Instigator / Con
10
1489
rating
25
debates
64.0%
won
Topic
#5631
Immortality would be Good
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 3 votes and with 11 points ahead, the winner is...
itsnotago
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Rated
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 5,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
- Minimal rating
- 1,450
Contender / Pro
21
1500
rating
13
debates
84.62%
won
Description
Immortal: Cannot not die and will never cease to exist.
Round 1
Initially immortality seems great, except for the endless cycle of everyone you know and love dying.
Despite that, you collect more wisdom, intellect, and experiences, making you a super human of some sort.
The problem is that nothing lasts forever, including humanity. Humans will inevitably be one day irradiated, be it in a few hundred or a few billion years. Without any human interaction, you'd fall into a deep state of depression with no escape. But it gets worse. Eventually, the sun will die, and along with it everything. That is everything but you. You will remain, just existing, with nothing, and you will continue to exist until the literal end of time, which may possibly be forever.
That's not desirable, that's torture.
The subject of this debate is immortality being "good" or the opposite of the word which is "bad". Those are very vague terms when characterising something, because these words are multi-faceted but since you later used the word desirable so i'm led to believe that that's the word you actually meant to characterise immortality as.
Now, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word desirable as "having pleasing qualities or properties", and the word is synonym with the word "attractive". With science as it is, you can't read or look into other people's minds and thoughts so you can never really know if what you desire corresponds to what everyone else desires or is attracted by. That being said, there are 8 billion people in this world and i'm absolutely certain that someone out there desires to live forever no matter the implications or possibly someone out there likes being all alone. Something being desirable is completely subjective and you have taken the con position in this debate so you basically believe that immortality isn't desirable and i counter that it is extremely possible that it could be desired by someone.
It has both advantages and disadvantages so according to the word definition i provided, it "merits" attention and consideration, even if that is by few
In addition, you didn't specify if one person is supposed to be immortal or if we're talking about immortality in general and the second round of a debate is too late to do that.
If we were talking about the real world, the only way immortality would be achieved, would be through science. Immortality would ultimately be distributed among people and it wouldn't be kept to one person or two. That's simply not how the world works. Now back to my point, if we were talking about the real world, your argument would be false.
If we were talking about an imaginary world, we wouldn't know how the world worked since it doesn't exist and it would only exist and function as part of our imagination. In the same way, we could put our imagination to there being multiple immortals so well that is a big question mark
I will let you answer to the question i posed in the third paragraph even though it is quite too late to do so.
Source
Round 2
I will let you answer to the question i posed in the third paragraph even though it is quite too late to do so.
I had the ladder option in mind, I thought I made it clear that this was theoretical due to the "cannot die and will never cease to exist" part, as that's logically impossible. No matter how advanced the technology, there will always be a way to die.
Regardless, even if you had community, trillions of years of nothing but the pain of the vacuum of space is still torture.
Pro's Argument: Because desirability is subjective, there is no answer to the question of if immortality is desirable.
The definition of desirable, as you mentioned, is "having pleasing qualities or properties" Logically, this means being pleasing on a net balance, otherwise you could say that things such as genocide, rape, and slavery are desirable, as they all have some pleasing quality or property, even though that positive is completely crushed by the negatives. We can all agree that those things are not desirable, even though genocide reduces climate change, slavery increases production, and rape causes one party pleasure.
Then, the question is who gets to decide what a pleasing quality is. The meaning of the word "pleasing" comes from the consensus of the people. Gaining a proportionately small amount of time in return for spending the literal rest of the existence of time in pain, is not pleasing to the wide consensus of people.
Regardless, even if you had community, trillions of years of nothing but the pain of the vacuum of space is still torture
Yeah but if there was a community, you wouldn't have to watch your closest people die which was basically your argument while you would also interact with your community and avoid depression caused by loneliness which was your other argument
As far as the space part goes, you would have all the time in the world to become more knowledgeable. Many people would see this as an opportunity to devote themselves to science and the hunt of knowledge and as a result, these people would make great, world-changing discoveries that alter the way we think and imagine space
otherwise you could say that things such as genocide, rape, and slavery are desirable
The difference is that genocide is in most cases a war crime while rape and slavery are severely punished crimes. Being immortal doesn't include killing people or committing a crime. You don't hurt anyone around you, the only person you're capable of hurting is yourself but that's the downside to being the only person that is immortal. The upside is that you will never die and that idea and all the things it implicates tempt lots of people regardless of the downside.
You talked about net balance but research shows that 1 in 5 would want to become immortal, which is 20%. Another 30% said they would most likely take this offer while almost 60% of people in nursing homes wish that they could extend their lifespan. Those are not numbers to be ignored and are percentages significantly larger than the percentage of people who find pleasure in committing crimes like rape
The meaning of the word "pleasing" comes from the consensus of the people. Gaining a proportionately small amount of time in return for spending the literal rest of the existence of time in pain, is not pleasing to the wide consensus of people
No matter what you say, there would always someone out there ready to take up the offer no matter the downside. We all recognise the downside if your the only immortal there and therefore you must recognise that some people disregard it due to difference in opinions and the way they live
Source
Round 3
The information provided in this debate lacks proper substance required to proceed productively in this conversation.
Seeing that it's my fault, I'll concede this debate. However, I would be open to a second debate with a more defined theoretical world.
Thank you to Pro for the discussion.
The information provided in this debate lacks proper substance required to proceed productively in this conversation
I agree.
However, I would be open to a second debate with a more defined theoretical world
Seeing as this wasn't the position i actually support, i can't continue it. I tried to push myself into it but it didn't rly work
Thank you too Con for this opportunity to debate
Round 4
Forfeited
no addition
Well, my view is that Pro is making the stronger argument. Con's position is supposed to be against the idea that immorality would be good. Yet, they talk good things about it, saying that it makes someone wise, gives them experience, and they are superhuman. The only pushback they give is over theoretical rhetoric that has nothing to do with morality.
Pro, on the other hand, keeps their argument completely within the context of the subject. And brings up excellent points, such as these terms are vague and can easily be seen as an argument for immortality, not immorality. They make a particularly good point about the subjective nature of desire, the inability to predict others, and the stark difference between the real world and the imagined and how it works. However, I disagree that immorality is only achievable in science.
I didn't see that you were con, i thought you were pro. Nevertheless, i will debate you