Here is the scenario: The world's gov't has found a way to make sure everyone will live forever. There population is a set number which theoretically will never change. You are not allowed to have children anymore. Diseases, sickness, natural disasters do not exist anymore. You could still be killed however. People stop aging at 30. You could be 400, but you would still look 30. Would people like this idea? You would still have to work, but time would never be an issue. You could gain 50lbs because you have forever to lose it. How would our world be if we lived forever? Would we be less motivated, bigger procrastinators?

Hmmmm...lots of directions one could go with this..personally, I'd delve further into unhealthy stuffs..back on cigarettes, loose women, drugs..Id be speeding everywhere..(have to clarify "killed"...by self included?)...
As a people, I think we'd adapt!! We'd explore the limits and boundrys of our new lives...some would press on in civil fashion, remaining in the middle, unnoticed...and the rest of us would find the top, and bottom of this life..

I wonder if it would be unhealthy as a civilized world. Would we miss out on inventions due to lack of future generations? Would be become dumber due to less information, because there are not future researchers, doctors, scientists etc. being born? Lot of questions that could be asked in this type of an environment.

I would agree to immortality, but after 1000 years is the entity claiming to be me really me of today?

If people could still be killed and having children is not allowed, then in a few hundred years it would be a problem.

I just watched an mostly bad movie last night called "In Time" starring Justin Timberlake which presented a similar issue to what you've raised here.

In the movie, the time remaining in your life (based on natural causes deaths) is transferable and becomes the currency of the world. As you would expect, the movie becomes about the rich exploiting the poor - but in any case - one character does indeed decide he's had enough after 105 years (not a spoiler, it is within the first 5 minutes).

I expect society as we know it would fall apart. The eventual boredom would be crippling. Even though it is somewhat of a pipe dream - people currently have things to look forward to like "when I retire..." - that sort of carrot would be gone as you would essentially be committed to working forever (since you'd plan to live forever).

I would hazard a guess that society would become more hedonistic than it currently is. No disease, no children, no sickness, no aging, no natural disasters, no starvation - what would there be to do but thrill seek and find ways to 'feel good'?

I'm not sure about the scenario in the OP, but assuming good health I can't project a situation in which I'd choose to die. I suppose there's no way to know how you'd get along mentally after a couple hundred years. I imagine different people would handle it better than others.

Provided there's still technological and scientific progress going on, I'd want to keep living. The prospect of space exploration could motivate me a few centuries at least.

I think the motivation to at least try to be able to master as many things as you could would be enough to keep you going. Essentially you could meet almost everyone on the planet eventually. I wonder if people would be happier, or if the world would still be full of miserable people.

Happiness and sadness evolutionarily stems from our mortality (the need to survive), so an immortal being wouldn't really have either of those after a certain amount of years. It would eventually just become a cold, calculated machine.

Who wants to live forever?

This song does...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYOE_b4aYD0

Written by ...well...a physicist! lol



Of course i would want to live forever and get wiser every year. I want to rise and fall a thousand times and succeed in discovering the secrets of universe, instead of gaining only a finite/limited perspective, however still precious gift of the era i existed in and the fellow humans i shared it with. I want to experience the ultimate future of mankind and see the promise fulfilled. I want to find out for myself what it is to not want to live anymore. I cannot imagine it. I want to risk it.

But until this is possible for some future generation;

Until then, all i have is this and it will have to do;

The only resurrection of my soul i aspire for is the one delivered through the eyes of a 9 year old that dares to dream and embark on a life long voyage, a dream to engage the universe in pursuit of the truth and enlightenment through that one glorious, mythic, romantic epic, the enterprise of discovery human drama is.
May the dream outlive a thousand deaths and gain strength from the smiles of the immortal dead.

OP. It depends. Have I been alive for 400 years living a monotonous and depressing life or am I seconds away from being killed and I love my life? The philosophies we hold grow and evolve as we gain and develop information, knowledge and emotions (maybe not new but different degrees and combinations) through the experience called life. To someone that has never hit absolute rock bottom depression, something like suicide may seem insane and completely illogical. To one who has experienced the greatest depths of sorrow and melancholy possible, they may thoughtfully and logically come to a different conclusion. It is not uncommon at all for these two people to actually be the same person and two different points in time.

I brought up suicide as an example because it is also a nice segue into my next question that leads us into a Sorites paradox. Is choosing not to live forever suicide? I mean, if someone said you will die in 10 minutes if you stop breathing (via noose or any other means of holding your breath), and you decided not to breathe, that would be suicide in my opinion. Does the amount of time before you CHOOSE to die have anything to determine what is suicide or not suicide? If so, what is the proper length of time one has to wait before deciding to die isn't committing suicide?

This thread (no offense) is stupid. It's only virtue is to bring to light even stupider thinking. How do you begin to conceive of the outlook of a 400 year old being, under the few conditions you describe?

For example, if I'm immortal, does this mean that my liver is immortal? If my liver is immortal, a safe guess is that my life will be a succession of centurial stupors.

The main reason I brought it up, was I want to see if people would forego not having children for the selfishness of being able to live forever. I believe having children is a way to keep the cycle going, but if we could ultimately live forever the need for children would not exist.