A question that appears in Alphaville's version of "Forever Young", and a subject of endless philosophical controversy over the years. It is the theme of Tuck Everlasting, and appears in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: "The temporal immortality of the human soul..."

I don't think the idea of living forever can really be comprehended, because it's lack of an end. This would require existing past the end of the universe, but that doesn't seem impossible for a sufficiently advanced species. (See: Linde Scenario)

I wouldn't be able to answer this question because of that. However, I'd like to say that I would prefer a life where I don't have a set limit on how long I may exist, where I can choose when it's time to end this life and see if there is anything beyond, or if it's just an eternal rest. 100 years, especially today with all the changes, is not nearly long enough - not being able to see all that will happen in the future would break my spirit so completely and thoroughly.

I'm already guilt ridden that I thought to use this movie as part of an argumentative foundation for this topic, but Interview with a Vampire deals with this idea of eternal life, albeit mildly, when contrasted with the time line of normal mortals. One question I think that should be asked instead of 'Do you really want to live forever?' is 'Can you handle living forever if the rest of the world changes without you?'

Since we are discussing a theoretical situation, let's say that if you could live forever, you would either go it completely alone or you could take select people with you. The social element is the most boggling one when talking about eternal life. We could all handle watching technology or history in the making, to witness all the linear noteworthy evolution of generations. With such access, one might say, you cease being a human at all, since all the aspects of what we know as human would no longer apply to you.

You would be isolated from anyone with whom you had a considerable amount in common, you wouldn't be able to express love fully because they would always be dying on you, and you wouldn't get to participate in the lives of others at their pace. You would, in essence, become like a god, manipulating the circumstances because you can see past the present into the predictable future, one you have had vast experience with before.

I am not immune to the dis-satisfaction with the present of the forseeable future, but I am not so unhappy that I believe that getting more time is going to solve anything. We are often more likely to want more of what we already have available to us, in a new wrapper. Rather than work through the life we've found ourselves in, we want a new life, a fresh start, unaware that the same follies await us no matter how many chances we get. We are human, and we are only capable of so much emotional upheaval and social change.

To understand our limits is, I believe, a more mature place to start than to assume that we can handle more than we've ever been given before and assume a diety-like existance. I have a hard time accepting that we are as bitchin' as we think we are.

If I can't live forever, at least, I would like to have a backup. I don't know what would I do with that, specially because if what it's left from me is just a backup, then the decision would in the hands of others.

Assuming our self can be downloaded into a machine, this machine would have to be eternal and unaffected by such things as the end of our Sun, or worst, the end of the universe.

So if we can't live forever, then we would have to exist in some kind of medium, as long as it has some kind of external support. And if this external support is affected by natural laws, then we need some imaginative solution, as the Omega Point Theory proposed by Frank Tipler in his book The physics of immortality (1995).

Nodes for further reading:

• Transhumanist Terminology
• I Know When The World Will End
• posthumanity
• Omega Point

What are the benefits of living forever? You never die. (Not naturally, anyway.) Presumably, you stay young, hale and hearty. (Provided your vision of immortality is ideal.) You get chances to learn more about the past, present and future. (It'll make more sense when you think about it.) You can accomplish practically anything. (Aside from the impossible.) You'd accrue fuckloads of superannuation. (When do I get to use it, again?)

What are the disadvantages? You're still vulnerable to non-natural deaths. (Illnesses. Wounds. Famine. Fire. Flood.) It still takes time to do things. (So don't get impatient.) People all around you are dying, particularly loved ones. (IMHO, you CAN NOT love again. Not like that.) If your vision of immortality is not ideal, you turn into frail, weak, old people. (Just like now.) Shithouse music still gets played. (Yeah, that's right, Spice Girls. I'm looking at you.)

Personally, I would prefer a better alternative.

I often wish I had a device that could slow down, or even freeze, time for everything around me (at my will). I would not be affected by this device, save for the fact that I would age at the reduced speed (or at an exceptionally low rate, if I happened to freeze time). The process is reversible (ie. I can speed time back up), but the device would not support travelling backwards in time (that comes with an expensive upgrade, and is only compatible with the beta version, of which there is only one in the universe). I would still age. I would still die. But I would accomplish more.

Another alternative is my theory on the afterlife. Yes, I'm a scientist-in-training, but this is pretty plausible (as is every theory about death). We become ghosts, but not in the traditional sense. We travel to a land that is shaped to our liking, with our subconscious forming a large amount of it, and even morphing our own individual worlds as we travel through time inside this world. Needless to say, the traditional laws of physics no longer apply (unless we decide they do) - in fact, no laws apply unless we decide they do. Our minds are able to bend this individual universe to our will. Ergo, our appearance and fitness is that of us at our favourite or most ideal age (for most people, this would be in the range 15-35, I'd say). We stay this way forever, until we decide to quit the universe entirely. The disadvantage is that nothing would be as satisfying as in the real world, since we are mere ghosts, and accomplishing tasks is far too easy...

So, like, we can see vampires and werewolves and stuff too?
Nope. Just other ghosts.
Oh. Well. Um. That sucks...