You Don’t Want to Live Forever

Thanks for watching Super Nerds! Seems I have struck a fictional nerve with this one, and so many great comments! It's totally fine to disagree with me on this that's all part of it. We don't have the data either way, so leave your nerdiest ideas below. -- kH

I don't want to live forever. I want to live as long as I want.

Secretly immortal beings trying to convince us to not achieve immortality, typical

A version of immortality you discussed was covered in David Tennant's tenure of Doctor Who. The character was immortal but she couldn't remember anymore than a standard lifetime, so she chronicled her life so she could look back at her exploits and what she'd learnt.

the scariest thing ive always thought about immortality is eventually you are going to reach a point where all the stars have burned out and there is no longer any stimulus you can detect, leaving you with only your thoughts, after a while you will think every thought that you can based on your finite experience of the universe, you will run through them over and over in your mind until there are no new thoughts left to think. at some point you will stop thinking and your experience will be indistinguishable from death.

“Why you don’t want immortality”, says the God of Thunder who’s 1500 years old...

Before watching: I want to live forever. After watching: I still want to live forever.

A few counter points: - If we "solved" mortality, you would not have to see your loved ones die. Simple as that. - If you forget anyway, there is no way that you would ever get bored. I could watch all of YouTube, all TV shows, all movies, play all games (including digital, TTRPGs, boardgames etc.), which is even now an insurmountable task due to new releases, and even if I managed that, I could do it all over again after a 1000 years once I have forgotten everything. - Forgetting isn't that bad. As you pointed out, we already do it all the time. - Having "true immortality" and getting stuck somewhere would just mean that you would have to wait, as there would be in an infinite lifetime a non-zero chance that someone would find and free you. Okay, unless you get stuck in a singularity, but then you would probably have a whole new set of problems (and opportunities). - Same with the "incurable disease". You would be hard pressed to find one that is "compatible" with your immortal state anyways, but here it would also be a matter of time (which you have infinite of) until someone found a cure. I would take all that and probably more to be able to see humanity reach the stars, see history unfold in real time and maybe even see the end. Would be worth it. Yes, I am that curious.

Even in the Epic of Gilgamesh when Gilgamesh did find someone who knew the secrets to immortality and could give it, the person told Gilgamesh several times they wouldn't give it. When Gilgamesh threatened to beat the information out of the person they then said, "If you can go one week without sleep I'll make you immortal." Gilgamesh agreed to the challenge but fell asleep after a few days. Gilgamesh was then told, "If you cannot conquer sleep, then what makes you think you can conquer death?"

"Do you really want to live forever?" I dunno. Let's talk about it after I've lived a few thousand years.

Immortal jellyfish: “It’s rewind time.”

Correction on the immortal jellyfish: they aren’t immortal they use a process called budding where they are basically giving birth to a child. Some insects can do the same thing, it’s not necessarily the same jellyfish which is supported as they do not retain memories.

my paternal grandfather died of terminal cancer when he was 81, but by the time he reached that age, he was ready to go for several years. He had a prognosis for at least 5 years had he kept up with treatment, but by the time he was diagnosed, he had seen all of his children grow up, his wife (my grandmother) had passed away 20 years earlier, he had lived at least long enough to see all of his grandchildren at least be born (roughly half had already reached adulthood by the time he died), and most of his old friends and colleagues had already passed away. So at the age of 81, he was clearly ready to go, if a wizard had come along and took away his terminal cancer and gave him eternal life, my grandfather would have cursed said wizard.

60,000 years later "He was wearing a blue shirt. Wait who was?"

You should name your channel to killing dreams with science

I feel like 300 years would be a decent average life span. As it stands life seems to short to do all the things you want to. However, if you lived forever, you'd likely not want to do those things anymore due to apathy. Don't change the overall paradigm of death giving meaning to life, but modify it a bit to give yourself a bit more time.

The problem with the argument that death is a good thing is that we are mortal. All of our context about life and existence is based around it being finite. The argument that death is better than living forever is an argument where we literally have no frame of reference for immortality. We can make some assumptions, but we have no idea how a single person much less a society would change to accommodate living forever.

If humanity ever achieved immortality, where the aging process is stopped biologically (but death by accidents or choice is still a possibility), then one should be allowed the option to die if living forever is not a desire.

Me: *watches video* nah still want immortality

As a 70 year old, I can attest that immortality is a young person's dream. As we age death becomes more a promise than a threat: we don't have to do this forever.