Can you withstand immortality?

[PancakesWitch]

Sounds like a skill issue to me. Didn't even unify the world after society collapsed, become god king, push the earth somewhere else, wage war on aliens, defeat entropy and conquer the universe as is humanity's birthright smh

Being unkillable cannot really help you do any of that. They could trap you and just leave you isolated.

 

[SternenklarenRitter]

"watching everyone you love die while you're the only one left behind is terrifying".

This is not different than how many mortals live their lives anyway. Right now there are wars and famine in countries that have nothing to do with me. But when I close my eyes I can still hear them scream. "Why do you get to live? Why do you have food to eat? Why do get to live in a warm house? Come with us to hell... Join us and die." This is called survivors guilt, and its not something that just knowing you will die someday can make go away. I neither think it would be any worse for an immortal.

 

[Kenjona]

Personally the issue with immortality is not boredom. But whether you age and whether you can stay healthy. Most people at the end of their life accept dying off, just because it is unbearable to physically live in any way an active life. Not because they want to. I personally know I do not want to go, but I sure the heck would not want to stick around feeling constantly in pain and increasingly experiencing a decline in mental facilities.

Simple things like: When you go through a work day when you in your 20-30s and when you go through your work day when you are 50+, is a major difference in how tired and sore you feel at the end of the day. Old age is what forces people to retire, not because they want to or can afford to but because they are physically or mentally not well off and have to. Getting old puts a timer on what you can do and how long you can do it.

If I was immortal, and could stay healthy, I would go for it, even though I know I would end up outliving and burying my wife and kids. Humans can always find new things to do, or even go back to old things done before.

As far as watching people you love die. Yes, you are going to grieve, but if you were constantly young and healthy you might move on better if you can continue to build new relationships in your life. It is harder when you are old to do so, without constantly having people leave you because you are all old and dying off. Under normal circumstances 20 somethings do not want to hang with 30+, 30+ do not want to hang with 50+, and 50+ are annoyed that they have less and less people to choose from for friends. Yes, there are always exceptions, but that is a consistent rule.

I am at the age where I have lost pretty much everyone that were my elders growing up, my peers have been dying off for health/age reasons, instead of the reason being it was bad luck or their/someone's stupidity.

So immortality is great as long as you are not aging.

The Myth of Tithones from the Greek actually puts it into a good perspective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithonus
"but when loathsome old age pressed full upon him, and he could not move nor lift his limbs, this seemed to her in her heart the best counsel: she laid him in a room and put to the shining doors. There he babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, such as once he had in his supple limbs"

Now what are you going to do about your immortality when the government finds out is another can of worms. Genetic tracing has gotten good enough they are catching rapists and others crimes that had become cold and decades old just with online genealogy sites
.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/us/golden-state-killer.html#:~:text=Joseph%20James%20DeAngelo%2C%2072%2C%20was%20arrested%20at%20a%20home%20in,in%20the%201970s%20and%20'80s.

 

[CheertheSecond]

Nope! I got plans for 300-500 years but it is finite.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

the cultivator immortality you talked about is not true immortality if they can get killed, it just being very strong and living long

Most immortal in western stories can be killed too. Western stories immortal races are also very strong and living long.

Immortal simply means they won't die of natural causes or limited lifespan, a.k.a internal cause, or things they can control.

Immortal simply means that if nothing happened to them, they will keep living forever.

Many xianxia immortal reach that level of not worrying about lifespan anymore, a.k.a immortal stage or above, but still struggling to advance as they worry about other immortal competitors trying to kill them for resources.

 

[Nevafrost]

I'd be chill watching dramas, reading books and I'd create masterpieces cause I have all the time in the universe. People would see my masterpiece hehe.
But, I'd feel better if someone dear to me also gained immortality. It would be kinda lonely otherwise.
Basically, I want to go to heaven. I mean, I'll be immortal in heaven. No one dies. So, I think I would like to die now and go to heaven. There's only peace and no war. Yeah, my favv

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Seeing this thread pop up a bit I decided to reread The Immortal by Jorge Luis Borges. I’d certainly recommend it, it’s a very chilling sort of story that attends to the topic very well.

After taking a few days to think about my response I’ve finally written something down

Where the story differs from the usual takes on the concept and to include spoilers, is that there is not one singular immortal, there is a whole city of them.

One of the main opinions throughout this thread is that immortality only sucks because you have to leave people behind, and you will inevitably become lonely. As I said before in the story, there is not only an immortal, there is a whole city of them. Despite having everyone in their life to share immortality with, everyone they’ve loved, they eventually all regress into the troglodytes who seek to limit thoughts as much as possible to dull the pain of existence.

One of the big themes in the story is ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ and it quotes Plato in saying “all knowledge is but remembrance”. I think this the theme people in this thread would probably disagree with most. You could think, if the troglodytes only waited long enough they could have had movies, video games, sports, plenty of things to alleviate boredom.

That makes me wonder if that really is the case. The last 300 years has seen technology develop at a faster rate the ever before. I could certainly see an immortal not being bored in the last 300 years Technology has developed at an extraordinary pace these last three centuries, but will it continue to do so forever? The collapse of Rome gave way to the dark ages, and the Bronze Age collapse set humanity back for nearly a thousand years.

Nuclear weapons put humanity at an ever increasing threat of total annihilation. Can you say that you could handle immortality if you had to go several centuries without the amenities and convenience of the 21st century? Even if you could exist perpetually with internet and new entertainment media I still think the depiction of the troglodytes would be a realistic outcome. This brings me back to the “all knowledge is remembrance

Even now in the 21st century there is a pressing concern that unique melodies that are pleasing to listen to, have been increasingly copyrighted, and may soon reach the finite limit. Look at movies, it seems these days almost half of every movies are remakes of older movies. Even those that aren’t are hardly original, for example the Lego Movie is pretty much a reskinned version of the matrix. Eventually if you live long enough, you will experience enough, that everything new you experience is just reskinned version of something you have already seen. There is only so many stories that can be told with a logical and interesting structure, once you experience all of it, you will naturally be included towards the “city of immortals“ where the only things that allow new experiences is the nonsensical.

so basically I’m saying, I don’t think anyone could realistically stand immortality, any human on earth that is, fictional characters, and settings obviously have their own circumstances. Eventually the only thing someone has yet to experience will be death, and what may lie beyond it.

okay that’s my essay. Also I’m not gonna proof read it so there will probably be a bunch of missing words since I wrote this on my phone.

 

[So_Indecisive]

Seeing this thread pop up a bit I decided to reread The Immortal by Jorge Luis Borges. I’d certainly recommend it, it’s a very chilling sort of story that attends to the topic very well.

After taking a few days to think about my response I’ve finally written something down

Where the story differs from the usual takes on the concept and to include spoilers, is that there is not one singular immortal, there is a whole city of them.

One of the main opinions throughout this thread is that immortality only sucks because you have to leave people behind, and you will inevitably become lonely. As I said before in the story, there is not only an immortal, there is a whole city of them. Despite having everyone in their life to share immortality with, everyone they’ve loved, they eventually all regress into the troglodytes who seek to limit thoughts as much as possible to dull the pain of existence.

One of the big themes in the story is ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ and it quotes Plato in saying “all knowledge is but remembrance”. I think this the theme people in this thread would probably disagree with most. You could think, if the troglodytes only waited long enough they could have had movies, video games, sports, plenty of things to alleviate boredom.

That makes me wonder if that really is the case. The last 300 years has seen technology develop at a faster rate the ever before. I could certainly see an immortal not being bored in the last 300 years Technology has developed at an extraordinary pace these last three centuries, but will it continue to do so forever? The collapse of Rome gave way to the dark ages, and the Bronze Age collapse set humanity back for nearly a thousand years.

Nuclear weapons put humanity at an ever increasing threat of total annihilation. Can you say that you could handle immortality if you had to go several centuries without the amenities and convenience of the 21st century? Even if you could exist perpetually with internet and new entertainment media I still think the depiction of the troglodytes would be a realistic outcome. This brings me back to the “all knowledge is remembrance

Even now in the 21st century there is a pressing concern that unique melodies that are pleasing to listen to, have been increasingly copyrighted, and may soon reach the finite limit. Look at movies, it seems these days almost half of every movies are remakes of older movies. Even those that aren’t are hardly original, for example the Lego Movie is pretty much a reskinned version of the matrix. Eventually if you live long enough, you will experience enough, that everything new you experience is just reskinned version of something you have already seen. There is only so many stories that can be told with a logical and interesting structure, once you experience all of it, you will naturally be included towards the “city of immortals“ where the only things that allow new experiences is the nonsensical.

so basically I’m saying, I don’t think anyone could realistically stand immortality, any human on earth that is, fictional characters, and settings obviously have their own circumstances. Eventually the only thing someone has yet to experience will be death, and what may lie beyond it.

okay that’s my essay. Also I’m not gonna proof read it so there will probably be a bunch of missing words since I wrote this on my phone.

I'm not immortal but it is something I also experience to a limited extent at least with novels. I find a new story to read and it seems like I've already read it before. Millions of web novels yet few excite me. I wonder if I'll still enjoy reading them in 30 years.

 

[ClosetPossum]

So for some reason people. When I say people I mean many people believe that immortality is a curse and say stupid stuff like "watching everyone you love die while you're the only one left behind is terrifying".

While that would be a sad occurrence and make me feel bad for a certain amount of time I'm pretty sure I would get over it surprisingly quick.

No the main problem is 'obsession'. I can't remember who but in the novel 'I am god' they broached the subject quite deeply. Well in summary to live forever you need to have a goal so deep rooted, so impossible to achieve that only infinity can provide that possibility.

The blood Goddess is basically the last proof that her race existed she chose eternity to preserve her culture and knowledge her people created. One of the other guys is insane enough to want to watch all the stars die out. Vandal savage in DC wants to unify the earth. Cultivators can almost never reach true immortalility so they are always chasing after the possibility of becoming immortal.

Frankly I do not possess such deep obsession. I may enjoy a couple hundred years a thousand tops before I contemplate suicide, or maybe in that time I will find my own obsession.

So the question is as you are now so you have a goal that you feel only immortalility would allow you achieve.
And if you don't how many years do you believe you'll last before offing yourself.

Which immortality are we talking here? The one where you’re immortal and never age, but can still die or the one where you never age cannot die and you’re in vulnerable so nothing can kill you type of immortality?

 

[SirDogeTheFirst]

long as humanity reaches the point where interstellar travel is feasable and I can have something to wipe most of my memories.

 

[HarperMcFarlane]

In the sense that immortality would give me the means to keep writing about all the silly little characters that keep popping up in my head with little pressure that death will come for me before I finish then yeah I’d be alright with it.

But as a person who knows how we tend to keep repeating our own history and don’t learn from our mistakes I feel like the world around me would be just as draining as it is now if not more so. I’d become ambivalent to humanity, I think.

I wouldn’t mind immortality so long as I can be the one to finally call it when I’ve had enough.

 

[fcures]

Ah, I'd be chilling. We have the internet after all, and I'd be able to finish so many books. Imagine creating a library from books you wrote.

This is probably the only comment you've made I actually agree completely with you on

 

[Deleted member 84247]

This is probably the only comment you've made I actually agree completely with you on

Word.

 

[JayMark]

If one can't find hapiness in the simple pleasures repeatedly, then they don't deserve immortality.

 

[3guanoff]

Gods, no. But I would like another decade or two if you please.