Functional Immortality

Begin quote from page 48 of the 2045 Article in Time Magazine Feb. 21st 2011
But his goal differs slightly from de Grey's. For Kurzweil, it's not so much about staying healthy as long as possible; it's about staying alive until the Singularity. It's an attempted handoff. Once hyper-intelligent artificial intelligences arise, armed with advanced nanotechnology, they'll really be able to wrestle with the vastly complex, systemic problems associated with aging in humans. Alternatively, by then we'll be able to transfer our minds to sturdier vessels such as computers and robots. He and many other Singularitarians take seriously the proposition that many people who are alive today will wind up being functionally immortal.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2048138,00.html#ixzz1FQUGbr4K

Functional immortality likely could have different meanings for different people. But in the end if their body was alive and their hearts and minds still worked pretty good and they could walk and exercise, I think they might be okay with functional immortality. What this would mean to society is another matter entirely. It would have many many both very good and very bad sides to it. So, it remains to be seen the usefulness of functional immortality of the masses or even of the elites.