The human race hasn't yet achieved immortality, but scientists assure us it's on the way, some say within the next 25-50 years. Dying Matters' recent survey discovered that 15% of people want to live forever, and only 9% want to live past 100. How long do you want to live for, and why?
By Kim Lampard
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I wouldn't like to commit to living forever without knowing how healthy I would be forever. If increased life expectancy isn't accompanied by sustained high quality of life, it doesn't sound so much fun.
I'd love to live forever, then I could marry the rather delicious Christopher Lambert from Highlander as he has to live forever too.
It's our avoidance of death that fuels our creativity and gives meaning to life. Death is what makes life precious. Without it, the meaning of our lives and the drive that makes us try to make something of them would vanish. The thought of death - my death - makes me swoon with fear, but I would not have it any other way.
For me quality seems more important than time and too much of life just passes me by. Over the years I have read how people feel that being given a death sentence (cancer / aids etc) helps them to actually start living more fully. Until that point I guess so many of us feel we have forever. For me, I think if I could just live TODAY fully that would be wonderful.
If we lived forever would we ever retire do you think ?
Not sure people would want to work forever...
"Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." Steve Jobs A further reflection: most of us find a wet Sunday afternoon unendurable. Living is intensified by a sense of urgency. We don't function well when time lies heavy.
Brings to mind one of the most haunting images in 'Waiting for Godot', when Pozzo says of mankind, "They give birth astride of a grave. The light gleams an instant, then it's night once more."
It's very hard to put a number on how long you'd want to live for. 500 years sounds pretty good, but then so does 5,000 years. Why not then 500,000 years?
The key is whether you are in good health for the extra years. I would expect near to no one would want to live even 5 years extra in agonising pain. Likewise, very few people would want to live any longer with any form of dementia.
What I wouldn't want - and I suspect many would agree on this - is to live for ever. Aside from it being virtually impossible due to the future heat death of the universe, without an end in sight everything becomes meaningless. With infinite time everything that is possible becomes reality.
So, if it's possible you can become President of the United States, you will do so at some point in your infinite life. Similarly, if it's possible you will be kept as a slave in a bubble city at the bottom of the ocean, then that too will happen with infinite time at your disposal.
If everything that is possible will happen anyway regardless of the choices you make and things you do, then the meaning attributed to your actions ceases to exist.
Life itself of course does not have to have meaning. Indeed, meaning is a human construct. But I suspect life wouldn't be much fun if nothing you did made the slightest bit of difference to yourself and everything you come into contact with.
So, to cut a long post short, I'd want to live for a very, very long time - who doesn't want to see what the future holds? - but not for ever as then life would have no meaning.
Ed Gallois
No one has mentioned other people - isn't it selfish to want to live forever? Surely we have to make space for the young ones. If there were no, or few, young ones, wouldn't the world stagnate?
Or do we think us old ones would be so wise that we'd make sure the place did not get messed up? Some of us might be; others would just be rigid and selfish.
Love, Annemieke Wigmore, http://thoughtforfood-aw.blogspot.com.