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Comment by Florin_Andrei | Hacker News Reader

I noticed a lot of people confuse "realistic" immortality (which is presumably achievable through advances in medicine, but does not imply an infinite life span - only a very very long one and the absence of mortal disease) with forced (mandatory) immortality (which means you are sentenced to live forever, you can't die no matter what you do).

I am perpetually surprised how few people realize that only the first kind can be discussed rationally, while the second kind is at best a purely theoretical hypothesis.

So you start talking with them about realistic, scientifically achievable, immortality, and you end up answering arguments against mandatory immortality. WTH?

This is probably a topic that does not lend itself to rational discourse, kind of like politics or sex. Most people create this coping mechanism to enable them to deal with the prospect of their own demise, and end up unconsciously hostile to the idea of immortality.

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My take:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/05/merits-of-the-gun...

"Even discussion of the platonic ideal of immortality is, I think, useful provocation against the backdrop of advancing biotechnology that will be able to extend the human lifespan significantly in decades to come. Those advances won't happen by themselves: people need to work on them, support them, and demand them. An economy of longevity-enhancing biotechnology must arise, and for that there needs to be - at a minimum - a whole lot more people talking and thinking about the prospects."

Whatever sins are committed in the post are absolved by merit of generating a Hacker News discussion in which people are once again reminded that the biotechnology train is coming - and the opportunities it presents are immense.

> I am perpetually surprised how few people realize that only the first kind can be discussed rationally, while the second kind is at best a purely theoretical hypothesis.

Depends on how you define the immortal part. For example, my disk drive can't be immortal, but with proper care, the data contained on it can be.

Does data-dumped me count as immortality? I think it should. If you eliminate all the wacky religious stuff people believe in (though I assume most HN'ers are atheist), aren't we just big biological stores of information?

If so, "you can't die no matter what you do" is essentially true, in that you could be restored from a recent backup -- the same way as when a hard drive fails.

> Does data-dumped me count as immortality? I think it should.

It depends on what consciousness ultimately is.

Even if consciousness goes with the data, this "wet" instance of it has still gone through death irreversibly.

My reasoning is that if I can convince someone that even unrealistic immortality is desirable, the rest falls into place. Realistic immortality is also sort of more boring to argue about. Sorry, please don't hate me.

> Realistic immortality is also sort of more boring to argue about.

Not necessarily. People seem to find talking about health care rewarding in some way, and that falls in the immortality discussion spectrum, I think.

> Sorry, please don't hate me.

You're going to make an awful immortal if you spend eternity worrying whether people will hate you or not.

I disagree. Personally, I would say no to the unrealistic version, wherein I have no escape clause, every time. I simply value the negative what ifs too strongly negative for it to be a rational wager. However, rationally speaking, the only way you can say no to the realistic version is if you're Catholic or otherwise have a strong (in your own mind) reason to be unwilling to commit suicide. Or if you have some reason you want to be old and decrepit, I guess.

> So you start talking with them about realistic, scientifically achievable, immortality, and you end up answering arguments against mandatory immortality. WTH?

In a society in which life-extending practices are widespread and accepted, an intentional "failure to take your medication" could be tantamount to suicide. Most governments don't currently support a person's right to choose to die, often acting to prevent suicide and (admittedly, inconsistently) bringing legal prosecution for the performance of euthanasia.

Granted, it isn't the same thing, but it suggests that consideration of "fantastic immortality" might bring insight into the ramifications of more realistic life-extending procedures.

How many governments today will punish people for failing to take their medicine? Usually they go with some bizarre double-think law where killing yourself is forbidden, but passively allowing yourself to die is fine.

Of course, even if someone passed a mandatory life extension law, it would be easy enough to get around if someone decided that it was time to die. Someone in good health who's actually serious about suicide is hard to stop, considering how many things are lethal.

Talking about the extremes of things - such as this - is a useful way of thinking about the subject.

After all, physicists posit perfectly spherical cows in a vacuum, why can't we posit something at the end of the spectrum of possibility?

The astrophysics version of the joke is funnier, but perhaps only if you're an astrophysicist.

"A farmer is having trouble with the milk production of his cows, and winds up engaging an astrophysicist to write a report. Three weeks later, he opens the report to find it begins: 'Let us consider a spherically symmetric cow, emitting milk equally in all directions..."

" Most people create this coping mechanism to enable them to deal with the prospect of their own demise, and end up unconsciously hostile to the idea of immortality."

bingo.

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