Answer these two questions:
If you could live forever, would you? You would grow old but you wouldn't become brittle.
If you could go back in time to change your destiny and affecting everyone around you, would you?
Great idea for a thread, OP. I'm only sorry I didn't think of it myself.
Maybe, I'd refine the first question a little......seriously, as you age, growing 'brittle' isn't the worst thing that can happen to you. Would you keep your mental faculties and personality intact in your original question?
And, wasn't there an ancient tale of a chap who was offered (and accepted) eternal life but forgot to ask for eternal youth along with it?
What we ask for in answer to such a query shows our own strongest needs and preferences. Me, losing my mind would terrify me, so any sort of aging which implies dementia would not make life worth living.
No. I'd get too bored.
Definitely No. Have you ever seen ANY time travel involving movie!
Bored, well, yes and no. Nah, I doubt boredom would be the problem; stress might be, though.....adapting to change for century after century (social, political, cultural, economic, sheer life challenges, now that would be a continuing challenge).
Time travelling movies (and books) tend to reflect the preoccupations of the societies the author lived in rather than those s/he fantasied about.
Everyone you ever knew, or ever will know, eventually dying? No thanks.
True. But - perhaps - the point of the future is that you would get to meet new people, and make new connections and form new relationships. Quite a few who have posted here seem to assume that their personal lives would remain in stasis, as it were, even if they themselves were to live eternally.....
Actually, I'm a bit surprised at how many people have written about the fact that 'everyone you know would die'; the people you know at present would, naturally, predecease you, (unless, of course, they have also been granted the same immortality). However, that in no way presupposes that you would not make fresh acquaintances, and/or friendships, and/or perhaps, even loves....even now, this happens when you move abroad to work and live; or change job, or place where you live. Seriously, how many of us keep all of the old relationships we have known through our lives alive and intact? Different relationships have different strengths at different times. To assume that they are unchanging in life seems to me, mistaken, and, if immortal, I'd imagine that one would not forget old close relationships, but would augment them with new ones....
* Bold addition mine*
Wow, some people really are a little short in the imagination department.
Willful suspension of disbelief... look it up.
In conclusion, if you don't like the conversation and don't have anything to contribute then just don't post. Oh, remind me never to go to a movie with you.
As to the questions, I think living forever would be incredibly rewarding for a while, but would eventually become quite challenging from an emotional perspective.
I go back and forth on the second question, there are definite things about my past that I wish I could change, but would the ripple effect be worth it in the end.
Very good post.
Good. Then I'm in. This whole "everyone I love will die" thing. I'll get over it and used to it. I want to live to see what happens to the planet. Do we all grow up and become a great society a la Star Trek (no war, no poverty, no religion and hardly any black people) or do we wind up destroying everything. I'm also in for the going to the past thing. I day dream about that all the time. What stocks I would buy, where I would move to (warmer place please), how I would stop 9/11 and be a hero. How far back can I go? Quantum Leap rules or can I kill Hitler and Jesus?
I like this post, too.
Would you stop at Adolf and Jesus? What about the Black Death, the atom bomb, or are the retrospective changes confined to those which have occurred within our own life spans?
Again, great thread OP.
Heck yeah. One of my greatest frustrations is that I won’t be around much longer as we continue to explore our universe and learn its workings. (Assuming I can stay healthy despite your "grow old" statement. If "old but not brittle" means dementia, irritable bowel syndrome, blindness, and arthritis, but I'm safe from osteoporosis, no thanks. That's no way I'd want to live.)
Sure, there are some regrets in life I'd like a do-over for, but given an eternal lifespan I'd have the opportunity to get it right on a second attempt, so I'll pass for fear of making something worse.
Yes, very good post as well. I'm in full agreement with your first sentence; as a small kid, I was in awe of exploration of our universe and followed it all with absorbed fascination. And still do, I must say.
I would live forever but it would hurt to see all of my loved ones die.
If I could be frozen before I die and woken up later in the future with a new body or something I'd do that for sure... like benny the dog!
Well, yes, but I think you might also meet new ones to love. That, surely, is part of the point of 'living forever'; you wouldn't stay static and unchanging; you would change in response to your changing world.
I don't really understand why anybody would not want to live forever
What is there if not life?
Wow. I'm impressed.
And yes, I haven't answered.....actually, I want to give this (OP's questions) more thought.
