A favorite story of mine is the idea of Peter’s children, having survived to immortality. Or if he doesn’t have children, his friends like me (listen to the tool) and their children. They are happy in heaven, except for this one horrible hellish lonely part, since Peter Lloyd is still dead. So, in their own self-interest, to relieve this necessary hellish loneliness, they giver up all the new fun they are discovering and buckle down. They apply their ever-increasing Godly powers to doing enough history to finally fully recover everything that is Peter Lloyd.
Upon waking, and seeing his finally relieved from hellish loneliness descendants, he gets angry at them saying: “No, I want to die! Kill me and do not resurrect me again!” So, since these heavenly people are all about finding out what people want, and helping them to get it, they selflessly grant his wish, take away his oxygen/life support, and he again suffers and dies.
Then after another hundred years, (like in Passengers) society can’t endure the hellish loneliness of being without Peter Lloyd any longer. They hope and assume that, just maybe, this time Peter Lloyd will realize he was wrong, and that he might finally want to exist with the now millions of people who love and miss him so much. But the same thing happens, again, and again…. On the 999th time, again he says: “For the 999th time. No, I want to die! Kill me and do not resurrect me again!”
Then, on the 1000th attempt, Peter Lloyd finally realizes the depth of hellish loneliness all his family and loved ones are experiencing without him. He finally has a change of heart. So, he gives up his selfish desire to be dead, and wants to make his loved ones happy, so says: “Ok, I’ll live and serve you guys. But only because you want me to! ;)
Their necessary lonely hell finally no longer necessary, everyone now resumes enjoying being with Peter Lloyd, fully discovering the ever more infinite ways there are fore everyone to just have fun.
Thank you Lene.############################Living forever, or even for just half of forever, would be hell.Dying gives life meaning.PPeter Lloyd Jones
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Sent by determined causes that no amount of will is able to thwart.
On Oct 31, 2019, at 2:42 PM, Lene Rachel Andersen - Nordic Bildung / Fremvirke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:############################I don't want it either.
Part of maturing is realizing your mortality and not only coming to terms with it but finding great relief and existential depth in it.
One version of hell would be living entirely surrounded by people who think they are going to live forever.
/ L
On 31-10-2019 19:17, Zachary Stein wrote:
You see, I do not want this:
Brent Allsop <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I want my knowledge of my spirit, and all my memories, to live forever in hundreds of different computationally bound brains/bodies, brains that can be aware of not just 3 primary colors, but thousands..... at trillions the resolution....
I admit that I have an instinctual emotional reaction/revulsion at this idea. That is, this reaction happens *if* I take it as a serious desire. Whereas I mostly take it as something like a grandiose fantasy/fiction to amuse/distract the ego from more serious, real, living desires about ones life and death.
Taken seriously, this transhumanist longing for techno-immortality seems like one of those desires for heaven held by a few that will end up creating hell on Earth for everyone else. We’ve had a lot of these over the course of history. This is why I (and I think Lene) are so concerned.
Deeper questions:
Why is it believed to be so bad to simply die, as humans always have?
Why do we trust our technologies more than nature?
Why do we want the ego-personality to continue in perpetuity, as if this were a good thing for us personally and for humanity?
My sense is we should all be preparing to die in the good old fashion way and not mixing science fiction so far into our identities that we forget what is inevitable and real about who and what we are.
Not really writing this for you, Brent, but for all the techno-optimist transhumanist rationalists who have lodged their adolescent notions into the heart of what might otherwise be a serious public discussion about digital technology and the future of humanity.
zak
P.S. If you want to “live forever” you will need more than “hundreds” of new bodies. How long to you think “forever" is?
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