What would a person be like after living for 1,000+ years?

[Sun's Resting Place]

The premise requires some suspension of disbelief.

The main issues:

Let's assume the brain does not deteriorate at the rate a regular human brain does. I.E. neurons remaining just as healthy 980 years later.
Let's also assume the person does not die from being killed (shirou.jpg) and does not commit suicide.
Let's also assume, on top of that, that the person is not 'immortal,' just in stasis of sorts. Basically, set all aging to 'pause' for this period of time after, say, 28 years old.

What would you suppose is the 'biggest' danger to warping someone's personality, morality or mentality? Do you suppose, like many fantasy novels posit, that they are extremely afraid of death after living so long? Would you say they are at risk of believing themselves to be something 'more than human,' a different species? Or would you say they are most at risk, sometimes in connection with #2, of committing atrocities because they are simply bored with life?

I'll just bring up again that they are essentially stuck at 28, biologically, for the rest of that timespan. I picked a random 'prime of your life' age but 30s works too. Whatever you want to use for a thought experiment.

 

[Elfotografoalocado]

Even if all their tissue doesn't age, I imagine their teeth, which do not self-regenerate, would be really fucked up after 1000 years.

 

[samoyed]

The biggest thing would be seeing all their friends and loved ones die, which would cause them to become more and more depressed and reserved.

Having and burying a single family would drive a person to suicide, multiple would drive them insane. I doubt they would go beyond the first since it would end the same every time.

 

[hordak]

does this person knows they will live for a 1000+ years? cause if that was me i would be more hesitant to make friends and girlfriend cause i know I have to watch them grow old and die. And if i had a shitty job, like a 9-to-5 or working for peanuts at walmart then i will definitely kill myself. But that's just me.

 

[Skittles]

Your memory would be in absolute shambles. You probably wouldn't even remember your parents by year 300

 

[Sun's Resting Place]

The biggest thing would be seeing all their friends and loved ones die, which would cause them to become more and more depressed and reserved.

Having and burying a single family would drive a person to suicide, multiple would drive them insane. I doubt they would go beyond the first since it would end the same every time.

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So, in that vein, only a few kinds of personality would actually make it to 1,000 years even if given the opportunity.

People with an extremely powerful calling, sociopaths, and the like.

Your memory would be in absolute shambles. You probably wouldn't even remember your parents by year 300

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This is why I added a neuron clause, but I didn't think about capacity. Even if your neurons were perfectly healthy, you make a really good point - the human mind can only hold so many memories. I guess to get a person who at least had passable memories of their entire lifespan by year 1000, you would need to add yet ANOTHER clause to it, which would be 'is capable of retaining 1,000 years of memories.'

 

[samoyed]

So, in that vein, only a few kinds of personality would actually make it to 1,000 years even if given the opportunity.

People with an extremely powerful calling, sociopaths, and the like.

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Probably, it's a slim chance they'd go through it and end up 'normal' and a large chance they become a sociopath/megalomaniac.

 

[Akira86]

psychological adjustment over time leading to outright attenuation or deformation.

loosing social conventions and killing at a moment's notice, or maybe going the other way and becoming extremely manipulative for indirect control towards their own ends.

 

[Garble Slew]

I can't imagine living to 70, let alone 1000. In a better universe, sure, that would be great but not in this nightmare reality that we inhabit.

 

[Sun's Resting Place]

I might as well add that I was also thinking about 'isolation' too. This thread was partially inspired by Dr. Stone and Cars from Jojo, but also various Chinese stories and fiction where there are humans who live for thousands of years.

The thing that makes me the most unable to suspend disbelief in Dr. Stone is that one of the main characters spent 3700 years trapped in a shell of rock and did not go completely freaking insane by literally counting how long he spent trapped there.

I softened the 'premise' of that by removing the 'isolation' part from this thread.

 

[TheGreatDirector]

They'd become Vandal Savage and basically lose all sense of human empathy.

 

[FTF]

Pretty awesome.

 

[Skunk]

They'd be really fuckin old.

 

[Phantom]

Ask him

edit: beaten by the Matrix

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Have you seen the 1000yr old bird people in The Dark Crystal?

 

[Soda]

Y'all underestimate how short 1,000 years is. You know how time seems to move faster for you the older you get? Think about how slow it passed as a kid versus how much faster it feels 10-20 years later. Now drag that out 500 years.

1,000 years isn't some unimaginable degree of time. Extreme psychological breakdown isn't a guarantee by any means.

 

[Serebii]

Doctor Who kind of did this with a character called Ashildr/Me in Season 9 and it showed how her memory of a thousand years ago wasn't great and that it was remembered only through diaries, she became distant of sorts and so forth

 

[Cenauru]

You'd either become depressed and lonely from outliving generation after generation and never being able to make friends or family without having to watch them die without you, or you'll adapt and become an observer who lives in isolation in peace, keeping notes and records of everything that goes on in the world so that future generations won't forget the past.

 

[Sun's Resting Place]

You'd either become depressed and lonely from outliving generation after generation and never being able to make friends or family without having to watch them die without you, or you'll adapt and become an observer who lives in isolation in peace, keeping notes and records of everything that goes on in the world so that future generations won't forget the past.

Click to shrink...

I feel like you would have to stay an observer in that sense - I get the feeling that people would try to 'use you' as an arbiter of the truth when going back through their own history. History is often written by the victors - if anyone knew you were actually alive when X happened, and there were two conflicting viewpoints to the point of starting a war over it, they might go to you to ask 'what really happened.' You would have to have a hell of a lot of influence and power to not get killed over something like that.

 

[Deleted member 44129]

Really, really racist.

 

[adj_noun]

looooong jaunt

 

[Fat4all]

ask me again in three years

 

[Rassilon]

If someone genuinely exhibited immortality they'd get carved up by scientists pretty quick.

 

[Powdered Egg]

Probably bitter and lacking full human connection. Imagine losing 10+ generations of friends and family.

If you work the whole time there's no excuse not to be a billionaire either. Imagine 800 years of being a CEO?

 

[FF Seraphim]

They'd become Vandal Savage and basically lose all sense of human empathy.

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This. How could you keep you empathy for humanity when you lnow those around you will die anyway.

 

[samoyed]

This. How could you keep you empathy for humanity when you lnow those around you will die anyway.

Click to shrink...

Extreme Buddhism. There's plenty of ideologies that teach you how to accept the inevitability of death and this person would be inclined to seek those ideologies out/create them for their own use. We would likely have a secret immortal wandering around spreading their own religion informed by their immortality, assuming we don't get a Vandal Savage scenario.

 

[Zolbrod]

I imagine they'd get pretty sick of 40-hour work weeks and paying taxes for centuries

 

[skeezx]

i'd assume it would be like being a PTSD stricken war vet times ten. after the 500th year you just stare off to space the whole time

 

[Guddha]

They'd be emotionally spent and walk around with a constant slouch.

 

[Laser Man]

I guess your example also needs a brain with a memory that doesn't forget anything, I could imagine that you otherwise simply forget most of what was 50 years ago so it really doesn't bother you that much.

 

[Deleted member 4372]

Your memory would be in absolute shambles. You probably wouldn't even remember your parents by year 300

Click to shrink...

This is so depressing to read even as a thought experiment.

 

[samoyed]

The case of memory is interesting. Hypothetically, this immortal could "reset" every so often by spending a few decades in the woods away from people, and then come back out without the bulk of their trauma. With a 1000 year old memory though, they're going to carry that weight.

Every 100 years they can raise a family, then disappear into the wilderness in order to forget, then come back out to find a new family. This would work up until around 1980 when digital identity-keeping makes disappearing effectively impossible.

 

[Dreamwriter]

I'll let you know in a little over 900 years...

I plan to learn a new career every 30 years or so to keep things interesting, move to new countries once in a while, change my vr persona, check out the colonies of Mars, etc. People die, sucks but it's part of life already, my parents have lost plenty of friends, family, loved ones in their 70 years, I don't think living longer would make that affect someone any more. I guess depends on how hard that hits them, my parents just accept it, I do too.

 

[RedBaron17]

One of them will eventually become God-emperor of humanity. Ushering in a new golden age for mankind.

 

[Kaim Argonar]

Bored. Insane.

 

[Daysean]

I would imagine they would be extremely jaded at humanity like a villain

 

[sirap]

The Infinity Blade novels played with this idea really well imo.

 

[Deleted member 2426]

A person living that long could have a really fucked up perception of time.

 

[Poppy]

i'd probably be the exact same

 

[CaviarMeths]

They would look at the camera like in The Office and make an "are you serious?" face every time they decided to watch their favorite film Lethal Weapon and Murtaugh says the line.

 

[Kuro]

Even if your neurons are intact, there is only so much memory a human brain can hold so you'd end up forgetting a lot of non essential things. I'd imagine a person that lived that long would probably have very few ties to other people and see themselves as an outsider, possibly not having empathy for others anymore. It honestly sounds awful unless you can find a way to keep yourself entertained. Maybe by being the opposite of what I think and gaining an interest in other people's lives and helping others, who knows?

 

[Kyuuji]

Their level of detachment to anything related to humanity would be so severe that I don't think you'd be able to discuss most things with them.

 

[TheMadTitan]

The biggest thing would be seeing all their friends and loved ones die, which would cause them to become more and more depressed and reserved.

Having and burying a single family would drive a person to suicide, multiple would drive them insane. I doubt they would go beyond the first since it would end the same every time.

Click to shrink...

Given that people can only hold so many memories, you'd probably forget a shit ton of people you actually lost, and your memories of them would be replaced by those of much newer people. This whole "everyone around you dying" might be a lot less impactful.

 

[Akira86]

Maybe by being the opposite of what I think and gaining an interest in other people's lives and helping others, who knows?

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Spend so much time trying to help mankind, trying to save and teach man. And then you see them unleashing the Atomic bomb, or you see them polluting the seas with trash, etc. It's hard to stay positive and feel like you've had an impact without wanting to push event harder against a civilization that seems to lean so often towards doom.

Just sit back and watch all your work be destroyed, or take a more active role in the directing of things?

 

[Keldroc]

This. How could you keep you empathy for humanity when you lnow those around you will die anyway.

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Do the people saying shit like this own pets?

 

[AnansiThePersona]

 

[FF Seraphim]

Do the people saying shit like this own pets?

Click to shrink...

Yes.
Not sure how that addresses if a person with a 1000 years of death following them would be able to keep sane unless they lose that sense of empathy.

 

[FlintSpace]

Ctrl + F, Man from Earth.
I am disappointed.

You need to see the movie "The Man from Earth" (2007).

Really, really racist.

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lol

 

[CD_93]

John Barrowman.

 

[Deffers]

The case of memory is interesting. Hypothetically, this immortal could "reset" every so often by spending a few decades in the woods away from people, and then come back out without the bulk of their trauma. With a 1000 year old memory though, they're going to carry that weight.

Every 100 years they can raise a family, then disappear into the wilderness in order to forget, then come back out to find a new family. This would work up until around 1980 when digital identity-keeping makes disappearing effectively impossible.

Click to shrink...

That's not how memories work, however! Basically, you ever notice how when you've had very similar days all in a row, your brain kinda blends them together? That's actually not a malfunction of your memory, that's it working as intended. The heuristic nature of your brain stores similar things in memory when they're repeated. There also wouldn't be much TO remember in the woods.

Your hypothetical immortal would instead likely spend years learning very complex subjects consecutively. Become a master at mathematics or something like that. Or just dose on a lot of LSD CONTINUOUSLY for a few years on end.

If they're not truly immortal, though, it's very likely they'll just die as a matter of statistics pretty early on. Get hit by a hurricane, flooded, decapitated on highway, etc...

Honestly, I feel like it'd be bearable if they had just one person they really cared about to see it through with.