was a line I heard while at work.
A few thoughts ran through my mind when I heard it. So, immortal? Or just can't age at all? Naturally you'd be ignoring the fact that scientists wouldn't allow you to live without being examined in some way, so let's just ignore that kind of trauma... Living forever. Hm. Wait, isn't that kinda like what Bill Murray did in Groundhog Day?

And thus I proposed it as a question. There are two good ways to be eighteen forever. One is to stay eighteen in body but advance in mind for eternity, being able to see new centuries and millenia come and go. For the sake of keeping the "immortal" advantage even, let's say this would also come with being able to wake up the next morning unscathed if anything fatal happens during a day.
The other option is to relive the same day, with time effectively looping instead of advancing. True to the Bill Murray quandary, only you would be aware of the time loop present around you.

Both have the same result, you stay the same age forever. But I have to be curious. Which "live forever" method would you be happier with?

Advance in time? Have literally all the time allowed to learn anything you want, apply it however you want, meet near limitless people to enjoy the company of, probably be able to work and invest in a way that makes you the richest person ever, see all the new technologies and advancements in life, potentially see all the way to the likely-unavoidable move into life off Earth?
Or stay in one day? Have literally all the time allowed to learn anything you want while applying it within a single day's timeframe, learn one single schedule to be able to stop any mishaps that may befall you, no long-term consequences for your actions, potential to develop some of the strongest friendships possible with the relatively limited people available?

Personally, I'd choose the Groundhog Day method. Seeing the new appear would certainly be a lovely thing, but I'm the kind who likes to learn as much as possible about what's here and what's present. Work day or not, just being able to skip it to pursue one of basically a million other interests would be allowed--all I'd have to do is learn the best wording for calling out. This leaves almost no room for "I wish I could have done <thing> with <person> before <consequence>", which is always a load off the mind. And you can't tell me having an eternity of getting to practice your skills in modern-competitive things enough to go from what level you are now to god-tier amazingin a single night's perspective to your friends would get old.

I chose the time loop. The person who presented it chose to advance in time. The person being talked to before this got brought up took a while but chose the time loop as well. Kinda curious what people here would pick!

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Goten is dead!

Definitely advance in time, seeing the possibilities of the future is something that would keep me going.

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Neither.

Option #1 means I eventually lose anyone who I grow close to, but that's only the start! Then I have to suffer the loss of my entire species, then my planet. Even if humans populate the whole galaxy, there's nothing we can do to stop the universe's inevitable expansion. Eventually I'll be left all by myself, without even the stars as company because they've all redshifted the away. Then it will be eternal darkness and silence, eventually I'll forget what it even feels like to feel anything. And this emptiness will last FOREVER. Do you know how long that is? Even the universe has an expiration date. But not you. You'll have to stick around even after everything that ever existed ceases to exist.


Option #Murray means nothing I say or do will result in anything meaningful. Every day would just be a what-if scenario, but there's only so much you can do in a single day, so your options are finite. Wanna form a relationship with someone? They won't remember who you are for more than 24 hours. Wanna write a book? Whatever work you write today will disappear tomorrow, so I hope you have some pretty amazing memorization skills and/or lightning-fast typing. Wanna stab yourself in the face just to see what it feels like? C'mon, you're stuck in this loop for the rest of eternity, might as well experience all that you can! But an eternity is a goddamn long time. Eventually you'll have exhausted every possible scenario. Bored yet? Too bad, you are stuck here forever, and you cannot leave no matter what you do.


Both options would be fun for a while, and for an eternity. They're basically Hell, but it just takes you a while to notice it.

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Jack is a killjoy.

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Goten is dead!

But he's right, for once

Although, given enough time you might be able to develop a way to make other people immortal as well. And maybe come up with a system that lets you preserve or create new planets/universes. Sounds crazy? Maybe, but infinite time also means infinite possibilities.

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RV's JTA ni yōkoso!
‪‫‬‭‮‪‫‬‭‮҉

Definitely would not choose the Groundhog Day scenario, I imagine my experience would not differ drastically than that of Bill Murray; after the glamor of weeks or months of pure hedonism, the crisis and near mental breakdown would be terrible, I'd imagine I'd try to kill myself too if I was stuck in one day for that long.

However, though the tragedy of immortality is possible, I'm more optimistic of how enjoyable immortality could be. Disregarding the eventual nonsense that you somehow stay intact and alive even as whatever end the universe eventually comes to occurs, I believe immortality might be a positive experience, given the right mindset. "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened" as Dr. Seuss said, would make the experience positive rather than the very negative eternity that others have proposed. However, there is also the good chance that this sort of ideal would be impossible to maintain for all eternity, which would drag into a sad sad forever. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic about how positive I could stay for all of eternity, but it's certainly a possibility.

If I had to choose one I would pick immortality, but I might pick neither if I could.

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I imagine myself broken after a couple of centuries with #1, forever gone are my loved ones! On the other hand, I'd start going insane after the 3rd day with #2. So if I had to choose, I'd go for #1, maybe instead of being inconsolably sad I can be the wisest person to ever live.

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I believe that I would choose the first option. I would love to gain knowledge, and wisdom as centuries pass. It would also be interesting for me to see how the world has changed, or how civilization has advanced. The down side to the kind of life, however would be losing loved ones and friends... it would become lonely after a while, and I would probably be a bit depressed, unless there was some miraculous way to share that immortality. The second option would make me go insane after a few days.

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Well all I know is that I've been 20 for a day and I already hate it

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"What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."- The last words of General John Sedgewick, killed by a sniper in the American civil war

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90zc5Ke-f_I

I'll take the immortality route, thanks.

I can live with that.

Personally, I wouldn't want to be eighteen forever. Being eternally "almost" physically/mentally developed to adulthood wouldn't be fun.

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Imagine a perfect beach
Without a mermaid
Imagine a perfect hideaway
Without a time
Imagine a perfect Eden
Without a friend, without a serpent
"Feeling lonely and content at the same time,
I believe, is a rare kind of happiness"

You guys are mostly wrong. The correct choice is the Bill Murray one, because he clearly manages to break free of the loop eventually.

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Penguinguy told me what a signshur was.

Like everyone has said, the Bill Murray option would be sweet for awhile. I'd probably purposefully get fired from my job every day for a long time, in a lot of hilarious and epic ways. I'd also assault people and do a lot of dumb .

But yes, it would get tiresome. But...I fail to believe that the *exact* same thing/s could happen in the loop. Like, there are no variables? I think there would be, which would make it a lot more interesting.

But one question...if I didn't already have a girlfriend, how would I get sex? CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

I'm a big, big fan of the show the Highlander, so I'd choose the passage of time option. But this is assuming that the very real limitations of the human brain and memory do not apply, as your mind can only hold so much information so this "wisdom" would have to take the place of other information. But it would be sweet to obtain hundreds, or thousands of years of practice of a martial art, for instance. Then to go and take the MMA world by storm, hehe.

But I think there would be circumstances that would destroy an immortal person, such as the universe imploding on itself. Can an immortal person survive outside the universe? Would I witness the birth of a new universe? Would I come to know God (literally)?

Bottom line, it would also be a bitch, much like in the Highlander, to keep creating identities so I can continue to drive, go to the hospital, get a job, etc etc. Though I would also open an antique store filled with stuff I had collected myself over the years.

Customer: "How do you know this is real?"

Me: "I was there."

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Awesome Squall sprite courtesy of Goten! Check here if you'd like a runescape or game-themed sprite!

Why not 21 forever? People do need to experience more before that thought of staying a physical age forever, if it is possible. More benefits, at least in most states in the U.S.

Lander, it depends on whether you mean biological immortality or complete immortality. Biological immortality denotes that you can still die but only in more exceptional ways (the universe imploding being one of them).

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Gamestar is my twin

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The topic's title is not supposed to limit you to being eighteen. It's in quotation marks because it's what sparked the idea.

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Goten is dead!

I'ma live forever in Neverland with Peter Pan.

-Phat

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PoopbaLL`

Hmm.

In the movie tuck everlasting, their fountain of youth immortality is considered a curse, because unless you find the love of your life right when they happen to be around your same age appearance, and somehow convince them that they should become immortal too, your kind of screwed. But at the same time in that movie, even when all that DOES happen, he destroys the tree so she cannot suffer the same fate as him. (also in the movie, whatever age you started at was the age you appeared as, FOREVER.)

In the TV show Alphas, the main Bad Guy/Misunderstood Guy, happens to have immortality. What he does not have however, is the ability to make his brain be able to hold the centuries of memories he has made of his life and descendents.

The book flash forward ends up actually being about getting the choice of living forever, past everyone you know, and will ever know. even past the life span of your sun and planet, as kind of a robot. due to some LHC shenanigans, he realizes, maybe not the best choice.

Now if I had the choice of keeping a spare copy of myself as say, an immortal robot, then I would say yes, as long as it had a built in shut off switch that only i knew the password to. maybe have it set to like a 500 year minimum for living, then give the choice of renewal.

This way, my real/original life would live out its normal course, but at the same time I would be hypothetically living as long as I wanted.

Of course what would sweeten the deal is if several people, (that I hopefully get along with) also chose the immortal robot. Thus solving the problem of loneliness from no social continuity, which seems to be the main problem in most immortal stories.

So yeah anyway sign me up for the LIFE+BOT upgrade is my answer.

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JIMMY IMAGE FOR PRESIDENT!

Actually, compiling all the data in your brain and saving it on a hard drive is not entirely out of the realm of possibility. This is not something that is going to happen in our lifetime, but immortality might actually be attained by transplanting memories in robots / biological clones.

And yes, I know the ethics-o-meter just exploded there.

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RV's JTA ni yōkoso!
‪‫‬‭‮‪‫‬‭‮҉

Honestly without the thinking of the loss of friends and family. Who would not want to explore all the possibilities in life and see everything there is to see and do this all within your prime be it between 18 and early 30s. Everyone has their own view of the age they would like to stay. Some would be older and some younger.

People think about what comes next in "their" life if this ever did occur to them and the depressing thoughts of how the people you are close to are not immortal too. I wouldn't mind it happening to me... Just in a few years. Being stuck at 17 would have a tonn of downsides haha.

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Road to Insane Final Boss