Immortality

If you could live forever, would you? Why or why not?

This is yet another question which has consumed much of my thinking time. And I guess it boils down to whether it’s better to live immortally or have a definite life span.

At this stage in life, I think it’s better if humans just died off at a certain point.

First I consider the more interesting side of things: immortality. I consider: is it even possible to live immortally? I don’t think so. Even with today’s brilliant minds and brilliant medical advances, there’s no way we can achieve immortality in a person. Immortality means an infinite life span, as long as that person isn’t killed in a freak accident. It’s possible to prolong someone’s life, but it would take forever to reach infinity. Think about this: if we put 5 extra years on the human life span every year, then how long will it take to reach infinity years? Forever! What about 6 trillion years every year? The answer is still forever! And there’s no way we’re going to make the quantum leap from a definite lifespan to an indefinite lifespan.

But with all of the aforementioned out of the way, here’s what I’ve been considering when it comes to immortality. Would someone even want to live forever? I don’t think so. People who are old, who are at the end of their lifelines because of chronic illness often feel peace right before they die. They don’t want to continue with life, they’re done with it. And people who are super-healthy and live to be 126 years old, that’s great! But imagine how boring life would get after 5000 years of nonstop living, and still having infinity years to live. Wouldn’t you just be sitting in bed doing nothing because of this 1000-year-old disease that’s been afflicting you?

Considering mortality: I think this reflects our current situation right now (duh). Eventually, your body just runs empty and you die. And most senior citizens are fine with that. Mortality isn’t a bad thing; although it can cause much grief; it’s only natural.

When I was young I wished I could live forever. Then one day, my class was discussing this. The teacher said “Imagine if everyone became immortal right this instant. Nobody would die from now on. People would still be born. What’s going to happen to our population?” This made me think. If the death rate was zero and the birth rate was nonnegative, then our population crisis might just be around the corner. I believe that that’s yet another reason why humans are mortal, because God designed us to be that way.

Of course, it would be nice if I could live a few extra years  :).