Will solving death change philosophy?
Assuming that in a 100 years humanity is able to stave off death by any significant age beyond what was assumed, and then in another 100 years immortality will become possible, then what would that entail for the field of philosophy?
I have my assumptions that what happened to physics, with "shut up and calculate", will analogously happen to the new generation of citizen's of the world to continue making as much money as possible to stave off death.
Will every problem eventually become economical or even psychological since with immortality and money will come new ventures to entertain, profit, and enjoy a long and happy life?
I have my assumptions that what happened to physics, with "shut up and calculate", will analogously happen to the new generation of citizen's of the world to continue making as much money as possible to stave off death.
Will every problem eventually become economical or even psychological since with immortality and money will come new ventures to entertain, profit, and enjoy a long and happy life?
Comments (17)
Well, I'm operating from the assumption that we will have a lot of happy or rather well-off people will arise with age reversal or staving off aging and with it death.
I imagine this is something that will be highly determined by one's genetics, and hence quite a lot of money will have to spent on sequencing and analyzing one's genome. It doesn't seem like any of this would be cheap economically.
Yeah, but your hippocampus is unique for every individual.
I'm pretty sure @Shawn is a believer in the Pig-God.
As are many things an individual is fortunate enough to possess, if not condemned with.
I'd assume it'd be like living the life of immortal plankton in a world that is all ocean, but with no whales. You live, at least you can stimulate all senses to the fullest, more often than not at least, though perhaps this limitation is done purposely by wiser plankton as to fabricate a sense of purpose or perhaps.. individuality? So, if by change you mean eradicate, it's likely.
Immortality by access to immense wealth will be bolstered and sustained by philosophy which glorifies selfishness.
But some rogue faction will be working on introducing new fatal diseases to the immortals because of the unfairness of it all. It'll be a new old arms race war time until collapse with same old philosophical questions.
Immortality would be a nightmare. Lifespan selection with minimal deterioration however, that has possibilities, however, for every person that does not die one must also not be born. Balance must be attained, otherwise, similarly to rats, when the colony gets too overcrowded, the largest and strongest will kill the weaker ones until the stronger one dies of it's injuries. In effect balancing immortality with murder.
Interesting plan, but the idea of immortality stopped being appealing at 20 years of age.
Agreed, but it the body that currently houses me fails to deteriorate then I am stuck here. And that is utterly unappealing.
A philosophy (ethics) of boredom follows. And probably the technoscientific pursuit of transcension...
Furthermore :nerd: :point: & &
Every vampire's dream.
Solving death would mean the "creation" of new kind of human. So philosophy I guess is the least of the things that will change afterwards.
Everything aspect of human life would have to be "re-arranged", "redefined".
There is nothing to define life more than death itself. Every aspect of human behavior and all human societies were "built" onto that base(morality, values, economy, our unconscious, our fears, everything! ) . The existence of death. So imagine what the "end" of death would mean for life itself!
One thing is sure though, that Philosophers of that era (if it ever comes) would have muchhhh work to do afterwards!
...whether these future androids replace or reproduce us remains to be seen: it all depends upon whether we retain control over them and subjugate them to our purposes, or whether they subdue us and supplant our souls with their own.
________________________There is death:_________There is no death:
There is fear of death:_________Yikes________________*Cool enough
There is no fear of death:_____Cool enough ___________Cool enough
The variable which is easier to control is in the "fear of death" axis, because not all of us are scientists, but all of us have consciousness and fear. And not only that, the "fear of death" axis is also preferable to control because the top right corner is volatile.
*If we really did become "immortal" in a scientific way, there would probably still be some way to lose our immortality and die anyway. If people lived for like 1000 years but then we ran out of "immortality pills" or civilization collapsed and "immortality vaccines" could no longer be distributed, then people would be afraid of death again, this time without any cultural mechanisms to address death, and probably without any stories to confront it. Then, these people might be more afraid than any of us have ever had to be and they might damn well tear their eyes out with madness.
It is horrible to give someone life, and then take it away. It is MUCH MORE horrible to give someone life, make them think they might be able to keep it, and then take it away anyway after giving them false hope.
I personally think it is telling (and understandable) but stupid that we think of ENDING MORTALITY before we think of coming to terms with it. The latter is in my control, the former is not.
Death, from a certain, Camusian point of view, seems to the solution rather than the problem. Do you wanna be trapped in Sisyphusean samsara (round and round we go, in circles merry).
How can you make Sisyphus happy?