Thursday, May 28, 2026

Eternity And Boredom

When faced with the harsh transience of this life, eternal life might seem preferable.  Setting aside the even more extreme reason why eternal life alone does not necessarily entail eternal bliss [1], there is a reason, however, why eternal life of a calm or initially pleasant kind could become a massive burden: one might grow bored having a perpetual remainder of time to exist and a limited range of logically possible things to do (whether on a mental or physical level), especially if one's personality is such that familiarity with an activity or experience dulls whatever thrilling excitement was once stirred by it.

It might not involve vicious external torments or moralistic punishment (obviously, eternal torment cannot be morally legitimate punishment because of the intrinsic, supreme disproportionality), but boredom could wear down any happiness a being has at the prospect of eternal life, even if they had the freedom, whether pragmatic or moral, to do anything they would like to do, as long as it is logically possible.  The existential desperation of having an infinite amount of time to live through and a declining or collapsed satisfaction with one's conscious existence could lead to immense psychological anguish precisely because there would be no upcoming, looming death to bring an end to the suffering.

If one person was to descend into boredom during their eternal life, it would not mean that another person would.  Nor does it follow from having eternal life, however many people would possess it, that an individual must experience eventual boredom.  Those who think the possibility of boredom means the very idea of eternal life could not be positive, even the version of it in Judeo-Christianity, would be wrong.  All the same, the concept of living forever is not inherently positive as fools with a contrasting stance might think.

Ultimately, and thankfully, nothing about eternal life logically requires that someone would wind up bored or frustrated simply by virtue of living forever; but, should they not have the ability to eradicate their consciousness from existence or plunge themselves into a state of no perception (as with the Biblical Sheol), then there would be no escape from the boredom unless it happens to vanish from their mind at some point just as it happened to come about.  Otherwise, it would last forever, just as their consciousness would exist forever.

That would be no small thing.


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