immortality makes me tired

[campbellpaige]

I'm watching a report on "60 Minutes" about a professor at Cambridge who thinks it will soon be possible for humans to live to 500 years, or even 1000. I don't know if it's because I just got back from Mexico and jet-lag is wreaking havoc on me, or if it's because it's 7 p.m. and I'm still in my pajamas, but the whole discussion makes me want to

Comments

[seaturtletattoo]

You know, honestly at age 80, I think my grandpa is thinking "okay? what the hell else is left?" He has done it all, seen so much history. I think he is ready, after seeing so many friends die, living through and being in wars, I can just sense in him the whole "all righty then, let's get a move on". So yeah., 500 years? Ugh.

Too little imagination, what if myoung again?

[anonymous]

Campbellpaige, I think you lack imagination. Do you think someone born in 1853 could imagine a career as an aerobatic pilot? Would they find that exciting to do after having lived a full life of tending the cows if they'd been suddenly made 25 years of age physically and this new fangled airplanes thing was coming about? This same thing goes for the Seattle something commentors grand dad. If you haven't yet been a rock star or a neuro surgeon or whatever the future might yet invent, the list is limitless, then how can you possibly say you'd get bored? The problem is you both are looking at this through the lens of this ages limitations. Once those are gone one will be able to think differently. Try thinking a life of multiple careers or letting your savings amount to billions through compound interest and spending the rest of your life getting to know intimately every corner of the Earth all it's varied peoples and then maybe Mars and beyond. Why stop with just great grand children or only one family for that matter? Expand your minds

living a long time

[peanutgallery12]

As an avid reader of your LJ, I would love it if we could both live more years. That would mean that I would have the honor of reading your entries for a very long time! I know you will have a life to-do list, but your LJ's will be all I need to live a fulfilling life to the age of 876.

[clydeclod]

I think the time you stop checking things off your list is about the time your grandchildren start having grandchildren and you're still around to see it...assuming your eyes still work...

And that's another thing. We can be ALIVE much longer than we can have many of our faculties (see Terry Schaivo). Who cares if I'm ALIVE at 248 if I can't move my arm enough to get that one millionth quarter pounder with cheese up to my mouth?

Incidentally, from what I can tell, it's pretty much accepted in the scientific community that the human body just begins to hopelessly deteriorate by about age 150, at the latest. I've heard interviews with doctors who say that even if we could all live in a bubble with plenty of exercise and healthy food, we'd still only make it a little bit past the beginning of the next century.