Interesting topic, Omni. Thanks for posting.
Yes, on Skeptiko. Several members suggested that no matter how pleasurable one's existence was (in heaven or wherever) one would eventually become accustomed to it, and then it would no longer be pleasurable but boring. My response was to question why, if that happened, the degree of one's pleasure could not simply be increased such that one was no longer accustomed to it, and it was no longer unpleasurable or boring by familiarity.
More generally, I suggest that an eternity of heaven - by some meaningful understanding - could entail eternal evolution or at least changing of conscious reality; and we have a taste of this here on Earth: for example, we have evolved/changed our subsistence from manual labour to large-scale automation; our game-playing entertainment from physical to virtual; our musical instruments from acoustic to electronic; etc etc. Who knows what paradigms are realisable that we right now can't (or don't) even imagine, just like the members of a subsistence tribe from hundreds of years ago more than likely couldn't (or didn't) even imagine the possibility of an electronic game like World of Warcraft (does anybody even play that anymore? I never got into it)?
[ETA: Also, consider that conscious evolution occurs in specific niches too, for example, the expert understanding of the possible and preferable opening moves in the game of chess has evolved over time. Think of how enjoyable it must be for chess masters to evolve the game in this way, and think of the endless niches in which this sort of pleasing evolution could occur over eternity.]
This seems to be a variation on your first point ("If you can do literally anything, as is often applied to Heaven in its depictions in media, then you would never get bored. If you wanted limitations and challenges, you would get them. Even if you'd experienced everything you could imagine, you could simply wish to experience things that you'd never imagined.").
(This post was last modified: 2020-06-07, 04:53 AM by Laird.)
(2020-06-03, 12:37 PM)OmniVersalNexus Wrote: Has anyone else had similar thoughts or debates with critics of the concept?
Yes, on Skeptiko. Several members suggested that no matter how pleasurable one's existence was (in heaven or wherever) one would eventually become accustomed to it, and then it would no longer be pleasurable but boring. My response was to question why, if that happened, the degree of one's pleasure could not simply be increased such that one was no longer accustomed to it, and it was no longer unpleasurable or boring by familiarity.
More generally, I suggest that an eternity of heaven - by some meaningful understanding - could entail eternal evolution or at least changing of conscious reality; and we have a taste of this here on Earth: for example, we have evolved/changed our subsistence from manual labour to large-scale automation; our game-playing entertainment from physical to virtual; our musical instruments from acoustic to electronic; etc etc. Who knows what paradigms are realisable that we right now can't (or don't) even imagine, just like the members of a subsistence tribe from hundreds of years ago more than likely couldn't (or didn't) even imagine the possibility of an electronic game like World of Warcraft (does anybody even play that anymore? I never got into it)?
[ETA: Also, consider that conscious evolution occurs in specific niches too, for example, the expert understanding of the possible and preferable opening moves in the game of chess has evolved over time. Think of how enjoyable it must be for chess masters to evolve the game in this way, and think of the endless niches in which this sort of pleasing evolution could occur over eternity.]
This seems to be a variation on your first point ("If you can do literally anything, as is often applied to Heaven in its depictions in media, then you would never get bored. If you wanted limitations and challenges, you would get them. Even if you'd experienced everything you could imagine, you could simply wish to experience things that you'd never imagined.").
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