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Or they have realized that immortality is actually a dumb idea. Either you talk about real immortality where you live forever. And forever is a really long time

Or they have realized that immortality is actually a dumb idea. Either you talk about real immortality where you live forever. And forever is a really long time. Or you talk about being able to decide when to die. In which case dying accidentally today becomes much more expensive so you become obsessed about avoiding accidental death today and miss the whole point of living a longer life...

krige 5y ago
Quoting a character in one of Stanisław Lem's stories, "People do not really want to live forever -- they simply do not want to die." Always struck me as a rather profound take on the whole immortality deal.
- kgwgk 5y ago
  Von Neumann definitely didn't want to die. According to Wigner: "When Jancsi realized that he was incurably ill, his logic made him conclude that he would cease to exist, cease to have thoughts. The full content of this was incomprehensible to him and it horrified him. We all know this and try to accept it, but it is always difficult. It was heartbreaking to watch the frustration in his mind when the hope was gone. His fate was unavoidable to him, but it was still unacceptable."
  - dharmon 5y ago
    His friends and colleagues were very disappointed that at the very end he turned to religion to help him cope with his fears. He even had a priest visit him for last rites. (Source: A Beautiful Mind)
- Schiphol 5y ago
  To add another source, Greg Evan's Permutation City is what drove home for me how profoundly inhuman immortality is.
cambalache 5y ago
> In which case dying accidentally today becomes much more expensive Why? This makes 0 sense.
rowanG077 5y ago
I think it's incredibly arrogant to talk with such certainty about biological immortality. It's not something we can fathom at this time.
suifbwish 5y ago
You are suggesting that death is somehow less dumb when you don’t know anything about the true existential nature of what that is.
- beefield 5y ago
  If you get philosophical, I don't think you can really know anything about anything. However, in practice I have every reason to assume that I have been practically dead i.e. non-existent for the vast majority of the lifetime of our universe (and whatever universes there may have been outside our one, whatever that may mean.) And I do not recall being non-existent that bad... Dying, that's another thing, that I know nothing about and am not looking forward for it - quite yet. But I know that the amount of things I want to do here is finite. And based on knowing myself and the feelings of quite a few old people, I am quite sure that when those would be done, I would be happy to let go. (Only small thing that I might want from approximately infinite life, would be to know how this life story here on earth/universe ends.)
  - suifbwish 5y ago
    Well said

krige 5y ago

Quoting a character in one of Stanisław Lem's stories, "People do not really want to live forever -- they simply do not want to die." Always struck me as a rather profound take on the whole immortality deal.

kgwgk 5y ago
Von Neumann definitely didn't want to die. According to Wigner: "When Jancsi realized that he was incurably ill, his logic made him conclude that he would cease to exist, cease to have thoughts. The full content of this was incomprehensible to him and it horrified him. We all know this and try to accept it, but it is always difficult. It was heartbreaking to watch the frustration in his mind when the hope was gone. His fate was unavoidable to him, but it was still unacceptable."
- dharmon 5y ago
  His friends and colleagues were very disappointed that at the very end he turned to religion to help him cope with his fears. He even had a priest visit him for last rites. (Source: A Beautiful Mind)
Schiphol 5y ago
To add another source, Greg Evan's Permutation City is what drove home for me how profoundly inhuman immortality is.

cambalache 5y ago

> In which case dying accidentally today becomes much more expensive Why? This makes 0 sense.

rowanG077 5y ago

I think it's incredibly arrogant to talk with such certainty about biological immortality. It's not something we can fathom at this time.

suifbwish 5y ago

You are suggesting that death is somehow less dumb when you don’t know anything about the true existential nature of what that is.

beefield 5y ago
If you get philosophical, I don't think you can really know anything about anything. However, in practice I have every reason to assume that I have been practically dead i.e. non-existent for the vast majority of the lifetime of our universe (and whatever universes there may have been outside our one, whatever that may mean.) And I do not recall being non-existent that bad... Dying, that's another thing, that I know nothing about and am not looking forward for it - quite yet. But I know that the amount of things I want to do here is finite. And based on knowing myself and the feelings of quite a few old people, I am quite sure that when those would be done, I would be happy to let go. (Only small thing that I might want from approximately infinite life, would be to know how this life story here on earth/universe ends.)
- suifbwish 5y ago
  Well said