Immortality facts for kids
Immortality or eternal life is the idea of something which is alive that will stay alive forever. The opposite of immortality is mortality, which means a living thing can die. Right now, only a small number of living things are known to be immortal. These are mainly simple, lower forms of life like bacteria. Stories about immortal people or animals are popular in fiction and mythology, but not yet actually possible. Many religions say people have an immortal soul with an afterlife.
Some people have long used magic and science to look for a way to live forever. Others feel that death is what defines all living things, and as a natural part of life, should not be taken away.
Insurance actuaries have calculated that even if everyone were physically immortal, the average life span would still be only be 400 years because of the accident rate; eventually, everyone would die of a fatal accident and it would be very unusual to encounter anyone more than 800 years old. Therefore, it would seem that the only practical way to achieve actual immortality is to upload one's mind into a supercomputer to live in virtual reality. Futurists such as Ray Kurzweil believe this will become possible about the year 2045 in the technological singularity.
The color amaranth represents immortality in Western civilization, while the color peach represents immortality in Chinese civilization.
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Images for kids
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The Fountain of Eternal Life in Cleveland, Ohio is described as symbolizing "Man rising above death, reaching upward to God and toward Peace."
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Human chromosomes (grey) capped by telomeres (white)
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Representation of a soul undergoing punarjanma. Illustration from Hinduism Today, 2004
See also
In Spanish: Inmortalidad para niños
