tossup if I were offered the decision right now. I mean, there is a slight chance that there is an afterlife, but there would also be the slight chance that if I chose immortality, even if there were some way for me to willfully end my life, that I would be trapped in a situation where I could not exercise this and yet still not die.
I’d rather wink out of existence than stay trapped in rock for billions of years (“It’s longer than you think!”)
You know how when you were a teenager, and you and all your friends agreed that it would be totally awesome if you could just be a teenager forever?
I have a feeling that to make a decision now to be immortal would be as uninformed as a decision then to never be an adult.
Plus, what if something toally awesome happens when you die? I’m dying to find out (heh).
No.
I just don’t like life enough.
I’d take the deal as stated. And what’s this with ending when humanity comes to an end? I want live beyond that. Life will still be pretty sweet with just me and my robots.
I’d take it. I’d take it even more readily if there was a suicide opt-out. Levdrakon brings up an interesting wrinkle, though.
And what if we all go to hell ?
Also, a thought on the OP :
Since you are human, as long as you live humanity is not dead, therefore you cannot die without dying first. That would make a great twist for a deal-with-the-Devil story . . . as long as you’re not at the sharp end of it.
Have we learned nothing from classic television concerning the downside of immortality? If we don’t learn from television, we will have to learn from our own experience. I have in mind such cautionary tales as The Twilight Zone’s “Escape Clause” and “Long Live Walter Johnson,” and original* Star Trek*’s “Requiem for Methuselah .”
Immortality? No, thanks. But I’ll take a natural lifespan in perfect health and the grace to give up the ghost when my time is nigh. On a hypothetical note, if my aging process had to be arrested at a particular age, it would not be 25. I would pick 42. When I was 25, I thought 42 was the perfect age. Today, at 52, I still think 42 is where it’s at.
Assuming the goverment isn’t going to keep me locked up in a lab somewhere; then yeah, sure.
Or how about HELL YES!
Not to mention the “world weariness” of the elves of Tolkien. There’s a reason why mortality
is called the “Gift of Men.”
Most definitely! Consequences be damned. I’d have plenty of time to think about them anyway.
Because in that world the afterlife is a fact, and because the souls of Men leave the world that the Elves are weary of. And because that world is a long slide from near paradise to a decayed, weaker, uglier world; as opposed to the real world, which trends in the opposite direction.