>Would you want to live forever?
>You might say we can’t put it in these terms, but is death a ‘good’ thing? If you could choose to let everyone live forever would you choose to do so? If you could select certain people to live forever would you choose to do so?
Battison's Blog 
>Depends, would I have to work weekends ?Seriously, the only reason to live forever is to see how the story plays out. Do we explore space, what do we find, etc, etc,.Now for me, and probably most people, those things are only slight curiosities and although we may be interested to know, I doubt many people would be prepared to live forever, in the manner which they currently live, just to find those tihngs out.So a sub-point is about the manner in which we live. How many people are currently happy with the manner in which they live ? e.g. working weekends etc.If they are not happy with their current life, why would they possibly want to extend it for eternity.unless of course they have pinned their hopes on the idea that the future will be a panacea for all problems.For these people though, I expect that they are probably missing the point of life altogether, unless they do have some kind of disability which has genuinely prevented them from getting enough out of this life, i.e. paralysis, etc,.Next contention, is death a 'good' thing. Death can be good in that it focus' the mind on the here and now, and spurs us into activity. Without death the 'i'll do it tomorrow' thing would become too easy.Nxt, would I choose to let everyone live forever.It will have nothing to do with my choice. It will be a reality.DNA can be analysed and stored, allowing for cloning of the physical in the furture. Epigenetics will mean you will look slightly different, but probably nothing that wouldn't allow you to recognise yourself.Second, the mind will be explored and at some point this will be able to be analysed and stored as well, at least to a certain degree.Given the ability to clone yourself physically and mentally in the future, it's almost as good as done that we will live forever.Not concurrently, but at any point which we choose.apologies for sounding like a trekkie but it is that kind of question.Finally, no i wouldn't choose for certain people to live forever, for two reasons.Firstly, screw them.Secondly, if we have the ability to do that, then is not 'letting' other people die akin to murder ?Also if we choose certain people to live forever, can we also choose certain babies to be born and others to be aborted, based on characteristics of the baby ?
>Before you can answer that you first have to answer what is living. If living is just being able to provide enough oxygen to thr brain to be able to think then no, living forever would be awful. You would get older and older, less able to do things, and with no end in sight end up depressed beyond all imagination.If living means staying somewhere between 18 and 26 forever then that would be half decent for a while but again eventually you would have done just about everything and boredom would inevitibly set in.Our lives are define by our choices, and once made you cant go back. Life needs to be finite to make you think about your actions and learn from your mistakes.If it was a realistic choice to live forever i wouldnt choose it. I am happy knowing that my life will eventually end and that if all goes well i will live on in my family.
>Really interesting answers, and I can't find myself disagreeing anywhere. The one point I would add is that death is not only good as a source of motivation within life, but also as an end goal in itself. After all epigenetics does not provide the same level of change that death and new births provide. So the cycle of life is an agent of change. In addition allowing everyone to live forever does not stop the creation of new life. As we know well from our current situation a rapidly increasing population can be very dangerous to our environment and to other life-forms.