If life were eternal all interest and anticipation would vanish. It is uncertainty which lends it satisfaction.

-Kenkō Hoshi, Japanese Buddhist (circa 1330)


(I would be more blunt: Eternal life is for those with infantile minds).

-Zeno

Meh. I disagree, but it's pointless to argue unless we can find someone immortal to confirm/deny the statement.

Even if we had the certainty of eternal life there would always be the uncertainty of taxes.


PairTheBoard

I see what you did there, is this the literary version of speakin in third person..

Makes me LQTMS. Wp sir

As I said in another thread, we are all the stars of our own movie. When we die, the movie ends. It's natural to worry about the credits.

Dont you love it when you find a awesome punchline, and no one cares and you have to repost it?

I agree. I hope my movie turns out to be a classic.

I only fear death when the thought of it catches me off guard. It probably has something to do with the three month span where I was convinced that the growth on my lip was cancerous. Had plenty of time to think about dying then.


Turns out it was a non malignant tumor after they cut it out of me...

I disagree. I do not understand why I cannot find something interesting if I know I will be alive forever. Why would such knowledge render an amusement park ride not fun? Or whatever else you find fun. I do not enjoy things simply because I know someday I will not be able to do them.

Or do you mean the fun would eventually vanish? I do not buy this, either. I think after a long time, after having done 'everything' one could simply go back to the beginning and do it all again. It would have been so long since you had done it that you likely would have forgotten all about it and it would seem like new again. I pick up old hobbies sometimes with which I once became bored and find them interesting again now, and that was only a few years ago. Imagine not having done them for a billion years.

There is a really good quote in the bhagavad gita that goes something along the lines of (from memory):

"Every sunset, forest and animal that you have ever gazed upon will fade away; but that you have gazed upon them will not."

There is also another quote something along the lines of (again from memory):

"If you are to truly see you must start to see the eternal in the things that pass."

I think they're both very good quotes, and strive to strike some recognition of and balance between the impermanent physical world and the eternal spiritual world, and sheds some light on what/where/how that world is.




H

Both of these are great quotes. It doesn't take any deep or profound insight to realize the influence of the eternal past on present existence. Nor does it take any rigorous examination to see the impermanence of material existence. Knowing these two things, any speculation as to any spiritual causality is ultimately frustrating and futile. Trying to get a mental grasp on this makes herding cats seem simple.

If it's infantile to have lots of sex forever and ever, then I don't want to be a grownup.

people seem to think theyre immortal anyways...

"Both of these are great quotes. It doesn't take any deep or profound insight to realize the influence of the eternal past on present existence."

I don't interpret the quotes that way. The bhagavad gita is a scriptural text claiming to reveal the nature of God and the spiritual realities to man. Both the quotes are referring to the eternal impressions that are made on our souls during our material lives, and asking us to stop and recognise that there are different levels of internal being; stuff we will forget because it is insignificant; stuff we will consider very important in this life but forget about in the next; and stuff we will take with us, that has equal significance in our material lives and our spiritual lives. To learn to distinguish between such things is part of a much bigger process leading a person towards greater spiritual awareness.

"Nor does it take any rigorous examination to see the impermanence of material existence. Knowing these two things, any speculation as to any spiritual causality is ultimately frustrating and futile. Trying to get a mental grasp on this makes herding cats seem simple."

I agree it's impossible to quantify and getting a handle on anything of this nature is tough, but I do believe we are capable of seeing more than we might think is possible. When the Buddha achieved Nirvana, he was famous for telling people that nothing had changed, only the way he perceived that nothing: the truth had always and would always be there, it just took him that long to wake up and see it, and realise that it had always been there, because only once he recognised it, did he realise it had been there all along.

I guess that's why books like this were written, to show us a different way of looking at life.



H

What if the thing you're picking up you have picked up and put down a trillion times before?

What if it has been a trillion years since I put it down?

Idk... i would have to experience it to know weather or not i would want to blow out my spiritual brain from boredom or if it would still hold enjoyment.

Oi! All this is just human psychology. There's no reason to assume human psychology applies in the afterlife.

Personally, I feel very confident that I'd like it, but eh. Main thing would be having the same memory I do now, there are whole years of my adult life in which I can't remember a single thing I did.

Me too. I am willing to try. Hell, forget hobbies. Just go on an eternal vacation. Continually visiting every planet in the universe would probably be pretty fun, especially if a lot of them were inhabited. There are enough of them that they would certainly have changed quite a bit by the time you got back to them. Or even just trying to get there would be fun.

You must return to ninja school. Anyway, who said anything about spiritualism? I was talking about my normal life since the quotation only stated that. I would have to experience "the afterlife" to even know whether or not I enjoyed it at all, let alone being in it forever.

I look at like driving a stick shift. I haven't driven one i a while but i will never forget what its like driving one because i have done it enough that it has became rote.

I do think there would be enough to do that everything wouldn't become rote, but idk for sure...

Oh me too, for sure id like to try it.

Sorry i always do that.

Well i just assumed since we all will die the only way for this to happen is in an afterlife. Either way im uncertain of an afterlife without infinite possibilities or an eternal life in this universe and the idea makes me a little bit nervous. Not as nervous as eternal death but still.

I've read Ender's Game five times. Right now, I can't even remember any of the characters except Ender and Bean. I probably wouldn't even remember Bean except that I think he wrote another book about him.

If I were to read EG again it would be like a new book to me.

I'm 28, and I've read EG in my 20s. I don't think there will ever be a time in my life when 5 years isn't enough to wipe the events of the story from my mind.

Also, why is there only a finite number of things to do in heaven?

(I also can't remember much from A Song of Ice and Fire, which I also loved. Books I didn't love so much? I've picked up a book and realized - halfway through - that I had read it before.)

(And even if my forgetfulness goes away eventually, there could just be a "fog of amnesia" in heaven that makes you forget anything that happened more than 1 trillion years ago. Then they provide 100 trillion years of "stuff to do." Or, use your imagination. This hardly seems an insurmountable problem for an omnipotent being.)

(Oh also, the reason you know how to drive a stick is largely muscle memory and your cerebellum. You don't have muscles or a cerebellum in heaven, right? But remembering events and things works differently from remembering "how to do" physical tasks.)

How about a book you have read a billion times or so many time you know every word by hart.

Just saying that if an afterlife has a finite number of things to do it could be a problem.

It really comes down to how memories would work in an infinite afterlife or life. If we are able to forget the things we have done an infinite amount of times it would be all good. If not than everything might be like going though the motions of something you have done so many times you can't help but remember every minute detail. Groundhog day on steroids.

Now if an afterlife is given by an omnipotent being and he is kind. I would imagine he would give us an infinite amount of things to do or a finite memory so it would be all good.

Well that depends if heaven is just a New Earth and we are all resurrected into new physical body's.
Im not so sure given a good enough memory and given limited things to do and think everything wouldn't become rote, even thought itself. But on the bright side, for me anyway, those of us that are a little dumb will have a little more leeway to get bored.

How can you forget Valentine? Or Petra? OR BONZO!?! The novel told from the perspective of Bean is Ender's Shadow, btw.