Tuesday, October 18, 2011

On living forever

A thoughtful post from the Maverick here.
The problem is not that our lives are short; the problem is that we are in time at all. No matter how long a life extends it is still a life in time, a life in which the past is no longer, the future not yet, and the present a passing away. This problem, the problem of the transitoriness of life, cannot be solved by life extension even if, per impossibile, physical immortality were possible. This problem of the transitoriness and vanity of life is one that religion addresses.
I'm sure he knows the bit where Wittgenstein asks rhetorically (at the end of the Tractatus, I don’t have the reference with me) whether any problem is solved by the idea of my living forever.

3 comments:

Leo said...

"Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say of its eternal survival after death; but, in any case, this assumption completely fails to accomplish the purpose for which it was intended. Or is some riddle solved by my living forever? Is not this eternal life as much of a riddle as our present life? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time."
—TLP, 6.4312

Edward Ockham said...

Thank you Leo

Leo said...

Not at all.