Does the idea of eternity freak anyone else out more than anything else? Because honestly, every single time I try to think about it I get this intense sense of dread. Nietzsche said that the realization of eternal return (not saying I necessarily think eternal return is even a thing) is "the greatest burden of them all." From a logical standpoint, I completely agree. Scary stuff.
Yes. As a Christian, the concept of "eternal life" has always freaked me out. I'd actually prefer just to "cease to be" at some point.
Close your eyes Now . . imagine opening them up. You are simply floating in space You see the stars all around you and you have no idea which one is earth . . . . .. . or even the sun. Rocket River . . .still better than the Blair Witch Project
Yeah, this is exactly what I mean. Just from a purely human standpoint I take solace in the fact that infinity/eternity are concepts that we probably just can never fully understand. We only know one form of existence, and that is our current state of "being." So it's hard to ascribe human qualities to ideas that are not held to those standards. Anyway, I have a pretty strong background in math and have done a lot of work on abstract ideas, especially those dealing with infinity. It's still very hard to grasp eternity/forever/infinity. I wonder if I ever will. That being said, it's also comforting because I feel as if "eternity" has always been going on in a way, and will continue to always do so. It was never dreadful before we were born. It likely will not be dreadful after we are dead. And as far as this life goes, it can be great as well. Ideas in Quantum Physics, String Theory, etc. are constantly changing right before us. So I don't really want to reference any of those in terms of absoluteness. Also, because those are ideas that are pretty difficult to grasp in themselves.
Hmmph. That's pretty funny, I assumed most Christians were okay with the concept of eternal life and in fact preferred it rather than ceasing to exist. Wat.
I get freaked out when thinking about being. It's absolutely ****ing nuts if you focus being, and compare it to nothingness. Honestly I think nothingness, or the way I perceive it at least, doesn't exist. Which is crazy because nothingness is such a well known image in everybody's mind. Eternity makes sense, simply because energy never dies, it only transfers.
Not speaking for him, but growing up believing in religion, eternity was the scariest part of the whole "afterlife" thing.
Yeah, I would tend to agree with this. Which is why I feel eternity is just something we cannot comprehend and timelessness is just the normal state of things. Have you ever heard of Parmenides? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides
No I haven't, looks interesting, will look into it. I'v actually formed the opinion of nothingness not existing when I was 10 or so. I just remembered sitting in a room one night, and then thinking of a blank piece of paper (nothingness), and then being, trying to put together the two, I realized how absolutely mind blowing our existence is, and how nothingness is a flawed image to me. But yeah, i'm not scared by the thought of eternity, it makes sense and I welcome it. Some may view our current human consciousness and see the stress of living and conclude that it would be exhausting to "live forever" but that's not how I see it. Who know's if our consciousness, in the shape or form that it currently is in, remains? What if simply, only our energy is eternal? What if our view of consciousness completely changes once our energy transfers? What if the view of consciousness changes to the point of being so simple that stress isn't even acknowledged, or vise versa, our view and shape of consciousness expands to the point where stress again isn't acknowledged? I personally wouldn't ever hope for the cease of consciousness, pain and stress, absolutely, not consciousness. A million what if's can be thrown around. But all I truly know, is that I feel like it's ****ing insane that I exist, and that i'm even conscious right now. Just thinking about it right now makes me want to start live life to the fullest, something many included I haven't been doing. This pic sums it up
If you're depressed, please don't read this thread and review the Texans' draft history on the same day. That's just too much to absorb all at once.
Don't worry there's a universe in the multi-verse where the Texans are ****ing badass. Also one where the Oilers beat the Bills. I BELIEVE
Yes, I definitely agree with this. It is completely insane and amazing all at the same time. I think I welcome eternity as well. Although it causes dread when I think about it in human terms, as a whole, it does not seem that bad. It's obviously just a gut feeling that is not provable, but it makes all the sense to me that infinite-ness is just the natural state of things. There is nothing wrong with it. I just probably will never fully understand it, which is actually alright.
You could approach the mindset that the more you think further into the infinity, the smaller you become. Instead, look at the other end of the infinity towards 0 instead... The fallacy in all this is that there has to come some measure of progress or gain, or even the opposite. Who said that the existence of information had to have attachments of quality or fidelity? The Buddhist view is that existence and consciousness is less singular and more integrated in a system greater than its parts. Even that system has no guarantee of eternal spinning, but the process operates on a magnitude far beyond our minds can normally comprehend... Eternity is an abstraction that goes beyond the known universe as the universe we know is modeled on known concepts and abstractions. It's that human desire to place the complex into categorical models, that leads into the assumption that these models are self contained and understood. It's like a blanket that one grasps to venture away from thoughts of when that last light is snuffed out. When it happens it might be nothing more than the last sleep.... Do any of us remember when we were part of large stars gone bright? Or when we started coalescing into large bodies of mass? It's still one phase of many that has happened more times than we can conceive or imagine. Yet here we are. Still apart of it. Consider the odds and possibilities of you existing...To even get to the point of that sperm among millions finding that egg at that point in time. It may be cliched, but it's still amazing. If you like big numbers, choose to crunch that one.
Infinity is interesting because you can have one infinity bigger than another infinity (the set of all whole numbers is smaller than the set of all real numbers)
