Comment by March E. on August 20, 2012 at 12:12am

That is a tricky question. I suppose it depends on which resources we would use and how we manage to achieve immortality. Some say that we might transfer our consciousness into machines to become immortal. Many cultures around the world have ways to cope with death. It certainly would revolutionize how we view life and living. Death seems to make us feel a sense of urgency to get things done, but so does life. What we do with our immortal lives may be a key factor in determining it's "morality." The way I look at it is that we can either spend our immortal lives serving all of mankind or we can squander it like so many of us do with our mortal lives. 

Comment by The Shiznit on August 20, 2012 at 12:55am

It's a very interesting question, Tea, because as March pointed out, immortality {or at least something very close to it}  is indeed a realistic future possibility for humanity because of our rapid advances in technology. Aside from our advances in health-care, it will also be possible in the very near future for us to become partially cybernetic and to thereby significantly extend our life spans. And if you add in the possibility of computers becoming intelligent & consciously aware of their own existence, and thereby becoming a new form of life, with indefinite life spans... well, we are being faced with a whole slew of questions about what it means to be human, as well as challenges to our current values & ethics, etc.  In a way, I suppose you might say that morality and mortality go hand in hand.  :-) 

A question I started asking last year, {which can be found in detail here} is, "Where would consciously intelligent machines of the future derive their morality from?" Some people like to think that we would just give them ours... but if they actually are going to be independent thinkers, then I don't think that we should count on them sharing our value systems. 

From my current understanding {belief?}...  our own moral codes are basically derived from {or revolve around} our own personal selfishness, and involve things like our own personal safety and security, which would be associated, {by extension,} with our fear of death. As was outlined in the U.S.'s Declaration of Independence, "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" are rights that all human beings cherish; and what we all commonly consider to be morally right or wrong can usually be traced to actions that either support or threaten one of those things. 

And I'll throw this in as some extra "food for thought" -- the Hebrew scriptures, or Bible, claims that mankind used to live for a very long time in the early periods of our history; and our morality then was much the same as it is now.  I'm sure that you've probably heard of Methuselah... but he wasn't the only one in his generations to live for hundreds of years... he just set the record.  lol

{This might have been better as a discussion post, btw, since you asked a question that could have various and debatable answers.}

Comment by Bill Vemis on August 20, 2012 at 8:31am

If we had civilizations on different planets I would like immortality. Every new generation from one planet! Its nice, productive, and sticks together. Infinity space, infinity life. If someone wanted to die it would be by his own hand. Many, many problems would rise, and many benefits, too. But our society is not ready for something like that and better noone give it to us even if it is possible. But either way everything will get in balance with or without immortality.

Crocodiles are immortal ,and they dont even care. xD

Comment by The Berns on August 20, 2012 at 10:21am

And I say: No one is ever ready for something like that. It just has to happen; and when it happens, huge problems will arise. And they will fade in time, one way or the other, until humans are used to living life a very new way.

I don't think it is immoral, but it could be. A very difficult question.

Comment by Sorlaize on August 20, 2012 at 12:17pm

Our value systems and culture, society, and entire civilization are built off of our mortality (and are only 'fun' because of these limits.. limits in consciousness, too..)

In human terms, there are plenty of issues with that, also. However, even if immortality doesn't apply to a human through 'unfairly' gained wealth, it will happen when we have AI systems that think for themselves. Technology, cultural developments.. will thrive on it. Because, that's the nature of the ability to gain so much knowledge and maintain it.. and in this age, that's what we consider valuable.

The fact that we'll see computers who slowly turn into humans in the near future .. and be jealous of them for having freedom; no tiredness; no physical restraints; no need for sleep, and so on .. is an example of how unprepared the human psyche & model of meaning is, when confronting the nature of reality.

Comment by Sorlaize on August 20, 2012 at 12:23pm

@The Shiznit

From my current understanding {belief?}...  our own moral codes are basically derived from {or revolve around} our own personal selfishness, and involve things like our own personal safety and security, which would be associated, {by extension,} with our fear of death.

Yes, everything we do today.. every thought we process, can be viewed as a model that the mind, as a system, builds over the generations of our species. In computer graphics / computation / video game systems programming, we call this 'emergent behaviour.

Comment by Sorlaize on August 20, 2012 at 12:34pm

Why should anybody be allowed to consume resources indefinitely and thus depriving indirectly many others the right to live their life?

For me this is interesting because it is where human meaning breaks down entirely. Things that exist forever, traditionally, are things we exclude from judgement, or a state of 'living' .. and this goes all the way from primitive psychology [I was just watching The Thing and I noticed we always see fire as something dead.. when in fact philosophically it could be said to be alive.. we say the environment is dead, as humans. This may as well include the natural world, if we aren't involved directly/personally in caring for plants etc.] .. to thoughts about the state of the world. We are still concerned, primarily, with living people. It's not something conscious, but all we see on TV are human beings. Even when we see animals and mountain ranges and forests and ponds filled with small wildlife.. these are typically human-relative scales to see things on. All this means.. it means, we have made life about living the human way. So, actually, it doesn't pay to live forever if that means you are excluded from a lot of things.

Philosophically, there's a lot more to explore though, about the value of life. I would give the example -

Why is it that, as someone living in a rich nation with my own home and PC and Internet access, a healthy amount of food etc etc... why is it that this inequality compared with poorer people is never addressed? Why must there be so much squalid living? Why must there be so much injustice in the world which *never* goes addressed in our mainstream culture and our thoughts? (Well.. how would we even live if we troubles ourselves with that. I know it's not so practical. But it's a point of philosophical consideration.)

What is the value of a life? If we quantify that; surely it is some sort of suicide of human nature to do that in the first place. Which brings a problem for human life as it is today. But if we need to solve such a problem to continue existing...

Deep stuff.

Comment by The Berns on August 20, 2012 at 1:25pm

Assuming that we could all be immortal... assuming that it's normal to be immortal... wouldn't that make death even more.. drastic? More dramatic? More tragic, if it happens by accident? Something that's even more considered to be bad, or feared, instead of natural and accepted?  

Deep deep stuff. :D

Comment by Tea Bitsadze on August 20, 2012 at 8:08pm

@The Shiznit, thanks. Of course I knew about Methusaleh... But I will need to refer to your earlier posts. :)

Thanks to all for interesting questions and feedback!

(and yes, next time it will be a discussion post. :)  thnx)

Comment by The Shiznit on August 22, 2012 at 9:30pm

Here's an interesting article I stumbled across recently which is somewhat related: 

Do You Want to be Immortal?  Really?

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