Do You Really Want To Live Forever?
August 4, 2008Avatars live forever. People don’t. Yet.
There’s no doubt that one of the things science and medicine are working towards is immortality. People don’t want to die. But in the rush for endless life, they forgo thoughts of the rightness or wrongness of this, of what it means to be human, and whether or not we’re built for this. And why we clearly are “rezzed” with an endpoint built in.
One podcast I’ve recently started listening to is the Big Ideas podcast. This is the audio from a tv show that has as its premise lectures delivered by notable thinkers speaking on some topic of expertise. Sounds boring, right? It’s not, at least none of the lectures I’ve listened to. These are perfect for biking to work, btw, because I find I can get them about half done on the way in and finish them up on the way home.
Anyway, one episode featured Leon Kass talking about immortality. And death. And dying. Asking questions about whether or not extending life significantly or even eternally is really the right goal that science and medicine should pursue. He brings up points about the effect life has on us psychologically, and the selfishness of wanting to keep life for ourselves possibly at the expense of the natural way of keeping life intact, which is to say, procreation and continuation of the species through subsequent generations.
It’s an interesting topic. We live in a society that flees from death with its arms and legs pumping as hard as they can. We worship youth with a reverence unmatched by that of devotees to almost any religion. Plastic surgery is rapidly becoming a “have/have not” divider, and the emphasis on appearance and youthful attitude has never been greater. In my mind, we’ve over legitimized the importance of it to the point where parents are so desperate to be their child’s best friend, they no longer want to be parents in terms of discipline, structure, and any of the other adult supervision constructs that teach kids they can’t just do whatever, whenever.
It certainly must be a topic that SL’ers have considered. Your avatar does not die. It does not grow old. It does not gain weight and lose its eyesight. And no doubt the avatars are a standing testimonial to our every living desire to be beautiful, overly idealized, strong, youthful, eternally young creatures. How many guys log into SL and immediately go into steroid mode? A lot. How many women want a waist you could put one hand around but want enormous breasts that curiously have never heard about gravity? A lot. It goes back what I see as a problem with humanity. We refuse to shake our mental constructs even in a place where we could shake off every last one of them if we wanted. Even in a virtual world, we’ve chosen the same thing we can’t let go of in the real one. The thing that can literally crack some people if they think they have to give up. Perfection. Eternal youth. Idealization.
I know I pick on face lights a lot, but they are really to me a symbol of this. We’re so obsessed with perfection, that having shadows on our faces is called unnatural? No. It’s not. Not unless you live in a photography studio. And if you do, and you think that’s how everyone should look, please. Stay there. Don’t come outside.
If the virtual world has ever brought stark contrast in your mind to your RL plight of heading towards the eventual inevitable, listen to this lecture. It’s an important topic, aimed at an increasingly myopic society willing to trade the interests of future generations for their own selfish ones now.
I couldn’t find a link to the audio for this episode on their website, but if you go to the itunes store page for the podcast, it’s listed second from the top in the show listings. Grab it there (http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=129166905). Or directly from their rss feed, the link to the file is show as http://www.tvo.org/podcasts/bi/audio/BI_Full_20030321_LeonKass_0×0_40k.mp3 and the rss feed link is http://www.tvo.org/TVOspecial3/WebObjects/TVOMedia.woa?bigideasfeed .
I’m not sure how long that episode will be around, as the web site and the date shown for the show in itunes differ (2005 and 2003, respectively) and the web site didn’t have an apparent audio link to the Leon Kass lecture.
Cheers, old timer. And be advised: we are going to die someday. It’s how we’re built.
this world is becoming a nuttier and nuttier place -
ANIMA | August 8, 2008this world is becoming a nuttier and nuttier place - i can see how some folks (egomaniacs?) might find it appealing to live forever through regenerative medicine, but not me. I will be satisfied to live this life fully, and when my quality of life starts to degrade too much, I hope it ends quickly and gracefully.
I was brought up to having to share with my brother, and that policy has worked pretty good when applied to my adult life, too: I don’t feel I am owed a larger piece of life than what will come my way naturally…
az
Weird... I was talking about this on the latest episode
Keeme | August 12, 2008Weird… I was talking about this on the latest episode of our podcast. I agree and all that jazz…. I would like to actually see our avatars die (or for those who wish it). Here is my suggestion/requirements
Must be at least 2 years
And sign off on an agreement (extra mumbo jumbo)
Send a letter to all on your friends list as to why and when… have a going away party.
Then the comes
you die
you are off line for one full week
you return and are a new avi (you get to keep all your stuff).
You get a new name and start off on REREZZED ISLAND (no bitching allowed).
Keeme
Simply said I would love to debate this question.
Lionel Vogt | September 9, 2008Simply said I would love to debate this question. Sadly however it seems that whenever I talk about living forever the big three arguments seem to pop up. A) Boredom” I would get bored with living. B) It is selfish to want more life than is “natural” And C) Life would have no meaning without death. There is a fourth argument concerning god(s) But I will stick to the practical ones and my answer to them.
A) I would get bored with life…. My answer to this is two fold and is answered with a question “why arnt you bored now?” and the same answer answers their statement “well there are still things I haven’t done and want to do/build/create ect. there will always be another level. and given the technology that would eventually advance us into new forms as well. I imagine one day my brain could be placed in a vessel that would allow me to have a custom designed body to enjoy flight or to feel the sands of mars between my toes. And that doesn’t even include the advancments in memory and cognitive abilitys.. so no Its going to take a very long time for me or anyone to get bored. Playstation 400 anyone?
B)”Its selfish to want more life than it is natural to have”. To this I simply ask please define a “natural” lifespan. If you were to go back 500 years or as little as 200 and tell people then that people of this age live well into their 80’s and 90’s they too would screech about how unnatural and demonic it was to extend life to those ages. it is funny how the idea of a “natural” lifespan shifts as medical technology does. But as to the question of “selfish” itself, that is a blanket statement. If you could give Davinci or Mozart or any person who wanted to bring wonder and beauty to this world an extended lifespan, would you?. and if they remained creators and builders and healers would you “pull the plug” because it was selfish?
C)”life has no meaning without death” This is where the rubber meets the road. Define your life and your reason for doing things because you are going to die. That the push to do the things you did was so someone might remember you. Ultimately this is a hollow ideal and defining the meaning of your exsistance by these terms means you are no better than any animal that chooses to procreate to continue the gene pool. It means we are no better than animals in our desire to move forward. That death looms as a specter to prod us and we cannot move forward on our own for the sake of becoming better or making this world as close to a heaven as we can.
Lastly I will touch one other “practical” reason given ” we will overpopulate the earth and kill it ”
This is a hollow warning since it is going to happen anyways. we had better stop breeding like rabbits and consider other places to live. With the medical technology of today. if we froze it in place with no more advancements ever again, it is going to happen anyways, so the big social change for us a human beings is coming one way or another.
Just something to counter the sacred deathist culture we have
Lionel
Transhumanist