There are some caveats though. You are immortal but what this actually means is that you are unable to do anything that would probabilistically lead to your death.
So, for example, if you were more probable to die getting into a car than walking, you would choose to walk. But only if choosing to walk was more probable than the probability of you surviving after getting into a car.
It’s kind of confusing, but essentially You have no choice if something is about to kill you, but if you plan far enough ahead, the probability of you choosing to do or not to do something versus the probability of your survivability can potentially win out.
So given this version of immortality, what would you plan to do to benefit yourself in some way?
I’ve already thought about potentially hooking up some kind of lottery Number machine to a guillotine in order to win the lottery but it turns out that the probability of you not making this machine is more likely than making the machine and surviving so you just never end up making the machine.
In order to get an idea of where I’m coming from, here’s a video that explains a bit aboabout quantum immortality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTZZUjnrbF8
It doesn’t matter what I would choose to do. Quantum immortality robs you of free will. I’m slaved to the swap, and my life’s path is now deterministic in nature.
It’s a hell that I wouldn’t even be aware of.
Well all possibilities are possible, so you get a sense of choice even though any choices that would lead to your death are unseen to you or simple not taken.
I’ve found the futher ahead you plan the more likely something is to happen so there is still a little choice. I’ve never been able to plan any of these suicide boxes that other people have mentioned tho…(not in any real sense anyways.)
This question is so confusing that I will avoid all snails just in case.
Wouldn’t you be least likely to die if you were, say, in a coma, under 24/7 medical surveillance in a hospital, or some other similar circumstance? Being out in public at all raises the probability of dying, so how would you ever go out? You wouldn’t be able to use a knife, or even scissors. You’d never be able to interact with anyone online - there’s a non-zero chance that someone takes such offense with what you say that they find where you live and come hunt you down, so it’s safer - infinitesimally so, but safer - to just not go online at all.
What I’m getting at is, the scenario you’ve laid out with the bounds you’ve set just means you’d have the worst life imaginable. At least you’d be alive, though?
I don’t think people in comas have a good chance of survivability. There’s all kinds of stuff that can kill you in a coma. Bed sores, pneumonia, infection, bleeding, so many things.
Now we have drug-resistant candida to add to the list. Yay.
Well, you’re right about some things. I do barely ever go outside. But as with the knives and other things, I think you have to take into account the probability of one not doing those things versus the probability of one dying from them.
The probability of me never using a knife is very unlikely. If it’s more unlikely for me to never use a knife and thus not slice myself, then it is unlikely that I would use one. I’ll use one.
I’ve tried slicing my neck. I just end up fainting.
I’ve tried slicing my neck. I just end up fainting.
What compelled you to try that? Please don’t test your mortality.
I got tired of constantly gaslighting myself about the nature of reality and decided to call it’s bluff. Its exhausting having the same thoughts over and over again and constantly questioning them.
It did bring me some solace, but also changed a lot of things. Knowing you’re immortal makes your perspective on life change completely. I don’t know how to explain it.
After that I began planning on the homeless thing mentioned above. I’m probably one on of the very few if only people to have ever gone from a 40$ hour job to actively planning to become homeless haha.
You don’t understand tho, the thought of being homeless is so exhilarating, imagine being trapped your whole life and planning your escape. Thinking about it and planning for it has been some of the happiest moments in recent memory.
There’s a lot to unpack here.
Do you think you could promise me you won’t try to test it again?
Why would I need to… No I don’t plan on trying again for that specific reason… Sometimes when things are bad enough or I’m pissed enough I try but nothing ever ends up coming of it.
Death is a mistress I will never know. Suicide was so 5-10 years ago, eventually you just kind of move on from it.
I’m sorry you’ve gone through that but glad to hear you’re not planning on trying again.
How long have you been thinking about this situation? Have you already become homeless?
You had me laughing pretty hard at the “worst life imaginable part.” Sometimes it feels like that.
Although you got to remember that if one’s life gets too bad, then they’re more likely to be depressed and off themselves.
So they would get some semblance of enjoyability out of life.
They would try to kill themselves, but get paralysed so they can’t.
In only the most playful and harmless spirit of sarcasm, it kinda reads like, “you are immortal if you make choices which do not kill you”.
And as an extension, “if you choose to survive long enough, that will eventually kill you, as well”.
It sounds like a complicated way of describing an instinctively non-suicidal existence.
I suspect some kind of brain uploading or simulating will be created in ones lifetime. Its likely in order to be this kind of immortal you would only be able to exist near or around the invention of brain uploads or simulations.
Any other time you would not be born, or experience existence.
I’m not sure I understand the question. If the premise is that you become physically incapable of doing any action that introduces greater risk than some alternative, which isn’t even a guarantee of “immortality” as described, then it’s basically a life not lived at all. The safest option would always be to go nowhere, do nothing, speak to no one.
Imagine living life as if everything was covered in California Prop 65 labels saying “This action can expose you to risks which are known to future you to cause premature demise or other bodily harm.” It sounds awful, I’d never take that bet.
It doesn’t just affect decisions you make, but also all things around you. Decisions others make and events that happen. Everything is acting on probability, you just only exist in the universes where… well… you exist.
The shitty thing is in this scenario you don’t get to choose the option to be immortal or not, you just are. You get as much choice in the matter as how much choice you have in being born, that is to say, none.
It sounds like you have no agency either way, then, which still sounds like a bad deal to me. I’d rather die at 40 living a life of my choosing than live to 400 with essentially no free will.
The questions wasn’t if it was a bad deal, you are already immortal. I was just trying to get some ideas on what could be done to make ones life better given these parameters.
Ending it as quickly and painlessly as possible then, I guess. I stick by the opinion that a life without agency and with no means to obtain it isn’t really living at all.
Not an option unfortunately… Immortal is immortal :(
My first thought was to set up a bunch of long-term investments, since you can reasonably assume that you’ll live a long life. But then also, being rich might increase the odds of you being kidnapped or killed, so it might just tank whatever you choose to invest in.
Maybe you could somehow get a job testing roller coasters. Once you’re in there you have no power to decide anything, so perhaps the universe will make the builders construct the safest possible roller coaster. OR, you could be a food taster for someone rich and powerful. The universe wouldn’t let you eat anything that’s poisoned, or it would just ensure that no food gets poisoned in the first place!
If you wanted to be tied forever to capitalism then yeah making a lot of money would let you live with it forever. Your survival becomes linked to lots of money meaning something. Careful what you wish for though.
Taking your idea a bit further you could Schrödingers cat yourself, buy a bunch of lottery tickets and set up a radioisotope decay triggered death machine with the escape being you select a winning lottery ticket. In theory this means you’re getting out of the box with a winning ticket.
You could also do the same with basically anything you want to happen, go into the box with the escape condition of “the world becomes a better place” probably need some more defined variables but maybe not.
Nice try, Immortal. Figure it out yourself!
In my time studying this, I have figured one thing out though. It’s easier to choose not to do something and have the outcome happen than the other way around.
For example: Say I want the world to become a better place that’s friendlier to homeless people( Really, what I mean is more friendly to the most vulnerable among us.). (More Communist/Anarchist hopefully)
So what I did is I decided that I’m never going to get a job after my current one Unless it’s a communist or anarchist one.
What I’ve found is that it’s more likely for the whole world to change, to warp itself around, keeping me alive. Then for me to just randomly have all my muscles spasm in a way to make and submit a resume to apply for a job, and then continue to go to that job.(Essentially it’s more likely for the world to change than for the million monkeys to type out Shakespeare.) In theory, eventually this would make the world a better place. If I’m immortal and I become the most vulnerable among us, then the world would have to make the survivability of being the most vulnerable among us greater.
Anyways, I’m just wondering what other people might do, or if there’s other things people can think of that might be more efficient.
You may like the book “the perfect run”. It’s on royal road.
It goes over quite a few scenarios like what you are talking about about. Plays out like a hero story though.
Sick! Thank you for the recommendation friend!
I’d probably do nothing, since the safest thing I could very likely do would always be to stay inside and sleep all day. Going out to subject myself to cars is probably always more risky.
Change to delivery of food instead of getting it myself. Exercise more often at my home gym. Not meet anyone so as to reduce disease vectors. Just in general really do much less.
Yes, you will do as little socializing as possible. Just enough socializing to prevent extreme depression and thus unaliving.
You’ll cook your own food because ordering out all the time isn’t healthy.
Diseases aren’t necessarily something that it negates. For example, if you get COVID and it makes you dumber, that’s a plus because then now you’re easier to manipulate because you can’t plan ahead as far. versions of you that could plan ahead farther might be more likely to make decisions that would go against your odds of surviving in any given scenario.
You’d be surprised what things you might think are safe actually end up not being safe at all.
Please help me understand this. Let’s say I’m a daredevil. My job is to jump from planes and ride bikes over running helicopters, etc.
So let’s say I’m prepping for my latest stunt and there’s a high probability that it’ll kill me. What will be the alternative? Do I just, not do the stunt? Or rather, fate finds a way for that stunt to not happen, perhaps. Maybe by breaking my leg one day before the event?
OR, I can tweak that in my favor and say that there are two options - jumping over a line of burning school buses vs. over a line of running helicopters. Then am I triggering fate to pick only one of these two options (and not the option of breaking my leg a day before)?
If the latter is the case, then I would set up ever increasing death defying stunts and flood the betting market with bets that I won’t die. After all, either stunt is impressive. If the betting process won’t cut it, at least the Red Bull YouTube channel viewership will bring in the moolah for me.
If it is the former, where fate just chickens out and causes me some minor harm (or distraction) so I don’t go get myself killed the next day or the next moment, then what’s the point? Live your life and accept that if you stub your toe, it’s so that you don’t kill yourself of an embolism later. If you miss the bus, assume the bus would have fallen in the water had you been on it.
Thank you for this idea though, making bets on ones life could be a way to profit/make money if that was something you wanted.
Likely you would just never choose to be a daredevil. Lets say you did tho, likely you would fail to ever plan an event. Lets say you got to an event and you are driving down the track, yes you would always stick the landing and everything would just work.
Its more likely many other things happen before that though, I would think. Knowing the probability in these things is hard. Like if the choice is between you being a daredevil and you 100-99% dying from depression then you will choose to be a daredevil.
Its very hard to know these things tho as you don’t know all the variables. Thats why in my other comment I mention it is easier to chose to not do things because you can know and actively choose against the variables in those cases.
Hey, my knee jerk answer was what I have always dreamed of doing it if I was immortal - cozy up with all the books ever written.
Unfortunately, it’s extremely hard to choose to lose your job. You keep going to work, even though you would rather stay at home and just read books.
I’ve been actively trying to lose my job by just not working, but what happens is the org ends up in a state of chaos, people are losing their jobs left and right( Except me, of course 🙄…😮💨)… My boss retires, all so I fall under the radar.
Some insane shit happens when You decide you’re not getting a job after your current one, and yet you stop putting in any effort.
