X-Message-Number: 24912 From: "Michael C Price" <> References: <> Subject: Hell; biological brains Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 05:45:33 +0100 Mike Perry wrote: > >> I think the prospect of such resurrections is realistic due to >> certain other possibilities I consider likely, such as parallel >> universes. It's important to me that a pathway to the renewal >> of life exist--so the dead will have not died in vain, and all will, >> one hopes, eventually enjoy eternal bliss. Overall it suggests that >> life, not death, is the ultimate fate of any individual, even those >> who are sure they don't want immortality--you will just have to >> learn to live with it, whether you like it or not. (You will like it >> in the end, however, I feel reasonably sure.) In the scientifically >> engineered heaven that I imagine > > Mike Price answered: > >>In the infinity diverse multiverse which you & I believe in there must >>be scientifically engineered hells full of boiling pitch and demons with >>pitchforks, "creepy-crawly things or lakes of lava". Of course we >>can find shaky super-rationalist based arguments, to say that the >>heavens must outnumber the hells (just many modern Christians >>prefer to believe in heaven but not hell), but hells must exist >>*somewhere* in this paradigm. This is one reason *not* rely on >>universal resurrection, but to try to live in *this* reality, forever. > > And now I respond: > > I can envision a scientifically engineered "Heaven" as a place of both > eternal life and eternal happiness, which future advanced beings > (including continuers of ourselves, I hope) might engineer, assuming > cosmology permits. (Whether it will, of course, is unknown at present; > we don't know it will not, however.) There may be other tricky ways > of engineering a Heaven, even if our own universe is doomed. We can > also imagine an engineered "Hell" as a place of eternal torment for > beings trapped therein and wanting to escape, but this runs very > counter to the way I imagine beings will develop who would have the > power to engineer either Heaven or Hell. Why not? Doesn't power corrupt? Surely the Actonian lesson of history is that with great power comes great abuse. Only Spiderman thinks differently :-) > Such beings should understand that supreme benevolence will best > further their enlightened self-interest, and thus would be strongly > opposed to places of eternal retribution and suffering. [.....] This is an example of what I meant by "shaky super-rationalist based arguments". Unfortunately the existence of arrational sadistic values will (in some circumstances) outweigh any nebulous super- rationalist "enlightened self-interest". This, and the expected infinite diversity in infinite multiverse(s), implies there will be some infinite- durations hells for saints as well as sinners. Sorry! > Even though I discount the likelihood of anyone winding up in a state > of eternal punishment, I afraid this is probably an example of wishfulfillment that Ben complains of in immortalists: you construct complex (and valid, IMO) arguments for the existence of techo-heavens and yet ignore the obvious inevitability of techno-hells. It doesn't matter what plausibility arguments you construct against the existence of virtual hells, infinite diversity *demands* their existence. Cheers, Michael C Price Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24912