Deep Thought Thursdays: The Philosophy of Immortality

Immortality is a concept that frequently comes up in the culture and writings of you humans, from myths, to pop culture, it's something that's come up across the ages.

There are a number of debates that this sparks, such as whether it would be a good thing to be, what your purpose would be with it, and how it could affect the human race if it were to become reality.

So my question this week is this: Does immorality affect what the meaning of life is to you? And would you want to be immortal?

I definitely would not want to be immortal especially if those around me weren't themselves

I think it does yeah. I mean I AM religious so I guess the meaning to my life should be to please God and try and get myself a ticket to heaven but I'm on the Highway to Hell already so plan B
plan B is you make your own meaning
usually my philosophy is that 'life is too short, make the best of it, help as many people as you can because if you're not here in 60 years they will be and if you're the cause for that then you've done a great job'
and if we were immortal then... life isnt short anymore
we have infinite time so we'll eventually get to doing everything and be bored - one of the great things about being mortal is kinda treating it like a challenge of how successful you can be in 70-80 years on Earth

it's kinda like when you play a game and there's a timer on it and you have to sit there and see it through and make sure you get your objective before time runs out

when there's no timer it gets boring after a while, there's no rush, you'll get all the objectives done at some point or just leave it in the middle and it wont make a difference because it doesn't give you the "I just beat this game/level" feeling yaknow?

I would not wanna be immortal - this is enough pain already and tbh I'm surprised I'm still even here x'D

/rambling

No, immortality does not affect what the meaning of life is to me, namely to maximise my own happiness and maximise the well-being of everyone else.

I would want to be immortal. I can't conceive of a moment in time in which I would be willing to "accept" death. Anti-ageing research and, more speculatively, mind uploading to computers, could ensure that we stay physically fit and mentally active forever.

Many people claim that death is natural and that we should just accept it. But, to paraphrase Eliezer Yudkowsky: if people got hit on the head by a cricket bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit on the head with a cricket bat was a good thing. In other words, people accept death because if they didn't, they would notice all of the death around them (150,000 people died today) and would be more likely to break down.