h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>Lets get this straight.......<<


Good idea.

>>You start off mortal.....

Then, through action or inaction, you become immortal.....

That right???<<


Yes.

Are you calling this 'Truly Immortal', or will the 'fame' be forgotten in Geological Time??




GT

The latter.

O'gwan...

Bite the bullet!!


Mount Rushmore, and the carved images thereon!


GT

(Awaits klaxon)

You're safe. That's not a klaxon


This doesn't apply to members of high society like former Presidents but to anyone ... in the vicinity... However owing to certain....practical considerations ... you'll likely find one particular group an over represented minority.

Klaxon for defo here!!!

Hollywood 'Walk of Fame'



GT

Nope.

One more guess..

Published authors V Unpublished authors...


GT

It's not about fame.

In fact it's so unusual, I bet you've never heard of it, and when you find out what it's actually about you'll go: "Oh really? Well I never knew that!"

You can give your name to a star?

Maybe you can - but that's not the answer.


I'm going to retrospectively award GT a DGI +1 for his #40 post. Follow his lead.

So .... if you are in a particular place on earth and do something specific you become immortal .....

Anything to do with the International Date Line - if you cross it one way you gain a day if you cross the other way you lose a day - so, in effect, you could (sort of) never age .....

>>So .... if you are in a particular place on earth and do something specific you become immortal .....<<

That's the idea.


>>Anything to do with the International Date Line - if you cross it one way you gain a day if you cross the other way you lose a day - so, in effect, you could (sort of) never age .....<<

Ah. Very clever. No that's not it, but it's that sort of lateral thinking that you'll need to solve it. For there are many ways to become immortalised - we've heard a few already - but this one I happened across and thought - "What really?" did a little digging and indeed it seems death can indeed be postponed, just not indefinitely.

There was once a sketch on "Not The Nine O'Clock News" about an industrial dispute where the definition of death was discussed. The management had wanted brain death to be the decider but the union objected on the grounds that this would jeopardise the entitlements af a large proportion of their members.

The two sides eventually agreed on rigor mortis being the defining factor in the decision, leading to one worker who "passed on" at his workstation being strapped to a radiator to protect his weekly wage.

Which leads me to... an institution where people are being artificially kept "alive" by machines in the hope that one day science will be able to recover them. I would guess that it would be full of vain, stupid, but exceptionally rich people. How often does that trilogy go together?

The higher you go (ie further out of the gravity well), the longer you live, because of relitavistic effects. So live up a mountain.

>>an "institution" where people are being artificially kept "alive" [...] I would guess that it would be full of vain, stupid, but exceptionally rich people.<<

That's not a bad definition. Have a DGI +1 but it isn't what you think.

Not that high above sea level.

Is it the whole person that becomes immortal (ie lives forever) or just part of them?

If we transferred cells to another living organism and became part of that organism and then, before death, transferred cells to another living organism would we be considered immortal?

Or if we put or lives and consciousness on a web page in some way (like Second Life?) would we be immortal then?

>>Is it the whole person that becomes immortal<<

Yes.

At the poles, where all the lines of longitude merge, it is all times at once. You'd have to be very thin though. "My left elbow thinks it's 4am, but my beer gut is in next Wednesday".