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I think The Good Place had an excellent take on this.
In the afterlife, people's every desires were met, they could have orgasms lasting millennia, and they eventually just turned into mindless zombies because they'd essentially done and seen everything - multiple times.
To resolve this, they were given an option to walk through a "door" and cease existing any time they wanted. The idea of an "end" reignited the passions that had been lost and gave them something to look forward to.
That show had no business being as great as it was.
Yeah, I'd heard good things about it before I finally got around to watching it. I went into it expecting "good", but got "great" instead. No complaints lol.
Kinda funny how a show about death considers paradise nothing especially different from normal life except having the ability to leave on your own terms when you're ready to.
I think that facet is more about the scale of eternity and the human mind's inability to grasp the enormity of it.
I don't want to spoil the twist for those who haven't seen it, but they do show that you're able to have your heart's desire at any time. Plus, it's a TV show, so you have to make some concessions for budgetary reasons (everyone can't be a giant CGI turtle, for example lol).
I’m sorry, you made some great points, but all I can take away from that is that your idea of heaven is becoming a Ninja Turtle…? 🤣
....and? 😆
Edit: That wasn't what I was going for with that example, but now that you mention it, maybe subconsciously I was. That sounds pretty cowabunga.
Touché.
They literally say in the show that all the Good Place really is, is time. As much time as you want, to do whatever you want, with whomever you want.
There is nothing that could be done to make me want to live for eternity. Do you know what's boring after a billion years? Everything. Do you know how many billions are in infinity? All of them.
Eternity means that one day you'll outlive the last black hole and you'll be the only thing in a universe with, effectively, nothing but your imagination to keep you busy.
What is there if not the journey. I still choose life.
Even after being partially disabled for a decade and in near total isolation presently, I still choose life now, as I would then. Boredom is a lack of creativity. Perhaps the entire universe becomes the slow moving simulation of my mind for the Postbaryon.
You eat the same repetitive foods in a cycle just beyond conscious awareness, and yet you do not tire of eating. I can dance to life forever, despite the rhythmic procession, or effrons quale.
Imagine being at your evolution level and watching living creatures slowly become genius levels and you're just like a novel pet or exhibit to far superior beings. And like, it just slowly, painfully happens, while your unforgettable past haunts you of times where you weren't so isolated and alone, where there used to be others of your kind. Just trapped for eternity in a future you're long since naturally compatible with.
And all the time you're dealing with whatever the expansion of the Sun brings...
OP', I choose a gun to blow my brains out when the novelty wears off.
Do you know how long it takes to do everything?
Eternity. I doubt even with all time forever you'd be able to do everything. Our world is ever-changing, much less the wider universe.
The one stipulation I'd put on living forever is the ability to change with the universe. Who's to say physics will even allow us to perceive reality in a few billion years, if we're stuck the way we are?
The one stipulation I’d put on living forever is the ability to change with the universe.
Sure, if you're a god that changes things. Otherwise I'd live in fear of the eternity that is still left after there's nothing left to experience. In a couple hundred billion years all the stars will be dead. In a trillion years all mater will have decayed into iron and be so spread out that you could never get from one lump of iron to the next even at superluminal speed. A trillion years is the blink of an eye compared to forever.
I'd say living for eternity doesn't imply being conscious for that time.
Edit: Eternal recurrence could be a fun thing to witness
I'd finally have time to read The Silmarillion.
For me, it would essentially need to be a TARDIS.
Whenever I think of immortality I immediately go to the end of all other life and the idea of knowing that I would eventually be doomed to an inescapable existence of total isolation. Long before that, but hundreds of years from now, I am sure that I would go literally insane with boredom. I need to know that there will always be something new, different, and interesting. A TARDIS would allow me to go anywhere, anytime, with anyone.
I also fear eternal life in some preeminent imprisonment, either some form of external confinement, like being trapped at the bottom of the ocean by the crushing weight of the water around me, some form of locked-in syndrome. A TARDIS could operate on its own to save me from such a fate.
If eternity ever becomes too much, a TARDIS would also give some options to potentially end my existence.
That’s a great idea! I second it!
Also you cannot alter your mind in any way that would enable to let you tolerate living for eternity or not get bored of things.
No drugs at all? I'm out. They're almost necessary for tolerating living for a finite period.
Honestly I’d need it to not be 100% permanent. If the earth gets obliterated I’m not interested in swirling in the void forever. If a government figures it out and keeps me locked to a table for decades, I want to be able to die.
If you give me the ability to concentrate and stop existing, I’m in.
I’d bargain down to a torpor state if death is right off the table. It might be interesting to be found floating in space by space faring sentients in the far future.
Ability to painlessly kill myself at any point.
I would need a life without the human animal nature to be such a god. I would tire of the hormone cycle. I already find it stupifying to some extent after less than 4 decades. Free my mind of this burden and give me perfect recall to expand my human memory byte. From there I will explore the universe, within the galaxy and beyond.
The minimum does not exist. I would much rather die eventually knowing that my life has been absolutely incredible, than to live forever with all thoughts related to happiness simply disappearing slowly but surely until I go crazy enough to want suicide, and then get more crazy when I realize that I can't have it.
I'd probably want my partner to live forever too. We're pretty perfectly matched.
Infinite supply of breathable air
Otherwise the post stellar era is gonna start sucking for you real bad real quick
We're talking end of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 2 level "ooooooooof" in terms of how much suck you're signing yourself up for, floating in an abyss lit by ghosts of long dead stars and galaxies, not having been able to take a breath in trillions of years and yet also not being able to die from suffocating because of it either.
There is a reason why only half of that level of shit to be in was referred to by the Supernatural fandom as "Turbo Hell"
Wouldn't that fall under the basic necessities part of OPs post?
I would ask for a means of travel in with this as well... fixing the lack of breathable air would be pointless if you're stuck aimlessly drifting through space, Bender a la Godfellas style.
I'm pretty sure I could handle it, as long as I have my MineTest server.
Would choose 45 as the age to stay. I would need an option to be able to die, in case the world I was on exploded or something, and some immortal companions. That's the main requirements. I think in terms of getting bored, it would take a really long time if we could go all around this world and watch it changing, and eventually if it's possible to get bored we would, it seems unavoidable.
In practice, I wouldn't take this option since I already had kids. I think you have to choose one or the other, immortal beings can't procreate, that's the rules, it can only be one in, one out, not an increasing population and also it would be too sad to see my kids get old and die.
Some kind of memory reset. Eternity is really fucking long of you can remember all of it.
A lab, manufacturing capabilities for any kind of object and material, and possibly several companions. Plus a mineral-rich planet (best case would be inexhaustible) as well as a star. And a ship, preferably FTL, to change location after the star nears the end of its life. Of course also copies of the entire cultural database of humanity (books, songs, movies). Pets. A thriving ecosystem on the home planet.
On the one hand, one lifetime is not nearly long enough to do all the things I want to do.
On the other hand, I've been severely depressed before, and the biggest thing that got me through those times was knowing that I only need to get through one lifetime - which again, really isn't that long.
Overall, I don't think I would ever want to be immortal, but I would gladly take a long extension if some kind of djinn were to offer it.
Infinite complexity
i've wondered about immortality for a while. it boils down to why would i want to be immortal and for me i just want to see and experience things. it also means that i'll experience a century living lavishly and surrounded by the perfect people i ever hoped to be with and another century where i'll be broke, alone and living in 10 sqm apartment. at this point then isnt i'm just a living library of babel of human experiences? then what kind of person i am then? a wise old sage or succumb to become a maniac? how many personalities, morals and ideology would come and pass. and how many of 'me' that lived and died? would that person still be me? would that person consciousness be the same as me right now? the more i think about immortality the more i think its just the same as death, just a different kind.
