Which raises an interesting point: how many of those who claim to want to live forever work a full-time job? With an established life expectancy, we have periods of schooling, periods of work, and periods of accomplishment, where we reap the rewards of our work. Living forever would mean working forever - not a very pleasing concept, and one those who have never truly appreciated a lifetimes' worth of work could comprehend, I think.
As to what becomes of us when we die? I fear Philip Pullman's answer, that we all - saints and sinners alike - go to an underworld and there spend the remainder of eternity. On the flip side, I rather like the "release" from that prison he imagines, where we become a part of everything, one with the world.
Of course, we might find the afterline is just one divine comedy... and wouldn't that be a bugger for the buggers?
Dante - -good book. Excellent musical suit as well.
Personally, I steal myself thinking that each person receives the sum total of his beliefs after death. Those that believe in heaven shall go there, those that believe in hell shall suffer there, those that lack the imagination to see beyond oblivion shall be trapped by it and me...
...well, I suppose I should share. One word - Valhalla. Yes, that is correct. My idea of a well-spent eternity is Valhalla.
Well you see, it started like this. The day began with Beff and I but he immediately displeased me when I slipped the bonds of slumber and I cast him immediately from my presence until he learned how to *deleted* better. Thence he made haste to his own harem where Park was waiting. Park however was in no mood to console Beff and Beff in turn cast Park out. Park, dispondent, went to seek solace in the only place he knew - the arms of Corise with whom his affair had become most torrid. Corise placated Park until he was well enough to travel so he could sulk back to Beff and hope for forgiveness. The reason for the ease of Corise' acts? Zell, that dashing figure in black, was due at any moment to burst through the door and whisk him away to happiness. So all was well in their world, those two not having know how they were part of the greater picture that is the underworld of TRF
You've read those?! OMG! I've never met a sci-fi lover who's actually read the HDM trilogy. If you weren't a staff member, I would invite you to join the RPG I'm trying to take on that used to be on hisdarkmaterial.org, but was closed down.
I have never understood concepts like "Without death, we would not truly live", or saying that death defines us as living things. I can see the reasoning, but it appears an absolute logical fallacy. True, our human bodies are not intended to last forever, and thus we have physical and mental limitations, but with infinity to circumvent these, they could be overcome. I suspect someone made up these things to be poetic or to console themselves about mortality, and they've stuck around.
Picture if you will a village, in the center of which is a doorway. All who pass through the doorway never return. You may spend forever on this side of the doorway, and though this is not a guarantee of good life, it is at least a guarantee of continued life. On the other side lies the unknown, however, and in theory with infinite time you will eventually go through regardless - what else is there for you to do? This mentality baffles me, that just because it is unknown we should embrace it because there is the POTENTIAL for good. Would you blunder aimlessly in the dark because you might run into a great fortune? What if you just run into a wall?
You might well go insane if you lived forever. No, matter of fact, regardless of your augmentation you WOULD go insane, but with eternity, you would eventually come back down from that madness and have a period of sanity. Sooner or later the madness would return, and so forth. This should not be a reason to avoid immortality - we all risk madness in our regular lives, and sometimes with no promise of seeing it cured. The immortal would have time enough to experience everything, the good and the bad. It's part and parcel of the deal.
There's also the perception that a life must end so that its' story may be finished. Call no man happy until he is dead, as the Greeks said, for even at the last minute his fortunes might reverse. This is utterly baffling to me - would you really want to risk utter oblivion just so your story could have an end? Could look good on paper just in case anyone wanted to hear it? The immortal would be immune from the Greek's observation of happiness, as if there is no prospect of end then there is no prospect of final fortune. If anything, you would be free to pursue happiness on a day-to-day basis without fear that you were wasting your time.
Against all angles, it seems superior to me that one should live forever rather than not. We cannot have information on eternal life to make an informed decision, this is true, but since we also cannot have information on what happens after death, the only sensible option seems to be to delay that event as long as possible. Eternal life will bring suffering and joy in absolutely equal qualities, as each will be as infinite as time itself. Just what, in concrete terms, is the downside?
