[Sam988]

Originally Posted by ZHereford

I don't disagree with you at all on this. Life is definitely worth living and making the best of it is the way to go, however, there comes a time when the quality of your life, due to illness, disease, old age etc. may lessen. I don't expect to be this vibrant, young thing forever .

When we find out how to cheat death we will definitely have already figured out how to stay with a "vibrant and young" body, don't worry about that
Our body, enhanced by nanotechnology, will be uncountable times better than it is now, and our intelligence will be enhanced in ways unimaginable. Really, staying "in shape" won't be a problem at all.

Originally Posted by Buddy

No, you don't have a realistic faith. Dieing is not a matter of faith, it's a physical reality. Show me one thing in the physical universe that does not fade. Energy isn't destroyed, but matter (which admittedly is a "heavy" form of energy) is. At least in it's temporary form. Consciousness (in some traditions) is what lasts. But this is not "material." The physical world is defined by--creation, advancing, declining, and destruction.

It's because most people have this exact mentality as yours that we haven't done more advancements in the longevity area. You're right, everything that's made of matter that we know will probably fade away if it hasn't yet.

But, in a similar way, the civilization has never got to this point of technology (which, in 30 years from now, will literally look like the stone-age, because the technology accelerates in an exponential rate). In some decades, we will be able to create intelligences higher than we ever thought possible, named strong artificial intelligence. That, combined with our capacity of handling the atoms (nanotechnology) will break so many old paradigms about what we thought was possible to do, included, of course, this fatalistic way of thinking, that everything must fade away, included us.

Originally Posted by silicon toad2000

I don't think eternal life would be beneficial for society as a whole.
Mainly as the rich will keep getting richer and the poor will keep getting poorer.
Eternal life for the opulent few... why would a few be more deserving that everyone else?

But on the fanciful side, I have often wondered how much knowledge, skills and wealth could be accumulated in an eternity...

If humans could live for twice as long as they do now, could they achieve twice as much in their lifetimes of would lifetime achievements be constrained by the law of diminishing returns?

Once we manage to find a way to cheat death, the world's economy will be much, much, much richer (especially once we have a high rate of development in the fields of nanotechnology and artificial development).
While i do think that the riches could get accumulated, i also think that there won't be anyone starving or dying from poor medical treatments. And since people would live forever, they would eventually accumulate the experience/knowledge to make money, if so they wish.