Why wouldn’t living forever be just like any other scenario where a good thing is multiplied by infinity? The novelty would wear off just like chocolate or sex. Things are “good” because they are scarce. Never-ending anything would become a burden.
If I get tired of eating chocolate or having sex it is because I want to do something else. I can’t really ‘do’ anything besides living (death isn’t me doing something because I no longer exist). We are also programmed to only want a certain amount of sex and chocolate, but we are for the most part programmed to want life as long as we can get it. Life also has a lot more options than more specific ‘good’ things. I always have too many things I want to do in a day. It is hard to conceive of waking up one day and thinking I was bored of life or just wanted to stop existing. I have to imagine pretty dire circumstances.
Then again, I haven’t lived tens of thousands of years, I might very well get bored and decide I was done with life. But I still would like the option to live as long as I want, just in case I don’t.
The “programmed” bit is where I see a problem. It’s humans’ ability to think and reason outside the replicator-level lizard brain urges that makes immortality problematic. We are able to recognize the fight to live, live to fight cycle of life.
I don’t think life in general is that different from any specific “good” thing—given enough time, the novelty will wear off.
The option of immortality seems okay. Though it seems a bit arbitrary whether someone lives to 80 or 800 or 80 million. The more life = more utilons math never makes sense to me.
I’ve always thought it was interesting to think what you would actually do with eternity… You could have kids...like 1,000 kids. And fall in love every week. And win Nobel Prizes in everything. And travel to the edge of the Universe. Or create your own Universe and be the God of it. Etc. Etc. There might be thousands of years of novelty in that. Maybe millions. But the returns are diminishing. Just think of all the amazing stuff we completely ignore and are bored with already.
I’ve always thought it was interesting to think what you would actually do with eternity… You could have kids...like 1,000 >kids. And fall in love every week. And win Nobel Prizes in everything. And travel to the edge of the Universe. Or create >your own Universe and be the God of it. Etc. Etc. There might be thousands of years of novelty in that. Maybe millions. >But the returns are diminishing. Just think of all the amazing stuff we completely ignore and are bored with already.
I understand that boredom is an issue for many people, but I never really get bored so it’s difficult for me to relate. 1,000 years of various things like the ones you mention seems like it would be a lot of fun to me.
The difference is that life, given an infinite amount of time also has an infinite amount of options for things one can do. There are enough things to do forever, the only question is whether the specific individual will keep thinking of things that they want to do. The crux of our disagreement seems to be that you think people would get bored with literally everything if they lived long enough and I think that most people would find something worthwhile in the infinite possibilities. But neither of us have lived very long (cosmically speaking) so it is difficult to really know how we will feel if we live to be 500, 5000, or 5 million years old.
There might be thousands of years of novelty in that. Maybe millions. But the returns are diminishing. Just think of all the amazing stuff we completely ignore and are bored with already.
Returns are diminishing for one activity, but there are infinite possibilities of activities one might do in infinite time. I don’t think diminishing returns applies to everything you could do at once. But again, I don’t know, maybe continued existence would eventually become unpleasant. That’s a possibility I’m not ignoring, but just because its a possibility doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to have immortality be an option.
If I get tired of eating chocolate or having sex it is because I want to do something else. I can’t really ‘do’ anything besides living (death isn’t me doing something because I no longer exist). We are also programmed to only want a certain amount of sex and chocolate, but we are for the most part programmed to want life as long as we can get it. Life also has a lot more options than more specific ‘good’ things. I always have too many things I want to do in a day. It is hard to conceive of waking up one day and thinking I was bored of life or just wanted to stop existing. I have to imagine pretty dire circumstances.
Then again, I haven’t lived tens of thousands of years, I might very well get bored and decide I was done with life. But I still would like the option to live as long as I want, just in case I don’t.
The “programmed” bit is where I see a problem. It’s humans’ ability to think and reason outside the replicator-level lizard brain urges that makes immortality problematic. We are able to recognize the fight to live, live to fight cycle of life.
I don’t think life in general is that different from any specific “good” thing—given enough time, the novelty will wear off.
The option of immortality seems okay. Though it seems a bit arbitrary whether someone lives to 80 or 800 or 80 million. The more life = more utilons math never makes sense to me.
I’ve always thought it was interesting to think what you would actually do with eternity… You could have kids...like 1,000 kids. And fall in love every week. And win Nobel Prizes in everything. And travel to the edge of the Universe. Or create your own Universe and be the God of it. Etc. Etc. There might be thousands of years of novelty in that. Maybe millions. But the returns are diminishing. Just think of all the amazing stuff we completely ignore and are bored with already.
I understand that boredom is an issue for many people, but I never really get bored so it’s difficult for me to relate. 1,000 years of various things like the ones you mention seems like it would be a lot of fun to me.
Scope insensitivity seems to be a strong possibility here.
The difference is that life, given an infinite amount of time also has an infinite amount of options for things one can do. There are enough things to do forever, the only question is whether the specific individual will keep thinking of things that they want to do. The crux of our disagreement seems to be that you think people would get bored with literally everything if they lived long enough and I think that most people would find something worthwhile in the infinite possibilities. But neither of us have lived very long (cosmically speaking) so it is difficult to really know how we will feel if we live to be 500, 5000, or 5 million years old.
Returns are diminishing for one activity, but there are infinite possibilities of activities one might do in infinite time. I don’t think diminishing returns applies to everything you could do at once. But again, I don’t know, maybe continued existence would eventually become unpleasant. That’s a possibility I’m not ignoring, but just because its a possibility doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to have immortality be an option.