Living forever

Shrykull · Post by **Shrykull** » 2003-03-11 12:27am

I remember when I thought about it as a kid, what it would be like in heaven to always exist, and I started to think that maybe I just wouldn't want to, a million years down the road and you've already done everything, and you still have eternity to go, wouldn't it drive you insane? Christians usually deal with this by saying "we'll be so filled with god, etc" That we'll never even get bored, etc. I think I would opt for reincarnation eventually, I wouldn't ever want cease to exist totally, I could always start over.

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2003-03-11 12:38am

I've thought this for a long time. Even the most sublime paradise would turn into a hell during the course of eternity. Human beings simply are not suited for that. The only way you could be made to enjoy it is to be altered into something so radically different from what you are that I would hardly consider it a reward. I'd rather stay who I am, and just face oblivion when I die (which, incidentally, is precisely what I believe is going to happen). If there is any kind of afterlife, reincarnation is the only one that sounds like it could be bearable.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-03-11 12:42am

Eternity would suck. You'll reach a point where you've done everything and just existing is utterly boring.

UltraViolence83 · Post by **UltraViolence83** » 2003-03-11 12:47am

That's why I like my version of the afterlife. It's just as (if not more!) chaotic as this life. Ok, I beleive that everyone goes to the same place after death, essentially. So that means you'd have assholes running around stealing and whatnot while the 'spirit cops' come and keep the peace.

I based this off of the old Chinese beliefs...Highly burueacratic...None of this "being one with God" shit.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-03-11 12:54am

UltraViolence83 wrote:That's why I like my version of the afterlife. It's just as (if not more!) chaotic as this life. Ok, I beleive that everyone goes to the same place after death, essentially. So that means you'd have assholes running around stealing and whatnot while the 'spirit cops' come and keep the peace.

I based this off of the old Chinese beliefs...Highly burueacratic...None of this "being one with God" shit.

And people can burn paper replicas to give you stuff.

UltraViolence83 · Post by **UltraViolence83** » 2003-03-11 12:58am

[Mr. Burns]Excellent.[/Mr. Burns]

Hey, what about my Terra Cotta Army!?

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-03-11 01:00am

UltraViolence83 wrote:[Mr. Burns]Excellent.[/Mr. Burns]

Hey, what about my Terra Cotta Army!?

Afterlife bowling.

ArmorPierce · Post by **ArmorPierce** » 2003-03-11 01:04am

Wow..., you people are suicidal. Although it may be a bitch to out live everyone and they will remain just a vague memory.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-03-11 01:08am

ArmorPierce wrote:Wow..., you people are suicidal. Although it may be a bitch to out live everyone and they will remain just a vague memory.

Actually that depends on what you think will happen. After all they will die as well. They'll be in the afterlife with you, maybe.

UltraViolence83 · Post by **UltraViolence83** » 2003-03-11 01:09am

Actually, I'd rather wander the physical plain as a type of ghost. I want to fuck with people and scare them ala Beeltejuice.

Trytostaydead · Post by **Trytostaydead** » 2003-03-11 02:30am

Eternity alone would be a bitch. For instance, the Highlander series, to be immortal and watch everyone you love die around you, and the only others that live as long as you do want your head.

But imagine if you can spend eternity with that one person you love with all your heart.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-03-11 02:34am

I'd want to live forever.

Adelfi · Post by **Adelfi** » 2003-03-11 03:05am

Immortality on the mortal plane would kick ass
It gives me enough time to conquer the universe

If the afterlife is truly timeless then there wouldnt be a difference betwen 10 seconds and a million years.

I thinkt time is just an illusion of the mortal mind anyway.

Cyborg Stan · Post by **Cyborg Stan** » 2003-03-11 03:18am

My favorite version of the afterlife would be actually like a between-life, which I suppose you'd might have an idea if you read the 'Homer' segments in the comic strip Non Sequitur, although this particular idea I simply kept around in my mind for years without any particular source that I know of.

In general, you live life as it is, then when you die, you have a free-floating spirit of sorts. You then get to choose how and who you would be reincarnated as, then live out that live however you please, although to prevent boredom you can choose to start from stratch, knowledge-wise. The spirit-form of course will retain knowledge of all the 'lives' lived. If you wish, you and a group of your friends can agree to make a world with it's own set of rules, cultures, geography, and open it to other people while retaining god-like powers. You can also choose a 'plotline' for a life that you live, and even choose to make important 'people' in your life that can actually be 'promoted' to a real person.

Of course, this sounds suspiciously like an RPG instead of an afterlife/life... which I suppose shouldn't be too suprising.

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2003-03-11 03:31am

I would personally like to be immortal in the sense that once I reach a certain age I then stop aging (like the Highlander). However, I CAN be killed and after I feel that I have done as much as I want, or need to do, I would then kill myself, but that likely wouldn't happen for at least several millenia since I wan't to watch humanity grow and evolve both technologically and physically and be part of it all.

However, immortality is impossible so im just gonna have to deal with however many years I have (I hope that I live at least untill my mid 80's).

UltraViolence83 · Post by **UltraViolence83** » 2003-03-11 05:59am

Why do so many people think of time as an illusion? I think it's one of the few things in this world that we can say is real...A non-mortal plane which is timeless seems fishy to me...Say you die today. Since you are now in a timeless realm, that means that everything that has and will happen is right now. If you see and talk to your loved ones in the afterlife. That means that they must be dead for you to talk to them, because if they didn't show up until they died that would mean that time indeed does occur...Silly New Agers try and spew that kind of stuff all the time. Don't buy into it, if you're an afterlife believer. The only way I can accept that view is if they say it's more like a "hub" for time to go around, so that you could see unincarnated people from different time periods. A somewhat better theory, in my opinion.

For New-Agey soul crap, go to: www.near-death.com

It's so lovey-dovey you'll be inducing vomiting within seconds. I believe they had a page that rationalized that shit with quantum mechanics, so be my guest at tearing a new one into it. Oh, and they speak of John Edwards without the terms "shithead," "scam artist" and "charlatan."

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2003-03-11 06:10am

Immortality.

Everyone wants more time. What would they do with it? If you were immortal, you would have all the time in the world to learn new things, experience something different every day, meet billions and billions of people.

Commonly, people say that after long enough, you would get bored. I see no evidence of that at all. Look at all of the things we've discovered and made since the birth of our civilization. To study it all in detail from just where we are now would take lifetimes, and that doesn't even include the new knowledge we gather every day. I'd imagine that there would be new things to learn and do every day from now until the universe ceases to exist.

But...you're immortal. You don't die. You don't change. Should humanity take a new evolutionary bent, you are left behind. Without geneering, it could take a while, but you're immortal. Chances are it will happen inside of your lifetime.

Back to the first point, what would you do? Have hot, wild sex as often as you could? If you maintained your youth, why not? Would you play video games? Read every book ever written? Would you keep memoirs? How would you share your experiences with the world, so that they might benefit from your gift, your unique perspective? Would you submit yourself to science, let them poke you and prod you, to try and find the cure for cancer, old age, maybe even death itself? Would you waste your time, or would you not waste a moment?

People waste time. It's a bad phrase, because time isn't ever really wasted, but it serves a purpose. People do things that don't make sense. We do things for perceived benefits that don't exist as we imagine them to. We give up long-term benefits for short-term gains, or abstain from short-term pleasures for a non-existant long-term benefit. We worry. We stress. We come to realize that eventually, we will die, and this life we live will cease. Some find comfort in the thought that there is a life after this one, be it through reincarnation, an afterlife, or eternal torment/eternal boredom. Others realize that it is fleeting. That we have been put on a timer from the moment of conception, a timer which could be hastened by any number of things. Disease, injury, poisons, chance, all can shorten the time you have to live. So what do you do? Do you become despondant, living under the cloud of hopelessness? Do you become a workaholic, doing everything you can while you still have the time? Do you not care, and just continue doing what you feel like doing? How do you strike a balance? When do you know you've lived a good life? What's the point of it all?

Being Immortal means you get a do-over. Do over everything. It doesn't matter if you had a bad 50 years just now, the next 50 could be stupendous. Didn't get that Physics degree you wanted? Just try again next decade. You'll never hit retirement age anyway. You'll never get old and infirm. You'll never forget what you did five minutes ago. You'll never need viagra. You'll never have to say "If only I could have had another five years...just another five years." Most importantly, you'll never have had a wasted life.

At least that's the thought. But people who feel they have wasted their lives only seem to realize that when they are coming to grips with their mortality. If you're immortal, such a concept would be utterly alien from a personal perspective. You could spend your first hundred years getting wasted and laid every night, and partying every day. After that, you get a job somewhere and just read books. You could have been doing any number of things, things which could have changed the world. The choices for any moment in time approach infinity. Are any of them worthless, given an almost infinite period of time in which to make such choices?

Maybe if immortality came with a save/reload feature, you might get bored, but as it is, you will still cease to exist. It's just going to take you longer to get there than the rest of us. I wouldn't mind living until the end of everything. I certainly doubt I'd ever get bored.

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2003-03-11 10:20pm

Immortality would be nice. I mean, to see and learn all sorts of things--it's not something most people get to do. However, I would like the option of oblivion if and when I want.

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2003-03-11 10:29pm

anyone read hitchhiker's guide? they have the perspective of an immortal in there.

gah - more then 50 yrs of life? I couldnt stand it.

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2003-03-11 10:30pm

Personnaly i believe when you die your spirit or whatever you call it is released and you can go where ever you want

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-03-11 10:33pm

Enforcer Talen wrote:anyone read hitchhiker's guide? they have the perspective of an immortal in there.

gah - more then 50 yrs of life? I couldnt stand it.

50? Many live well beyond that now.

Admiral Johnason · Post by **Admiral Johnason** » 2003-03-11 10:55pm

Perinquus wrote:I've thought this for a long time. Even the most sublime paradise would turn into a hell during the course of eternity. Human beings simply are not suited for that. The only way you could be made to enjoy it is to be altered into something so radically different from what you are that I would hardly consider it a reward. I'd rather stay who I am, and just face oblivion when I die (which, incidentally, is precisely what I believe is going to happen). If there is any kind of afterlife, reincarnation is the only one that sounds like it could be bearable.

Yes, but what if the afterlife is in a permant state of growth, in persuit of infinity. How would you become bored if there are infinite possibilities. Prehaps the afterlife is like the multiverse, never ceasing to grow and change, but still have some basic similarities whit that of the original.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-03-12 12:51am

memory wipes.

ArmorPierce · Post by **ArmorPierce** » 2003-03-12 12:55am

I agree with hotfoot. The only part thing that would suck is my aformentioned problem.

UltraViolence83 · Post by **UltraViolence83** » 2003-03-12 01:50am

Hotfoot: How could you be "left behind" in human evolution? Aren't we evolving right now? There's no "stages" of evolution like in sci-fi, it's painfully gradual. So...You wouldn't notice much difference for the next say, 50,000 years. With that geneering stuff we could put people on different planets that would be harmful to standard humans, but if you stayed here you would be fine.