Who Wants to Live Forever? And Why?

[muichimotsu]

Then how can you dwtermine which perception is muddled and which is not?

I simply cant see what could there be of undesirable of feeling perpetual pleasure

That's a philosophical discussion for another time. For the moment, let's assume we can discern objectivity in terms of probability, not pure unadulterated perception. In which case, this isn't about perception, it's about contemplation.

There's a thing called moderation. Why is it suddenly a bad thing to want that? That appears to be something Hindus and Buddhists differ on, though you're just one example. The middle path was emphasized by Gautama, while Hindus seem to want perpetual pleasure as if that solves all their problems. Seems counterintuitive if you admit pleasure can bind you to samsara.

 

[Koldo]

I missed this post so i am getting back to it now:

Merely because there are limits doesn't make life not worth living to the fullest we can?

No. It just means the fullest you can live your human life is limited by your death.

An acknowledgement of limits is how we recognize what we can do and even potential solutions that we may not have realized. But an inevitability we shouldn't try to avoid is death. Prolonging life, curing diseases, etc, these are all merely postponing entropy that envelops everything that time influences.

Funny for you to say. I suspect this means you have never made use of any medication, correct? We are avoiding death all the time.

To answer your snippy little question, none, because I'm not completely out of my mind and I'm not Wolverine. Daredevils have problems of their own, but the best ones at least take some safety precautions.

Exactly. You have never experienced this event. Life is full of potentials that are limited by death.

 

[Koldo]

Technology, population, and pollution, for the most part.

Not so much human nature, though. The stories we tell today are often adaptations that make use of the same archetypes as ancient stories.

One can read the writings of people from 1,000+ or 2,000+ years ago and relate with them.

Yeah. Therefore, there are plenty of new things to do.

Yes.

Have you followed my stream of posts from the beginning before you responded?

Yes. I will further elaborate on this point down below.

I was talking about a scenario where a person is immortal and doesn't even have the ability or option to die.

And actually I referenced two specific afterlife scenarios after that- a timeless/spaceless state that mystics tend to promote and a spirit body conception that continues to operate in linear time.

I said: ''You are using how you feel in your current body as a parameter of how you would feel without your current body in the second case. Not a pertinent exercise."

What is the second case i was referring to? Let's get back to that quote:

"Afterlives are generally depicted as either some spaceless and timeless (and therefore throughtless and actionless) void of existence, or as having some kind of spirit body that goes around and does things for an infinite period of time.

The first sounds like non-life and the second sounds like it would be infinitely boring after an unimaginable amount of time has passed."

I specifically referred to the second case when i wrote that reply. And then you gave me a rather strange reply with an emphatic 'no' when you said: "No. The OP provides a whole variety of immortality types to consider. I'm not using any one unique thing in my assessment and instead looking at it in multiple ways.", which had absolutely nothing to do with my reply to you.

A: Grapes are sweet.
B: No. Grapes are fruits.

 

[Koldo]

Then let's re qualify our terms. If it was a choice, but couldn't be reverted. Of course, it won't be forced on us, that's not my point. Your taking my statements at face value is just obfuscating the issue, which is whether it is really worth it to venture into this area, where humans start to think they're gods.

You never mentioned this ( bold ) area in the first place.

Then what kind of immortality are we speaking of? Be clear about this, or the discussion starts to degrade.

A spiritual sort of immortality. If you follow the sequence of posts you will notice it.

 

[muichimotsu]

No. It just means the fullest you can live your human life is limited by your death.

How is this a bad thing? Limits are a necessity so we don't destroy ourselves. There's the supposed amount of force it takes to bite through a carrot that could also bite through one's finger, but we have a sort of block to stop us from doing it. In more relevant terms, the fact that we don't live forever means we are motivated that much more to make our lives worth something.

Funny for you to say. I suspect this means you have never made use of any medication, correct? We are avoiding death all the time.

That doesn't mean it's justified to take it to excess. I've broken my arm twice, I had my wisdom teeth removed, both things that could've killed me had things gone wrong. But it's different to literally postpone death instead of simply fighting against it when accidents or the like happen. Natural death is markedly different.

Exactly. You have never experienced this event. Life is full of potentials that are limited by death.

The potential excitement you'd feel from death defying stunts are temporary. The transient nature of life is what makes death meaningful; it enables us to appreciate things that much more because they could be gone at any point

 

[muichimotsu]

You never mentioned this ( bold ) area in the first place.

When we start controlling life and death we begin to get an inflated sense of ego beyond what is beneficial.

A spiritual sort of immortality. If you follow the sequence of posts you will notice it.

You could always just qualify this with the 5 categories I brought up in the OP. Spiritual can mean a few things, but we'll assume this is disembodied/incorporeal.

After that is whether this is shared or individual, then so on and so forth.

 

[Penumbra]

Yeah. Therefore, there are plenty of new things to do.

Not really. Same old, same old.

Entire categories become somewhat tiring after a while even if there are slightly changed iterations. Like, they'll probably be making new video games for the foreseeable future but someone could get tired of video games in general. Stories don't change that much.

Yes. I will further elaborate on this point down below.

I said: ''You are using how you feel in your current body as a parameter of how you would feel without your current body in the second case. Not a pertinent exercise."

What is the second case i was referring to? Let's get back to that quote:

"Afterlives are generally depicted as either some spaceless and timeless (and therefore throughtless and actionless) void of existence, or as having some kind of spirit body that goes around and does things for an infinite period of time.

The first sounds like non-life and the second sounds like it would be infinitely boring after an unimaginable amount of time has passed."

I specifically referred to the second case when i wrote that reply. And then you gave me a rather strange reply with an emphatic 'no' when you said: "No. The OP provides a whole variety of immortality types to consider. I'm not using any one unique thing in my assessment and instead looking at it in multiple ways.", which had absolutely nothing to do with my reply to you.

A: Grapes are sweet.
B: No. Grapes are fruits.

You keep repeating the same thing over.

I'm not assuming that the immortal spiritual body is the same as a human body. I'd say it's the other way around- you're assuming that undefined properties of an undefined body will make a trillion years of life worthwhile without explanation.

That would be the ultimate gamble- to agree to live forever without the option of ever ending it without understanding the properties of that existence and without being able to have knowledge ahead of time about what it will feel like to have lived for a billion years and have an infinite number of years to go.

 

[Madhuri]

What would a person do after the first billion years or so?

Afterlives are generally depicted as either some spaceless and timeless (and therefore throughtless and actionless) void of existence, or as having some kind of spirit body that goes around and does things for an infinite period of time.

The first sounds like non-life and the second sounds like it would be infinitely boring after an unimaginable amount of time has passed.

The answer really depends on what the reality is in the immortal state of existence. According to the main religions, Heaven or being in the state of Enlightenment is completely blissful. I don't think it is an experience anything like being human or being in this universe. If this turns out to be true, we cannot compare and assume anything about it.

I kind of factored that possibility in and I would argue that's just as bad in its own way. No one has any experience of suffering or anything that makes living and existence something that has balance to it. With only good, your perspective is skewed, especially with a prolonged period of time, i.e. eternity.

I don't want to live forever, that is the bigger point. I do not welcome death, I accept it as part of nature. To live forever seems to go against a basic necessity of existence: some people die so others may live in their place, a population control of sorts, so that humans cannot forever seek out fruitless endeavors knowing they will never die.

I think you are making the assumption that any sort of eternal existence would be similar to existing in this world and with this body. I don't believe eternity in a spiritual existence would be tiring or boring.

According to my religion (Hinduism), we already have existed forever. It seems to me that if I'm not tired of life yet I probably never will be. My religion also teaches that life, or existence, is part of the nature of the soul (which is the real Self and hence why it is eternal). It cannot tire of existing and cannot fathom non-existence (because non-existence is not real). And if we go by the idea that God is infinite, there would never be a point where we stop experiencing new things or stop being amazed. I think what creates boredom is when our life seems to stand still. But according to the Hindu concept of eternal spiritual existence, there is never any standing still.

 

[Penumbra]

The answer really depends on what the reality is in the immortal state of existence. According to the main religions, Heaven or being in the state of Enlightenment is completely blissful. I don't think it is an experience anything like being human or being in this universe. If this turns out to be true, we cannot compare and assume anything about it.

But that's the thing.

Afterlife descriptions are usually vague. Usually without good definitions of why they're blissful. It's generally as though people are just using positive descriptors without actually describing anything in detail.

In the book Animal Farm, the author kind of took a shot at that concept and there was one animal that told the other animals what the afterlife was like. It was called 'Sugarcandy Mountain':

"In Sugarcandy Mountain it was Sunday seven days a week, clover was in season all the year round, and lump sugar and linseed cake grew on the hedges."

Heavenly for an animal, I guess. The ones described by humans for humans tend to be even less specific but rather basic- blissful, wonderful, joyful, etc.

But if people were to sit down and talk about what immortality would be like, what the options were, whether it's really desirable if we think about it and discuss it, then it really doesn't lead to much thought for people to just state as a matter of faith that it's blissful and such without knowing much more.

 

[muichimotsu]

The answer really depends on what the reality is in the immortal state of existence. According to the main religions, Heaven or being in the state of Enlightenment is completely blissful. I don't think it is an experience anything like being human or being in this universe. If this turns out to be true, we cannot compare and assume anything about it.

This is an argument from incredulity. You think that merely because I cannot show something to be so, it must be true. Merely because heaven or the like cannot be shown to be desirable, it must be so, which is almost argument from ignorance as well. The fallacies pile on.

I think you are making the assumption that any sort of eternal existence would be similar to existing in this world and with this body. I don't believe eternity in a spiritual existence would be tiring or boring.

According to my religion (Hinduism), we already have existed forever. It seems to me that if I'm not tired of life yet I probably never will be. My religion also teaches that life, or existence, is part of the nature of the soul (which is the real Self and hence why it is eternal). It cannot tire of existing and cannot fathom non-existence (because non-existence is not real). And if we go by the idea that God is infinite, there would never be a point where we stop experiencing new things or stop being amazed. I think what creates boredom is when our life seems to stand still. But according to the Hindu concept of eternal spiritual existence, there is never any standing still.

Spiritual existence is so vague that we don't seem to want to clarify what it is. Of course, if this is an argument by faith, then the argument becomes null, but otherwise, we should at least try to contemplate such an existence and its traits.

Nonexistence in the absolute sense, perhaps, but me becoming worm food doesn't mean my consciousness necessarily survives, nor should it

 

[Koldo]

Not really. Same old, same old.

Entire categories become somewhat tiring after a while even if there are slightly changed iterations. Like, they'll probably be making new video games for the foreseeable future but someone could get tired of video games in general. Stories don't change that much.

But they still change. You might get tired of video games and then later on get interested again.

You keep repeating the same thing over.

I'm not assuming that the immortal spiritual body is the same as a human body. I'd say it's the other way around- you're assuming that undefined properties of an undefined body will make a trillion years of life worthwhile without explanation.

That would be the ultimate gamble- to agree to live forever without the option of ever ending it without understanding the properties of that existence and without being able to have knowledge ahead of time about what it will feel like to have lived for a billion years and have an infinite number of years to go.

Please do quote where i said this bold sentence.
If i have been repeating it, you will have no problem to find it.

 

[Madhuri]

But if people were to sit down and talk about what immortality would be like, what the options were, whether it's really desirable if we think about it and discuss it, then it really doesn't lead to much thought for people to just state as a matter of faith that it's blissful and such without knowing much more.

I agree that descriptions are usually, if not always, vague. What the texts tell us is that we cannot understand or know what the Spirit reality is like while we have no experienced it. It is so different to material existence that we cannot even really imagine it. We apparently get a glimpse of the experience through spiritual practice. That's why Yogis are so eager to get to that state, because the experiences that come from Vedic meditation provide that glimpse. From my own very small experiences, I know that time has no meaning in that state of existence and I know what true peace feels like. But that's all I know personally. However this in itself allows me to believe that the idea is a possible reality and I can't imagine getting sick of that feeling.

 

[Madhuri]

This is an argument from incredulity. You think that merely because I cannot show something to be so, it must be true. Merely because heaven or the like cannot be shown to be desirable, it must be so, which is almost argument from ignorance as well. The fallacies pile on.

I think you very dramatically misunderstood my post. I have not said or implied any such thing.

Spiritual existence is so vague that we don't seem to want to clarify what it is. Of course, if this is an argument by faith, then the argument becomes null, but otherwise, we should at least try to contemplate such an existence and its traits.

Nonexistence in the absolute sense, perhaps, but me becoming worm food doesn't mean my consciousness necessarily survives, nor should it

My point is that according to most religions you really can't understand it without experiencing it. That's why Heaven or a state of Enlightenment is only explained vaguely, because there is apparently no way to put it into words that material minds can understand. If this is actually the case, then there is no use in trying to make judgements about this state of existence.

As for us wanting to clarify what it is like, you can speak for yourself. People of Eastern religion especially have methods of experiencing that state. The goal of many Eastern religions is to move from a state of material experience into purely spiritual experience. According to these religions, words will not provide any understanding. The practice itself is the only way to gain such insight.

 

[Koldo]

When we start controlling life and death we begin to get an inflated sense of ego beyond what is beneficial.

Opinions are opinions.

You could always just qualify this with the 5 categories I brought up in the OP. Spiritual can mean a few things, but we'll assume this is disembodied/incorporeal.

After that is whether this is shared or individual, then so on and so forth.

Did you actually read that sequence of posts?
No other qualifier was given.

 

[Koldo]

How is this a bad thing? Limits are a necessity so we don't destroy ourselves. There's the supposed amount of force it takes to bite through a carrot that could also bite through one's finger, but we have a sort of block to stop us from doing it. In more relevant terms, the fact that we don't live forever means we are motivated that much more to make our lives worth something.

Many people are motivated by the belief that they will live forever.
Both stances can be used to motivate people.

That doesn't mean it's justified to take it to excess.

What is 'excess' to someone is 'just about right' to another.

I've broken my arm twice, I had my wisdom teeth removed, both things that could've killed me had things gone wrong. But it's different to literally postpone death instead of simply fighting against it when accidents or the like happen. Natural death is markedly different.

What is different about it?

The potential excitement you'd feel from death defying stunts are temporary. The transient nature of life is what makes death meaningful; it enables us to appreciate things that much more because they could be gone at any point

You are not even making sense here. Death makes life temporary, therefore if you appreciate life, you are appreciating a temporary moment.

That you are unable to find meaning in a permanent existence is your own fault.

 

[Koldo]

You really seem to have a fairly optimistic view of immortality, which is a bigger problem than having optimism about human nature, though they go hand in hand a bit here.

By all means qualify whether you are being optimistic or something else.

If we're discussing human nature in a billion years, discussing the survival of certain traits of quite relevant

I am a skeptic. An agnostic. I do not claim to know what i don't know, and i see no reason to accept your opinions as fact.

Reality mirrors fiction, as they say. We derive fiction in part from real experiences, so it isn't farfetched to say that fiction has some points to make in terms of the subject matter it confronts; in this case, immortality.

It isn't an accurate mirror. So...

 

[Sir Doom]

I want to live forever. I have an intense fear of non-existence. I'm also incredibly self-interested and I believe immortality would satisfy my needs quite well, even if it is the case that I would be a withered husk at 200 years old. I'd rather have that than oblivion.

 

[muichimotsu]

I think you very dramatically misunderstood my post. I have not said or implied any such thing.

Then by all means explain why you think that because we can't understand something, that is must be as people seem to explain it. People's beliefs don't equate to facts here.

My point is that according to most religions you really can't understand it without experiencing it. That's why Heaven or a state of Enlightenment is only explained vaguely, because there is apparently no way to put it into words that material minds can understand. If this is actually the case, then there is no use in trying to make judgements about this state of existence.

As for us wanting to clarify what it is like, you can speak for yourself. People of Eastern religion especially have methods of experiencing that state. The goal of many Eastern religions is to move from a state of material experience into purely spiritual experience. According to these religions, words will not provide any understanding. The practice itself is the only way to gain such insight.

If you can't make judgments about it, then we shouldn't even acknowledge it exists at all, since it's ultimately fruitless to discuss.

 

[muichimotsu]

I am a skeptic. An agnostic. I do not claim to know what i don't know, and i see no reason to accept your opinions as fact.



It isn't an accurate mirror. So...

Did I say my opinions were anything but opinions? Mirrors don't reflect things perfectly, one might observe, especially with the complexity of life.

 

[muichimotsu]

Opinions are opinions.

So this boils down to relativism, is that it? How can we have any meaningful discussion when you start making flippant comments like this without any grounded response?

Did you actually read that sequence of posts?
No other qualifier was given.

Maybe you could start qualifying then