Actually the question has its antecedent in ancient Greece.
The gods and goddesses were shallow and superficial. They were prone to whims and the passions of the moment and they lacked purpose. Their existence, paradoxically being immortal, was transient and surperficial
Because the gods were immortal, their lives lacked drama or purpose. There was no principle to sacrifice for because they could not sacrifice anything. Their existence was dominated by the constant search for new amusements and attractions to occupy the empty space that was their existence.
Drama and purpose and passion was the sole province of man. As a being with a short life - certainly short measured in terms of the eternal - man had to strive to meet his full potential. He had only a limited time to do it and thus only a limited time to make his life meaningful and to obtain what immortality was open to him through cherished memories and history.
This then being the origin of the philosophies that would culminate in the Golden Age of ancient Greece. The search for meaning and purpose was crucial and essential because even the longest lived man had only a very limited time to live out that search.
Hence Socrates - "The unexamined life is not worth living." For the gods there was no point. They had all eternity to be and thus there was no point to, and little purpose for, their existence.
Life has value, and therefore meaning and therefore interest, only for those for whom it is a short and cherished gift. For the immortals, they drifted on - one day much like the rest. Nothing to gain and therefore nothing to lose. Their boredom revealed by their mercurial conduct in the realm of the mortals from whom, ironically, they hoped to learn the meaning of life.
It would only be boring if you lack vision and ambition. All you need is an "eternal dream". Take the pursuit of knowledge for example; new knowledge is constantly being created (as long as there is existence). Therefore, you can never know everything. The pursuit of knowledge is thus an excellent eternal dream.
Furthermore, there are so many things to experience in this entire state of existence. Honestly immortality is not enough time. But getting to try is good enough, and very exciting. It would be fantastic to experience all the unique planets, and objects in the universe, to overcome the countless challenges that exist here, and out there, to explore and expand your own potential. I would love to live long enough to learn how to create a planet.
I contest the idea that being immortal is lonely. Immortality is a logical inevitability of scientific research. Given time, you can create and grant immortality to loved ones, and never be lonely. That is just a taste of our potential.
if you live for every you are never in a hurry, as what ever you see you are likely to see again As i said on a very simmlier topic lately Without shadow there is no light As without shadow all you see is light, and there for there is nothing to see
A life that never ends has no meaning, as it will never end, it will never stop it will just go on and on, and sooner or later you will get to the point where nothing really changes, the sun rise the sun go down, the grass grow the grass die, the moon get bigger smaller and bigger again There is never nothing new to see in the end of the day everything is a vraity of something else
When you know your life is going to end that sunrise may be one of a million, but its one of very limited amount of sunrises you are going to get to see The grass there is fresh and new, and sure it may happen every week, but its every week from a limited amount of weeks you have
Death gives meaning to life I can't really find the quote I wanted from good omens about the matter :( don't have the book around if anyone knows it please do add it :P
Eternal life is certainly not the path I would chose because of the reasons I invoked in the replies on the other question. Nothing guarantees that you are healthy and an honest citizen.
I would say it entirely depends on the type of "immortality" package one got and received. What if you can be immortal and never feel anything anymore? No pain, no discomfort, no suffering, and NEVER have to do anything at all to MAINTAIN your immortality? E. G. unlike how vampires have to drink fresh blood in order to MAINTAIN their "immortality".
Without all suffering, pain, and desires and thus boredom would become redundant and no longer possible nor apply. One would constantly be in a completely neutral state. Without any more suffering, pain, desires, etc. and even joys and pleasures become pointless and redundant, as there would be virtually zero purpose for one to pursue or do anything that brings any joy and/or pleasures. But an immortality like that would ABSOLUTELY ensure ZERO boredom, rendering it impossible. It all comes down to how much if at all WHAT one is still able to FEEL and experience emotionally AND physically in the kind of immortality one received. If it was like this one I just mentioned the one would merely exist eternally for existing eternally more or less.
Well being immortal has its downsides. If you get arrested and are forced to serve life in prison then you are fucked for eternity. Which is something no one seems to think about. And when we are immortal are we invulnerable from death too? If not then we would doesn't alongside humanity should something happen because we merely age slower or not at all instead of being immune to death. If we are immune to death how is this applied? Are we invulnerable? Do we self resuscitate? Do we regenerate from injuries? Do we pass on when we wish? Do self inflicted wounds get a loophole? Or can we merely become one with the universe similar to the Force? Then we have to ask what the conditions are? There is always a condition. Whether it's your soul being taken away so you ate immortal on the physical plane only. Or perhaps you are cold and hard, like a vampire. Maybe you melt away when in contact with a certain element. Or even your power is connected to a painting that ages as you remain vital, like Dorian Gray.
Ultimately, I don't see how life could be any more or less boring than your current one is. You'd be alive and conscious for millennium, being able to witness all the growth, all the change and all of the inventions created to make out society better. You'd be able to see every film that was released. You'd never miss your favorite YouTubers vids (until they die) and you'd be present for every election possible, seeing the years unfold. You can participate in society for as long as you want. I don't see how that is boring.
And can we make others immortal? Via our blood (if we retain it) or maybe if we have sex they would become immortal too, I guess that would mean you couldn't be an immortal whore... can we give the gift of prolonged aging to the test of the developed world?
PFF It would be the life... People who say they don't want immortality are quite disingenuous or unenlightened in my sense. I mean 'you're going to see the people you love die', guess what that happens when you get older as well the only difference is you don't have to die along with them and it happens you can also meet new people that you can continue to love and appreciate for the rest of time and also remember the people that you cared about in the past and carry them in your heart just like you do a diseased loved one. BUT. Who doesn't want to visit or live on every country on the planet, taste every single best and most expensive foods and delights on earth, climb on top of every mountain, learn to speak every language, play any and all instrument you desire and perfect yourself at pretty much anything you want or can ever think of? Not to mention this only covers the benefits of being timeless, I won't even have the time to explain the benefits that come with being impervious to death and all the extra thrills that come with that... Like you just do... ANYTHING
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Anonymous
(30-35)
+1 y
After a few hundred years our brains would be filled with so much information that to open space for new memories to be made our brains would pretty much have to permanently delete old memories. So, even with pictures, after a thousand years we may not remember the first person we married. We can look at a picture and read the story of how we got married but those new memories would be the same as reading the biography of someone we've never met. The old memories that we actually experience. The wedding, the marriage, the person themselves may disappear and we're just left with a story if we have one recorded. So, who we are as a person would be vastly different as we can no longer have those old memories shape who we are today. We still have old memories but only going so far back and eventually those will disappear replaced with new memories. So, I don't think life will become boring. The problem would come with what happens to my immortal self when the Earth is swallowed up by the sun and all life on our planet ceases to exist. Do I feel pain? Do I get thrown into the vacuum of space unable to breathe but also unable to die. Am I sucked up by the sun only to spend the rest of eternity trapped in the sun burning for eternity. Is it some sort of monkey's paw. I get immortality but at a heavy price?
All these things can factor in whether or not it''ll be boring. I really don't think it would be just because after 300 or so years we're going to start to forget the past and everything old becomes new again.
Eventually I think it would... I mean, we live to achieve some goals we set. If you are immortal you will eventually get them all done and then you would run out of things to discover and be excited about. And if I'm the only one who's immortal it would be very lonely since everyone I get to know will eventually die and I would have to move on or people would notice something is not right with me... doesn't sound exciting. Not to mention that in our age it will be impossible for it not to be noticed by authorities with everything filed in digital form. Eventually I would have to file in my own death or people will start asking questions.
You'd have to go in isolation and avoid scrutiny. It can become one's worst nightmare that one becomes targeted because one is immortal. They, whether it's the governments or some other organizations or entities of the world are gonna want that immortality you have and will stop at nothing to get to you in order to get their hands on it. That's what I'd expect and it can't be good. Unless somehow you could become relocated so far onto some other planet way out there in a very isolated corner of the entire universe, that's what I would expect the consequence would follow because I'd expect the worst out of how humankind really is with how their ambitions and motives really are.
You have a good point there... maybe we could gather all immortals and move to Mars. It certainly would have been easier and more interesting a few centuries ago.
Mars is still too close. We need to be WAY further than that so that even warp speed or faster than light travel can simply never reach us. I still prefer to be on my own on my tiny little planet out in the middle of nowhere that nobody and nothing would care or ever desire to go there. Can't trust anybody anymore is my point. I wish I could tend to my own little garden of crops and have some pets while on my own tiny little planet so far away way beyond our own galaxy.
I don't think it would be boring, but I do think it would be lonely. You'd have all the time in the world. You could spend countless hours watching movies, reading, listening to music. You could spend so time learning everything there is to learn. Instruments, languages, skills. You could travel to every corner of the world. You could volunteer. You could try multiple careers. You'd have the time to do all of the things you would ever want to do. I think it would be amazing to have the time to experience so much. However, you'd eventually have to say goodbye to everybody you've ever known and loved. It wouldn't be boring, but I think it would be an awfully painful and lonely life.
Every 90 years you'll have to pick out a new partner and say good bye to the wife and kids and make new ones. Don't you think though you would get so smart and you would become very bored with the average person even a smart one on the Earth? What age would you want to stay at? How would you explain to people your 999 years old and look like a 35 year old?
@Iron_Man I personally don't think I would get bored. The world is always changing. There's new people being born, new things being produced everyday. Being immortal you'd have the time to travel all over the world, having the time to get to know the land, the people, the culture. It doesn't matter if you're smarter than somebody, you can still be their friend and learn about their life.
I do think it would be difficult to explain why you look so young. But maybe when people start to get suspicious, that when you move. Start life somewhere new. Share that secret just with your family, if you choose to have one.
I do think it would be a difficult life to live, but I think it would be amazing and rarely boring.
I voted C by the way. First off it depends on the person, if you're an immortal luddite or are unsociable or a recluse then it's obviously going to be boring, but if you were an immortal savant and made loads of money you'd essentially be scrooge mcduck but immortal right?
Now, when anyone ever asks me if I'd ever want to be immortal I always say "as long as I have the option to die when I want to", so basically I'd be immortal, but if like the world was gonna end or if my immortality was kinda like deadpools where he CAN die but he always comes back, so maybe like a disease that kills you but your immortality brings you back into an endless loop of death. Then you can see why that little 'death decision clause' is important.
Sorry if I rambled, I'm tired and this tends to happen to tired me.
I don't know about everyone else but for people like me, it won't be boring because the world will keep changing. It won't always be the same and in the last few years I've learned to appreciate every little way in which the world develops. But it will be depressing because I love my family. And if I become immortal I'd love to spend my life surrounded by family all the time. So eventually I won't be able to handle seeing generations of my family coming and going. I won't be able to handle countless members of my family dying and me being the only one living forever.
I don't think so. Choosing to assume humans would live relatively young and strong forever, just not dying of age and sickness. If you live a meaningless life, then sure you would probably get depressed and want to die because of a lack of meaning. But if you had a life a personal sense of meaning in the world and continuing to grow, improve, help others and create more in this world. Theoretically you would never lose your lust for life and continue enjoying the party of life. All depends on what you think the point of life would be in that world of immortality.
Eventually, I think it would have to become boring. I mean for hundreds of years, maybe evem thousands, im sure you could essentially play chess with the population of Earth, but eventually you're just going to run out of things to do, especially if humanity gets wiped out.
When you love a long life that is a good life you are ready to leave this earth. When you leave a long life that is not a good life, you are ready to leave this earth.
Only if one feels they wasted life, working too much, not caring enough for others do they wish to remain and settle unfinished business.
Immortality would become very boring and likely make for a hardened sole, or spirit or whatever an immortal person would have.
It would be interesting. Be able to do everything I ever wanted to accomplish. So long as I had perfect health, and youth, to go with it.
Flip side is it would also be painful. See all your close friends, and loved ones, repeatedly die. After a couple centuries of that I imagine I wouldn’t allow myself to get close to anyone. A lonely eternal existence.
No, it will surely get boring for me, I love nature and by that time, , nature reserve, flora and fauna, habitats would have been destroyed and replaced by a concrete jungle. Moreover, I won't be able to bear the pain seeing my island disappear underwater due of climate change.
Immortality with no power is boring. Y'know the saying, "With great power, comes great possibilities." Eventually immortality will become boring because eventually you will have done all you can do and find yourself with nothing to do unless you attempt to break the very boundaries of reality.
I think it would just be very sad and stressful. How could you ever start to care about someone knowing fully well you will outlive them and then have to deal with the pain of losing them? And if you want to hide thther fact that you are immortal you would probably have to move around to new countries or cities every 10-20 years or so because people would notice you aren't aging. I guess that part might be cool to some people but I like where I live and I don't want to have to leave
It wouldn't be boring since you'll get to see so many things and how the world evolve but losing your loved ones would be extremely heartbreaking. Immortality would be a very hurtful things to live but not a boring one (except if you are one to not find anything interesting nice you lose your loved one).
If I was immortal, I would make a plan that would span generations and just work on achieving those plans. I would have loads of time to become a master at many crafts, write books, research and have tons of kids.
I would probably just keep making kids, I would have endless amounts of wives (One at a time though, until they pass away). I would just have hundreds and thousands of kids over millions of years. Kids bring couples happiness and fulfillment, watching your kin grow must be amazing.
If you mean true immortality, you'd watch anyone you ever cared about get old and die. You see civilisations fall. A new species evolve to be the dominant species on earth. You'd see the sun expand, engulfing planets as it died, wiping out all other life on earth. The eartj wpuld be nothing but a charred rock drifting around a dead star till the end of the universe (or until the milkyway galaxy and Andromeda crash into each other)
Ugh. That immortality shit is lame. Earth and humanity in general is not something I’d call fun... so I’m not interested in living after 65. If I’m not sick by then I’ll go ahead and poison the spaghetti.
Just think how smart you would be way down the road in life. I don't think anybody can match up to your wits. The trouble is do you think you would become bored with everybody or do you think there's someone out there that can help stimulate your mind?
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