Would you live forever if you had the choice? | INFJ Forum

Would you live forever if you had the choice?

TinyBubbles

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Oct 27, 2009
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Why or why not?

Do you consider life better than the alternative? (in every situation? consider euthanasia)

And what do you think the alternative consists of?
 
I wouldn't want to live forever. Forever is a long time and there is only so much one can do and wish for in a lifetime. The reason why we strive and work so hard is because life is short. We want to take of the little time we have. But if we live forever, life will lose its meaning, as well as many other things, we perceive as valuable right now.
 
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no, i would hate to live forever (in this life.) i would hate life and everything in it would seem so repetitive.
 
Why or why not?

Do you consider life better than the alternative? (in every situation? consider euthanasia)

And what do you think the alternative consists of?

No, but I'd take my time deciding.
 
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Why or why not?

Do you consider life better than the alternative? (in every situation? consider euthanasia)

And what do you think the alternative consists of?

No. I love to live my life with limit.

Life is best in its way, i have tried to understand this. I am happy with this point.
 
I get the idea that it’s not that most people want to live forever. They just don’t want to die because they don’t, maybe can’t, fathom what it really means to not exist (in the simplest sense of the word, as a living person, etc.).

Anyway--and this is largely formed around the fact that I read and loved Tuck Everlasting as a kid--part of life is that it's always changing and that there isn't enough time to do everything, so you have to prioritize. You don't always have enough time to make decisions, so you don't always make the right choices. You don't often get second chances to fix what you mess up. You just have to keep going. I mean, that's what makes it life and makes it mean something. Once given an endless amount of time, you would experience everything differently and think of "life" very differently.

What I mean to say is that I get the feeling that over time you would value life less and less so that eventually it really wouldn't mean much at all either way. I just wonder, after so much time, what more "living" there could be to be done.
 
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I would choose to live a bit longer, but definitely not forever. Immortality is always a curse whenever a fictional character gets it... Death is a very important part of life. It helps define it.
 
I would want to live forever, but it would be really sad seeing everyone I love die. I'd be happier if I got to take a certain someone with me ;). I'd be happy with immortality but I'd enjoy the ability to off myself if I ever wanted to "say if I got sick and would be stuck like that if I didn't get offed". Though if it was immortality with perfect health, nah, I'd still like the ability to die if say the world became hell on earth.

As for living as an immortal, I'd find it just fine dandy and enjoyable. I'd live just as I do now but without the worry of "what will I do when I'm too old to work" or, "I have to get a career soon before its too late". I'd be able to work enough to live and have fun, save some for if I want to go on adventures, etc etc. I'd be able to become a sort of time-capsule for everyone I ever knew, and it would be an honor.

As for life losing meaning or prioritizing, hello, there are still a world full of mortals and moments that will never come again! BS that life would lose meaning. The fact that you're could last forever make it mean more, you shouldn't waste it or abuse yourself because you will be around for a long time. You'll appreciate the past, the now, and what may come more than ever. I don't understand this fatalist attitude everyone has.

I still wanna take Chaz with me though.
 
Would you have eternal youth, or would you just keep getting older and keep decaying without relief like the immortals in Gulliver's Travels? If your physical appearance didn't change, how would immortality affect your mind? (Would your mind degenerate? Would you be able to relate to people so much younger than yourself?) And what would people do if/when they found out about your immortality? How would that change the way they felt about you? What's more, how would that change the way you felt about them, knowing their lives would seemingly go by so quickly?

I thought about all of that after posting. It's difficult to answer a question like this in one go considering how many different ideas there are of immortality and the fact that everyone is just different and would therefore respond differently to the situation.
 
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I'd be happy with immortality but I'd enjoy the ability to off myself if I ever wanted to

^

there are so many great instruments that take years and years to learn, even if i could only live for an extra few hundred years i would go back to piano or become the worlds most informed percussionist, learn all the scale variations on a guitar, or master the fiddle! the possibilities are endless, there's just not enough time in the day.
 
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As spiritual beings, we will live forever in some form. Just not in the human capsulated being bodies, with the limited conciouseness that we have now.
 
I've thought quite a bit about this off and on.

I'm curious as to the actual physical process, is your body completely invulnerable or would you still get injured only to bounce back from the damage quicker than a normal human. Would seem that you would still require food and water to stay in top physical conditioning and adverse conditions would still be uncomfortable, ie extreme heat and cold.

I can think of numerous terrible things that could happen to an immortal. Imprisonment, torture, being paraded about as a circus freak whom can never die. Consider if you were locked in a safe and dropped into the ocean, would you eventually lose consciousness due to lack of air? If you did, how long would your body and soul be trapped there until discovered or hopefully the container eventually disintegrated. Even if the container eventually disintegrated likely your body would be quite the feast for the life forms in the ocean, how much longer till you washed up onto land or discovered if ever? Then there is being buried alive. Lots of terrible things that could occur to your vessel yet still leave your soul quite trapped in this existence.

Obviously after a few lifetimes you might become quite reluctant to form any strong emotional bonds to others. Then there is having to reinvent yourself every so often because if anyone actually discovered your secret the aforementioned dangers could occur.

The bonus is you have more than enough time to experience and pursue everything you want to. After awhile though everything might get a bit boring.

I'd go for it, believing I could do many things with such an ability. After awhile though, maybe a few hundred years or a few thousand, I'd probably regret it and wish for a rest.
 
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no, i would hate to live forever (in this life.) i would hate life and everything in it would seem so repetitive.
^ This, it's the repetitiveness that would really make it unbearable for me particularly in terms of global events.
 
Well, I would have said yes before reading Skathac's post. But now I can't get the mental image of being trapped in a cramped safe in the bottom of the ocean for eternity out of my head. >.<

In a more optimistic sense, however, assuming that my aging would basically pause, and assuming that there was SOME way that I could possibly die (i.e. stabbed through the heart, decapitated, saying, "I take it back!") I would definitely want to live forever. I don't believe life would lose its meaning and I definitely don't believe there's "only so much" to experience. The world is huge! Not just geographically but also in terms of what it contains. Not a day goes by that I don't wish I had more time to do all the things I want to do, explore all the places I want to explore, learn all the things I wish to learn.

I'm also of the belief that when I pass away, there's no shiny happy afterlife. I will simply cease to be. And that idea is the most frightening concept I can imagine.

The only downside, imo, would be, as others said, watching the people I know and love die and not being able to grow old and live a normal life with someone I loved.

And hi btw. =) New to the forum. Blame Skoffin.
 
Well, I would have said yes before reading Skathac's post. But now I can't get the mental image of being trapped in a cramped safe in the bottom of the ocean for eternity out of my head. >.<

In a more optimistic sense, however, assuming that my aging would basically pause, and assuming that there was SOME way that I could possibly die (i.e. stabbed through the heart, decapitated, saying, "I take it back!") I would definitely want to live forever. I don't believe life would lose its meaning and I definitely don't believe there's "only so much" to experience. The world is huge! Not just geographically but also in terms of what it contains. Not a day goes by that I don't wish I had more time to do all the things I want to do, explore all the places I want to explore, learn all the things I wish to learn.

I'm also of the belief that when I pass away, there's no shiny happy afterlife. I will simply cease to be. And that idea is the most frightening concept I can imagine.

The only downside, imo, would be, as others said, watching the people I know and love die and not being able to grow old and live a normal life with someone I loved.

And hi btw. =) New to the forum. Blame Skoffin.

Welcome to the forums! :)

Yes the trapped in a safe at the bottom of the ocean while still being conscious is the worst case scenario I can think of. Only worse than being buried alive because it really feels completely hopeless. I considered how long would it take you to become completely mad. You would have more than enough time to think about things of course but after awhile you would lose all sense of time and it might not be so bad once the final barriers of sanity broke..might not but likely would be.

Torture on the other hand would be extremely terrible at first but I think you could desensitize yourself and have a bit of fun at your torturer's expense. I figure that popping jokes at the torturer while being eviscerated would help break the ice. Carrying on conversations while appearing completely unaffected by what was going on may cause some sort of psychological effect. Then the good fun of breaking in new torturers that aren't privy to the nature of your abilities. "Oh you got blood all over your pants. It'll be tough to get that out. Yeah I'm a bit of a spurter so you may want to stand off to the side if you plan on nicking something important again. Don't worry everyone is a bit nervous their first time, practice is the only way you'll get to Carnagie Hall!" Someone would eventually get frustrated and you'd be buried alive or dropped into the ocean in a safe through.



Bound for a life of solitude in any event. :(
 
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No. Some hundreds or thousands of years would suffice for me. Enough time to learn and discover.
why? Because of vampire movies. :lol:
 
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Hmm ... All I've ever known is being alive. I don't remember when it started, and it hasn't ever ended. No beginning, no end = for ever? I've been told it started in the 80's and that it will end some day. I guess when I'm gone, I won't get to remember how it ended either... Maybe I do have eternal life?
 
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