So making the death rate even lower is going to be fine because...

The good news is that rats can be genetically bred to have cells that don't die, making them immune to aging.

The bad news is that the life/death cycle of a cell is to protect the organism from cells living too long, acquiring complications and becoming cancerous.

So the rats were theoretically immortal, but tragicially all died of cancer of everything.

I'm not sure whether I'd want to be immortal or not. If space travel was advanced enough to be able to explore the stars, then like Scrabtrapman I'd want to travel through space. I don't think I'd be able to live on Earth for a huge period of time, more than 80 years would probably drive me nuts.

Earth has more than one man can explore in several lifetimes. I can't comprehend how you could get sick of it that quickly, Jordan.

My point exactly...

Yeh, I mean, I might want to leave the Earth after a thousand years or so, but only if I can return at a later date.

Yet you implied the opposite in support of your last point.

Whatevs. It's just one of those wacky language things.

I'll come to your funeral. I'll also make up a fascinating double life for you.

I'll pick up Spiderman so he can come too.

No I didn't. I stated that the stability of our civilization is hinged on a balanced birth/death rate. I never said that it is currently stable. It's not, which lends even more credence to my point that lowering the death rate would be a bad bad thing...

Unless some kind of "swap your fertility for immortality" deal is set up. Of course, dodgy underground places would probably start doing it illegally for cash.

That could work, but only if the birth/death rates evened out first.

Oh, so you mean Scientology, but for real.

"Deliberately said" and "Inadvertently implied" are two very different things.

Now, this isn't very helpful, so I'll be quiet.

I might have exaggerated a little there, give it maybe a hundred to a hundred and fifty years. If I lived eternally, I think I'd grow tired of the ways of humanity. I don't like a lot of people, mostly through stupid reasons, and if I maintained this feeling for a hundred or more years, I'd be pretty damn sick of it. This opinion will most likely change in years to come though. I'm still a kid, I haven't experienced the world yet and haven't been able to form a true opinion about human beings. I still need to appreciate the Earth.

I regret never considering a scientific educational path early on. Lately(meaning the past couple of years) I've been more and more facinated by it, and I've often kicked myself in the butt for not choosing Nanotechnology to study. I believe that nanotechnology combined with biotechnology is the way to prolong life. I'd really want to live longer than the expected 60-80 years that most live to.
I don't believe that it is enough. Once people finally gathered enough knowledge and wisdom over the years, they die... Unable to share more of it with the rest. I find that extremely depressing. I think we at least need elders. If they were good-hearted and fair. Elders that we listen to for inspiration and guidance.


To Wil:
I really don't know how to stop someone from fearing death... I dont remember if there was a time where I feared it. To me it's just inevitable, and I don't see anything wrong with it. I have reasons to believe that minds and consciousness is connected in ways on a very microscopical level, but that's just bullshit pseudo-philosophy so I don't really know in the end :p But I believe that we either continue on in some form after death, or we simply disappear.
It's the disappearing that gets to most people I guess. And that's the fear that most have to conquer. In my mind it's simple: I wont be there to experience not existing. So in the end it doesn't matter. You can't change it(unless you dedicate your life to science), and stressing over things you can't change is pointless. So it's better not to.


Like I said.. what I do fear is pain. Im afraid that whatever comes after will be so incomprehensible that we experience great spiritual pain cos of it.

You can't experience spiritual pain if you have no spirit.

Logic!

Buuut... If we do have one, we will... If we do live on in any shape or form, Im pretty sure we can experience that shape or form's pain. Or at least anything that makes it extremely uncomfortable.

My best bet is nonexistance though. Though if you do look at it logically our uh.... particles live on? :p

It's like Buddhism without the Nirvana or the karma or the reincarnation.

So it's like atheism then.

What is? The particles thing? Im just grabbing for straws :p

Entropy dictates that we all /have/ to die eventually right? I mean, unless you're a certain type of jellyfish. Technically one of the few truly immortal creatures. Any way, surely if our cells kept regenerating so we didn't age, our brains would change to the point we weren't the person we are now.

On a behavioural level you can do that in less than six months, on a physical level your body does that for you in less than seven years.

Yes but you know what I mean don't you? Our very personalities, I figure I'm still the same person I was last year, albeit with a few minor differences.

Oh, but that's easy...


...make his life worse than death. Duh.

Yep. And that's what I fear more than death - That my quality life has the potential to get as terrible as that.

I say as I spend most of my time sitting infront of the PC, don't eat properly and only exercise for about 2-3 hours every week on average... lol. Gotta look after myself better.

It's funny to think that while people debate the whole "grandfather's axe" idea of an object being the same thing despite containing none of it's original parts, it's something that happens to us that often.

I've always believed that after death there is nothing. So people saying that they fear it because it will be just void, are somewhat stupid, you don't have conciousness, it's just like being asleep, but it's a bit harder to wake you up.

On the other hand, I believe in the possibillity of alternate universes, therefore, even though it is immensely unlikely, I suppose there couls be... some sort of, heaven-type thing, by that I mean that when you die, your conciousness is wiped (of memories), and restored into a new universe. Call me mental, but it's a possibillity.

Also, for the record, I'd like to say now that I don't believe in any God, the concept is severely illogical.

If there was a heaven/hell thing (and there isn't), I would hate it. Think of all the people who have died (and animals) since day dot, it would be crowded as hell. Also I'd prefer to stay away from passed relatives. I have trouble talking to people now, so that would be awkward.

Finally, I want to say that death scares me in no way either, what scares me is how I will die, because like I said, after death, there is no conciousness, just a rotting corpse. I just hope to god that I don't drown.

I gave up believing you had anything interesting to say and stopped reading here.

Wow

Me too, same word and everything.

Sometimes death scares me, othertimes it doesn't. More worried about dying unfullfilled, I'd be extremely unhappy to die now, yet also strangely relieved. If it was for a worthy cause like saving a child or friend, I'd go knowing that I mattered. I'm disturbed to realise than in recent months my fantasies have changed from acheiving success to recklessly risking my life and not always coming out on top.

I've heard of no afterlives that are remotely enticing, except for one proposed by a friend in which she and I travel the universe in the TARDIS. It ticks all the right boxes.

What about living eternally as a sexless skeleton with Mictlantecuhtli?

Even though it's really scary to think of...nothing. :fuzconf: I agree with you. It's the most logical opinion. But how do we know? If there is something after death, we'll just have to wait and see won't we :p

...right.

I just wanna say.... Death is most likely not like being asleep.

I'll assume death is like being asleep. It may be an endless dream, you never know.

I hope so. Many times I'm having a great dream only to be woken up by an alarm clock. Or, having a nightmare where you can't wake up. Guess it's a double-edged sword in the end.

How can you dream when your brain rots?

In death you're not even doing nothing. You're just dead. That's why they call it death.

If you think death is like a big sleep and you take the piss out of theists for believing in something calming and pleasant after death... well then I have bad news for you.

I don't disregard life after death. Heaven and hell is too black and white for me. Should it be true, I'd say 80% or so of the human race is in hell. Commit one bad deed and be condemned to an eternity of torture? Uh...

Also, I said I assumed so. But Phylum pointing out about the brain-rotting makes that unlikely. I guess I'll go back to believing your life will just restart, hence the deja vu people sometimes experience.

Oh I wasn't refering to you specifically.

I also have no problem with believing in life after death, I'm just unable to because I lack faith in anything without two eyes, a uniform standard of between two and three holes and a physical brain.

Am I the only one who gets what Nepsotic is saying? It's like being asleep in that you're unconscious and not experiencing the external world or - if you're not dreaming/don't remember your dreams - internal mind.

And MA, honestly, you're supposed to be British. You're supposed to be fluent in understatement.

Sleep is defined by dreaming and/or waking up. Death presumably entails neither, so I honestly can't see any similarity whatsoever.

No, it's defined by being unconscious. Sure there may be brain activity, but since at least some people (including me) do not either consciously experience it or remember it, what's the difference for those people? The point is: there isn't an experience of void, there is no experience.