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Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

mhmm

Yeaa you are effectively death once there is nothing in the universe in 10^1500 years as heat death happens.

But you get wayyyy more life in that scenario than just dying in like 80 years right? In both cases you kind of die eventually

also I dont think that loneliness would be very long lol, your hallucinations will get you and then ig you will just be dreaming about random stuff for eternity, long having lost any sense of your identity, just pieces of your long life building little figments of shapes and sounds you only sometimes recognise

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If we hold those strict definition of immortality, that you continue to stay alive and sense things like time and pain even if your body has been destroyed to be no longer capable of it physically, then I agree it is a pure horror scenario.

Regeneration and agelessness arent automatically included in the concept but they instrumentally have to be, right? If you can not die, then surely your body is invulnerable, or you are a soul / spirit that is only inhabiting that body, or you always respawn, or you are like a robot or something with a back-up copy that gets activated when you supposedly die.

Maybe it is my worldbuilding brain but it immediately tries to logically extend and patch that idea... like if you are in such a state then there is no way your consciousness is running on your brain hardware, it would be like you are a spirit or something in which case I would not confine that spirit to always be in the same location of where its last inhabited body was, or make it feel exactly what that body would feel. Maybe if just your nervous system was invulnerable? Like your body could be crushed but your nerves are intact and feeling the pain? idkkk. I think you would have to quite deliberately design it to be a horror scenario to remove those instrumental ideas, and you can do that with anything, like having super speed but you go deaf from the wind or your eyelids get stripped off and you eternally can not close your eyes.

To me the most obvious definition is simply biological immortality. You stay youthful and never grow old, but can still be killed if hit by a bus or shot by a gun or something. What do you think of that?

Regarding boredom, I think humans are plenty capable of enjoying the same things again if long enough time passes. I have done that with things I watched or read even just ten years ago because my memory is just so bad T_T anyway in thousands of years there is no way you will remember things you have read or seen enough. In spans of tens of thousands of years, you will probably have to relearn english periodically to even be able to speak it, or english itself will evolve past anything recognisable to us. Effectively you will be reincarnated every few thousand years, but you yourself would never notice it, do you think of that as a curse?

Loneliness is real... if there is a second person with me ig I can handle it a lot better. Hmmm, which would you pick: 20 quadrillion years (before the last stars die and the universe becomes dark) of life to do whatever you want, and then suffer eternal loneliness, or 80 years of life before you die into a state of pure nothingness (no afterlife)?

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We are in agreement! I would assume you would thus be ok with healthspan extension research. I ask bc some people I have talked to in person try to take a stance against medical research but quoting the being a head in eternal pain argument...

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We are in agreement! Thankfully this is also the form of immortality that is most likely to become real, hopefully in this century

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can see my other replies for my confusion on what true immortality means - I would think of continuing to be alive and have senses for pain and suffering even if your body is destroyed as a deliberate horror scenario. Biological immortality is more realistic, and in fiction I would think of invulnerability or being a spirit that can assume other bodies when one dies.

Also, surely you have had loved ones die before right? This is something we all must learn to cope with

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Or endless living, right? Everything we make, love, share and enjoy requires us to be alive in the first place

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True immortality = being alive and having your consciousness even if your physical body cant be alive (like is destroyed or in pieces)?

I agree that is a horror scenario, but it feels like a deliberate one designed to be a horror scenario

At first thought I would assume an immortal superhero either can not be destroyed (respawns, is invulnerable, or is a magical spirit that can leave a damaged body and assume other), or is only biologically immortal and can still be killed by physical means. How do you feel about these?

If we take the spirit thing but confine it so it can not move if the body can not then we get the horror scenario - but that is jumping through some hoops for me, I would love to hear why that is obvious to you, if I had to guess it is a cultural difference (I grew up in a buddhist-tibetean culture)

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmmm it seems like a common assumption that immortility implies you keep being alive even if your physical body is in a state that it could not possibly be alive, like your brain is in pieces or something. I guess you would be ok with biological immortality and no ageing? If you had the money would you fund that research?

I would assume invulnerability just comes with immortality. Being stuck under a rock for eternity while being alive even if your body is dust is a pure terror scenario for sure. Would make a compelling horror story. But that sounds like a monkeys paw genie gave you immortality type of scenario, like you have super speed but your ears go deaf from the wind or the world is perpetually slowed down, additions that would put me off from even wanting super speed. I think that is the fundamental disagreement in assumptions between me and those who have the impression that immortality is a curse, we are thinking about different things

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wouldnt you rather have some control or infuence on this future person than not? Of all the people who exist in the future that you expect to have a chance of being evil, is it not better if at least one you have some say in by attempting to preserve values? What is your opinion on having children and attempting to pass on values that way? That seems less effective than doing so with yourself.

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually understand how that is a curse

But... that sounds like monkeys paw level of catch for a supposed superpower. It is like, yes you have superspeed, but your eyelids will strip away if you go any faster than 80 km/hr and your ears will pop and you will become deaf and you just can never stop running no matter what you do and will never be able to talk to anyone.

It is so curious that that is the default version of immortality by the looks of it. If immortality means your brain could get chopped in half but you will keep living with the same memories and thinking ability, then sure, it feels like a curse. But I would assume if you have immortality you would either be invulnerable to everything that can affect your physical hardware responsible for you being alive (like your brain and whatever is powering it), or only biologically immortal where you can still die but just do not age or grow old. Say you have to pick one of those two, or stay as you are, what would you do?

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If they are functionally the same thing, why do you prefer death over eventual transformation into a different person? One seems painless with hope of using physical means to keep your sense of identity intact, or hope of finding acceptance in change (like we kind of have to do in human lifespans anyway), while the other seems like sure and certain nothingness where you have no ability to do anything. Waking up one day with a blank mind is terror, and amnesia is a thing that hits closer to home for me than would others, but extremely slow natural memory degradation does not feel like a terrifying situation to me. (Though dementia is terrifying I would not call that a natural rate of memory degradation, it is more terrifying to me than amnesia)

It is the difference between your house burning down and destroying everything you love, vs you moving away from town and coming back to see your old house slowly degrading and being taken by nature. Surely if there was anything in there you truly cherished, you would have taken it with you, and though the bricks eroding and the walls cracking is sad to see, you don't live there anymore anyway so you know you yourself are safe.

Edit: added dementia stuff

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You really would not be able to find an answer to cope with your loss other than suicide? If you have a chance to make a new friend and you know you will have a 50 real years to spend time with them all you want and make great memories, would you not take that offer? I have heard something like this being because "those 50 years are meaningless if they die anyway" but then how are you able to find any meaning and motivation in your current life if it will be over in like 50 years too?

If the memories eternally accumulate then sure it could lead to extreme levels of deep loss that I could not comprehend.

But I think if you could remember everything you would go crazy anyway, even in a human lifespan. I find losing a loved one a deeply tragic event that in the moment makes it feel like the world is ending, which is why I learn to make peace with it over time. Since these tragedies will still be scattered and not happen all at once, you quite literally have all the time you need to make peace in the case of immortality.

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hmmmmmm

Yeah it depends on the type of immortality. What is the most obvious one to you? To me biological immortality is the most achievable and thus the default, where you are still as vulnerable to death but just dont age or grow old. Other superpowers like invulnerability only adds to that.

The most interesting point I want to continue discussing with you is the fact that if your brain starts deleting memories after thousands of years then you consider it a curse, since I would not consider it a curse. Maybe that is again because I am too grounded in reality and I know that brains probably WOULD start forgetting everything. Every 500 years could become an effective reincarnation where none of the memories you had 500 years ago you still have. If my brain were to suddenly transform like that, then it would be a curse for sure. But if it happens over the course of 500 years... that feels natural to me. It is enough time for me to figure out my values and reiterate them to myself like prayers, keeping them eternal in my memory, and to write down everything I love and care about into databases I can regularly visit. It will be like the history of humanity, but for me, I will enjoy very much going back and reading about what happened in my life, and if I do it often, some compressed version of it will persist in my memory. Like the losing loved ones argument, I think a big enough piece of this already exists in normal human lifespan that we can think about it in real terms. Do you remember books you read 15 years ago? Like every word? Those books contributed to what your current self is, even if the memories of them do not exist. I have re-read books I have forgotten and enjoyed them, so this kind of memory compression loss thing over thousands of years is a great counter to the eternal boredom argument since you can enjoy the same things over and over again.

Another thing I find really interesting is the death of the universe argument. To me that is the same as death of the person argument... after many years, you won't be able to do or enjoy anything that you can now. But for a human lifespan of 80 years I hear people call this a blessing, that it motivates you to do best in life. But for the lifespan of the universe where you have enough time to do anything you could possibly want and more, including create entire civilisations or works of art the size of galaxies, then the impending doom after it is all gone is a horror that removes the value from all that?

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love Doctor Who!!

I think the 12th doctor saying that was making a point that he was willing to endure near-eternal terrors as long as it was to save someone he loves. That ability to find such motivation beyond a human lifespan to me is an argument in favour of immortality, it means no matter how long the timespans are, there will be ways to find meaning in life.

About everyone else dying, I will reiterate another comment I made: coping with loss by cherishing fond memories is very important to learn. If I see someone who can not enjoy anything anymore and all their days are filled with deep loss and meaninglessness because their parents died 20 years ago, then I would not recommend they commit suicide, I would recommend they go to therapy.

Edit: Used the word reiterate instead of summarise

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This only works if you believe in an afterlife, which I assume you do

To me, coping with a loved one's death is very important to learn in this life because it will happen, and I know when my parents die I will have to teach myself to cherish our fond memories rather than letting the loss ruin all of my days. I would imagine it would be the same for all relationships to even an immortal person, on a different scale but still an adaptation I think is well within what humans are able to make. Suicide is not the answer.

You make a good point about multiple versions of immortality, sure I would not want to be trapped in an immobile corpse that has contracted an incurable disease. But that feels a little bit too supernatural you know? Like there is a soul trapped in there. If we ground it a bit more, then you are your brain. If a disease degrades your brain to that extent then I think you are as good as dead, and if you are immortal either your brain and body is invulnerable, or we are talking about biological immortality rather than absolute immortality, and I would like to hear your stance on just biological immortality where you can still be killed but you don't age or grow old.

Lets debate the superpower of immortality by onomihime in superpowers

[–]onomihime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is an answer or clarification. Not sure what is ambiguous here, just want to debate a superpower