Immortality is actually horrible after the first few billion years.
You get done with everything forever basically.
Your desire whithers into nothingness and you just want to be in an immortal coma.
Your life becomes ever joyless and mundane in every possible manner.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
So what have we learned today? If you are ever conscious then you were cursed, either with life or death, a curse either way really, they are both horrible.
Seriously, after the first few billion the only answer is sleep.
I disagree. Immortality in this human body would be horrible after the first few billion years. But if you were transported to a higher plane with higher thinking and a completely different world, you would have an innumerable amount of possibilities open up to you. Especially if all faults and error were removed from everything and everyone.
I figure the only way to go through eternity is a constant cycle of birth and death where you never get any answers and everything seems chaotic… kind of like how life is now… i really put some thought into this and im pretty sur ethis constant cycle of suffering and joy is the only way to go about eternity
I am fairly certain that omnipresence is an implied quality of immortality. As such, one would not perceive time linearly, nor require experience in order to do so. One would inherently attain all knowledge and all experience intrinsically and immediately following their “birth” into such an existence.
Boredom would therefore not be a concept of any meaning, nor would suffering.
Birth and death are fundamental factors of our 3D physical finite world. Stepping into eternity would mean you would be beyond all the limitations of our finite world.
From a perspective of our time, omnipresence would be a quality of immortality since we would not be limited by time; however, from a position outside of time, we wouldn’t necessarily be omnipresent.
All of time could be perceived similar to a place to us, so not being in time or bound by time, as you said, one would not perceive time linearly or require experience to do so.
I’m not sure where the “attain all knowledge” idea comes from. We would definitely have access to far more knowledge and understanding than we have now, and if we had perfect bodies beyond the simple finite bodies we have now, then we would have far more potential to gain and use that knowledge, but omniscient? I don’t think so. At least it wouldn’t be a necessary quality. Attaining all experience is probably correct since we would have access to all time.
I fully agree boredom would have no meaning as we would be outside of our present finite existence. We would not be living in a world controlled by the 2nd law of thermodynamics. There would be no birth, death. The necessity for suffering certainly wouldn’t be there, but that doesn’t mean the ability to suffer couldn’t exist.
I am familiar with quite a number of philosophies that touch upon “immortality”.
I tried to focus more on the definition itself than be influenced by philosophy.
I think a lot of philosophies overlap with mythology and we start to picture ourselves as Gods and so all the real meaning of immortality is lost.
Not to mention that, just like in Christianity, Buddhism has utilised parables to communicate concepts in its scriptures - many of these have been interpreted literally and passed through the generations as such. A lot of the beliefs surrounding reincarnation are completely humanised and mutated; the original teaching lost.
I often witness people thinking of Buddhist reincarnation as having the following potential (Nirvana ignored for the moment):
God
Demi-God
Human
Beast
Lost Soul
Hell
So it is common to see humans projecting their own mortal limitations into how they view reincarnation into other realms, but this in itself is a distortion of Buddhism. Much like how the Mormon’s have distorted Christianity.
What Reincarnation is Not
Reincarnation is not a simple physical birth of a person; for instance, John being reborn as a cat in the next life. In this case John possesses an immortal soul which transforms to the form of a cat after his death. This cycle is repeated over and over again. Or if he is lucky, he will be reborn as a human being. This notion of the transmigration of the soul definitely does not exist in Buddhism.
Reincarnation is to Buddhism as Heaven and Hell is to Christianity. It is a notion evolved for moral compass. What the Buddha really wanted to teach, however, was all about Karma. As a human, the way you are living your life right now determines what plane of existence you are in right now. It is actually not about where you will be after death.
I believe the way you are living your life right now determines what plane of existence you are in right now, but it also affects where you will be after death.
I don’t disagree that this is addressed in Buddhism, but there is just a lot of human projection influencing the interpretations of what the Buddha wanted to convey about the after-life.
One simply has to accept that one’s ability to comprehend another form of existence is limited by one’s current existence. Your human experience and your human cognitive function will naturally project a human spin on any interpretation of an immortal existence. I don’t claim to have any idea what that might look like, so I choose to focus on the definitions of words in isolation of my humanity.
Definitely so. Even the Bible’s description of heaven is in vague generalities. There are lots of examples of trying to comprehend a higher plane than where you are at and the obvious short-comings of description and understanding in trying to do so.
After experiencing everything 20,000 times and then 20,000 more times and then 20,000 more times you might just get a little tired of living or being awake.
I have no idea how long I’ll live. Sometimes the most boring things are the least boring things. Expectation bias. Perspective bias. Sounds to me like you might benefit joining my posse of angry scientists haha
Sure, I’m being flippant now, but you just wait until the mob is assembled!
Seriously though, some anger would do you some good!
If my scope of “everything” is continuing to expand, since I won’t have the limitations of this world, then I won’t be experiencing the same things again and again.
