Does anyone really want to exist forever?

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fess

Registered Senior Member
My feeling is after 50 trillion years, no matter how good your existence is, you'll be looking for an exit. The concept of eternal life, even in heaven, is terrifying
 
Good queston... an yes i woud like to live forever if i can choose what that existance will be like.!!!
 
I agree. If you could choose your existence, wouldn't you want to live forever? Besides, fifty-trillion years is nothing. :)
 
fess said:
My feeling is after 50 trillion years, no matter how good your existence is, you'll be looking for an exit. The concept of eternal life, even in heaven, is terrifying
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Well, eventually the Heat Death of the Universe will set in, the stars will all die, a long while after that matter itself will cease to exist and the universe will be reduced to a thin soup of nothing but radiation. So yeah, don't want to be the only living thing left floating naked in an eternal black void.
 
I have noticed as I age I forget things like what I was doing last month so I don't feel like I am repeating the same same routine...I expect that I would not therefore get bored. I think I would enjoy it, I could take an individual photo of each star in time.
Alex
 
I feel as though awareness of actually being on a path of living forever could relieve a pressing existential dread. On the other hand, my best assessment of my reality has led me to the wish for my mind to just instantly cease functioning forever without me knowing.
 
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fess said:
Does anyone really want to exist forever?
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No infinite series of different body states or endless conscious events for me. I'm prone toward disbelief in presentism, so it's bad enough that this finite duration of life capped by a zygote at one end and a well-dressed corpse at the other is permanent.
 
kx000 said:
I believe in enlightenment, and truth.
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Good for you.

The truth will set you free... free of beliefs and superstition that deny ones assesment of reality and demands subservience to ancient ideas formulated when those presenting said ideas did not know where the Sun went at night.

Enlightenment is gained by examining what is known and rejecting speculation on all things that are not known and most of all maintaining an understanding of what is known and what is not known.

It is enlightened to be 100% certain of facts well evidenced than 100% certain of the facts which are no more than fantasy.
Alex
 
Xelasnave.1947 said:
Good for you.

The truth will set you free... free of beliefs and superstition that deny ones assesment of reality and demands subservience to ancient ideas formulated when those presenting said ideas did not know where the Sun went at night.

Enlightenment is gained by examining what is known and rejecting speculation on all things that are not known and most of all maintaining an understanding of what is known and what is not known.

It is enlightened to be 100% certain of facts well evidenced than 100% certain of the facts which are no more than fantasy.
Alex
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I believe in reality.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changing_Planes
A collection of short stories and vignettes, one of my three favorite books by that author.

The story for this thread is "The Island Of The Immortals". It is a cautionary tale. An immortal is someone who cannot die.
Much as I miss the author, she has avoided that fate. We are left to imagine her in the library of Mahigul, with time to read where time flows differently.
 
The excellent , if provoking series "Altered Carbon" (netflix) is set in a world of mortal and immortal humans.

The difference between "mortal" and "immortal" is that immortals are the rich ruling class. They have "stacks", implanted recordings of your life's experiences which can be transferred and implanted into either human or bionic (cheaper), male or female "sleeves". The "sleeves" means the body can change, but the mind lives on, in effect becoming "immortal".

OTOH, mortal humans have no stack and when they die, they disappear as a person. They suffer "real death".
The dream of every mortal is to earn enough to afford a stack and continue living forever and creates a stark picture of what it actually means to be an "immortal god" and the consequences of living 300+ years in different sleeves.
 
Write4U said:
The excellent , if provoking series "Altered Carbon" (netflix) is set in a world of mortal and immortal humans.

The difference between "mortal" and "immortal" is that immortals are the rich ruling class. They have "stacks", implanted recordings of your life's experiences which can be transferred and implanted into either human or bionic (cheaper), male or female "sleeves". The "sleeves" means the body can change, but the mind lives on, in effect becoming "immortal".

OTOH, mortal humans have no stack and when they die, they disappear as a person. They suffer "real death".
The dream of every mortal is to earn enough to afford a stack and continue living forever and creates a stark picture of what it actually means to be an "immortal god" and the consequences of living 300+ years in different sleeves.
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Response to highlighted ;

See your point , but mind is more than experiences , the mind thinks upon these experiences . It learns .

Just recordings of experiences does not imply a mind .
 
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