To me this is a good example of a too theoretic discussion, and as the saying goes: In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. (But in practice there is).
My counterargument is a different one, and I kind of already have to interrupt you right at the start:
If there is no death, [,,,]
Putting “immortal animals” into any search engine gives lots of examples of things that get pretty close. So we can talk about reality, no need to talk only about Gedankenexperimente. So the first question cannot be: “Why is the counterargument wrong”?
Instead it should be: “Why are there no immortal living beings that dominate. Why are all of them more or less unimportant in the grand scheme of things?”
And the answer is pretty obvious I think. Because it’s simply unfavorable being immortal. It may be due to evolutionary bottlenecks, or due to energetic ones (inefficiency of repair vs reproduction for example), or a myriad of other ones. I don’t think you get to simply state that obviously being immortal is better, when all of the observable evidence (as opposed to theoretical arguments) points in the opposite direction.
So what is clear is, that if you want to be immortal, you have to pay some kind of tax, some extra cost. And if you cannot, you will be of marginal importance, just like all other (near-)immortal beings.
Incidentally, I think this is why only rich people ever talk about immortality (In my experience). To them, it’s clear that they will always be able to pay for this overhead, and simply don’t worry about it.
I would actually be interested if I am mistaken on that last point. Please speak up, if you are a person that is strongly interested in immortality, and you are not rich (for example when you went to school, you knew you were obviously different because your parents couldn’t afford X). I would really be interested to learn what you see differently.
To me this is a good example of a too theoretic discussion, and as the saying goes: In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. (But in practice there is).
My counterargument is a different one, and I kind of already have to interrupt you right at the start:
Putting “immortal animals” into any search engine gives lots of examples of things that get pretty close. So we can talk about reality, no need to talk only about Gedankenexperimente. So the first question cannot be: “Why is the counterargument wrong”?
Instead it should be: “Why are there no immortal living beings that dominate. Why are all of them more or less unimportant in the grand scheme of things?”
And the answer is pretty obvious I think. Because it’s simply unfavorable being immortal. It may be due to evolutionary bottlenecks, or due to energetic ones (inefficiency of repair vs reproduction for example), or a myriad of other ones. I don’t think you get to simply state that obviously being immortal is better, when all of the observable evidence (as opposed to theoretical arguments) points in the opposite direction.
So what is clear is, that if you want to be immortal, you have to pay some kind of tax, some extra cost. And if you cannot, you will be of marginal importance, just like all other (near-)immortal beings.
Incidentally, I think this is why only rich people ever talk about immortality (In my experience). To them, it’s clear that they will always be able to pay for this overhead, and simply don’t worry about it.
I would actually be interested if I am mistaken on that last point. Please speak up, if you are a person that is strongly interested in immortality, and you are not rich (for example when you went to school, you knew you were obviously different because your parents couldn’t afford X). I would really be interested to learn what you see differently.