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Is life meaningless if we can live forever?

Aralt 7 June 8
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44 comments (26 - 44)

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3

Well, it would probably make all the suicide bombers' lives meaningless as they have to rethink their life purpose. 😛

1

Not if we have a good job we enjoy and lots of HOT sex.

1

That's kind of a moot question, isn't it?

JimG Level 8 June 8, 2018
2

That's impossible to say. What gives a life meaning is defined only by that person themself. We might say it's not as valuable, since it would no longer be limited, but that wouldn't necessarily make it meaningless.

2

No. Not any more than it's suddenly meaningless because we don't believe in god. Meaning does not come from god or from mortality. It is found by each individual in each moment.

It's true that belief in god can be a shaky basis for meaning (until the abstraction starts leaking, which it invariably does, sooner or later). It's true that the pressure of mortality can focus you and presumably the absence of that pressure could unfocus you. But what would it matter? With unlimited time, you would just be focused by unhappiness caused by bad life choices; that works, too.

Besides, any sort of immortality that's absolute is a fantasy that's never going to happen. The closest we'll likely come to "living forever" is biological immortality, where disease and aging are taken out of the picture. But you can still die by misadventure, so you still can expect to eventually have an accident and die. So in that scenario you would still have always some nonzero possibility of dying in the next moment, just like now.

I suppose it's just possible that a long way in the future it will be possible to move one's memory and consciousness into a newly-grown body or robot of some kind, without compromising quality of life. That's a problem for another day, sort of the opposite of borrowing trouble. In terms of what's remotely likely to be true in the next few generations, I don't see the challenge of finding meaning changing substantially, other than hopefully getting rid of silly religious notions about how that's accomplished.

2

I woke up today, seemed to anyway, enjoying it pretty much so far. Is that meaning? Means enough to me.

@Aralt Well if that's the meaning you meant then that's the meaning I mean. 🙂

1

Apparently, to some ~

Varn Level 8 June 8, 2018
0

Well...
I've been to the OTHERSIDE (and back)
... I know... Eyebrow raise...
BUT (Take it or leave it as you will)
'fact' is I can tell you with ANSOLUTE EXPERTISE' The Answer is:
Yes And no.

😉
Let me know if you want to know more

1

Would that be sometime. To live in a mansion in the sky with extreme happiness for eternity.

It might be more possible to be reincarnated as a wise 1000 year Old Oak tree. As long as a Christian dose not come along and cut me into Bibles.

2

Life will never be meaningless for me as long as I'm alive. After I'm dead I'll have plenty of time for life to be meaningless.

skado Level 9 June 8, 2018

A more interesting question is if life would remain interesting if it went on indefinitely. Is there truly a limitless fund of novel experiences? I'm not so sure. But it's nice to have options. To be able to live forever so long as you can end it when it doesn't make sense for you, sounds fine to me.

1

In the first place, life is not meaningless. Life is a grand tour, full of wonder, awe, beauty, and mystery. How long a body stays alive has no bearing on the issue.

My personal opinion is that the sense of personhood as a separate individual is an illusion, sustained by memory. Perhaps all these overlapping lives should be thought of as a single entity. Even if your body lived a thousand years, I think that you would be a different person. You’d have no use for those old memories from a thousand years ago—they’d be hard to manage. The question of personal identity is tricky. I address that issue in “The Staggering Implications of the Mystery of Existence”, available on the Kindle Store.

1

Why would living forever change anything as far as meaning? It means our environment would be constantly changing and new challenges would abound. This is predicated on living a relatively pain free, comfortable life

0

Life is what you make it, forever or not ?

0

Well, I would say “no”. The biological function of this human machine is only the mechanics of life. What gives like meaning is how you live it. The experiences, the love, the wonder of viewing the world and how you affect others in a positive way. Leaving the world or just a small part of it better than when you found it. A line from one of my favorite poems which I have posted on this site: “The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and YOU may contribute a verse.” Walt Whitman.

1

In all honesty, it is meaningless already. What will your life have meant in another 1000 years.
What I did 50 years ago has no meaning.

0

Yea, but it'd be a lot more convenient, unless you're suicidal.

1

We DO live forever.

Einstein showed that all matter is a form of energy, so since energy can neither be created nor destroyed, we have always existed and will always exist in some energy form, and quantum physics already proves that multiple dimensions exist.

There could be reincarnation, for that matter. "For physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." -Einstein.

since when did quantum mechanics "prove" that multiple universes exist ? are you confusing the third law of thermodynamics ? Einstein never claimed any form of reincarnation, only the preservation of energy, not matter,

0

Or if we can't? 100 years, 1000 years, 10,000 years. Just specks in the overall flow.

0

Meaningless does not equate limitless.

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