[Itchybottom]

Originally Posted by stormlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

My third thought is that there's another way to live forever. Believe in god and in an afterlife. If you're wrong, it won't matter because you'll be too dead to know the difference. It's the most popular fountain of youth.

If every single thought you have is stored in a unified physical structure with similar physical reactions to write and pull information, I sincerely doubt that even if there was to be an afterlife that what makes you the human "you" will remain after wards.

Originally Posted by stormlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Another popular way to live forever is to not focus on yourself. Focus on society and civilization and humanity. If you treat those things as your identity and purpose, then your own death is not the death of your identity or your purpose. Until society or civilization or humanity dies, then for these people they will live forever.

That is in idea genetic immorality, and much the reason things in nature reproduce. But such immorality conflicts with ego and trivializes a lot of the journey in life.

Originally Posted by stormlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've often wondered what would it be like to copy myself with 100% accuracy. So sitting across from me would be my duplicate. He would be exactly as I was at the moment of the copying process. So I'd be looking, effectively, at me. He would probably be thinking the same things as me. He'd be looking at me and thinking something like: "That guy over there is probably thinking what I'm thinking!" The only difference between us would be that I know I'm the original, but other than that it's a matter of opinion. The question would arise: If one of us had to die at that moment, would it really matter? Because one would still remain...

The moment your clone became aware of it's surroundings, your experiences would begin to differ. Even sitting across a room, staring at one another, you would be having different thoughts because your local environment would differ. If either of you died, you'd still be losing the individual experience of that clone -- it would really matter.

Originally Posted by stormlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Is the death of "me" really the death of me? Or is it only the death of an illusion? How do we know that we're really separate in the grand scheme of things anyway?

You can't will reality away, or start to think of existence as one big group hallucination. The universe and it's properties are infinitely complex, and if it is just an illusion -- it's a damned good one. Because our experiments in physical things, continue to have the same results.

Originally Posted by stormlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Something leads me to believe we're all the same, just in different clothes. There're nearly 7 billion other people on this planet that have experienced things differently from me. My current philosophy tells me that if I had been them then I would have turned out exactly as they have. This means that I already have lived as them. So there's no need for me to wish I was someone else or wish I could live forever so that I could experience all that life has to offer. I have lived every life on this earth since the beginning of time and will live every life to come. Why do I say this? Because if I had been any other person in any other time or place, I would have lived my life exactly the same way as them. So why worry? Because I will die, but is death really the death of me or am I worrying about an illusion that does not exist?

Theosophy, specifically similar to the akashic records. Mortality makes us ponder the strangest things. Cosmic background radiation all around us, the universe birthing us to become sentient, it's all been deconstructed and reconstructed in the minds of thousands per generation (if not more), and in the end it only boils down to one thing. Eventually, you're going to be brain dead, your life is finite, wishful thinking and hope isn't going to keep that from happening. Everyone can have their own personal belief, and that's great, but that's actually creating the very illusion you're intending to shed.

You should probably read about mind uploading (protein kinase C/C zeta mapping for long term memory structure, and thorough understanding of neurogenesis for mapping real time data) -- through human ingenuity, one day your illusion idea might come to full fruition. There is nothing to suggest that in nature exists such a thing though, other than wishful thinking.

It's been suggested that even hydra age, and eventually die.