[Phantom X]

Would you, given the chance, live forever?

I would. I think seeing the world change and develope would be great.

[jordyn]

i wouldn't...

at first it would be appealing, the knowledge you could learn, the things you could see and do...but then i think about watching everything i loved die, knowing that anything i ever loved would die...everyting i knew would change, but me...as much as i enjoy learning, i wouldn't want to exist forever in an emotional void, i enjoy those sensations, much more.

Immortality throughout the ever evolving cycle of time would as a matter of course,leave the one so blessed, no option but to clothe himself in obscurity as the only feasible means of avoiding the unwelcome public astonishment and awe that would ineveitably greet the discovery of this miraclous phenomenen. And to me, that would be a living death, infinitely worse than the physical one that will evantually overtake us all. The  promise of living eternally? Not for me. Far more frutiful to leave my legacy and imprint on the history of man-kind, and then retire to the after-life to participate in the subsequent step of the great cycle.

[Phantom X]

Knowledge is worth the pain that comes and goes from the time to time death of a loved one, and even that can be prevented by not getting close to anyone else after all your friends and family die off.

[alastor moon]

no.just having to live through onelifetime adn not remembering in the next is enough, i don't wnat to remeber every stupid thing i live through.

[omnipotentoculus]

I vassilate on this question. As of right now, I think I would have to say yes, I would take that option. The way I would swing it is this:

I would enter society claiming to be twenty. I would then live my life as normal, counting birthdays, etc. until I was 40 or 50ish, perhaps older. When I reached an age at which my appearance would be suspicious, I would go into hermitude in a distant country and mull over what I had learned, absorb great literature and generally recover. After a decade or two, I would reenter society in a different area as a different person, restarting the cycle by claiming to be 20 and so on and so fourth.

Of course, the problem of love, friends, marriage and other such issues would make it entirely more difficult than I make it out to be, but given the choice, I would choose immorality.

[The_Seeker]

That's a very difficult question.  I'd probably go with mortality however.  Humans weren't meant to last forever and nature ensures that.  Even if with the immortality helping your body there's always the possibility of the mind roting away into some twisted shadow of its former self.

They have stopped the mouse's cells time clock, which meens it couldn't die from age and it couldn't catch diseases, but they havn't been able to do it to humans. Once they're able to they'll have to find out if its okay and not messing up with faith. o.O

[The_Seeker]

How intriguing, could you post a link about that?

However, it isn't only a matter of faith.  It could even be scientifically stupid.  Because of conservation of mass, something cannot be created from nothing.  If humans are only being created (birth) and never die to return to the Earth then there will be an extreme loss of the necesary elements for all life.  So, all things physical need to die in order to return the elements for new life.  It's all a matter of inventory you see.

I don't want to come back.  I think one time through this strange maze of society, life with it's problems and pain is quite enough for me.

When my father died I called a friend to tell her.  She said, "GOOD FOR HIM!!! He got out of here!"

 
My friend and I are a little weird.

~Morticia

I don't want to sound depressed but I think one lifetime is enough.  Sure I would gain knowledge and of course I am curious, but living forever would mean seeing everything I know die over and over again and knowing that the grief will never stop.  It would be living  hell. 

given the choice, I would choose immorality.

Freudian slip, Omni?

Although, that has to be a salient point, too. Like Dorian Gray, an immortal would - imo - become  jaded, decadent; the innate human desire for novelty would force them to seek ever-increasing bizzarre stimulus, and ultimately brain-destroying boredom would see them seeking release through suicide. Besides, life without death ceases to have meaning: it would be like sex without orgasm, or 20/20 vision in a world with no light.

No thanks - I'll take mortality.

FOr what I said earlier, my father told me that. Anyway, for the live forever thing, they would only give it to healthy, elderly people. There skin wouldn't age anymore and they couldn't die from disease, of course if they wanted to die... I'm sure they could hire a mercinary or something to kill them. 

*I know I repeated the disease thing, I don't want to catch pnemonia again.*

[mike624]

I wouldn't want to live forever just because if anything were to happen to every human on Earth, and everyone were to die, it would be forever with no one to talk to but yourself.

[omnipotentoculus]

Dark Lord makes a point, which despite my Freudian slip (thanks DV), I think would make immortality not just tolerable but enjoyable. The ability to die gives life its meaning, but living forever means it isn't restricted merely by time. Something else must cause its end. Unlike Dorien Gray, who could be shot, stabbed, burned etc. with out so much as flinching, all of these maladies would be a threat to the immortal-self we are describing.

The immortality I generally think of mirrors the story "Out Numbering the Dead" in which people are "overhauled" every 20 years or so with cloned organs. Think of it as a face-lift for the whole body that is completely safe and does not leave one looking like Joan Rivers. In that sense, the person generally maintains a permenant state of being a healthy 30-35 year old. If this were the "immortality," I would definitely take it.