Down the Rabbit Hole
Posted on April 11, 2007 By OneMysticalMonkey
Would you, given the opportunity, willingly swallow a pill (or step into a box, or jump down the rabbit hole, or enter the Matrix, etc.) that would essentially make sure that your life was happy and absolutely perfect -give you everything you want- from that moment on? It’s not a new concept, but it’s an interesting philosophical question.
Think about that for a minute.
Would you do it? …Why?
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Tempting though it may be for some, and assuming it is the physical world about which we are speaking and not the metaphysical/spiritual, I wouldn’t do it. It is our experiences, and our free will to choose those experiences for ourselves, which help shape who we are – in this world, as well as in the spiritual world. Who we are not a static thing – we change minute to minute, experience to experience. Goals change with each new experience. It is our failures, and our negative experiences which help shape us just as much as our successes and positive achievements. They are two sides of the same coin, and to remove one side of that coin would alter us in ways that we can’t even imagine… no matter how tempting the promises of doing so may seem at the time.
Can we really anticipate our wants and needs 20 years from now? A year from now? Even a week from now? Can we anticipate what is in our best long-term interests in one moment, based on our current selves, to appropriately set such a device for our indefinite future? And if the device in question were “smart” and able to adapt, then we introduce the concept of an external force monitoring us and making decisions for us on a regular basis. Although that happens quite a bit in the world already (governments, families, peers, society as a whole, making decisions for the individuals who comprise the country/family/etc.), how is some external force supposed to really decide what is in another person’s best interest (on that kind of personal, intimate level) for the long-term? Especially when what’s in our best interest long-term is not “perfect” by our immediate, short-termed, definition of things?
So would you go down the rabbit hole? Or do all paths lead there anyway?
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