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Living forever is impossible, period. On a long enough timescale, any nonzero probability accident will kill you. But actually the heat death of the Universe wi

Living forever is impossible, period. On a long enough timescale, any nonzero probability accident will kill you. But actually the heat death of the Universe will happen even earlier than that.

FlacoJones 2y ago
Asimov said this was his favorite thing he ever wrote, and it addresses this same idea. The Last Question - Isaac Asimov - Read by Leonard Nimoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XOtx4sa9k4&t=544s&ab_channel=CoolPsychoFacts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XOtx4sa9k4&t=544s&ab_channe...
knodi123 2y ago
This is silly. People who talk about wanting to achieve immortality aren't talking about doing it through a genie wish that gets ironically turned against them, leaving them hovering in agony in deep space after the heat death of the universe. Any reasonable discussion of immortality really just means the end of senescence.
- jewayne 2y ago
  I mean, even having your biological age somehow suspended at age 30 is a monkey's paw-type wish, especially if all the people you love age normally. Your spouse turning into an old husk of their former self before your eyes, as your children become your peers, then your elders. After awhile, you think of your spouses like dogs, knowing each time you take a new one that one day they will be gone.
  - knodi123 2y ago
    Having your biological age suspended at 30 doesn't preclude death. You can always kill yourself whenever you want. If you don't want to, it's because you think there's a reason to keep living. > After awhile, you think of your spouses like dogs, knowing each time you take a new one that one day they will be gone. I still love my dogs with all my heart, treasure the time I have with them, mourn them when they're gone, and still find happiness in my life. And still choose to adopt new ones on occasion. Plus, I'm not sure why you think, in this scenario, that the immortality technology is only available to me and not any of my loved ones.
- meindnoch 2y ago
  No, it's not silly. Immortality = staying alive for an infinite amount of time. Since this is not possible, the best we can hope for is living for a long, but finite amount of time. Which is infinitely short compared to true immortality. To put it another way, with true immortality you will never be one minute from dying. Without immortality, you 100% will, sooner or later. This is the qualitative difference between the two.
  - knodi123 2y ago
    > No, it's not silly. Immortality = staying alive for an infinite amount of time. Words mean what we mean them to mean. When most people talk about trying to find a way to achieve mortality themselves, they are talking about biological immortality. Which means what I said - freedom from aging. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality
lIl-IIIl 2y ago
The book Permutation City explores some concepts of immortality that would be immune to the heat death of the universe. In the book consciousness does not have to be chronological in time or on any specific biological or synthetic hardware. It just has to be encoded in a physical state somewhere, and the next state can be anywhere else in time or space. One example is a person who deliberately set their consciousness on a loop, doing his favorite activity, climbing a skyscraper too tall to see the bottom or the top. Permanent flow state, not quite sure how long he has been climbing, feeling an adrenaline high. It may seem like a boring life, but for that person it's indistinguishable from a normal life that happens to be doing that action in the moment.

Living forever is impossible, period. On a long enough timescale, any nonzero probability accident will kill you. But actually the heat death of the Universe will happen even earlier than that.

FlacoJones 2y ago

Asimov said this was his favorite thing he ever wrote, and it addresses this same idea. The Last Question - Isaac Asimov - Read by Leonard Nimoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XOtx4sa9k4&t=544s&ab_channel=CoolPsychoFacts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XOtx4sa9k4&t=544s&ab_channe...

knodi123 2y ago

This is silly. People who talk about wanting to achieve immortality aren't talking about doing it through a genie wish that gets ironically turned against them, leaving them hovering in agony in deep space after the heat death of the universe. Any reasonable discussion of immortality really just means the end of senescence.

jewayne 2y ago
I mean, even having your biological age somehow suspended at age 30 is a monkey's paw-type wish, especially if all the people you love age normally. Your spouse turning into an old husk of their former self before your eyes, as your children become your peers, then your elders. After awhile, you think of your spouses like dogs, knowing each time you take a new one that one day they will be gone.
- knodi123 2y ago
  Having your biological age suspended at 30 doesn't preclude death. You can always kill yourself whenever you want. If you don't want to, it's because you think there's a reason to keep living. > After awhile, you think of your spouses like dogs, knowing each time you take a new one that one day they will be gone. I still love my dogs with all my heart, treasure the time I have with them, mourn them when they're gone, and still find happiness in my life. And still choose to adopt new ones on occasion. Plus, I'm not sure why you think, in this scenario, that the immortality technology is only available to me and not any of my loved ones.
meindnoch 2y ago
No, it's not silly. Immortality = staying alive for an infinite amount of time. Since this is not possible, the best we can hope for is living for a long, but finite amount of time. Which is infinitely short compared to true immortality. To put it another way, with true immortality you will never be one minute from dying. Without immortality, you 100% will, sooner or later. This is the qualitative difference between the two.
- knodi123 2y ago
  > No, it's not silly. Immortality = staying alive for an infinite amount of time. Words mean what we mean them to mean. When most people talk about trying to find a way to achieve mortality themselves, they are talking about biological immortality. Which means what I said - freedom from aging. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality

lIl-IIIl 2y ago

The book Permutation City explores some concepts of immortality that would be immune to the heat death of the universe. In the book consciousness does not have to be chronological in time or on any specific biological or synthetic hardware. It just has to be encoded in a physical state somewhere, and the next state can be anywhere else in time or space. One example is a person who deliberately set their consciousness on a loop, doing his favorite activity, climbing a skyscraper too tall to see the bottom or the top. Permanent flow state, not quite sure how long he has been climbing, feeling an adrenaline high. It may seem like a boring life, but for that person it's indistinguishable from a normal life that happens to be doing that action in the moment.