[ExI] Future Bodies

[Kelly Anderson]

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 10:25 AM, Ben <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:

> William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >we should be able to live for
> >hundreds of years.  But would we want to?  I am thinking, at age 72, of
> all
> >the people I have known who have died already, which has included most of
> >my friends.  Like the Man from Mars in Stranger in a Strange Land who was
> >worried about the accumulation of sad memories, I wonder if suicide will
> be
> >the main cause of death when our bodies are redesigned to near perfection.
>
>
> This is a common objection to extened lifespans.  But I'd be lonely!  All
> my family and friends would be dead!  To which I say: Don't you know how to
> make new friends?
>

Even more reasonable, don't you have any friends who want to live longer
with you?


> Well, if you assume that you were /the only single person in the world/
> who had an extended life, it would be an issue.  Your new friends would
> keep dying and it would be sad.  But you won't be the only one!  I don't
> even know where that notion comes from. Highlander, maybe?  One thing we
> can be sure of, there will not Only Be One.  If you live past the 120-year
> barrier, you'll have plenty of company, don't doubt it.
>

Yeah, me and the other 150 year olds will be partying over at dungeon 51 in
2114... You can count on it! LOL.


> The accumulation of 'sad memories' is another issue.  One that each person
> will have to work out for themselves (I don't have so many of them, and I
> tend to forget them in favour of the happy ones, myself).  I should hope
> that suicide *will* become the major cause of death in the future.  Sounds
> odd, but it would mean that people don't die until they decide to, and
> that's really what it's all about, as far as I'm concerned.
>

As long as you don't have eidetic (perfect) memory, the brain's ability to
forget is highly useful for this purpose. It is more of a problem for some
kinds of artificial beings, as they might have to select memories to be
subdued or erased specifically.

Suicide will be fine once indefinite life span is a choice too. The thing
that makes life so valuable that it is viewed as a problem to end it is
that it is short. With 1000 year life spans, I don't think people will
frown on suicide quite so much.

-Kelly
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