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Clinical Immortality
Topic Started: May 12 2009, 09:17 AM (198 Views)
Balthazar

So yeah, a lot of fairly creditable people seem to think that our that if anybody about 30 years old or under, living in a stable country, has a good chance passing the age of thousand years. This is because it seems likely there is going to be massive breakthroughs in organ transplantation and biomechanics in the near future. Theoretically if we manage to figure out a cost-effective way to produce stem-cells and get them to specialize as functional brain cells it'd be possible to extend the lifetime of a human being to practically eternity, for example.

But SHOULD anybody be allowed to live forever or even over a hundred years? If yes, who? Should we just take the greatest genius and artist and allow them to live? Or should we allow it for everyone as long as they will not reproduce? Or is a man living eternity on earth an abomination to God?
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Theophilus
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My morality professor called this "the rising future decision which all generations will endlessly debate". What a hell of a title.

Human beings I suppose will have to first ask whether they want clinical immortality at all. Then the question becomes not "is it moral to live forever" but "is it sound to decide when life ends, or death begins"? For many people, suicide is largely immoral. For those same people, killing is largely immoral. Immortality of the kind you're describing only gives those two alternatives for the person who tires of living at some point. I would say that it is immoral to begin a cyclical system that can only end in one of two equally unethical alternatives. If we live forever, we must either allow ourselves to die (suicide) or end our lives forcibly (murder) and any system with those two as the only alternative for escape is inherently flawed.

After that, the question becomes where then we do draw the line between "saving a life" and "beginning cyclical immortality". This has ever been a rugged human distinction, and one that we're murky on even if we think about it now. If we see a man drowning in a shallow pool, surely we dive in to save him. the line of people who would willingly do so is immensely long. If a man is thrown into a pool, the line shortens. If a man throws himself into the pool, it shortens again. If the man stops the first person who attempts to help him, the line becomes short indeed.

As for the relation in terms of God. Creation and end are both inevitable virtues of the universe, rather than simply God's exacting will. While life begins at the behest of a creator, it is the system of the universe's part that ends it. Ergo when one contracts a deathly illness it is not by the work of God that it is done, but by nature. God awaits the system's completion of the task, since in a spiritual view the only thing the universe is stripping the person of is their mortal coil, and not their "True life". Imagine one of those circular penny funnels.

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Let us imagine God as he exists outside of time and space. (Yes, we're assuming there is a God. Yes in this example and many others he exists outside of time and space, and yes I'll be willing to talk about it somewhere else). God exists outside of time and space (the universe as we perceive it) and inserts us into this penny funnel (we are the coins, in this example) of human life.

We all spin around towards the center (Death) and some of us take a shorter time than others. This could be the result of our nature (innate size, etc.) that are arbitrary things we cannot control. Sometimes we collide with each other and fall down instantly. The person who drops them (provided he's smart enough) knows where they're going to go, and how they'll move. But he's not directly poking each one and saying "in you go", otherwise we'd have no universal system at all, we'd just have God plucking us at random like vegetables, and the universe would have no purpose outside of experiences that we get before we die.

So really functional immortality doesn't "piss God off" as much as it spits in the eye of the universe itself, which I'm going to argue never really works out, because I promise the universe will get the last laugh. The longer you live, the more time you have to get hit by that flying car. If it's time to hit the center, you can make yourself a smaller target, and thus roll slower, but you're going to get there one way or another.
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Balthazar

The whole "thousand monkeys with a typewriter and infinite time" -thingy. Yes, you WILL most likely die inevitably, but the time it might take would make it seem "immortality" to us.

Also with new technologies it would be possible to save people from situations where we'd today already consider them dead. Hell, and what if we went for the mechanical resolution and decided to upload a consciousness into a computer? And what if that computer consisted of a self-maintaining swarm of nanobots (this is a popular idea in science fiction)? Not only would this render a person practically untouchable by time, it would also make them RIDICULOUSLY harder to kill by any conventional methods.

So what I'd like to ponder here is not really whether there's a way to become more or less immortal, but rather whether we should choose to take that route should it present itself. Personally I don't know. While right now, in my young age, I find the concept of immortality (or at least a VERY long life) to be extremely desirable. I do, however, acknowledge that my opinion will most likely change with the passing of years.

What do you think?
Edited by Balthazar, May 14 2009, 04:45 PM.
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Theophilus
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Quote:
 
Human beings I suppose will have to first ask whether they want clinical immortality at all. Then the question becomes not "is it moral to live forever" but "is it sound to decide when life ends, or death begins"? For many people, suicide is largely immoral. For those same people, killing is largely immoral. Immortality of the kind you're describing only gives those two alternatives for the person who tires of living at some point. I would say that it is immoral to begin a cyclical system that can only end in one of two equally unethical alternatives. If we live forever, we must either allow ourselves to die (suicide) or end our lives forcibly (murder) and any system with those two as the only alternative for escape is inherently flawed.


I would say that any system such as the one that you're proposing where the only two exists are suicide and murder would be inherently flawed.
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Devoid

Im interested this particular topic was brought up, i chose an exciting time in the period of biomolecular sciences to earn my degree and this topic has indeed been debated a few times, it is indeed likely that within the next 50 or so years we will be able to artificially "grow" human organs for transplantation in vitro (in the lab) and specific genes which help contribute towards the aging process have been identified with the mapping of the human genome and its possible they could be "silenced"

However i would argue that the possibility of inducing immortality (from natural causes) is nigh on impossible due to the huge amount of factors involved in the aging process one of which is damage at a cellular level from free radicals (reactive oxygen species) which are always generated in our bodies (particularly exacerbated by alcohol, smoking, illegal drugs).

Another is telomere shortening, stem cells can only divide a specific number of times due to the shortening of telomeres (ends of chromosomes) however it is possible this could be rectified by in vitro developed stem cells i suppose.

Back onto the morality perspective i as both a scientist and a human being am vehemently against ever trying to produce an immortal state in human beings it would be devastating to the planet as a whole (rising population) the economy (new generation unable to find jobs due to the older generation still being in work) and to a large degree medicine (constant maintenance). Also as a human being i also like the idea of growing into an insane old professor with my bottle of scotch, tweed jackets and slippers!
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Balthazar

So how about uploading your consciousness to a computer, possibly that nanobot network I suggested earlier (I am not going to say this model is realistic, just taking my train of thought to the last stop)? That way there would next to no damage to the environment. From a PURELY moral standpoint, in a situation where very little harm is caused to anything or anyone by your extended lifetime, would extending a human life to potential infinity be wrong?

Theophilus
 
I would say that any system such as the one that you're proposing where the only two exists are suicide and murder would be inherently flawed.

Personally I don't see why suicide should be regarded as innately wrong. If a person freely wishes to end their own life, aware of the potential downsides of such action, why should they be denied their wish? Furthermore, even if their reasons to end their life were be flawed - which, I agree, quite often is the case - shouldn't they still have the right to rule over their life? In the end, WHO is it who gets to decide whether somebody should live or be allowed to die?
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Theophilus
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I would argue suicide is wrong on a variety of notes, but I'll leave out the Christian ones, as no one is forced to accept them in a topic like this one.

1) Theory of future choice
2) Theory of natural immorality
3) The End of Itself

1) Theory of Future Choice:
If we were to say that it is the choice of a person as a result of their free will to commit suicide, then we would be defeating free will itself. Just as it is immoral to unjustly (without just cause) take away the free will of another through actions that inflict upon them, suicide does the same to the person in question. It takes away their future ability to choose, which is not an option available to human beings. Essentially it is the same as selling oneself into slavery: certainly possible, but morally improper as it then removes oneself from being able to make future choices. It would be much the same as enlisting in a concentration camp. Ethically then, suicide does not embrace free will, but rather spits upon it.

2) Theory of natural immorality:
We could also argue that nature itself does not mean for the taking of life. Human beings are a vast exception to the rule of animal choices, in that we are given freedom to choose. However, we avoid abusing this freedom in such a manner that is abhorrent to nature -for example, incest is a morally wrong action. Selling oneself into slavery is a morally wrong action. These are indeed actions that we may choose to do, but they are actions without benefit, and thus are immoral. Free will gives us the ability to distinguish between two choices and choose what seems to be the most beneficial one. Naturally speaking however, there is nothing "beneficial" concerning most cases of suicide.

3) The end of itself: Morality as a stand point is a judgment upon whether one's actions would be morally permissible if all the world followed suite. For example, even at its basest, murder is immoral because it is self defeating, if all of society were to act in this way, there would be no society. Ergo when we are making any decision we must decide if we would choose to generalize among society our own decision, and inflict that decision upon others.
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