The Immortality Option

HI Thr Alex,
Well Immortality is certainly something that is really captivating in shortsight but you have to see all the effects it brings with itself(for the person who is immortal)if even we say that all the physical effects are gone (aging etc) we still have to take the psycological effets in sight ,lets first consider the scenario that immortality is now possible and now it is possible to live forever, first of all it isnt something that will be available to a very large section of the society coz of one reason $$ its not gonna be cheap so leavin out the really rich ppl the smaller group of ppl who are going to be afford it will be able to carry out the procedure once (on one person),now he is immortal he is living on, he isnt aging while others around him are , all his friends , all his relatives everyone imaine what it wud feel like to see all your friends die while you get to live on and on and on till a point when all that you cherished is gone and you are left alone that would certainly drive any person mad and before you know it he would be asking for a mercy killing , someone may argue that they will move on find and meet new people but for how long , for how many times ?i mean you can only mend a broken heart for a certain number of times before it breaks down completely ,it would soon become impossible to adjust in these circumstances for anyone . OK that was the psycological pt of view but lets look at it form another point Lets consider that the everyone in the world is now immortal and its been so long that everyone has forgotten that something like mortality also exists in such a society immortality will certainly not be a problem , coz then they would be able to combine the wisdom of the past with the technology of the future you also raised the point about stealing the right of future generations well are we really i mean till someone isnt concieved(not born) for a thousand years what are we robbing them of?the person was never alive so he was never oppressed but this would impose one very big threat one very big problem which would be so dramatic that we cant even concieve what effetcts it would have, it would stop EVOLUTION in humans ,now we might think that cant bring out society crashing down can it? well i think it can because we too have evolved from animals what if some other animal that exists today will some day become an intelligent species too(assuming that a wipeout doesnt take place)now there would at some point be two equally competent species on this planet , just think what that would be like?I mean right now we are all bound by the fact that were all humans even if belonging to various backgrounds but essentially all of us are humans and still we plunder each other so much imagine if we now face a new and hostile species the Earth would be a warzone 24*7 if we are not immortal however the future humans will be much more advanced on a very fundamental basis for any other species to pose a real threat ,so if we really look at it Immortality would really have a lot more cons than pros ,so even if we developed something like this in my view it would really not be the great gift that it seems to be. P.S:this is my first reply so i would love to get some feedback on this , plz do mail me and tell me what you think about my views Thanks
Nikhil

Hello Once Again Gang,
In several Science Fiction novels that have
explored "The Immortality Option", the ones that come to mind include
"Against the Fall of Night" and "The City and the Stars" by Arthur C.
Clarke, and finally "The Giants Trilogy" by James P. Hogan, didn't
immortality lead to a stagnation in the societies (whether human or
alien) that chose it?

The stagnation as depicted in these novels was usually cultural,
scientific, and technological. From the stand point of evolution (both
biological and cultural) isn't death a good thing? It leaves the way
open for new experiments in humanity. Meaning new people replace the
old, thus bringing forth new thoughts, ideas, and concepts into the
world. Could we view death as an important factor in our continual
evolution as a species and a society? Could we view "The Immortality
Option" a form of "Temporal Imperialism" robbing future generations of
their place in the world?

In the novel "Tech-Heaven" Linda Nagata presents a future Earth where
nano technology and cryonics is perfected. These breakthroughs cause
huge sociological disruption. The future society depicted in the novel
comes up with an interesting solution, they decide that all cryonauts
who are revived and immortals should emigrate to space.

I only present these questions to open this topic for what may prove an
interesting discussion.

Alex

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