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All the above all good points. Naturally, "immortality" is shorthand for something else, there are always codes to decipher. Nonetheless, IMO if only one being ever becomes immortal it is worth the effort.
Given the question is framed as "forever" overburdens the value of asking.
At this historical moment, the possibility of forever is so remote as to be beside the point. Might immortality be fondly wished? Perhaps. Is it a credible forecast? As of yet, hardly.
However living an extended lifetime, well beyond 150 perhaps even 500, is worth asking due to 1) what technology legitimately promising 2) as well as the respondent's ability to grasp those numbers.
Are those numbers even credible? Yes because achieving that kind of lifespan has not to do with overcoming death but with reducing the progressive damage and deterioration we call "aging and death." And if, as is being predicted, slowing aging and pushing off death will extend lifetimes, the possibility exists of even more powerful technologies will emerge during those years extending life even further.
Of course, this applies assuming nothing catastrophic occurs.
Personally, I don't know if there is anything that follows this existence. But should there be, I would want to travel into those "realities" to continue exploring being. Until then I want as much of this reality as fills me and keeps me compelled.
Yes, Ed, and living to say the age of 150 isn't such a bad deal. If an openminded teenager would accept that he or she might possibly live to the age of 150, they are accepting that they would have 120+ years left. As an aside, I joined alcor because if even only one person is ever reanimated it would be worth it.
(BTW, I swear I do not know how the three messages above got posted. I remember doing two, because one message did not go through, however after the two appeared a third one was also posted simultaneously. Once in awhile something anomalous such as that happens. notice how the last two have the same "hours ago" after my handle-- so it couldn't have been an imposter.
It was the strangest glitch so far.
I think indefinite life expectancy for all humans is achievable, and desirable, but according to our understanding of the physical universe, inviolable eternal life is not something that the universe permits.
It would take a monumental shift in physics, namely the discrediting of the Laws of Thermodynamics, to allow for eternal life. Moreover, there is always the non-zero probability of death occurring, so probabilistically, over an infinite time interval, death is certain to occur at some point.
Nevertheless, I will continue to live by the creed, "Live forever, or die trying". Living forever may not be possible, but I will try to do so regardless. Screw death.
Genevieve Galarneau isn't necessarily entirely mistaken; however the comment is better off posted at a Jeremy Rifkin site; if one blogs at a Christian site to say Jesus was a fake and religion is humbug, it is wasted motion.
H+ is something I AM optimistic about.
PS,
Not that Genevieve Galarneau (or say Jeremy Rifkin) is necessarily entirely mistaken, only that at an h+ site such commenting is out of place; as if one were to go to a Christian site to write Jesus was a fake, religion is humbug, there is no afterlife.
H+ is the one 'thing' I am optimistic about.
I say the opposite of the comment above; her's is Paul Erlich/ Malthusean thinking. This is one topic I am optimistic about because some young people alive today CAN live forever. But what sort of lives they will lead is open to any and all questions.
We shouldn't give anyone the desire to live forever. If people didn't die, then we would over populate even quicker and all too soon there would be no resources to go around. Why live forever if your life is filled with suffering? Instead we should tell our children that death isn't in opposition to life but in relation. Death isn't something to be defeated, but a necessary eventuality that will restore balance to the Earth.