The Necessity of Death

Death, when not irrationally made a devil god, is generally treated as part of existence, as a natural part of the cycle of life. Without death, the world would be a worse place with mass starvation, neverending cancers and no space to live in.

Or would it?

Many of the problems presented with the necessity of death seem things that would not be needed in a fully immortal universe (i.e. starvation and lack of space wouldn't lead to death because you wouldn't die from hunger or lack of rest). I can see an argument for fates worse than cessation, like being overhwlmed by cancers or being a vegatable, but assuming immorality comes with cures for those, would suicide be needed?

Ultimately, would the need for life to end be encouraged, or should immortality being reached be a higher priority?

Absence of space isn't a matter of survival, but of comfort. There's a huge difference between being alive and living an enjoyable life. In order to make immortality reasonably livable for people, reproduction would need to cease. Otherwise, you steadily approach a point at which there are more people than there is space for people, and life becomes increasingly more and more unbearable as the eons pass.

Overpopulation is a very real problem, and even if it can't kill you, it can make your life cease to be worth living. Seriously, there are plenty of things worse than dying. People overvalue the state of being alive.

edited 13th Sep '13 2:13:30 PM by TobiasDrake

On the other hand not being able to die makes living off of Earth a lot easier. No atmosphere? No problem!

Not necessarily. It could just as easily make living off of Earth much more horrific.

Imagine drifting in the vastness of space forever, your lungs in constant agony, whatever other damage the vacuum does to your body screaming at you in pain, going steadily more and more mad as the eons pass.

Sometimes, death is a merciful consequence, when the alternative is horrifying.

edited 13th Sep '13 2:31:06 PM by TobiasDrake

We're thinking of different levels of immortality, clearly.

Immortality only promises the inability to die. Anything else is a different superpower.

Yes but in practice one cannot simply suspend death. It's much more practical to prevent the damage that leads to death.

And by no atmosphere I meant on Mars or something. Which I know has an atmosphere. Just barely.

Well, you can have Eclipse Phase or Transhuman Space, both settings where humanity is expanding into space and where immortality is available (in THS, to the rich of the Fifth Wave only, while in Eclipse Phase almost everyone is a transhuman immortal).

You no longer need to reproduce in such a world, but with the expansion of humanity throughout the Solar System, there'll be plenty of resources for everyone for the foreseeable future, and if population pressures do spring up, reproduction will likely be limited (unless you get a situation where immortality and bioconservatism survive in the same individuals).

Well I'm not too sure what you mean by that but if I lived in the EP universe while I would not want to upload my consciousness into a cybernetics psychic squid morph I certainly wouldn't let my body age and die if there was a antidote to my mortality readily available. So I guess you could describe that as being an immortal bioconservative?

Well, the human brain isn't really all that suited for immortality. You'd have to edit it, and regularly add on to it's storage space (Finite space means finite data, and since the human brain hasn't had the chance to evolve a response to the hiccups that would happen after a few hundred years (Liberal estimate), it would eventually reach a limit on its own), and manipulate the bits that make you hungry and whatnot.

And technically we'll probably run out of stars at some point, which could be a problem.

I'd argue that immortality is more or less impossible, though. At best, you could live for a long time and be extremely cautious—immortality implies that death isn't even possible.

One factor I find is often overlooked is the factor death plays in sociology and economics. Society as we know it functions under the presumption of expiration. Removing that, well...

Suddenly, every retirement becomes a temporary one as you will need a functionally limitless source of income to provide for your limitless lifespan. It suddenly becomes feasible to spend 500 billion dollars in one lifetime. Even if starvation, disease and exposure to the elements can't kill you, that doesn't mean they're not uncomfortable and you'll probably need money to avoid them. And even then, things will still break. Houses and cars will need repairs. New techs will be invented. All that jazz.

There's also the question of social progress. We like to pretend things advance because people wake up one day and change their minds. The truth of the matter is the primary cause for the decline of racism, homophobia, religious tension and the like has not been people undergoing revaluations. It's been due to people dying off or relinquishing power or otherwise taking their baggage with them and people with different viewpoints filling in the gap.

In America at least, age is a better measure of social views than party lines are these days. So you would feasibly not have three or four generations fighting for control of society, but possibly 30 or 40 generations.

And then, even if we somehow allow for humanity to defy death for eternity, there is the matter that the universe itself is still subject to entropy. The stars will eventually burn out, the planets turn cold, their resources spent. You would essentially need to solve entropy itself which might not even be possible. Mind, scientists would have a VERY long time to figure out an answer. I'm just not sure I want to be one of the ones standing around when the last lights go out.

That's not so much of a big deal. No man wants to live forever. He just doesn't want to die today.

Not really, when you get to serious crowding conditions. In a seminal and still respected study of rats, when overcrowding hit a certain level, the rat's behaviors changed radically. For the worse:

Oh wow skyfall was telling the truth about them.

fixed

edited 13th Sep '13 7:18:17 PM by joeyjojo

You need to fix that link.

Yep. Including the "Their nature changed" part. The truly scary part.

Yup. And, people still question the psychology animals have. -_- That study shows what can happen to a brutalised colony of rats, alright: acute social and psychological shock due to systemic-wide social, psychological and physical abuse.

Turning a culture around after brutality takes time. <_< Often generations and an influx of an outside source of corrective behaviour patterns. We're no different.

edited 13th Sep '13 8:59:03 PM by Euodiachloris

Maddy:There was a caveate that was pointed out that I remember. Any rat that could control at least a small bit of personal space appeared to behave more normally. Not all of the population went totally spare.

Both for Euo and Maddy. Info from W.H.O. It covers additional human experiments and other observations and also points out additional experiments by Calhoun.

edited 14th Sep '13 6:10:32 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Ok, but my point still is valid: sufficient space is not simply a matter of "comfort". It's a matter of continued sanity, and for the weaker or more vulnerable, a matter of survival.

edited 14th Sep '13 6:24:42 AM by Madrugada

edited 14th Sep '13 7:22:30 AM by Qeise

Well, the main problem would be the turnover of power. Right now, power is not held by a single entity—at best, it's held by dynasties, corporations, governments, and other forms of succession. However, with immortality, most forms of power would no longer be held for life. Everything would be closer to an elected office with fixed terms. Fields of expertise would likely be based upon merit, meaning that ideally, a renowned expert would lose any clout if they do not keep up with Science Marches On or Society Marches On. Imagine, for example, if cartographers from the 15th Century were still making maps the way they did then.

However, this would also mean that there would be increased competition. No one likes feeling outdated or obsolete, so a 1000-year-old veteran will probably do all he can to try and discredit, sabotage, or defame a 400-year-old upstart who is destroying his life's work. Then, you'd end up with situations like how Thomas Edison and the way he went out of his way to destroy the life of anyone who threatened his business, or the automobile industry that discredited or dismantled better alternatives to their products.

I have a question about this hypothetical immortality thing. Would it include animals, and could humans choose which animals could be immortal and which couldn't? Because if it didn't include animals, pet lovers wouldn't be able to have their pets be immortal too, but if no animals could die either, not only would the world get even more overcrowded, what would happen to animals that were eaten by other animals or by humans? Would they still be alive but be digested? Or would all beings have to become vegetarians? Would this immortality be extended to plants as well? Does "animals" include bacteria and other single-celled organisms, or would this immortality be given to only multicellular organisms?

edited 14th Sep '13 12:42:34 PM by Rainbow

Most of that is very interesting, yet impossible in most circumstances.

Well, firstly, stagnation tends to lead to collapse. It can also lead to decay. It is one of the symptoms of an impending collapse in fact. For example, stagnating till the point of collapse. That phenomena has been observed in dozens of situations all over history. Just about every fallen empire in history went through the process of stagnation, then decay ending in collapse. I suppose you can say lingering stagnation is stage 1 of a terminal illness. of a

Second, stagnation and collapse are not mutually exclusive. A society that has stagnated beyond the point of recovery is one that has, for all intents and purposes, collapsed.

That said, I do not think society would collapse. It might not even stagnate. I imagine it would go through a period of turmoil.

The OP seemed to have been refering to it as absolute immunity, including immunity to starvation or lack of space. I was using that definition.

I did not cast a value judgement on mortality or the current economic model. I pointed out hat society as it stands functions on a premise of death, which it indisputably does, and that there would be hurdles that would have to be addressed if humanity discovered immortality. Which is also rather self-apparent.

I trust each individual can decide for themselves whether that would be worth the cost and have no vested emotional or philosophical stand on the matter.

edited 15th Sep '13 2:49:45 AM by IConfuseMe

@Animals: When I designed this, I thought of no death, period. I didn't take into consideration animals, but they would be rather important in this scenario as well

edited 15th Sep '13 3:23:01 AM by peryton