• Question: Would you like a stone that makes you immortal, like the Philosopher's Stone in Harry Potter. What would you do with it? What do you think it would be made of?

    Asked by iamsirius to Alex, Amy, Andy, Georgia, Ollie on 14 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by iamharry.
    • Photo: Amy Reeve

      Amy Reeve answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi

      I don’t think i would like to be immortal, i think it would be really sad to see everyone you love die and to be left alone. If you are interested in this kind of thing you should read ‘The Sanctuary’ by Raymond Khoury. it is about something very similar to this. 🙂

      I think if i did have something like this i wouldn’t keep it to myself. i would use it to help other people and share its power. I wouldn’t want to end up like the old knight in ‘The Last Crusade’!!
      🙂 i think it would be made of a number of different compounds and chemicals. i think it is unlikely that one compound would be able to make us live forever!

    • Photo: Georgia Campbell

      Georgia Campbell answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I think I’d only like a stone to make me immortal if it could make all of my friends and family immortal too – it would be very lonely to live forever alone, and I guess after a while you’d stop even wanting to make new friends, because it would be very hard to keep watching people you love die 🙁

      If we could make a stone to make people immortal though, they would be great to give to people with illnesses that we’ve not figured out how to cure yet – we could make sure to keep them alive long enough to find ways to make them better! Or give them to people to take into surgery, so that even if there was some sort of complication, the patient couldn’t die and the doctor would be able to fix it 🙂

    • Photo: Ollie Russell

      Ollie Russell answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Id probably go down the Horcrux route. I dont want to have to kill people but I think as long as you didnt make a big thing of splitting your soul, and hid the pieces well, then it could be a lot eaiser than carrying a rock around with you. Although like Amy and Georgia have already said, it would be pretty rubbish living forever on your own.

      As for what the stone is made out of, it would need to be able to cure diseases and fix DNA. I havent a clue what could do this. Unless its magic 😉

    • Photo: Andy MacLeod

      Andy MacLeod answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      @iamsirius There’s an old saying: “Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true”. I always want more time, to read more, to do more, to live more. But I’m not sure about forever. If we knew we were immortal, we couldn’t die, would we come to value our lives more, or less? The fact that I know my time here on earth is limited makes me appreciate it all the more, so I’d choose not to use it.

      However, I believe such a thing to be impossible, so have no idea what it would be made from. But that hasn’t stopped some very emminent scientists looking for it. As well as discovering gravity, and doing pioneering research on the nature of light, Isaac Newton was also something of a mystic. Some think of him the first modern scientist – others call him the last magician. Not as in “trickster”, more as in “magus”. There’s certainly evidence that he conducted research in alchemy – trying to turn ordinary metals into gold – which is what the Philosopher’s Stone of legend has traditionally been said to do, as well as confering immortality. He also indulged in apocalyptic predictions. He thought the world would end in 2060. Still, at least that gives us a few more years than the Mayans. 😉

      Anyway, the new series of Torchwood starts in a couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to it.

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