The immortality paradox

0:00If you had the chance to live forever, to be immortal, would you take it? And a question like that used to be purely science fiction. But the more and more that technology continues to advance, the more discoveries that AI continues to unravel, the more of these questions become reality, the more likely that this is a plausible future for humankind as a species, that even if we don't live forever, for you know what is forever. I think that's that's kind of like you know how many gallons are in the ocean? Can you can you even wrap your mind around forever? But even if we were able to 10x the lifespan of humans that that's something that it was like I said it was complete science fiction.

1:06It was complete just you must be a screenwriter. You're writing a movie. You're trying to get this in Hollywood, right? This isn't for real. But now we can actually start thinking about these things like, wait a minute, this could happen. And if it does happen, do we need to start thinking about should it happen? Because I'm thinking that the initial push back is going to be people that are religious like this. This is mankind playing God. It's kind of like uh how they can alter the DNA of babies while they're still in the womb. And they're doing amazing things like taking taking out um things like I think it's like autism and and like that.

2:01It's it's amazing stuff that's happening that objectively you would not want your kid to have autism if given the choice. But there are people that push back and say, "Wait a minute. There it is again. Mankind is playing God." So if you could, if you were given the chance to live forever, would you take that chance? Would you say that living forever might mean that I'm allowing somebody else to play God and I'm altering God's plan for my body or my soul? But it's worth it for the extra time with my loved ones, for the extra time on this earth, for the extra time to do whatever the hell to put good out into the world.

3:00You can rationalize it however you want, but do you do it? How many people actually revolt, start to protest? Is it similar to people with signs outside of uh like somewhere that that does like an abortion um and no I don't know what it's called like a clinic abortion clinic cuz it's not like a OB/GYN right I don't know obviously I've never had one so but is that a similar situation where you have people that are standing outside of the immortality clinic saying, "No, you can't do this." Protesting through the streets like it's uh a no kings protest or something.

3:58I I don't know. For now, death has been undefeated. It's taken every human that's ever existed. But what if we could change that? What if we can alter our own lifespan? The video that inspired this um this episode is called, "If you had the chance to be a mortal, would you take it?" and I watched like 45 seconds of it and I quickly turned it off because yeah, I knew this I knew it would be something perfect for me to think through in real time uh as an episode. So, um yeah, shout out to Ted Ed. I think it's like the TED talks but education. I don't know.

4:55They got like a little animation that goes with it and everything. Um, but it it it's something that I've been thinking about more and more. What what line do I draw? Where do I draw the line as far as how far I take myself? Because assuming that everything continues to progress means we might be able to be immortal. We might be able to alter our body to have appearingly superhuman abilities, but it's just technology. And you know, there's a saying, it's something like uh like all unknown technology looks like magic. So we'd be able to do things that right now would just appear magical.

5:58You know what? If there was some alteration you could do to your body to make yourself be able to fly, like literally be able to fly, have like some sort of anti-gravity. I don't I don't I don't know. I would just be thinking of my own science fiction. I'm not one of the people smart enough to actually uh bring these into existence. But the thing is, there are people out there that not only are dedicated, but now have a profoundly profoundly multiplied amount of help through AI that's able to just rapidly get through a whole bunch of different tests and variations that we weren't able to do before. I'm excited and nervous about the future, but I'm more excited than nervous.

7:00Definitely. Definitely more excited. But let's talk about the ethics of immortality.

7:09While cleaning out your eccentric you find a chest with a sparkling declares, "Drinking this liquid will make you immortal. Your body will be frozen at its current age, and you'll become immune to disease and serious final."

7:32Wait, hold on. I didn't think about that. So, that sucks. So, you would have to be immortal at your own age. For some reason, I'm thinking about like when I thought about it, I thought about older people going back to a younger age. You know what I mean? It's like, "Oh, I wish I could be 30 again." You know, you you hear older people say that. So, it's like you're thinking of it like that. At least I'm thinking of it like that, man. So, you take the immortality potion and whatever age you're at, you're kind of stuck there. That's really that's really one of those it's like you're out of luck if you're past the age that you want to be, but at the same time you're still lucky because you're not too far gone. And that's what somebody that's hella old that's about to die that's right there at death's door that doesn't want to go. And they're going to tell you, "Shut up.

8:29I don't care how old I am. I'm taking this potion. I'll stay this age forever. And then I feel like there's going to be kids that get their hands on it. Just like this little kid right here. Imagine being stuck with the body of like a a 13-year-old or however old this this little kid is. You know what I'm saying? like being stuck like that but having the mind of however old you are mentally that seems like a certain type of hell. So I see this if if this was mass-produced it was something that was a real thing. It was the ozic for weight loss. It's the thing that somebody you know you just go order it go order it's the immortality potion. It's the new thing.

9:24They're forever long. And I could see this being one of those things that you have an optimal age that people go for like, "Oh, did you take the immortality potion?" No, I'm waiting until I'm 25. I'm waiting until I'm 32. I'm waiting until I'm whatever. That's when it's going to be perfect. That's crazy. I didn't think about it like that. Yeah. I thought about I thought about it like you get to kind of shift back to the age that you want. But that makes sense because you what if you go too far and you got like a Benjamin Button type and you just keep going down and down and then you're just like a old man trapped in a in a baby's uh baby's body or some I don't know. That would be that'd be crazy. That would be the craziest type of hill

10:26And irreversible guaranteeing your existence at least until the heat death instructions are clear. The only question is do you drink the potion? H generally people consider death to lives are filled with precautions overtly dangerous activities and we willingly accept inconveniences to dying. But if you were immortal, you could live as dangerously as you like. You could pursue any goal on as long a timeline as you need. You'd be free to enjoy a boundless horizon of

11:10Okay. All right. So, this is like this is a way different version of immortality than I'm thinking of. I didn't think of immortality like any of this. I'm thinking immortal as in you couldn't live forever, but you could still die. If that makes sense. Like just because you can quote unquote live forever and you're not aging on a cellular level, that doesn't mean that you can't get in a car accident and bam, done. You done just like that, you would have been immortal. But in this example, in this hypothetical scenario, with this immortality potion, the forever long, not only do you remain the age that you're at when you drink it and stay immortal, you also are impervious to any damage.

12:17You could do whatever. You can fall from skyscrapers. That's That's a lot different. Now we're talking about superhumans. Now this this I don't know. I don't think this one's a little bit science fictiony still. But what do I know? I'm just a human living right now. It could be like 6 months and people are still like there's so many advances. You could look back like bro, you don't even know. It's just it's happening so fast where so many different things are coming out but impervious to pain and damage and stuff like that. So like what's the limits? Can you can you not be set on fire? Can you like just get shot and the bullets bounce off? Like are you like really Superman right now? You you can't drown so you don't have to breathe.

13:16Do you do you still breathe? Is breathing like just like a reflex because you've been doing it so long, but your lungs actually don't need the air? And does your heart still beat or does it not need to? If if you're impervious to pain, you should be impervious to all of that, right? I mean, what about a heart attack? You'd be impervious to that, correct? So, what is a heart attack? a heart attack. I'm pretty sure it's like your heart seizing up and failing like it stops pumping, right? I'm pretty sure I'm not a obviously I'm not a doctor. I'm sitting here the most common way that people die in America is heart disease and I'm sitting here questioning how a heart attack affects your heart. I'm pretty sure it stops that though. Pretty sure that it stops that What does this immortality potion do?

14:14Does it have limits? Cuz now I got questions. Exploration, pleasure, fulfillment, and novelty, all without the fear of death hanging over you. Despite this, British ethicist Bernard Williams thinks there are plenty notably because an immortal life would be unbearably boring. Think of how less enjoyable with frequent repetition. Your 16th chocolate truffle doesn't first, and you might grow sick of truffles altogether if you ate them every day. Following this logic, Williams argues that repeating the same activities for all eternity would be monotonous. On the other hand, philosopher John some pleasurable experiences do have diminishing returns, others don't. Sunset would remain fresh even

15:25Yeah, I don't know. I think and we'll we'll let them finish obviously, but I think I'm already leaning more towards this person to immediately go to you would be bored. That's just that's just kind of you might be a boring person if you think that way. Like if immediately said, "Well, I would just be bored." You know, like people that say, "Well, like I can't retire because I would be too bored." What they're saying is I've put my entire identity, all of my effort, my energy for my entire life for so long that Hello and welcome to an advertisement. Wombats are native to Australia and their poop is cube- shaped. And for that very reason, it's my great honor to say this episode of Get Xuded is brought to you by Disconnected by XO Xuded. Now streaming everywhere you listen to music. Cut to music preview.

16:42I need shut out the world right now. I hope it helps me clear my mind. Disconnect. Inhale. Exhale. Like it's medicine. ends. I keep trying to run away from demons trying to outrun me. I disconnect and go somewhere they can't find me. So, been too distracted. Turning down all my disconnect. Yeah, I like to disconnect. I put all of this into my work and now that I'm retired, what what am I going to do? How how am I going to spend my time now?

17:42I'd be bored. But just because you're retired, just because you're immortal, it doesn't mean you can't find your own passion. You know, to to say you would be bored of doing the same thing. Well, then don't do the same thing. Well, then you could just do everything. Everything. You could do everything. Everything. And to what end? And I guess yeah, if you're really thinking millions and millions and literally until the until the earth hits the heat death or whatever it was talking about, maybe maybe I see what you're saying. Like you've literally done every single thing, but then it's like, has anything else been invented? I don't know, bro. Like maybe it's it's just one of those you can't you can't wrap your mind around it.

18:42Like yes, eventually you really would get bored. Millions of years, you can't even fathom living a thousand years, but millions of years, yes, of course you'll get bored. And my thought at that point is, well, you had a you had a decent life. See, in my vision of immortality, you can live forever, but you can still die. So, you still got to be careful. You still got to watch out still. Somebody can hold a grudge against you and decide to to take you out just because that's the way they they saw you know? You got to you still got to watch yourself, take care of yourself in that way. You don't have to be so held back by death to the point where you feel like you're on some sort of timetable, but you can't just walk out into the freeway because a car will just bounce off of your body as you're walking.

19:51But in this scenario, even if it was ideally millions of years, you know, it took forever. I guess eventually I really do get bored. It took a million years, but we got here. Well, if you're truly immortal, that would be miserable if you couldn't end it. You couldn't just hit the the end button. You couldn't end the game. Can't be done. Checked all the boxes. And I just gota got to continue to do this. Now it's not feeling like life. It's feeling like some sort of purgatory. Wow. Didn't look at it like that. Had a take about a million years to get here. But I am walking on hell on earth. I'm immortal.

20:49Can't die. And I've done everything. But it's kind of what I think this person's about to go to. You could still look at a sunset is is the reason why we can't just be humans and look at sunsets and just lay and for just just chill out. Just eat when you got to eat. Just relax when you got to relax. But I guess you're immortal. Do you have to eat? That's what I'm saying. There's so many questions where it's like all the human that you have to do, too. Is that is that done? You don't have to take a take a or a piss either because you're not eating or drinking. And you don't have to sleep because sleep deprivation doesn't do anything to your body because you're immortal. You're good. You're fine. Your mind doesn't start to slow down cuz it's immortal. This This potion seems too good.

21:45This one has side effects where they're not worth it. I would not take this. This is the immortality where it's like, "No, I I'm good. I'm truly good to live forever like this. Not only is there no going back, I'm good with no going back, but I guess there's that one exit button that you would want to have, even if it was a million years later, but to be able to do it." And I watched this uh this show called um like a good place. It's good place or a good place. I think it's a good place. Um it was on Netflix. I think they took that off, but yeah, it was essentially the don't want don't don't want to like, you know, spoiler alert, I guess, but they they ended up getting into the good place at the end.

22:51I guess that's the spoiler. It wasn't in the good place at first, but they end up getting into the good place in the end. And they get to literally do whatever they want for the longest. And they have soulmates and they get to just chill with loved ones. And then you know when other people that they know um that were still on earth when they passed they end up meeting up with them but they still each have their own separate bit of heaven or slice of the good place or whatever and eventually they got to move on. And they didn't start off with that. When they first got to the good place they noticed that everybody there was like batshit crazy. They were forgetting things and they didn't have any real sense of identity and they were like walking zombies kind of like just on autopilot. But when they gave the option of being like in the final place of just being done, that's when people started enjoying themselves more.

23:55They started feeling uh like they can actually enjoy the the good place that they're at. And then at the end they'd say, "I think I'm ready." And then they would be done. And it would it was like hundreds and hundreds or thousands, whatever. They they spent like a long amount of time because for them the time just like was peeling away because they weren't bored. But then eventually they had this feeling like, "All right, I'm ready. I'm done." So this potion, yes, the sunset might not get old. But you could just be ready to move on. You just be just done with. since we already tend to forget things in our human lifespan, it seems reasonable that after several centuries, exhausted experience.

24:53Besides, even if some pleasures fade, the pursuit of forever. Fiser and Benjamin Mitchell Yelen point out that even an immortal written while keeping up with new releases. And JJ Viznvki imagines all existing instruments and any new those are just personal goals. An immortal dedicated to advancing various social causes would likely find their hands busy navigating a constantly shifting cultural landscape. novelty sustaining your immortal life could come from within. As

25:40See before he continues talking about different things that you would want to change if you're a mortal, that's what people would do. that people like that would be drawn to it. And remember, most people would think they're doing the right thing. No matter what side you're on, no matter how you look at things, even um even damn Hitler felt like he was doing the right thing. You know what I mean? He even felt like he was justified in what he was doing. People people will justify the most horrendous actions with the best intentions for the the the best intended reasons that would lead somebody to fill in the blank.

26:40If you were immortal, if you were able to continuously sway other people in culture, and that's that's exactly what you would do. You would find all of the different tricks and learn all of the different uh networking that you, you know, you know that you would need to do. Find like find all the people that you would need to meet. You would you would get into the rooms that you would need to get into and you might not be able to do it right away. It might take you a decade. It might take you a hundred years. It might take you a a couple centuries. But eventually, if you have your mind set to it again, time just starts to peel away. You're immortal. You know how things run. You continue to switch up your look. and you continue to hold influence generation after generation after generation making sure your will is put into the public.

27:47And this is assuming that you have one person that took the potion and everybody else is just But even if you know even if everybody could take the immortal immortality uh potion, you would still have those same people drawn to the positions of power like politics. uh you know the people that are able to change the laws and sway culture through government, those people would still be drawn to those positions. And people are already talking about how there's certain um there's certain people in in government or certain uh positions that need to have a term limit just like the president that you have these people that's how the whole deep state thing. You have people that are just career politicians.

28:46They're in there for their entire lives and they're behind the scenes making things happen. They're the ones that are moving the strings to the puppets that are out in the front that are constantly changing because they do have term limits. Imagine those people, but they get to live forever. They're immortal. Those would be some of the first people in line that take the immortality potion. And then they'd be the same people that would, you know, ban said potion or some because they have the power to do this They think about how um I don't remember the the year. It's not even about memory. I never held it to memory. But I know at some point in history the church, the Catholic Church I think was responsible of burning so many books that quote unquote went against what the the church practices or preaches or whatever the hell.

29:54Think about that same type of tyranny, that same type of power, but wielded forever by not a group of individuals that continue to change out. So, new ideas flow in and eventually things start to change and that's why you don't see churches out doing book burnings anymore. You know, it's not like they evolve. But if you literally have the same exact people and they already people people already say the cliche is you know old people are stuck in their ways. You get you get to a certain point you just you become rigid. You don't want to you don't want to be open to new ideas not even new music, new movies, new whatever the It's like h no I got my ways and I'm sticking to it. What happens when you are 500? What happens when you have been doing the same thing for a thousand years and you have no plans on changing it whatsoever and you can't die cuz you done took the potion.

31:01You change what you value and pursue. After decades of painting, you might decide to become an astronaut or a chef or a farmer. Each transformation opening up new experiences. However, would actually want to live such an everchanging lifestyle. Sampling every experience life has to offer would require living untethered to a core set of values or ambitions. And not only destabilizing to your sense of self, you'd probably come into conflict with your past selves. In such a situation, continued survival? Immortality skeptics of outliving loved ones as a reason to But what about knowing that the current version of yourself could effectively totally different?

32:02Williams argues that living within the constraints of our own what makes life meaningful. Thinking about what makes life meaningful is very relevant here. immortality is the ability to maximize contains. But philosopher Samuel Sheffler argues,

32:29Damn, I didn't uh I honestly never thought about that. that. Yeah. Like I I thought you could you could do a whole bunch of different things, but I could imagine your sense of identity just start to escape you over the years and it wouldn't happen immediately. And what I think is crazy whenever people talk about, you know, being immortal living forever, they they usually do go straight to, well, why would you want to do that? Just so you could see like, yeah, like like you said, all your loved ones die, see your not just your parents die, but see your children die, see everybody, your friends make friends for what? Have new kids for what? just to see them die. And I guess my question to that was always like why why why didn't why don't they just take the potion?

33:38Why do they was there just one? There's only one. We don't know how to make more. What's the ingredients? How do we uh how do we get more of this? because this is important and maybe we can even I don't know alter it a little bit. Like I'm I got to stay like this for eternity. I I mean the the dude said until the a heat wave a massive heat wave on Earth. But what he's saying is like there's literally nothing physically that can hurt you. What? The Earth explodes and you just start going through the vast cold emptiness of space. Well, you won't die. You'll just be floating. So eventually that's your life. It's not even waiting until that. Waiting until that just so you could float.

34:39Great. So maybe we could take this little formula. We can advance it a little tinker tanker and add a little bit of this and that and maybe put a little shelf life on this. Put a little By the way, there is one specific way that you can die. Have like a kryptonite or some something. Give somebody a way out. But that way you don't have to worry about loved ones, you know, dying like what seems like a a blink of an eye for you. That that that always confused me is why you would not share the potion, why you would just let your loved ones die. Um but yeah, that that would be miserable if there was only one potion. That's just like is it really does it just leads to you floating in space.

35:42The lack of time is essential to our the fact that our time on earth is limited that forces us to form our are worth doing with the time we have. immortality undermines the very possibility of a meaningful life. For some theorists consider eternal life Then again, a couple of centuries of learning, loving, and chocolate truffles doesn't sound that bad, does it? So, will you

36:22I mean, if you think about it, that's like every vampire movie, too. Like, if you if you think about like any and I'm trying to think of any vampire movie besides like No, there's like there you got Sinners, you got Twilight. I was thinking Twilight first was the first ones I think thought of was that whole series. But either way, you got different vampire movies too where that's one of the things that's like one of their uh pieces of baggage. Like they're mysterious. They like got some sort of darkness about them. And then once you get to know them, there's a sense of sadness. And that sadness comes from I've been living forever.

37:13Not only living forever but with this you know hunger for blood or whatever putting that aside just the immortality part it's kind of I would say a common thought that living forever would eventually get old. So, I guess, yeah, thinking through this, I'm cool with immortality, meaning it would be nice to know that my body is not going to give up on me, but I would want to be able to give up on my body, if that makes sense. It it it just it would floating in space, man. Floating in space. Drink If you love learning, subscribe. That was it. Every week we publish new.

38:17Well, there you go. Would I take my uncle's potion? It's going to be a hell no for me.

38:27No. That potion was crazy. It's crazy. Give me a different potion. I'm going see if Uncle got one where like I got a I got a kryptonite or some like I could turn this off where I can I can at least I could be killed. You know what I mean? But no, man. I think there's a reason why Uncle had that locked away and he didn't take it. It's not worth it. Not worth it.