From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Fri Aug 19 2005 - 01:50:56 UTC
Perhaps immortality seems like a drag to us because we cannot imagine
being around for so long as individuals and our collective civilization is
also quite young on geological and celestial scales.
Perhaps we are like mayflies, who would wonder what to do with themselves
for 80 or so years since they only exist for one day to procreate.
Other species (and mentalities such as AI) may find living for centuries
to be natural and have plenty of things to do that require ages to
accomplish.
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Brown" <Jim_at_Seti.Net>
To: "SETI League Public" <public_at_seti1.setileague.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 6:04 PM
Subject: Re: SETI public: The Immortality Option
Marko and Alex (and all others).
I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand I, personally, would like to live
much longer than that allotted 90 years but it does seem that it would bring
about stagnation of the race.
Dawkins in his book "The Selfish Gene" points out that the genes that
inhabit our bodies are immortal because they replicate by cloning and have
managed to create robots (our bodies) to protect them while they project
themselves into the future. With that in mind maybe we should learn to
perfect cloning and the building of robots to contain us.
What do you think?
Argus Station: DM12jb
James Brown
W6KYP
Jim_at_SETI.Net [put 'SETI' in subject line]
www.seti.net
> Hello Alex,
>
> you know the story about the fox and the sour grapes?
>
> > Hello Once Again Gang,
> > In several Science Fiction novels that have
> > explored "The Immortality Option", the ones that come to mind include
> > "Against the Fall of Night" and "The City and the Stars" by Arthur C.
> > Clarke, and finally "The Giants Trilogy" by James P. Hogan, didn't
> > immortality lead to a stagnation in the societies (whether human or
> > alien) that chose it?
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