If science could deliver 'immortality without invulnerability' (you can still die, just not from age related causes):
- Would you choose this if you could? At what price?
- Would this change your behavior? What would you do across eternity? Does life still have purpose or meaning?
- Would you change your attitude to risk? Develop longer-term perspectives? Endorse suicide?
- If this was only available to a minority, how would the others react? Would your life be more valuable than theirs?
- Does revival after death contradict faith, or reinforce it?
"There’s no point being immortal for a day, a year, or even a century. Immortality is, by definition, forever."
—Rupert Calthorpe-Stewart
Life and Death
Thought-provoking
Body and Identity
If you could redesign yourself:
- What would you change? Features? Biological sex?
- Does attractiveness lose meaning, or simply redefined?
- Does appearance matter if its fully customizable? What if designs can be copied? Do you lose identity?
- Do you judge people on their new or original appearance? Or just their actions?
I glanced down the beach and noticed a man with short-cropped hair playing in the surf with a few others. What did it say about him if he used to be a short, overweight Chinese woman who died in her nineties? What did it say about me for thinking such things?
—Evelyn Bishop
Ethics
For the gift of immortality:
- Is saving someone against their will an obligation or a violation?
- Should this be available to all or none at all? Is selective privilege different to any other inequality?
- Is seeking immortality selfish, or simply rational?
If human clones are used for replacement bodies:
- Is this murder, or just a biological manufacturing process?
“The clones are not real people. They have no intelligence or self-awareness, and the members who want the bodies can wait a few more years for new ones to be grown.
—The computer
