Great analysis!

Jay's picture
Jay
Joined: 07/07/2008
User offline. Last seen 4 days 52 min ago.
Great analysis!

This is exactly the kind of deep thinking I was hoping this poll would inspire.

I chose Perpetual True Answers. Yes, the point of this one was that you're asking the universe or your inner self or such. If you were asking a person, you'd still get the True answers instantly, before that person could even answer you. It's basically instant knowledge of any subject, but more narrow. I worded it the way I did so that people wouldn't think it means omniscience. You would still have to think of the questions to ask. I think that with Perpetual True Answers, I could pretty much figure out how to get any of the other things to the degree I want them at any given time.

I think all of these are very interesting choices, and I didn't even want to answer it at first, because, for example, how can one give up the chance at Perpetual Bliss for Perpetual Perfect Health, or vice versa?

I like your choice. If you're Immortal without Perpetual Perfect Health, you would obviously either always be healing or always be gaining health in some way to compensate for any damage, but with perpetual perfect health, you'd never take damage, nor would you ever get sick, etc. However, just as you were saying that the Peace and Bliss answers could hinder your spiritual choices, this could hinder the possibility of your body evolving over time, which could happen to an immortal being otherwise. But this brings up questions like, "What exactly does Perfect Health mean?" Which is the whole point of this, to get people thinking Big Grin

In my mind, Absolute Peace would mean that you would never want (desire) anything, which would be a Buddhist's ultimate goal, yes?

Perpetual Bliss would be the goal of many people, and you could easily argue that a person in that state could still be very active and do great good at all times. It could also be argued that a person might behave much like someone in the state of Absolute Peace, wanting nothing. It might depend on exactly what brings you bliss.

Infinite Wealth was put on the list mainly because it's what most people in this world seem to be seeking. They're trying to attain worldly possessions, security, and power. With infinite wealth, you would have infinite resources to attempt to gain anything you want. However, everything would take time, and you could never be certain of the truth of any answers you acquire, or the level of health your doctors and technologies can give you, etc. There is a big difference between Infinite Wealth and the wealth that a person would naturally attain simply due to immortality though. Infinite wealth implies that you would have resources beyond measure, reaching beyond the wealth of this world, which helps to put it on par with the other choices.

If you could choose one of these wishes and it would definitely come true, what would you choose? By: Jay (7 replies) Wed, 11/26/2008 - 04:08