this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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If you knew anything about The Culture, you'd know it's not that simple.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Death
I want optional mortality, but am also comfortable with death, and I can imagine situations of survival where I would prefer death.
Why? There's no logical series of "and then because" steps to arrive at this bizarre conclusion. (Not you, in the book's universe, I mean)
Like, everything else ISN'T eccentric, somehow.
I think with all the options for a non-physical existence, it's seen as quaint that one would choose to permanently extend their physical existence. But, I'm not an expert; I've only done the audiobooks for a few of the Culture series.
I don't know enough of the "rules" around consciousness transfer in the Culture universe, if there are any. I can imagine a future were we find out that consciousness is somehow non-copiable and non-mobile, and if that is the case, then I think a lot of people are going to be interested in putting off death forever, one day at a time (maybe tomorrow... but not today). If you can copy consciousness (which is what "backup services" implies to me), things get weird quickly; intentionally or accidentally there could be multiple living individuals that all share my whole history up to some copy point, e.g. Restoring my backup to a separate vessel in Utopia doesn't stop torture or other suffering that might continue for my current vessel.
Quaint isn't "frowned upon", that's two different states. A 1950s pompadour hairstyle is quaint, certainly no one frowns on it like they would, say, to teardrop tattoos near your eyes.
It's just that, in my sci-fi reading experience, the attitudes towards radical life extension always seem to be very conservative, even in a universe tossing black holes around and engineering galaxies, that's all great fun, but someone wants to live longer? Oh no, let's go back to the 18th century!
Like even the '90s show The Twilight Zone, or was it The Outer Limits, a scientist works on life extension with science, and the "moral" of the story was that the universe would punish you with supernatural retribution. I found that episode very stupid.
Of course I want my 25 year old body back. Anyone rational would want that. Even in a modest non-black-hole-tossing universe, imagine the health care savings. It would be unethical to NOT reverse aging.
Yet somehow giving birth in hospitals is OK, as are antibiotics... etc etc etc
It makes little to no sense to me. Of course life extension is desirable, especially anti-aging.
But then again we live in a world in which people actively cheer on, and fund, endless wars.
Despite all our posturing as a society about choosing life, etc, we are just a species of death-loving mortalists. With spaceships for some reason.
(I think that our present infatuation with AI will eventually lead to having enough computing power and mathematical models, to understand every atom in a cell, what reactions they participate in, and therefore how to deal with the unwanted, or long-term undesirable, chemicals. Which well then require yet an even larger simulation to see what effects that will have. I have little hope for the wilder consciousness transfer ideas, I think "me" is inextricably linked to the present state of my brain, and therefore extending the meat life is what needs to happen.)
I think this reflects our current culture. A lot of people seem to really think that death is what gives life meaning, and that bitter experiences are good because they make sweet experiences better. (They really need to understand The fable of the dragon-tyrant)
On top of that, even for people that don't see death as a "positive", many tend to think of life extension as making aging simply last longer, that you'd continue to get more frail and dotty (or whatever) for another decade or two.
There is fiction that celebrates radical life extension, but it is at least as rare as people that want radical life extension. And, even then, many of those people (myself included) as captured by the idea of uploading or otherwise separating the consciousness from the body, which doesn't seem to be what you want. https://www.fullmoon.nu/Resurrection/PrimarySpecies.html
We have plenty of examples of consciousness running on meat. I have none of consciousness separate from the body.
I am unconvinced of "meat" being a uniquely-suitable substrate for anything remotely like consciousness. I think the crazy amount of silly things that turn out to be Turning-complete is sufficient evidence that meat is unlikely to be unique.
Tho, certainly, I'm not ready to be the first volunteer to be digitized or whatever.
Ok good so it's not frowned upon
I think "eccenticity" has a connotation of negative judgment. So, yeah, I think "frowned upon" is an accurate summary of the attitude toward the rare biological citizen that chooses physical immortality.
But, no one is expected to just let "natural" biology cripple and kill them in a mere 80 years. They get to choose when they die, and most choose to end their physical existence sometime after 400 years, tho that's not always the end: they "simply" stop having a fixed physical vessel.
OR
"There's even more to it than that!" [putdown intro not necessary]
I think my reply was still a de-escalation from the attitude in the post to which I was replying. But, noted that I could be better.