Hi, Posty. I'd like the option for living as long as I like, hopefully in a body no older than this one, preferably in the one that I had at 17.

Why? Primarily to take more paths. To name just one example (I could pull them out of my hat like rabbits), I'd like to learn German backwards and forwards and maybe even translate my favorite German philosophers into English. In another life I could have become a scholar of German philosophy. It's not the status I covet so much as being paid so that I can concentrate on one thing. Being independently wealthy would work even better (think Schopenhauer's life, but less gloomy --and happily married, maybe to someone with a passion for German literature.)

In this world and with this lifespan one can't get around to everything. The full potential of the brain and the soul is not realized. (Or maybe there are certain peaks that are realized intermittently, but I have something else in mind).The time may come (who knows?) when we as a species actually achieve this. Especially if we can get off this little planet, our short lifespans will lose their utility as a way to control population. We'd have a new frontier. We'd have the technology to feed as many as we could make and plenty of space for them too. Maybe after 10,000 years or 100,000 years death would be fascinating as something truly new. We might feel ready for it. As it is, I think we mostly feel ready for it (if and when we do) because our bodies are worn out, our hormone levels, etc., contribute to an apathy. As our personal futures recede, we partake in the futures of those younger. They can keep the game going. Our old bones are sleepy.

I guess I'll stop there.

For one thing, if for no other reason, I wouldn't want it because it isn't natural.

In Eastern traditions (which I agree with on this), we live, in successive lives, until we're eventually (inevitably, eventually) life-completed and life-style-perfected. ...at which time, at the end of the life during which that is achieved, there isn't another life.

(The successive next-lives happen because, if there's a reason why you're in a life (and there is), and if that reason remains at the end of this life, then you'll again be in a life, for the same reason why you were in this one.)

In my interpretation, at the end-of-lives, there's just final, increasingly-deep sleep, of course with no more awareness that there ever was, or could have been, any such things as need, want, lack, menace, or incompletion...or time or events. In other words, timelessness. So that state-of-affairs is final and timeless.

Anyway, my point there is that, even among those of us who believe in reincarnation, there is only a finite temporary amount of life (a finite number of temporary lives), because the need or inclination that started the sequence, eventually no longer remains.

Michael Ossipoff

I suppose I'll also offer my views.

I would want to live forever because death is an unknown. I have grown fond of life and value it. My life isn't too great, just that the alternative is the great unknown which I like to not think about too often.

I would want to be uploaded into a computer and live in my own dream world of my making. I suppose I could always decide to turn myself "off" for a period of time or indefinitely. So, yeah, my greatest fear is death itself.

The full potential of the brain and the soul is not realized. — macrosoft

What do you mean by that?

Yeah; but, what if you could achieve life-perfection in one life? That would seem like the optimal solution.

Yeah; but, what if you could achieve life-perfection in one life? That would seem like the optimal solution. — Posty McPostface

Then there wouldn't be a next life. And that would be as it should be.

I emphasizes that it isn't a matter of personal choice. It isn't up to the individual. If you aren't life-completed and lifestyle-perfected, then there will be a next life, because the subconscious needs, wants and inclinations will still be there.

Anyway, if there are more lives (which I believe there to be until the completion and perfection that I spoke of) that's good. If there aren't, due to life-completion and lifestyle-perfection, that, too, is as it should be.

What if I were mistaken about reincarnation? What if there weren't really reincarnation? Well, what's so bad about sleep? We sleep each night. Regarding that final, increasingly deep sleep, there's nothing about that to dread or fear.

But there's good reason to believe that there are a sequence of lives, and that none of us at these forums will be at the end-of-lives, when we reach the end of this life.

Michael Ossipoff

Barbara Ehrenreich said something to the effect that death doesn't interrupt life. It's just that life temporarily interrupts sleep.

Sleep, because of the final and timeless nature of sleep at the end-of-lives, and its presence at the beginning of this life too, is the natural, normal, rightful and usual state-of-affairs. Waking life, worldly-life, with all its situations and problems, is the exception and the interruption of how it really is and should be.

Mark Twain said, "Before I was born, I was dead for millions of years, and it didn't inconvenience me a bit."

Michael Ossipoff

Wouldn't it be redundant to live again and go through the same process of learning and such? Which leads me to believe that it's a never ending process...

If, however, life perfection could be attained in this life, then, isn't that preferable?

What do you mean by that? — Posty McPostface

Maybe you are young enough to not viscerally feel the finiteness of time. Or maybe you are just asking me to expand as if you are clicking on a hyperlink, because you like the theme. I'm saying we die too soon in terms of what we are capable of being mentally and spiritually.

We see human beings focus on one activity and perhaps actually push to the limits of their brain and soul in that domain. But what if these human beings could spend the next 50 years doing something totally different. And then the next 50 years doing something else? And what about the mutual enrichment of all this mastery? And then beyond all these 'impressive' things there is the subjective question. How might existence be experience in the context of 10 or 100 times more personal history as context? I feel far more sophisticated and attuned than I did when I was younger (a mere 20 years ago). Give me another 100 years and who knows how I might feel just walking along. And then imagine marriages that last centuries and keep evolving. Or friendships, artistic partnerships. I just think we have it in our brains to be more than our fragile, aging bodies allow us time to become.

Barbara Ehrenreich said something to the effect that death doesn't interrupt life. It's just that life temporarily interrupts sleep. — Michael Ossipoff

That's a good point. Sleep is beautiful and in some sense death is nothing to fear. It's only the living who can lust for more time to play. But we do --except when we get sleepy.

I don't see the point to death. So much is lost in that imposed feature of life. To live forever means that death can be overcome and the loss of life. I don't suppose you would disagree with that.

Wouldn't it be redundant to live again and go through the same process of learning and such? — Posty McPostface

But there's no reason why you should. People usually don't live exactly the same kind of life again. At the end of a life, your subconscious attributes, level and nature of needs, wants and inclinations, is different from how it was at the beginning of this life. Each life is different. Each life is influenced by the previous one.

The person you'll be in your next life is the person whose subconscious attributes are those of you toward the end of this life.

And the world that you'll be born into is one that is consistent with that person that you are then...a world, for example, consisting of people who'd beget the kind of person that you (then) are.

Which leads me to believe that it's a never ending process...

The sequence of lives ends eventually, because the needs, wants and inclinations ("Will To Life") that started this life will no longer be there. ...as each life is influenced by the previous one.

Michael Ossipoff

Or you are dreaming your so called 'life', convinced it is real. But if before death you haven't realised you are dreaming, then after death you will carry on dreaming.
If you realise before death you are dreaming then after death you will realise you have died and will 'wake up' to who you really are.

Row row row your boat gently down the stream, merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream.

I don't see the point to death. So much is lost in that imposed feature of life. To live forever means that death can be overcome and the loss of life. I don't suppose you would disagree with that. — Posty McPostface

Yeah I agree. My only concern is that not being able to die (say after one million years) could be maddening. Or maybe not. But anything endless deserves careful consideration.

I suppose so.

I guess we could make the question more difficult by only offering total immortality or nothing at all. Then I really don't know what I'd choose. I may play it safe and just die (not on the spot, but in the usual way.)

It's not the status I covet so much as being paid — macrosoft

Did somebody suggest that you were going to get paid forever?

Did somebody suggest that you were going to get paid forever? — Bitter Crank

Oh, if we are mixing the two ideas, then I'm sure I would get bored of being a philosophy professor in a century or two. Maybe I'd become a virtuoso on the piano. Might take me 300 years, but I'd get there.

I've heard you play. 300 years? You are being extremely optimistic.

Just joking of course. But I believe it is a mistake to think that we would achieve greatness in any field if only we had enough time. We are who, and what, we are. Multiplying a normal life time by any exponent you want won't change your essential nature.

I like to read; that doesn't mean that I would enjoy reading all the books in the Library of Congress -- 16,000,000 plus the British Library's 25,000,000. If I read one book a day, it would take me 112,000 years.

Living forever, preferably in a young healthy body, is a fantasy of heaven transferred to earthly (or extraterrestrial) existence.

I might live to be 100. That would give me another 28 years. I am quite certain that in the next 28 years, even with excellent health, a clear mind, and physical vigor, that I would have the same kinds of experiences and ideas that that I had during the last 72 years. That's because I am still me. I might have a few fresh new ideas, I might find some new experiences that were quite interesting, and so on. But probably not. There will always be diminishing returns. If I were going to write a great novel, I would at least have written a moderately interesting short story by now. If I were going to inaugurate a new era in art, I would at least be able to draw a convincing apple.

I have my grave plot and marker all ready to go -- nothing to add but the date of death. (And mail in the fee to the Cremation Society -- which is something I really ought to get done.)

Multiplying a normal life time by any exponent you want won't change your essential nature. — Bitter Crank

What does this mean?

It would be hell. I think the spiritual meaning of ‘eternity’ is not that one lives forever in physical form, but that the real nature of the human being transcends ‘that which is subject to death and decay’. I take that to be the import of the Christian spiritual teaching, although it is often presented in a popular or vernacular form which obscures its real intent.

It means that you can only be you. I can only be me. You and I (and all humankind) are not made to live forever; we are made to live for a little while, and then die. It is not a cruelty, it is a grace that we have only a little time to become who we will be. "Three score years, and ten..." four score, maybe five. A century. It isn't a long time, but it is long enough.

Living forever, in this body with this mind, would be hell as @Wayfarer said.