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Methods for immortality

 
 
Opps!!
20:04 / 05.12.05
Recently i've been wondering about the ideas and theories of immortality. Alot of material seems to cover life extension, stepping outside of time, reincarnation and so on. However, there seems to be many more subtile methods that we use to achieve this status including:

1) reproduction - immortality on a molecular scale / DNA, etc.

2) influence - our ideas and actions effecting others we come into contact with along with its effects on future generations

3) objects - photographs, works of art, books, etc (are libraries and bookshops depositries for people to live forever). Any writers/painters out there, is this a reason for the work you do?

What do you lot think about this idea, any other ways by which we gain 'immortality'. The thing that interests me about this is about how this can begin to touch all aspects of our everyday actions.
 
 
Morpheus
20:06 / 12.12.05
so many questions...so little time.

Oblivion seeks meaning and so existance blossoms in the form of illusion. We dream we live...we live we die. Time just makes it seem like we're not alone in all this. Time is liquid and non-linear..it's linear nature is an illusion. Past, present, future, just one little drink. The three aspects of love are there to define the whole in an undefinable universe. We search for each other...dualism is the result. The three (spirit/soul/mortis) are mystical while the two (yin/yang) are physical definitions for the whole of the universe, which gives birth to the World.
Everyone is immortal yet no one exists. And so we only see ghosts of mortality.
 
 
LVX23
23:05 / 12.12.05
Identify with the astral body. Embrace death while living.
 
 
LVX23
23:13 / 12.12.05
That was my off-the-cuff response. I think anything we create that's more persistent than our flesh is surely a signifier of immortality. Of course, there's no real self-reference left behind, just a resonance. But you could imagine that, with enough focus and intention, the sum total of your words, deeds, and creations might be akin to an egregore of self capable of living on in the distributed astral network of minds so affected by your incarnation. Surely such great beings still walk among us, in myth and religion, science & philosophy. Edison is invoked every time I flick a switch, yeah? Demons and Angles alike weigh on our collective footprints into the future. The Past walks into the Present through such impacts.
 
 
Seth
23:45 / 12.12.05
Cut off everyone's head until you're the last one left.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
23:45 / 12.12.05
I was gonna go with "Eat brains," Seth, but I guess your way works too.
 
 
Ganesh
01:02 / 13.12.05
Seek the Dark Embrace, ideally from a high-up Ventrue.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:48 / 13.12.05
I've never been very impressed with vampires' "immortality" myself. They seem to be rather accident-prone. I'm sorry, but if the best you can do is come back in the next movie played by a different actor you're just not trying.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
11:25 / 13.12.05
Any writers/painters out there, is this a reason for the work you do?

No, it has nothing to do with achieving immortality and everything to do with a sort of horrible complusion that I can't fight off no matter how hard I try.
 
 
Unconditional Love
13:34 / 13.12.05
Perhaps the study of your own mortality would help, knowing you will die, that death is your destiny.
You do end.

That what goes on isnt you as you know yourself.
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
19:12 / 13.12.05
Lab accident involving irrational particle accelerator, liquid lunch, and a couple rubber bands. You get an eternity of endless frustration with your own immortality, but at least you don't dissolve in sunlight.

Aside from that, I think Ganesh was on to something. But get a high up Tzimisce or Tremere to Embrace you. Your ENDLESS FOREVER NIGHTS will be much more amusing. Plus you'll never have to say to yourself "I really wish my eyes were green."
 
 
Dead Megatron
20:43 / 13.12.05
I expect to download myself into the internet within the next 50 years...
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
08:57 / 14.12.05
I expect to download myself into the internet within the next 50 years...

Do you like porn and gambling that much?
 
 
Evil Scientist
09:29 / 14.12.05
1) reproduction - immortality on a molecular scale / DNA, etc.

The pedantic monkey of my soul once again tears down it's cage door and scampers free into the night to spit half-chewed mango at passers-by.

As your DNA is diluted by every generation, your descendants will have DNA that is different to yours. Although they'll most likely share a few traits in common.

Unless you use some kind of insidious engineered plague that rewrites the DNA of everyone in the world to produce exact genetic duplicates of you. But make sure you include orders to force grow memory structures in their heads as well so they think like you too.

Nah, no-one would do that would they. You'd have to be some kind of evil scientist.

Mwoo ha haa!
 
 
Quantum
09:46 / 14.12.05
Even cloning has it's drawbacks...

Back to immortality, I've heard there's this fountain of youth in the jungle somewhere. The Immortality Serum is in the hands of Evil Scientist, so you'd be better off distilling some elixir vitae from the philosopher's stone (you can get some from Enoch Root or Harry Potter) and quaffing that.

Maybe try Religion? They've got plenty of offers on usually, involving eternal happiness or reincarnation and the like, for the small price of repentance or good deeds or faith or something.

You could try the Rite of Ashkente, summon Death and bind her to your will, or put Death in a magic bag for a while.

You could explore cryogenics, apparently in the future they'll be thawing out sick old people to perform miraculous cures on them (what else will they have to do in the Nanotech future?) but it's expensive.

There's plenty of people you could follow in the footsteps of, who wasted their lives trying not to die instead of living. Google the Comte (sp?) de Saint Germain, Simon Magus, Flamsteed, Enoch, Tremere...
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
10:00 / 14.12.05
Comte de Saint Germain AKA Chuck Norris
 
 
Dead Megatron
11:13 / 14.12.05
Do you like porn and gambling that much?

Throw in some drugs and a pizza, and we got ourselves a deal.
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
16:48 / 14.12.05
Quantum, it disturbs me that you put Tremere on part with the Comte de Saint-Germaine. I mean...really, man. That was just declasse.

You class Tremere beside Connor Mcleod! How many times do I have to say it?
 
 
Mirror
17:04 / 14.12.05
1) reproduction - immortality on a molecular scale / DNA, etc.

The pedantic monkey of my soul once again tears down it's cage door and scampers free into the night to spit half-chewed mango at passers-by.

As your DNA is diluted by every generation, your descendants will have DNA that is different to yours. Although they'll most likely share a few traits in common.


Ah, but they're inherit life from you. What's that old saw - we are but tiny branches of the endlessly diverse, endlessly expanding tree that is Life On Earth?
 
 
LykeX
20:48 / 14.12.05
But if that's true, then we are all immortal right now and there's nothing we have to do.
 
 
Mirror
22:00 / 14.12.05
Basically, yes. Effectively, I'm saying the same thing as Morpheus, just without the mumbo-jumbo.
 
 
Charlie's Horse
00:45 / 15.12.05
You could try the Rite of Ashkente, summon Death and bind her to your will

Having looked this one up, I don't see how it'll help you avoid Death. Contemplate mortality - maybe, but not the whole 'live forever' thing.

The Rite Of Ashkente

* 4.45 cl. Vodka (Peach flavoured)
* 4.45 cl. Southern Comfort
* 1.5 cl. Sloe Gin
* 18 cl. Orange Juice

Garnish with a slice of orange.

Looks like just about anyone could try it, give an account here, and see how it goes. I would, but the only alcohol I have handy is whiskey. Now we all know that whiskey can help you contemplate mortality, especially if you want to see it as a pitch-black pit, brimming over with liquid pain. Or, funnily enough, as a slapdash series of smoke-and-mirrors routines carted by on greased wheels, in which you can't seem to talk as quietly as before, because you're so excited. Maybe this puts you in a different frame of mind?
 
 
Quantum
09:17 / 15.12.05
Hey, if you add 2.5cc of mouse blood to that recipe you get a genuine elixir of youth- quelle concidence!
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
19:38 / 15.12.05
What exactly IS a "cc" anyway?
 
 
Mirror
19:46 / 15.12.05
cc = cubic centimeter = centilitre = cl
 
  
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