How long is immortality?

[Bob]

Take a standard famous composer, say Mozart.  How long will their works remain and exist?

I suppose there has to be an end.  At some point there will be. 

And if someone were creating something and knew it would last beyond their lifetime, how long would that be? 

500 years?  1,000?  200?

And what would be that knocks them out?

[lostinidlewonder]

We can't really have immortality through the memory of our species. But important people are rarely forgotten, just look at the "thinkers" of ancient Greece and we still have whole volumes and fragments of their works. This modern world will not last another 100-150 years if we don't change our ways, so not long left!

[Bob]

Yes, I guess I'm thinking in terms of the creator or their works being remembered. 

But also in terms of how long their creations will last, how long a piece of music from a composer will last.

[3htohn]

Hi Bob,

This one of your posts, I've often pondered over. In fact what I wonder more is, how many composers were out there since ever that didn't publish or let other people hear their works for one reason or another and it just died with them, surely there must be many that never saw the light of day. I've oftern gone to the library to get out a ragerty old music book and played on the piano which proberly nobody has played for 50 or 60 years.

But may I pose another thought, how many more resources are left on this planet to sustain life anyway... 1,000 years maybe? 2000 at the most I suppose. Maybe that's why efforts are being made to try and find out if there is water on other planets.

But even if the music we have today is around in 2000 years, would people be still playing it on a piano or other instruments! or will there be anyone around to be able to read music? I supect so or at least I hope so. I think that as long as people are around the biggies of literature, art and music etc, etc will be remembered but others will just become lost as time comes and goes. But I think the piano, opera & oratorio music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are just much too great to be fogetten any time soon anyway and it maybe even the superpowers with their atomic bombs or an asteriod that wipes us all out anyway.

I just hope that more, more and more books are published the conventional way rather than on the internet because if ever the power goes off then at least mankind will still have the paper version to fall back on as long as they can read it in 3000 years!

Энтони.

[Bob]

I think the going rate of immortability must be about 500 years.  Or longer if you want to be religious.