What if Death is the current creation of Earthly evolution? In place to create physical cycles in order to promote growth and change with each new generation.
If someone were to live forever, their physical composure probably wouldn't change that much compared to 100s of generations across the same amount of time, all adapting to new environments.

Perhaps death is only necessary for earlier forms of evolution and that it's not a universal constant.
This would mean that one day it could be possible to evolve beyond the need for death entirely!

To me that's a fascinating idea! What do you all think?

I like it...

I like it as well. It sounds like the end of time, or a new way of looking at time all together. Finally there would be time to do all the things i wish to accomplish.

Time will tell...

Interesting concept I like it

Very nice! Good point on the evolution part. I agree with that for sure.

Hmmmmmmmmm, wow.

Good to go!

Nice concept Have some questions/comments about this concept though,

1) If someone were to live forever, are we speaking just naturally never dieing? (other words not accounting for any man-made deaths such as bullets, bombs, etc)

2) If that is the case, from what I see is a weakness towards infection from disease and viruses. Evolution widdles out the weak and makes way for the strong. If someone were to live forever (while of course still increasing population ), that person IMO would have a greater chance of dieing from disease since viruses, bacteria, etc evolve at a greater speed than humans do already. 100's of generations though would probably be more affective against the disease though faster than the person who lives forever. As I see it, evolution through death is quicker change then through living. Thus, the person "living forever" vs the average person would probably die on average at the same time by disease.

....or are u just neglecting all forms of death?? (natural and man-made)

3) When you are talking about "all adapting to new environments", are you including the "forever living" person into that too or just the 100's of generations?

4) "death as not a universal constant" - So if you look at death as a physical state, it seems to me as though death then would have to flow with the change of the universe. Going with the concept that "energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred", if one were to be brought into this life as a human , then following natural flow of energy, they should die as a human (thus completing the transfer of energy). To me, not dieing would disrupt natures balance/transfer of energy.... so i would think death would be a constant. :idea:

Not tryin to bash your concept, just adding thought provoking ideas
ElusiveMind

Good questions Elusive!

1. I am speaking immunity to death in all forms. In this hypothetical situation, I am speaking of a being who is essentially perfect so would not need to change, at least for an extremely long time. I don't believe this concept would work otherwise because...

2. This would be the case. It would make sure everything stays within a certain limit, or else population would be allowed to grow out of control. Until a species has room for such growth, I don't think invincibility is a reasonable or likely concept.
good points

3. Yes I am speaking of both the forever living person and the person with natural life/death cycles. The invincible person would still adapt; or more-so not be required to adapt, while the natural cycled person would be continously adapting physically and mentally at an impressive rate, allowing evolution to take this being to new heights.

4. Exactly, you state it pretty well yourself in the question haha
This is basically how I believe things work. When we die our physical matter returns to the universe, and the electrical energy we use to create brain function; or our shared energetic soul, stops transmitting through the physical body of "you" but is still flowing through everything as it always has here on earth. I am unsure of life elsewhere (pretty unsure of life here!), as there very likely is such thing as "life as we don't know it".
Yes I agree, it is completely necessary for life as we know it. Especially since I believe we are a combination of shared and generated life energy here on earth.

There are a lot of holes or at least disadvantages to this concept, but I can imagine an extremely (EXTREMELY!) advanced lifeform having evolved past the need for change through life/death/rebirth cycles, and thus immortality is biologically more beneficial to such a being than it would be here on earth.

Thank you for your quick response Electric.Sight There were much appreciated and were exactly what I was looking for.

As for your response to my question #4:


Your example of our "shared energetic soul" ties nicely in with the transfer of energy theory. As for your extremely evolved life, I believe it could be possible. Looking at your "soul" as an energy source, it would have to follow the transfer of energy....so where does this energy go?

Well, if you think of your soul as a finger and your body as a sock puppet, once you "die" the sock puppet is used no more, but your finger still functions in its own form. Your finger (while not in a body) can still feel changes and sensations of shift in gravity, other electric forces, etc. With this in mind, I would consider this a VERY basic and hypothetical conscious.
EDIT: Conscious in the fact that this finger is aware of its surrounding but not necessarily of itself. Like ego death, a person is aware of the funny shapes and colours around them (stimuli) but aren't aware of who they are.

With this basic conscious, and since energy never "dies" and is only transferred, then I can make the claim that your "soul" of energy is the ultimate evolution.... which is brought upon by death

ElusiveMind

Joe Rogan made an interesting point in an interview, something to the effect of this: If you add up all the years lived by a room full of people, it quickly adds up to an enormous amount of human experience. If there are 100 people in this room and they are all 30 years of age, then that is 3,000 years of subjective experience occuring within the same time frame. I don't remember how I meant to relate it to this thread. Quantitative change yields qualitative change or something like that. M'grindin ma teef and can't concentrate.

Seems to me the only reason to evolve out of death would be if we stopped evolving all together. In a universe that is vast and infinite I can't see that happening.

this is very possible, and quite a likely scenario; tho i would choose death any day over immortality, because i want to see what lies on the other side...however, the option of immortality would still be nice to have around
someone correct me if i'm wrong, but afaik, McKenna proposed the theory that eventually humans will evolve into hyperspace beings, thus making the body obsolete.
it is fascinating indeed, but death is more exciting

^^^lol Indeed!
Living forever can be a curse as much as it can be a gift, I don't find it desirable at all.
Yeah death promotes rebirth, it would be detrimental for a species still needing a lot of growth. However because the universe is so vast and infinite is exactly why I believe something like this could be possible. I picture a being of light and energy evolved past the need for a physical body. So advanced that evolution wouldn't be necessary for millions of years. I see something like this benefiting from Immortality.

Great points everyone, keep them coming

I think every new development would grind down to a halt without death. Evolution without death would be impossible.
In the field of science, the only way for new ideas to get a chance is that the old established stubborn scientists are eventually dying off, the chance of convincing them of new ideas during their lifetime (even with hard evidence available) is zero.
Long live Death!

From another perspective, maybe reincarnation is also evolution by death. A two-edged sword: evolution of both spirit and body by death...

On a bigger scale, who knows whole universes are dying and being reborn, transferring information about naturals laws, DNA, planet formation etc to the new ones..???

And thankfully, DMT showed me that this imaginary thing called Death is nothing to worry about.

McKenna proposed that machines may integrate with the Gaian matrix allowing humans to free themselves from the preoccupation of survival. Coming down from spice one evening, I had this reverie of humans existing in some hyperspatial state of being. My mind instantly connected it with plants. Plants are...well, they just kind of sit there and the Earth takes care of them. Seeds fall where they may and the plants live and die. As hyperspatial beings, perhaps we'll continue to die in the natural sense, but we will experience the noble indifference toward death that plants hold as the Earth and the Gaian machines provide for our bodies.

It seems quite possible that we are already able to do this
In one sense . There seems to be an intact sense of self that
Remains even in the face of complete reality anilation during a
Deep dmt breakthrough . This suggests to me that a tiny ember that
Is who we are could remain entact even after biological death
occurs in this matter reality.

great posts.

indeed we are evolving beings of energy and light, experiencing as hollow awareness through the body senses.

truly where is this ever changing present moment, seemingly evolving exponentially moving towards?

I don't think any species could ever evolve to the point of perfection. But even if it would, you're suggesting that the body at that time somehow would 'know' that it's perfect and therefore wouldn't feel the need of dying anymore or that when it would be perfect it just simply couldn't die.

You wouldn't need a perfect body for that, you just would need a perfect damage-repair system. A system that would constantly scan all cells including it's own, and a system that would repair any kind of damage that would be spotted by these scans. If those systems would be perfect, you would have a virtually immortal body.

But they wouldn't be perfect, since perfection is an impossible concept.

We'd just have to kling on to the concept of immortal souls then.

What if the universe would be constantly reborn in a cycle of a big-bang, followed by a period of expansion and then some kind of ending, whether by another great explosion or a big-freeze, a big implosion or whatever, and that every being that dies here would be immediately reborn in the next universe?

Nietzche wrote of a cyclical universe.



This is an interesting idea, especially for those interested in fractals. I wonder if it the universal recursion would be exactly self-similar or quasi-self-similar.

I'm sure many here have at least heard if not read the Tibeten Book of the Dead, I have been reading i off and on for several years now.

It has been a very helpful guid and a good way to integrate some of the more outlandish experiences that I have had under the influence.

Some species are on their way.
Death is thing of the past

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula