Immortality

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{{hatnote|Were you looking for [[Morality|immorality]]?}}
{{cquote|The fantasy of immortality is for the few. It is a rejection of solidarity. As such, it is not just selfish but dangerous for [[freedom]]. Forever is the wrong time scale. Freedom requires a sense of time that extends into the future, through one life and into the next generation or two. With that kind of range, we can think of values and of the world, of the ''why'' as well as the ''how''. The finitude of life on [[Earth]] gives shape to [[life]]. If we believe that we can live forever, we lose all contact with virtue and thus with freedom. On an infinite time scale, ''why'' transforms itself back into ''how'': how to stay alive, minute after stressful minute.|||Timothy Snyder<ref name=snyder>''On Freedom'' by Timothy Snyder (2024) Crown. ISBN 9780593728727.</ref>{{rp|204-205}}}}
'''Immortality''' is eternal life. An immortal being is supposedly immune to [[death]]. Many [[religion]]s and [[crank]]s have promised eternal life, but none have been proven to deliver on the claim, but so far [[#Cultural immortality|cultural immortality]] and having children are the only realistic way to attain any forms of immortality, although in both ways only parts of you will survive on the Earth. All other ways of immortality rely either on something that is unfalsifiable or something that has never been succeeded under current knowledge. To sum up, fighting against [[aging]] and [[death]] has always been like fighting a losing battle, and this may still be the case in the future.

==Biological immortality==
Despite [[religion|claims to the contrary]], only a certain type of jellyfish<ref>http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090130-immortal-jellyfish-swarm.html</ref> may have any sort of claim to immortality (assuming they aren't eaten by predators).

Several plants also seem to have no age limit with some of the oldest examples found, such as the "Pando" clonal colony of quaking aspen in Utah, reaching tens of thousands of years old.<ref>[http://discovermagazine.com/1993/oct/thetremblinggian285 Discover magazine: "Based on evidence such as the resemblance of some aspen clone leaves to fossilized ones, Burton Barnes of the University of Michigan has suggested that aspen clones in the western United States may reach the age of a million years or more. In principle, clones may even be essentially immortal, dying only from disease or the deterioration of the environment rather than from some internal clock."]</ref>

===Genetic immortality===
This view is that you can achieve a form of immortality through your genes being passed on to your children and through them, others. The downsides are how you will likely be forgotten after four or five generations and your descendants will quickly be as similar to you as you are to anybody else.

===Engineered immortality===
[[Aubrey de Grey]] proposed a theory for the ways to cure aging, called '''strategies for engineered negligible senescence''' (SENS), maintaining that all causes of aging can be cured with proper strategies that are within the reach of current technological progress; besides, he also predicts that due to the progress of medicine, the humanity will reach '''longevity escape velocity''' (LEV) around 2035, that is, the situation in which the remaining life expectancy of humanity always increases more than one year in each year. His prediction of the timing of LEV has been rather constant over years. In short, longevity escape velocity is a form of biological immortality attained by constant engineering on the human body.

However, in reality, the increment of life expectancy is slowing down, and it is unlikely that the percentage of people living to 100 years old will ever exceed 15% for females and 5% for males without any means to slow aging<ref>{{cite journal |author1=S. Jay Olshansky |last1=Olshansky |first1=S. Jay |last2=Willcox |first2=Bradley J. |last3=Demetrius |first3=Lloyd |last4=Beltrán-Sánchez |first4=Hiram |coauthors=Bradley J. Willcox, Lloyd Demetrius & Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez |title=Implausibility of radical life extension in humans in the twenty-first century |journal=Nature Aging |date=2024-11 |volume=4 |issue=11 |pages=1635–1642 |doi=10.1038/s43587-024-00702-3 |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00702-3 |language=en |issn=2662-8465}}</ref>; moreover, despite the impressive development of computer technology and artificial intelligence, the progress of scientific and technological innovation is slowing down in general<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Russell J. Funk |last1=Park |first1=Michael |last2=Leahey |first2=Erin |last3=Funk |first3=Russell J. |coauthors=Michael Park, Erin Leahey |title=Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time |journal=Nature |date=2023-01 |volume=613 |issue=7942 |pages=138–144 |doi=10.1038/s41586-022-05543-x |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05543-x |language=en |issn=1476-4687}}</ref>, especially in medicine, as pointed out by Eroom's law, which means we should not realistically expect that there will be big breakthrough in medicine, and thus should not realistically expect that aging will be slowed or cured, therefore we should not expect the demographic trend that the increment of life expectancy is slowing down will be changed by future technological progress.

==Supernatural immortality==
Magic will grant you immortal life in [[Heaven]]! Or as a [[vampire]]. The first emperor of China's [[Qin dynasty]] died taking [[mercury]] pills in search of immortality.

==Virtual immortality==
Ha, we don't need that supernatural rubbish! We have [[cryonics|neuropreservation]], [[mind uploading]] and [[whole-brain emulation]]! Or we ''[[singularity|will]]'' have them, eventually. Or at least they don't provably contradict physics. [[negative proof|YOU CAN'T PROVE THEY DO]].

==Cultural immortality==
Make people remember your name (if not you) 
forever
for longer than otherwise through good or bad deeds such as exemplary military service, political works, [[terrorist]] acts, artistic triumphs, etc. This can quickly fall into "The person they are remembering is barely a shadow of what they were". Woody Allen had this to say: "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work… I want to achieve it through not dying."

== Desirability of immortality ==
Some traditions (such as [[Christianity]]) regard immortality favorably as a worthwhile goal. Greek [[mythology]], on the other hand, which featured a separate privileged class of immortals ([[god]]s and demi-gods), warned against the hubris of average humans aspiring to better their status in stories such as that of Prometheus,<ref>{{wpa | Prometheus}}</ref> and portrayed the disadvantages of eternal punishment, as in the tale of Tantalus.<ref>{{wpa | Tantalus}}</ref>

==People who claimed to be immortal==
* {{wpl|Count of St. Germain}} {{lived|born circa. 1691/1712|died 27 February 1784}}

==See also==
*[[Aging]]
*[[Cryonics]]
*[[Longtermism]]

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

{{stub|biology}}
[[Category:Futurism]]
[[Category:Oligarchic escapes]]

Categories: Futurism, Oligarchic escapes