PHL 345 Confrontations with the Reaper

Must immortality inevitably be boring or monotonous? Is there any form of immortality that we have good reason to believe would not inevitably become boring or monotonous?

Introduction

In most cases, death is viewed to be an occurrence which is unfortunate and is normally regretted about. Worst of all is when a premature death occurs especially to a very senior person, baby or a young person. Being considered to be a bad occurrence, sometimes it becomes important to imagine if death would be eliminated, hence allowing people to live forever (Bortolotti & Nagasawa, 2009). This raises debate on whether immortality would be desirable or undesirable. To some people, immortality would be desirable as evidenced by advanced technology in the development of anti-aging cosmetics and surgery. In the aspect of immortality curmudgeons, immortality is described as being a disturbing life experience. In this case, no matter the prevailing health and environmental conditions, living forever could not be desirable to most people because of the complexity associated with human nature. This paper addresses the various aspects concerning immortality and boredom or monotony.

Immortality and boredom

 According to immortality optimists, it would be quite desirable to live forever among human beings (John, 2012). According to the optimists, the future is likely to offer better opportunities that can be able to support human lives. In this case, the problems associated with injustices in the community, economic problems and environmental issues can be solved to offer attractive lives. On the other hand, the immortality pessimists argue that reject that human nature can rule out immortality and that the human species have no means of solving the prevailing economic, social and environmental issues that affect survival. As a result, the pessimists believe that immortality is not feasible and cannot be attractive in any way. For people who have lived miserable lives, they would never want to live such a life again. If people were to live for a long time or were to live forever, they would be hopeless and get bored in an irreversible way (George, 2012). The aspects of boredom are brought about by this scenario: under normal circumstances, the lives of the people are defined by their interests as well as the projects that they undertake. If therefore humans were to live forever, then they would have to continue with the same projects and interests and hence become bored. This is because all life events would be repetitive and it is this repetition which causes boredom.

Additionally, if the borders paced about by the birth and death of humans are removed such that people become immortal, then their boundaries and life would be undetermined. Therefore boredom becomes the biggest debated topic with regards to immortality. On the other hand, if a person was to be taken to have a diverse career in future, then boredom would not be a problem. This is because a person who has a different character has got many interests and projects to accomplish (Fischer & Mitchell-Yellin, 2014). In this case, the activities in such people would never be repetitive thus hindering the possibility of boredom ensuring and people can comfortably live forever. As opportunities present themselves with the advancement of the future, the immortal humans would engage in different characters. However, it is argued that people who have different characters can never be the same people and hence immortality cannot be genuine.

Monotony attributed to immortality may make people lose their motivation upon realizing that they will live forever. For instance, it would never make sense for people to work hard because after all, they are sure that they have a lot of time for more opportunities. It is, therefore, the scarcity due to immortality which helps human beings to define their characters and values in life. If there was no time limit or scarcity, then other virtues which are critical to life like the confidence to face death would never be achieved (Burley, 2009). Since it is not possible to achieve everything in a lifetime due to time scarcity, then humans prioritize things based on their importance.

I believe that being immortal would not necessarily make people get bored. This is because there are several activities that people would engage in such as helping others to grow and develop. With the need to continuously develop themselves, people would also engage in the wonderful exploration of the beautiful nature, music, athletics, art, meditating, appreciating food, sex and praying. Though some of these and other activities in life are many, they cannot be achieved in a short time. They require being distributed in a good way as long as life is immortal. Coming back to reality, I do not think that there is an immortal life which can give me enough reason to believe that immortality cannot be boring or monotonous. This is because immortality does not eliminate the aspect of the ‘now or present life'. For instance, if an individual has a leg fracture, it does not make sense to tell the person that they have much more time to live. Of importance is for the pain to be alleviated immediately. This is true because practically some current health problems like cancers and cardiovascular diseases cannot be eliminated and hence people would live in great suffering if people were to be immortal.

Conclusion

In reality, there is no right or wrong approach regarding immortality, but this depends on the sides that one takes. However, if life was to be immortal, people would suffer forever from diseases or there would a high competition and depletion of resources necessary for survival.

References

Bortolotti, L., & Nagasawa, Y. (2009). Immortality without boredom. Ratio, 22(3), 261-277.

Burley, M. (2009). Immortality and boredom: a response to Wisnewski. International journal for philosophy of religion, 65(2), 77-85.

Fischer, J. M., & Mitchell-Yellin, B. (2014). Immortality and boredom. The Journal of Ethics, 18(4), 353-372.

George., D (2012). Would it be boring if we could live forever? I09 We Come from the Future. Retrived from http://io9.gizmodo.com/5933409/would-it-be-boring-if-we-could-live-forever

Gorman, A. G. (2016). Williams and the Desirability of Body?Bound Immortality Revisited. European Journal of Philosophy.

John., D. (2012). Would Immortality be desirable? (part one). Philosophical Disquisitions, retrieved from http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.co.ke/2012/09/would-immortality-be-desirable-part-one.html