I am having this discussion with a lot of people lately, and it is a very intriguing thing. Deep down everyone of us craves to be immortal. But if you think about it for a minute... is it really that awesome?

Imagine this: By some mysterious cause X you gain immortality. Time passes by and you have done all sorts of things on Earth, tried everything - maybe even managed to bed every girl you dreamt of. By this time, humanity probably will have developed proper interstellar propulsion systems and hence you venture out into the unknowing darkness. As millions and millions of years pass by you get to see all the wonders of the universe, you visit the Horsehead nebula, drink Johnny Walker with aliens from Betelgeuse, Jump through a wormhole butt-naked...

And now it's 5 trillions years later. You did everything there is to do, you went everywhere you can go. Met every celebrity there is and celebrities that were thanks to a timemachine/holodeck.

Now what?

Maybe you really have lived a full life, seen and done everything. But when there is nothing else to do, what is the point?

I'll put it in a (modified) quote from exitmundi:



What's your take?

i don't get why people are craving for immortality either. i might sound a little bit old-fashioned, but seeing every friend you have, had and will have die isn't my idea of awesome.

i dont really want to live for ever.But if i got the chance to do everything there is to do ever i would go out with a big bang like taking a whole galaxy with me with a redstar nova nuke or something.

basicly i would commit the most memorable suicide in the history of existance

I dont think immortality should mean never ever dying, it probably should be just your ageing would stop, but you are able to be killed by voilence, others as normal.
Now that wold be a little better, when you've had/seen enough, just jump off a cliffm or something like that.

To me the most interesting part of that is that the severity of murder would increase, I believe. It is a terrible thing to take away someone's life. It can't be undone. But surely it's terrible on a whole new level if that person didn't ever have to die anyway?

Jibb

I did not particularly mean murder, just that if immortality was just based on stopping one's cellular ageing, one could live really long but still had to be as carefull as before.
I think the other way, people would do some strange things (yes you are right, including murdering others) just for the sake of it, because they know they could not die.

Once youve reached the point of having done everything its easy.

GET YOUR MIND WIPED!

By surgery or hypnosis, whatever.

Erase all memories from say 20 years old onwards.

Then you can start all over again and not even know it...

what's the point of erasing your memories? it's the same as dying.

Not all of them...
Leave the first 20 - 50 years or so to keep your personality intact.

Just remove the "interesting" stuff so you can do it all again.

it's still the same as dying. your personality also consists of your memories. the person you were will be gone.

what's the point? it's as pointless as reincarnation if you don't remember your previous life.