Julian Barnes has an interesting book called A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters in which he has a chapter that talks about heaven and an eternal afterlife. In this darkly humorous section, an angel talks about how everyone sooner or later wants to end the afterlife (basically die as a finality), even after attaining everything they could ever want, because it just gets boring after a while. Sooner or later everything gets boring. (There was a funny Curb Your Enthusiasm about marriage lasting into the afterlife, and Larry David refused to make this declaration while renewing his vows to his wife. It was awkward to sit next to my wife while watching it and laughing.)
I think this idea would carry over to this worldly life of ours, except we also have to deal with things they don't have to in heaven, such as pain, heartbreak, violence, injustice, tragedies, etc, in addition to the boredom problem of living forever.
I never understood that. I can't even imagine to ever be bored of life.
In fact if I had just one wish from a genie (heh) I'd pick the eternal life. And if everyone lived forever or a long time, imagine the relationships we'd have :)
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
...but don;t have data to prove that there would be an interesting dichotomy between people who are generally conservative and those who are generally liberal.
The liberals I suspect would tend to shun the age extending and especially age suspending treatments while the conservatives would embrace them.
What that says about each group (if my intuition is correct) could probably fill a host of thesii.
but I suspect you are very wrong - especially about religious conservatives who imo would really shun age extending/suspending. You'd hear screaming about the unnaturalness of the treatments and playing God and other stuff.
Now hard core liberals would probably be against it as well because of some resource consumption nonsense and maybe going against mother nature or whatever.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I think we can slow aging as long as we take care of our nutrition and life style. Anything is possible you know... It is estimated that people live longer with one year for each year we invest more in science. immublast
Comments :
Maybe I'm morose or something
but I don't really want to live forever.
Julian Barnes has an interesting book called A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters
in which he has a chapter that talks about heaven and an eternal afterlife. In this darkly humorous section, an angel talks about how everyone sooner or later wants to end the afterlife (basically die as a finality), even after attaining everything they could ever want, because it just gets boring after a while. Sooner or later everything gets boring. (There was a funny Curb Your Enthusiasm about marriage lasting into the afterlife, and Larry David refused to make this declaration while renewing his vows to his wife. It was awkward to sit next to my wife while watching it and laughing.)
I think this idea would carry over to this worldly life of ours, except we also have to deal with things they don't have to in heaven, such as pain, heartbreak, violence, injustice, tragedies, etc, in addition to the boredom problem of living forever.
(Now a few hundred years, maybe. Eternity, no.)
We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida
boredom problem?
I never understood that. I can't even imagine to ever be bored of life.
In fact if I had just one wish from a genie (heh) I'd pick the eternal life. And if everyone lived forever or a long time, imagine the relationships we'd have :)
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I don't know if you realize
how long eternity is. Let's just say it is a long time (damn, I'm insightful sometimes :) ).
I don't know. I guess if things change around you, there is always something new and interesting happening. Maybe I'm wrong about the boredom idea.
We are both in our early 30's. Perhaps we have to wait until we are 80 or so before we we realize what boredom truly is.
We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida
I suspect...
...but don;t have data to prove that there would be an interesting dichotomy between people who are generally conservative and those who are generally liberal.
The liberals I suspect would tend to shun the age extending and especially age suspending treatments while the conservatives would embrace them.
What that says about each group (if my intuition is correct) could probably fill a host of thesii.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
it's a very interesting topic
but I suspect you are very wrong - especially about religious conservatives who imo would really shun age extending/suspending. You'd hear screaming about the unnaturalness of the treatments and playing God and other stuff.
Now hard core liberals would probably be against it as well because of some resource consumption nonsense and maybe going against mother nature or whatever.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
reply
I think we can slow aging as long as we take care of our nutrition and life style. Anything is possible you know... It is estimated that people live longer with one year for each year we invest more in science.
immublast