An odd question that came to my mind.

[ib.me.ub]

Would you be able to explain to me what risks you may think are involved?

[fr0d0]

It is a choice to maintain the current reality.

Everyone would choose to keep the status quo - it's the easy option.

[The Omnissiunt One]

If there were a spyhole in the door, it would save an agonising decision.

[Paul the Human]

The possibilities of what lies behind that door cover the entire spectrum, from paradise, to eternal torture... with a 50% chance the result will fall on one side or the other. A 50% chance of a bad result is what's known in gambling circles as a 'risk'.

Personally, my life is happy enough that opening the door is not worth that risk. Sure, there is also a 50% chance my life would get better, but I'm happy enough, as is, that the possible cons outweigh the possible pros.

[ib.me.ub]

What if it were both! What if it were paradise and torture!

It seems you think beyond the door is a mystical place. What if it were just like before, but with more knowledge.

[Paul the Human]

One can only choose whether or not to accept a wager based on the information available. Adding new information may change my decision, sure. It's all about risk vs. benefit. The way the decision has been framed up to this point makes that decision easy for me. Adding new factors would, naturally, be cause to reevaluate.

[Meatball]

I can barely handle stubbing my toe. There's no fucking way I'd risk "Absolute torture".

[everythingafter]

And what would absolute paradise look like? Constant sex with the hottest chick imaginable? All the steak I can eat? Might get boring after awhile ... the steak, not the sex. I would say no to the door I think.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

I read recently that person's idea of a paradise indicates what is missing from their life.

As an adult,I was taught: In the afterlife space and time cease to exist,there is only pure awareness. That what people call heaven is merging with God. All that exists is an ever present 'now' ,filled with an indescribable bliss.Hindu mystics call that state 'samhadi' and consider it only part way of the journey.

I find most notions of heaven/paradise shallow and petty, closer to my idea of hell in their stultifying banality.

Oh, I was taught "hell is that place God is not"


I'll only find out if I'm wrong,which pisses me off.Believers won't know if they're wrong. It does give me some comfort to believe a just God would admit sincere atheists to heaven, whilst sending large numbers of believers straight to hell for being insufferable cunts.

[Entropist]

I agree with Schopenhauer when he wrote, "To desire immortality is to desire the perpetuation of a great mistake." So, answering the poll, I put "no"-- not because of the risk involved, but because at least two likely alternatives would involve my continued, eternal existence, something I would find loathsome. The notion of immortality is the biological drive for self-preservation projected into the metaphysical.

Even if there were such a thing as enjoying absolute pleasure (of whatever kind) or "happiness" forever or to suffer absolute misery and pain forever, or anything in between these two hypothetical extremes-- even still, none of these situations deal with existence itself.

While I don't agree with Buddhism, it is at least a bit more sophisticated than Christianity if only because it deals with this issue ontologically ("Existence = suffering"), whereas Christianity doesn't even question the notion that existence and self-preservation is "good." I find it amusing when people misunderstand the role of reincarnation in Buddhism-- this is not a reward, this is failure! The last thing a Buddhist would ever want is to be reincarnated. To exist is, for all intents and purposes, to be in hell. Nirvana is to cease to exist.

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As an adult,I was taught: In the afterlife space and time cease to exist,there is only pure awareness.

Sounds like Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable. *shudder*