Immortality: A blessing or a curse?

What sort of immortality? There’s being absolutely unkillable, like some sort of superman. There’s having an indefinitely long lifespan, but still being susceptible to disease or injury. I can imagine having some fun with the first sort, but the second sort of immortality would make me very risk averse, and has some problems with it.

At a species level, there’s good evidence that immortality would be an actual detriment to the survival of that species. Evolution is the mechanism by which a species adapts to its environment, but for it to do so, each generation needs to reproduce, and die off to make room for the next generation. Immortality would not make room for the next generation, and immortal individuals can’t biologically adapt to future environmental conditions—I guess there could be creative technological solutions…

Curse.

Unless you can stop cold the effects of aging, your body will still fall apart – albeit more slowly. Sounds torturous.

Also, at some point, everyone you ever knew will be dead, leaving you alone with fading memories and fewer options for companionship.

Lastly, unless this were a planet-wide phenomenon, you would eventually be hounded relentlessly by the media and by scientists and doctors as a freak. So you’d eventually have to live as a hermit.

All in all, sounds pretty miserable.

The worst of all curses!

I defer to Freddie…“Who wants to live forever!”
Watching everyone around you die over & over again is my idea of hell.

Immortality exists in our children, our legacies whether good or bad and the changes we made while we were here.

I would like the second concept of immortality that @Kropotkin describes.
That way, if you like you can go on and on living, and if you decide you have no interested in being around anymore, you can kill yourself.
Being unkillable could feel like a cage you’re stuck in, at least in my imagination.

“I have seen with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked her ‘What do you want?’ She answered, ‘I want to die.’”

I definitely think it’s a curse. The thought of watching all my loved ones die, let alone the disintegration of my mortal body, makes me want nothing to do with immortality.

The worst…hell, I am a major life lover and the most enthusiastic person I know, but shit, at 53 I am getting fucking TIRED!
I have zero desire for immortality, my egos in check. Besides, it’s the natural cycle of life for the old to die and and make room for the next herd of up and coming offspring.
Craving immortality is egocentrisim at it’s finest IMO.

@Kropotkin I was just referring to not being able to die or get sick. Just living forever, but not necessarily having a superpower. Just being able to live forever and not having to worry about your health.

Since everyone answered assuming their own personal immortality, I thought a bit more about it. And, since I’m a procrastinator, I’d need an eternity to do half the things I plan to do, so I think it would be a blessing for me.

@Kropotkin But…you’d just have an eternity of more procrastination, so moot, might as well check out and save yourself the grief. lol

Listen to some of the vampires in the series Moonlight.