The fact I will one day be dead doesn't bother me, as I won't be around at the time.
As Mark Twain said, I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never bothered me one bit.
Faith/Religion/Spirituality - Self-Denial? And Philosophy
- Thread starter Mr Silver
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The fact I will one day be dead doesn't bother me, as I won't be around at the time.
As Mark Twain said, I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never bothered me one bit.
An interesting point of view, Horatio. The thought would never have occurred to me, being an atheist and therefore certain that there is no afterlife at all. I quite agree, though: immortality would be boring if everyone else were to share it and you'd be stuck with the same people eternally. Perhaps that's what inspired the idea of reincarnation in so many religions?
I am with RJD on the question of falling in love for the thousandth time. Been there, done that, still doing it all the time
I have loved many men and quite a few women and most of all I am deeply and hopelessly in love with life.
Perhaps that's one of the advantages an atheist has over a religious person: for me, there is no eternity, afterlife or reincarnation. There are only about 30,000 days. Much too little time to not make the best use of every single one of them. I can't go back to check off things from my to-do list that I missed in the first round. So I make a point of living each day as if it were my last.
When I die, I will be able to pride myself on having sniffed on every single rose I saw, stroked every stray cat or dog I met, watched every colourful sunset, admired every coloured autumn-leaf, enjoyed every delicious meal and loved every male (or female) who appealed to me. And no regrets.
I am with RJD on the question of falling in love for the thousandth time. Been there, done that, still doing it all the time
I have loved many men and quite a few women and most of all I am deeply and hopelessly in love with life.Perhaps that's one of the advantages an atheist has over a religious person: for me, there is no eternity, afterlife or reincarnation. There are only about 30,000 days. Much too little time to not make the best use of every single one of them. I can't go back to check off things from my to-do list that I missed in the first round. So I make a point of living each day as if it were my last.
When I die, I will be able to pride myself on having sniffed on every single rose I saw, stroked every stray cat or dog I met, watched every colourful sunset, admired every coloured autumn-leaf, enjoyed every delicious meal and loved every male (or female) who appealed to me. And no regrets.
I am between agnostic and atheist right now. I was bought up in a very strong religious household. I don't believe in organized religion anymore but i do retain some aspects of my religious upbringing like for example my granddad and my dad were teetotalers for religious reasons and i am a teetotaler as well but for health reasons and not for religious reasons.
For along time i believed in a Creator but in recent years, even that belief is waning now and hence I am between agnostic and atheist. i am reading up on this thing called Atheistic pietism to see if it is suitable for me.
For along time i believed in a Creator but in recent years, even that belief is waning now and hence I am between agnostic and atheist. i am reading up on this thing called Atheistic pietism to see if it is suitable for me.
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was that a typo or did you really mean to say were you actually bought??
Indeed, we wouldn't be driven, to say it with Thoreau, "to suck out all the marrow of life" if there were an infinite number of days ahead.An interesting point of view, Horatio. The thought would never have occurred to me, being an atheist and therefore certain that there is no afterlife at all. I quite agree, though: immortality would be boring if everyone else were to share it and you'd be stuck with the same people eternally. Perhaps that's what inspired the idea of reincarnation in so many religions?
I am with RJD on the question of falling in love for the thousandth time. Been there, done that, still doing it all the time
Perhaps that's one of the advantages an atheist has over a religious person: for me, there is no eternity, afterlife or reincarnation. There are only about 30,000 days. Much too little time to not make the best use of every single one of them. I can't go back to check off things from my to-do list that I missed in the first round. So I make a point of living each day as if it were my last.
When I die, I will be able to pride myself on having sniffed on every single rose I saw, stroked every stray cat or dog I met, watched every colourful sunset, admired every coloured autumn-leaf, enjoyed every delicious meal and loved every male (or female) who appealed to me. And no regrets.
sorry, it was a typo. i meant to say brought.
I think "immortality sucks" is a lie we tell ourselves so we'll be more comfortable with the notion of our own deaths. I don't think we ever treat the idea of living forever seriously in fiction. It's almost always used to illustrate some tragic or unbearable circumstance.
If everyone right now lived forever it would be unutterably boring. If one person lived forever it would be tragic and unbearable. For better or worse we are born with in-built obsolescence. This is part of our psyche. In order for us to live forever we would have to become different beings with different minds.
I find that a fascinating concept. I wouldn't say I'm a transhumanist, but I am intrigued by the idea of a "new" kind of human.
if I could escape my Early religious training - indoctrinate early and often - terror helps! I'd rather go along and find things out for myself than have a set of rules established to learn.
Why subscribe to a set of ideas when you could make your own? Organized religion mostly seems designed to make people behave uniformly.
People have always been strong enough and smart enough to understand ethics without having to wrap it up in the mystical goo of religion.
Why subscribe to a set of ideas when you could make your own? Organized religion mostly seems designed to make people behave uniformly.
People have always been strong enough and smart enough to understand ethics without having to wrap it up in the mystical goo of religion.
So do I. So am I.
See now, that's profound.
But we all still want another big chunk of years. Maybe our focus should be on getting what we want in the (unknown) years that we have.
I don't find it that profound. It's expressed all over science fiction. Personally, I find it a very lazy approach to immortality. "It's not worth it because it would suck, so don't waste time thinking about it." There is no appreciation for the kind of perspective and opportunity it could bring.
I don't think so. Despite arguing against immorality I would immediately grab it if it were "available". More options are never a bad thing and if it really starts to suck after 5000 years you can still kill yourself.
Of course we have a fairly limited anthropocentric view from which to ponder immorality. As the human brain is not too good with infinity (even in mathematics which is after all pure abstraction you cannot directly look at the infinitely small or large) I don't deny that it might very well be possible that the stuff you mentioned, some hypothetical biotechnology that changes our very fundamentals and converts us into a new species, could imply eternal bliss.
But what would Data do if he had achieved everything he can, transcended his programming as far as possible, what would he do if there is no new goal and nothing new under the sun anymore? Immortality doesn't imply omnipotence so you are bound to reach a limit and beyond that limit lies just the eternal repetition of the same.
Why does it have to be a choice between endless suffering and eternal bliss?
I think the emotions of the moment would become less and less relevant as you slip into millennia of existence. Put up against a ticking clock, humans relentlessly pursue happiness--in reality, chasing that next endorphin rush. You just try to get through life with as few "bad" feelings as possible. But if your existence has no prospect of an end, I tend to think you would realize the triviality of such an attitude.
It's a complex issue and I could probably write many pages about it, but I will try not to.
Do you enjoy food less because you're used to it? No, you enjoy a tasty meal just like you did the very first time, doesn't matter how old you are.
I don't think that age has any influence.
Also: eternal life does not mean eternal memory as well. After 1000 years you have forgotten a lot of stuff. Which brings back the relevance of things automatically.
I also think "immortality sucks" is an idea that makes us feel more comfortable. It's like poorer people stating "money doesn't make you happy" or "just be glad you're not ill". It's a basic mechanism that makes ourselves feel more comfortable with our current situation.
Please do.Why does it have to be a choice between endless suffering and eternal bliss?
I think the emotions of the moment would become less and less relevant as you slip into millennia of existence. Put up against a ticking clock, humans relentlessly pursue happiness--in reality, chasing that next endorphin rush. You just try to get through life with as few "bad" feelings as possible. But if your existence has no prospect of an end, I tend to think you would realize the triviality of such an attitude.
It's a complex issue and I could probably write many pages about it, but I will try not to.
First of all, I don't believe that humans are pure hedonists who merely pursue happiness.
A small part of ourselves doesn't care about creature comforts but is utterly crazy. Take an ape, when he cannot get a mate he behaves pragmatically and searches another one while we do, at least sometimes when we are deeply in love, not care at all that we cannot be together with whom we love. If anything the impossibility makes us more obsessed.
Workaholics or creative people are also not behaving hedonisticly. When you discover something, as a scientist, as journalist, as artist or as ordinary guy happiness doesn't enter the equation, you are ruthlessly obsessed with the object of your passion while being irrespective of your own animal needs.
Back to immorality, I totally agree that immortality would make us stop pursuing happiness or anything else with the crazy vigour we do. But what about ethics, if everything becomes flat, stale and balanced for immoral beings they also have no motivation to become ethical. Ethics are after all not experienced as common-sensical but as radical intrusion. Learning rules from your parents, being introduced into the symbolic order and getting socialized is always to some degree traumatic. I like the Jewish story from Exodus about the ten commandments because it also shows how these rules are not experienced as "hey, this stuff makes sense so let's do it" but as a violent alien force.
But perhaps immortal beings would also not require ethics in this sense anymore precisely because they are so balanced.
I still side with Arwen though, a mortal life of love and pain is preferable to this nirvana-like state of eternal balance. I want the human drivenness and madness, it makes us what we are.
An interesting poll. I am the one "general spirituality" response so far.
Now as for immortality, I think RM is asking an important question - why the insistence on duality? Always all-or-nothing with these monkey brains of ours. I think, to even begin to understand immortality (which we all have) , or spirit at all really, requires getting around the all-or-nothings.
Immortality should not be defined as simply as someone not dying. That is dualism. Our atheist friends might tell us that energy is neither created nor destroyed, but changes. There is no real conflict between science and spiritual understanding, just a difference of perspective. We change, and what we change into is mysterious. For religion, it can be a fear to exploit - but none of that, none of the moralizing and social control, have anything to do with spirit.
Science puts the horse before the cart, as it should. Spirituality allows for the cart before the horse. I daresay both are needed. We need the yang, scientific scalpel, which is dominant, as much as the yin, intuitive understanding. These opposites are forever at "war", yet in their synthesis lies all creation. Immortality is in the changes, and it is anything but boring.
Now as for immortality, I think RM is asking an important question - why the insistence on duality? Always all-or-nothing with these monkey brains of ours. I think, to even begin to understand immortality (which we all have) , or spirit at all really, requires getting around the all-or-nothings.
Immortality should not be defined as simply as someone not dying. That is dualism. Our atheist friends might tell us that energy is neither created nor destroyed, but changes. There is no real conflict between science and spiritual understanding, just a difference of perspective. We change, and what we change into is mysterious. For religion, it can be a fear to exploit - but none of that, none of the moralizing and social control, have anything to do with spirit.
Science puts the horse before the cart, as it should. Spirituality allows for the cart before the horse. I daresay both are needed. We need the yang, scientific scalpel, which is dominant, as much as the yin, intuitive understanding. These opposites are forever at "war", yet in their synthesis lies all creation. Immortality is in the changes, and it is anything but boring.
I agree, but the problem is that not all people are that strong. Those with a weaker personality (no offense meant to religious people! I'm just not sure how else to phrase it) are unable to rely only on themselves and need a mental and emotional safety-net, someone they can turn to with their problems and sometimes someone whom they can blame for said problems. That's why they invented deities.
To a certain extent they are to be envied: they never feel alone and always have a shoulder to cry on (or a scapegoat to blame).
Being on your own and fighting throughout your life and its problems takes far more emotional strength and is in the long run extremely exhausting. Yet, I prefer this costly freedom over the restraints religion offers for free.
Agreed. It's psychological "sour grapes." Also, if one has the CHOICE to end their own existence even if they're potentially immortal, it's hard to see then how the immortality would come to be a burden.
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