Author: Anton Rodenhauser

If you’re like most people, life very often throws mud in your direction. The emotions this mud provokes can range from minor irritation to despair. Perhaps your car breaks on your way to work. Or a person you love doesn’t love you back. Or after years of strenuous effort, you fail your studies or lose your job.

Unfortunately, life often isn’t kind to us.

Even if nothing in particular has gone wrong, you might nevertheless find yourself to be suffering from the niggling unpleasant feelings so common in our modern age. Perhaps your life seems to be stagnating. Your days are repetitive, without any sense of progress or direction. You aren’t exactly unhappy, but you aren’t exactly happy either. You’re like a ship drifting at sea without a rudder. And if you suffer from depression, it can feel like your life will never regain meaning and you’ll never be happy again.

Believing in an Eternal Blissful Life offers some relief from these feelings by putting everything in perspective and allowing you to view your problems in a different light. After all, do you really think that whatever bothers you right now will even remotely matter in 1,000 years during your Eternal Blissful Life? Do you think you’ll still be annoyed that your car broke down in 2018? Still troubled because you lost your job?

Sure – these are genuine problems, and burying your head under the sand like an ostrich certainly isn’t the solution. Misfortunes will probably add stress and tedium to your Current Life. But you’ll survive them. An Eastern monarch, to remind himself of the ephemerality of human affairs, is said to have inscribed on his ring the consoling phrase: “This too shall pass”. The sentiment is all the more forceful given the possibility of an Eternal Blissful Life. In 1,000 years, you’ll be laughing about your former grievances in your spaceship, en route to some distant star. And that’s if you even remember losing your job.

Feel miserable because your cruel spouse left you for someone else? Undeniably, this feeling is valid and rejection does hurt. But it’s at least some consolation to know that such feelings won’t last forever. Any sadness you feel in your Current Life will be dwarfed by the enormity of your Eternal Blissful Life. Your present sadness will soon be a flicker in time.

Are you depressed, and feel like you’ll never be happy again? Misery itself can seem eternal to those afflicted with depression or anxiety – but to paraphrase the great Stephen Fry, the sun does come out again eventually. You might not know when the clouds will part, but you know that they will part. You will be happy again. This is probably true even in your Current Life; and you can be absolutely certain that it’ll be true of your Eternal Blissful Life.

Thinking about your current problems within the greater context of an Eternal Blissful Life makes you realize how small and insignificant all hardships truly are. Sure, they might be genuinely difficult to cope with right now. But your Eternal Blissful Life won’t be affected by them. By way of analogy, think about how often as a young child you thought the world was falling apart because of something that you couldn’t care less about now. You were only a child, with a child’s limited perspective. In the same way, many of us now suffer from the limited perspective imposed by our fragile Current Life.

Normally, when people think about their life, they see something like this:

But actually, it helps a lot to view it more like this:

You are still at chapter one, remember? Most stories don’t begin with “they were born and lived happily ever after.” So don’t fret too much about the little dips in that green part. You wouldn’t complain grimly about your awful holiday when you’ve only just started packing for it. In the same way, it’s wrong to judge your life by its first and least blissful phase.

For me, realizing that I’ll have an Eternal Blissful Life was something like being in an intense dream and suddenly realizing I was only dreaming. The progression of the dream continues as before, but you’re able to take a step back and view everything less seriously. After all – it’s only a dream! If the dream is pleasant, you can continue to enjoy it. If it’s a nightmare, you can endure it calmly until you wake up. The same is true for your Current Life. Nothing really matters – and when this series of apparently significant triumphs and disasters is over, you’ll “wake up” and find that the truly significant period has only just begun. Your Eternal Blissful Life – by far the longest and happiest part of your existence – will have arrived at last.

By the way: in the graphic above I placed the end of your Current Life at <122 years, because that’s the longest a person has ever been known to live. I also want to note that the difference in well-being between your Current Life and your Eternal Blissful Life is difficult to determine in advance, and might not really be as dramatic as depicted. If you’re already deeply content with your Current Life, then your levels of well-being in your Eternal Blissful Life may only hover slightly above the green line’s peak. And even during your Eternal Blissful Life, you might still experience unpleasant things every now and then. The purple line has dips, too! But your baseline well-being will be higher, and your future struggles will never be severe enough to adversely affect your overall happiness. Eventually, you might barely remember what serious distress actually feels like. Consider that next time you’re upset about something!

Believing in an Eternal Blissful Life will give you the calming assurance that everything will be OK in the end. Even if you’re struggling right now, there’ll come a time when nothing will seriously bother you. For me, this is the perfect reason to keep fighting, to stay motivated, and to avoid slipping into helpless despair when things feel overwhelming. When I feel depressed, I know that life won’t go on like this forever. I’m always aware that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. What a cop out it would be, to lie down inside the tunnel and give up!

This way of thinking can even be taken a step further: From a very minimalistic viewpoint, all you really need to do in your Current Life is survive. This may sound like a rather extreme deduction – but I think there’s a very liberating truth hidden here. Even if you fail at everything, it will all be OK in the end. Let’s say you achieve nothing with your life: you don’t find a good job; you don’t make friends; you end up living on the street; you become the “perfect loser”. Even if all these things happen, you can recover from them as long as you hold on for long enough without getting killed. Let that sink in for a moment:

To end up with an Eternal Blissful life, all you need to do is to survive. Even if you fail at everything, it will still turn out alright eventually.

And surviving is easy – especially when you live in the developed world. All you need to do is keep breathing, keep eating, and keep protecting your body. You don’t need to conquer the world. You don’t need a perfectly happy marriage. You don’t need to be the best possible version of yourself. You don’t even need to be happy in your Current Life.

Of course, this isn’t to say that you should quit your job right now and start living on the street. You Current Life might not be as crucial as you used to think, but it still holds value. You should make every effort to turn your Current Life into something worthwhile. You should strive to avoid hardships; take precautions; meet disasters with a steady gaze; give 100% to your relationships; search for a satisfying job; and aim for the highest possible levels of well-being. You should try to achieve the things that are important to you. But in the back of your mind, you can draw solace and encouragement from the fact that all of these things are ultimately optional. If success in any of these enterprises escapes your grasp, it’s not the end of the world. A healthy and fulfilled Current Life merely increases your chances of attaining an Eternal Blissful Life.

Note how similar the above lines are to the following quote from this book about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy:

There is nothing in the world that can change your worth as a human being. Your worth as a human being is certainly not dependent on your achievements. Nor is it dependent on the approval you get from others. You also don’t need romantic love. All of these things are nice to have, but they are optional. You don’t need them in order to be happy.

It’s not healthy, psychologically, to care too much about your external circumstances. It leaves you prone to despondency when things don’t go your way. So if believing in an Eternal Blissful Life helps you retain perspective and composure in times of trouble, then all the better.

When Hamlet famously asked himself: “To be or not to be?”, he was trying to decide whether it’s worthwhile to continue living when life contains so many hardships. Or is it “nobler in the mind”, he wondered, to “take arms against a sea of troubles”, and bring an end to life itself?

I have found a clear answer to this question: life is absolutely worth it. Because no matter how relentless our sea of troubles might be, in the end we’ll be able to enjoy an Eternal Blissful Life that’ll overshadow any previous horrible experiences we might have endured.

Imagine for a moment that you’re confident you’ll continue to live healthily for thousands of years, with the mind and body of a 25-year-old. Now imagine that in addition to your exceptionally long and healthy life, you’ll continue to enjoy fantastic levels of well-being1Well-being in the broadest, most fulfilling sense of the word: encompassing happiness, a sense of purpose, and things to look forward to.  ^{(click me)} throughout all these years.

How would that make you feel about your current situation in life? Would it change your thinking in the present moment? Would you start to behave differently? Would you feel some kind of relief, or would it unsettle you?

This series of articles will explore the consequences for your Current Life 2 Your “normal” life right now, up to the point you would normally expect to die. were you to believe in some sort of afterlife 3 Not in the religious sense . . .  – an Eternal Blissful Life – that begins after your Current Life. An Eternal Blissful Life is the term I will use to describe a hypothetical real life on Earth, in which you remain healthy and youthful forever 4 Nothing in this universe truly lasts forever. What I really mean is “for a very long time”. Say, at least 500 years. Maybe even 5,000 years! Or a billion . . . the exact length doesn’t really matter. Whenever you read the words “eternal” or “forever” in these pages, just replace them with “extremely long”. in a state of existence that’s as fantastic as life can possibly get. And not only is this life fantastic for you; it’s the same for every human being alive at the same time, and more or less forever afterwards. 5 I would even go as far as to include every sentient being alive at the time, including animals and possibly advanced artificial intelligence as well. Living an Eternal Blissful Life is basically heaven on Earth. And it should feel as good as some people imagine heaven to feel – a bit like this teddy bear probably feels sliding down his rainbow:

Imagine a perfect day in your life. A day when pretty much everything goes perfectly – and whatever doesn’t go perfectly doesn’t really bother you. On this day, you’re truly content with your life and free from any fear. When you recall the past, it makes you proud and satisfied. And when you anticipate the future, it fills you with excitement. But most importantly, you fully live and enjoy each moment of that day – even moments that could objectively be described as “imperfect”. It’s not as unbelievable as it sounds; maybe you can actually remember such a perfect day in your own life. If life were as fantastic as it can get, as would be the case in an Eternal Blissful Life, then practically every day would be at least as good as the best day you can remember. Again: this would be true not just for you, but also for everyone else on Earth. And all this would happen without the “perfect” feeling turning into the new, mediocre “normal”.

Wikipedia defines human flourishing as:

A state where people experience positive emotions, positive psychological functioning and positive social functioning, most of the time, living within an optimal range of human functioning. It [. . .] includes multiple components and concepts, such as cultivating strengths, subjective well-being, goodness, generativity 6 Generativity is “”a concern for establishing and guiding the next generation.” You feel it when you view yourself as part of a bigger story, e.g. the story of your family, your country, or even of the whole human race., growth, and resilience. Flourishing is the opposite of [. . .] living a life that feels hollow and empty.

According to the Six-factor Model of Psychological Well-Being, there are several key factors that contribute to extraordinary psychological well-being. These include self-acceptance, personal growth, purpose in life, autonomy, positive relations with others, and environmental mastery 7 Environmental mastery is the feeling of being competent to meet the demands of your situation, and possessing the internal resources necessary to cope, adjust, and adapt to problems instead of being overwhelmed by them. A great synonym would be equanimity.. Another definition states that “frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and cognitive evaluations such as life satisfaction” describe a “happy” life.

Whenever I write words and phrases like “happy”, “blissful”, “content with life” or “well-being” on this website, I have something akin to these definitions in mind. This is especially true whenever I refer to an Eternal Blissful Life.

Believe it or not, there are compelling reasons to believe humanity is on the right track towards a far better (more blissful) future for everyone. Many people doubt this statement, and instinctively feel that the world is getting worse over time. But by almost every possible measure of human progress, humanity is undeniably making huge advances. In the past 20 years, we’ve roughly halved the amount of people living in extreme poverty. The World Bank is optimistic that by 2030, we’ll be able to eradicate extreme poverty altogether. In nearly every country, living standards are continuing to rise 8 Checkout a view cool interactive graphs showing how the world is improving here. and there’s also a strong global trend towards a more peaceful world. This article in the New York Times even claims that 2017 was “the best year in human history”. This article makes a similar claim, but goes in much more depth.

In his book Enlightenment Now, Harvard professor Steven Pinker shows that the average person today lives a longer and healthier life than his predecessors, and enjoys more wealth, freedom, security, and leisure. In addition, the average person receives better education, possesses more human rights, leads a more interesting life, and even tends to feel happier and less lonely.

This progress is measurable in terms of recent decades as well as over the course of passing centuries. 9 Almost the only scale where it remains invisible is in the day-to-day focus of journalists. “Two innocent men shot” is considered to be a newsworthy headline, but a “massive decline in shootings over 30 years” is not. In 1776, Edward Gibbon was able to write that the “most happy and prosperous” period in human history was the time of the five “good” Roman emperors, from around 100 to 180 A.D. This was because all around him, eighteenth-century England was riddled with squalor and abject poverty.

But progress since then has been monumental and steady. As a group, we’re starting to take care of the environment more than we used to. The proportion of people killed annually in wars is less than a quarter of what it was in the 1980s; a seventh of what it was in the early 1970s; and an eighteenth of what it was in the early 1950s. It’s less than 0.05% of what it was during WWII. Similarly, Americans today are only half as likely to be murdered as they were 20 years ago. And on a global scale, people are 30% less likely to be murdered than they were eighteen years ago. 10 Check out the appendix for more information and sources.

If you still doubt that we are living in the best time in human history – and that there are good reasons to assume this positive trend will continue – check out this article in the appendix.

If we assume that the current trend of human progress (in the broadest sense of the word) continues, it’s not implausible that we might eventually reach a point where humanity has essentially “solved all human problems”. This point might be just around the corner – or it might be hundreds of years from now. Regardless, it would imply a “blissful” world; a world where poverty, war, disease, famine, crime, injustice, and other ills are consigned to the ash heap of history by astounding technological and social progress.

If the current positive trend of history continues, it’s at least conceivable that nearly all humans will eventually find that their needs are fulfilled – and that they enjoy the optimal conditions to flourish as individuals. In addition, they will enjoy the benefits of a whole host of fantastic new technologies, like cognitive enhancement 11 Cognitive enhancement refers to the use drugs or other technologies to improve our mental skills, such as intelligence, self-control, memory, empathy, or the ability to focus and ignore distractions., advanced brain-to-computer interfaces 12 Allowing us, for example, to instantly search the Internet for information with our minds rather than our fingertips. All the knowledge contained in the Internet would pop into our heads merely by thinking!, virtual or augmented realities, genetic modification, artificial intelligence, and space travel. When humanity finally solves “all human problems”, physical and mental suffering will become obsolete and we will all lead happier, more fulfilled, and less stressful lives than ever before.

Of course, simply meeting all our basic needs and making use of fantastic new technologies won’t necessarily make us as happy as Matthieu Ricard. It could be argued that progressing from pyramid-building to skyscraper-building hasn’t made us much happier. And jumping from airplanes into spaceships probably won’t do the trick either. The grief we feel at the death of a loved one, the pang of a broken heart, and the sting of failure or rejection – all of these feelings remain as difficult for us to bear now as they would have been for an Egyptian peasant five thousand years ago. Hamlet’s famous soliloquy – about “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” – is as relevant to us now as it was to the men and women of Shakespeare’s day. And escaping the Hedonic treadmill is by no means a trivial task, just as climbing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs might seem easy only for the initial steps.

But when we assume that humanity will eventually solve all its problems, this doesn’t merely mean that we’ll make an improvement to the material quality of our lives. It will also entail an improvement to our psychological well-being. Within economics, there’s already an observable shift in focus towards happiness rather than wealth (source). In this TED talk, Bhutan’s Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay explains why the government in his country makes rising the Gross National Happiness its top priority. What if all governments were to adopt this mindset?

A lot of progress has already been made in the science of human flourishing and positive psychology – the “science of happiness” 13 Arguably the biggest sign of progress is the mere fact that this scientific field now exists. For the first time in human history, people are thinking about “happiness” in a systematic scientific way, using reason and evidence to find proven answers that are backed up by double-blind randomized trials. The philosophers of Ancient Greece may have dwelt upon this topic as well, but they didn’t seriously make use of scientific methods in their work. This is why many of their theories don’t hold up to modern scrutiny. It’s why Aristotle was able to maintain that men have more teeth than women. – and much more progress will undoubtedly be made in the future. This stands in addition to the progress already being made in psychotherapy and the treatment of mental illness. If all this new knowledge is put to fruitful use by governments and society as a whole, everyone will be much happier. Some ways of dealing with grief, loneliness, or a broken heart are much better than others. And in the same way, some methods of raising children, supporting a depressed friend, or constructively criticizing a colleague are proven to be more effective than others.

Right now, it’s clear that most people don’t deal with these issues in the best possible way 14 For example, psychologists are certain that stalking your ex on Facebook is a very unhelpful way of dealing with a difficult breakup. Yet I’ve had more than a few conversations with people who told me this is exactly what they do. These people were often completely unaware of how much needless suffering they were inflicting upon themselves in the process., but this may well change in the future when better approaches have become part of common sense or standard education. I can even imagine a world in which everyone has access to personal psychological care 15 Or something like a “life coach” – a professional mentor who helps them become a flourishing human being. from an early age, with regular checkups throughout childhood and adulthood. This sort of specialized care would become routine, much like doctor’s visits are today. And no – this isn’t about everyone being obsessed with being happy, which would probably be a very bad thing. Just as you can care for your body and have regular health checkups without obsessing about your physical health, it’s possible to care for your mind without going over the top. Many things have been proven to contribute to happier, more fulfilled lives. This is true of regular exercise, volunteering, helping others, meditating, nurturing close relationships, playing an instrument, and much more. What if the prevalence of these activities increased in our society?

In this Ted talk, psychologist Guy Winch rightly asks: “How is it we spend more time taking care of our teeth than we do our minds?”. What if that were to change in the future, and everyone began to practice “emotional hygiene”?

Finding a purpose in life. Self-actualization. Self-transcendence. Whichever word you might use to describe the process, it’s an art that can be taught to everyone – and hopefully will be in the future. In Japan, there’s a well-known concept called ikigai, which roughly translates to “a reason for being”. According to the Japanese, everyone has an ikigai. We all have a life purpose, a reason to get up in the morning; and finding our ikigai (which can change over time) is perhaps the most vital quest of our life.

This quest is widely encouraged and supported by Japanese society – much more so than in other parts of the world. 16 Ikigai is cited to be a major contributor to the fact that the Japanese island Okinawa, where the concept is very widespread, has one of the highest densities of centenarians in the world. Most people in Okinawa have thought long and hard about their ikigai, can instantly name it, and live their lives accordingly. What if we did something similar in other societies, too?

Even if all basic problems were solved in the distant future, I don’t think people will ever run out of ways to give their life meaning – to find their ikigai. There will always be books to be written, art to be created, landscapes and stories to be discovered, knowledge to be acquired, skills to be mastered, games to be played, and friends or relatives in need of love and support.

Loneliness, which remains a big problem in the western world and generally can’t be eased through technological progress, 17 The problem might actually be exacerbated by technology like Facebook, and the fact that nowadays much more of our communication is written rather than oral. Check out time well spent to find out about apps and practical life hacks that help you to reduce your time on the phone and social media. could (and probably will) be dealt with much better than it currently is, too. Governments could incentivize multi-generational homes, set up better systems to facilitate friendly meetings and interactions 18 Crude tools like dating websites, chat rooms, and meetup.com partly fulfill this purpose already., or foster engagement in local community groups, sports teams, book clubs, and other group activities. It seems to me that the biggest contributor to loneliness is an unhealthy lack of motivation to meet others in person or “work on” deeper relationships. This is often due to insecurity, bad moods, or simply “not knowing how” – but I believe it’s a problem that can be fixed in the future.

With the help of advanced futuristic technologies, people in the future may well be much happier than even the happiest people alive today. This could be due to our having direct control over our brain chemistry – leading, for example, to highly advanced antidepressants or party drugs that have no side effects. We might have technologies that manipulate our memory, allowing us to erase traumatic experiences – or at least diminish them, so that we can salvage the life lessons they contain without experiencing PTSD. We might be able to “switch off” the part of our brain that makes us feel lonely; we could do this for a couple of months while writing a novel, for example, then switch it back on when we return to our friends. We might even choose to live in a sort of virtual reality that just happens to be “perfect”. Essentially, there will be unlimited possibilities for self-fulfillment.

Needless to say, a malignant use of these technologies could be catastrophic, and there are plenty of ethical considerations to be made. But we are talking about ideal outcomes here – and this best-case scenario could prove to be truly wonderful.

Here’s a short clip from the TV series Rick and Morty, depicting a not-so-perfect future scenario:

In this scenario, “Simple Rick” is kept captive and a pleasant experience is run on auto-loop in his brain. While the conscious experience of Simple Rick might be truly blissful, few of us would consider this an ideal situation. Similarly, I wouldn’t think it desirable to succumb to an eternity of heroin-induced euphoria.

Matthieu Ricard is not the “happiest person on Earth” by chance or accident. His well-being is the result of his Buddhist education, regular meditation, positive lifestyle choices, and generally favorable circumstances. As I suggested above, there are almost certainly other paths to attaining similar levels of psychological well-being. If humanity were to solve all major problems, these methods could be adopted by everyone – leading to a world where everyone is as happy as Ricard. And if we supplement this approach with a creative use of advanced future technologies, it’s conceivable that everyone might be even happier than him. 19 These conjectures are based on my view that humans are essentially very sophisticated biological machines. Everything – including our actions, thoughts, and emotions – is “coded” based on our past and present circumstances as well as our sensory inputs (with some randomness due to i.e. quantum mechanics). If humans are given the right inputs, and their internal machinery is “wired” correctly (i.e. they do not suffer from a mental disorder), then they will be happy. As a result, if governments and societies succeed in giving everyone the right inputs, then nearly everyone will be happy. . Such a world is in theory at least possible, and it would mean that we could all enjoy a blissful life – though not necessarily an Eternal Blissful Life.

If the historical trend of human progress continues its current trajectory, everyone in the future will have a blissful life.

Eternity is not entirely beyond our reach. There’s at least a slight chance that young people, in particular, will actually live forever. One possibility is that scientists, with the help of biotechnology, discover a cure for aging and a reliable way to rejuvenate the body. If this happens in the next few decades, then young people alive today could benefit from it. It’s not too difficult to imagine some kind of advanced stem cell therapy, for example, that can regenerate all the cells in a human body. Development will probably happen gradually, with a slow increase in your life expectancy from 83.7 20This is the current life expectancy in Japan – the highest in the world. For the United States (ranked 31st), the life expectancy is 79.3.] to 90, then 100, and then 110. But perhaps by the time you are 100, it will have risen again to, say, 130 – allowing you to cling on indefinitely until some monumental breakthrough allows for complete rejuvenation, ad infinitum. 21 The key is to reach the Longevity Escape Velocity.

You’re especially likely to enjoy the timely advent of effective rejuvenation technology if you live long enough to witness the Singularity.  22 If you’ve never heard of the term Singularity, you should probably watch this short video before reading on. Ray Kurzweil, Google’s Director of Engineering, is one of several experts who are predicting that the Singularity will occur in this century. The basic premise is that as we continue build smarter and smarter computers, we’ll eventually reach a point where artificial intelligence is able to improve upon itself. This will prompt exponential improvements in A.I., because “smarter computers build smarter computers, which in turn build even smarter computers”. According to e.g. Nick Bostrom and others, such a development could “radically transform everything” within years, leading to “hundreds of years’ worth of human research output in a very short time”. Effective cell regeneration technology would be much easier to reach in such circumstances.

Cryonics is a third weapon in the “war on death”. Rather than merely hoping technology will advance far enough in your lifetime to grant you eternal existence, cryonics would allow you to be “frozen” 23 Your body doesn’t actually get frozen when you undergo cryopreservation . It gets “vitrified” – a process which allows the water in your cells to become solid without causing the cellular damage that would result from normal freezing. Check out this video to learn more. upon death until this technology is invented.

Whichever of these paths you take, the destination would be the same. You would end up living in a world where aging no longer exists, and you can remain young and healthy practically forever. It sounds like crazy science fiction – but there are actually some very intelligent people who claim that the first human to live more than a thousand years may already be born! It’s worth remembering that less than 150 years ago, Jules Verne was writing “science fiction” about circumnavigating the earth in 80 days, exploring the deepest oceans, and visiting the moon. How impossible and fanciful those things seemed then!

(To find out more about our odds of defying death – whether as a result of rejuvenation biotechnology, the upheaval of the Singularity, or cryonics – read the Appendix,  where I have written a lot more about this topic.)

For now, to get an idea of how scientists are already working on life-extending technologies, you can check out this video by Kurzgesagt: 24 I know that a random animated video from the web, offering simplified explanations, doesn’t rate very highly in trustworthiness. I could have linked to more credible articles instead, but these would have been more taxing, and I wanted the point to be conveyed as effectively as possible. If you still have doubts and want to dig into some scientific papers that discuss the topic, check out the Appendix.

Here’s a more reputable article from Scientific American: “Does Aging Have an Off Switch?”

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that scientists will find a solution, and humans gain the capacity to live for an extremely long time. This would inevitably lead to a whole series of additional questions. Do we even want to live that long? To some people, the prospect of living forever sounds strange and even unappealing. Wouldn’t an eternal life become boring and meaningless? And what about all the problems that would ensue if everyone lived forever, such as overpopulation? Isn’t a normal life long enough?

I try to answer these questions, and other related ones, in the Appendix.

Another response to the above questions can be found in this video by CGP Grey:

And in this one by Kurzgesagt:

The upshot of all this is that an Eternal Blissful Life is not merely an impossible thought experiment. Rather, it’s a plausible concept that may well become reality for you and the people you love. We genuinely have the chance to live forever. And on top of that, humanity may indeed solve all human problems – meaning that our eternal lives could be blissful too. At the very least, you have to admit that there’s a higher-than-zero probability that you’ll end up living an Eternal Blissful Life. If you expect to live for a few decades more, or if you have the means to sign up for cryonics (which is much cheaper than you probably think!), then take a moment to appreciate this fact:

The odds that you’ll live an Eternal Blissful Life are higher than zero.

You could indeed end up enjoying what might be called “heaven on earth”. Your Current Life, with its brief duration, is not something you have to resign yourself to. You won’t necessarily die sometime in the next 100 years and lose consciousness forever. Instead, your Current Life might be the beginning of a far greater story. It might be the stepping stone to something so entirely different that it’s beyond our current understanding. Chapter One of the story of your life!

But this series of articles is not about your Eternal Blissful Life (and certainly not about whether it’s feasible, what it will be like, or how likely it is). Rather, it’s about how the possibility of an Eternal Blissful Life will impact your Current Life. Once you’ve begun to appreciate that your chance of living forever is higher than zero, how will this change the way you live now?

Essentially, the articles are about the regular moments you experience throughout your everyday life. I will argue in Part II that being optimistic about your future (i.e. believing you’ll eventually lead an Eternal Blissful Life) will make every moment of your Current Life much sweeter and more beautiful. I’ll explain how taking this view of life can help you attain peace of mind in the present moment. And I’ll show you how it can add meaning and purpose to your life.

It is always now. However much you feel you may need to plan for the future [. . .], the reality of your life is always now. This may sound trite, but it’s the truth. [. . .] I think there is nothing more important to understand about your mind than that, if you want to be happy in this world.

– Sam Harris

The important thing to note here is this: You don’t need 100% scientific certainty that you’ll experience an Eternal Blissful Life to derive significant positive changes from the concept. To attain such certainty is impossible, in any case, because nobody can predict the future with certainty. You don’t even need to feel that it’s likely. After all, you might die later today in a terrible accident that leaves you with no hope of revival. Or WWIII might break out next week, with nuclear bombs bringing an end to all of our hopes. There are myriads of possible pathways that don’t lead to an Eternal Blissful Life.

Rather than insisting on a specific degree of probability, all you need to do is to change the way you think about the future. 25 I’m a healthy 25-year-old living in Germany. If I were forced to put a number on how likely it is that I’ll experience an Eternal Blissful Life, I would say “something between 5% and 95%.” And that answer is satisfying enough to me. Be a little bit optimistic. Simply believe in your Eternal Blissful Life. Acknowledge that there might be a way for you to live forever, and that humanity might solve its problems. Appreciate that some pathways do lead to the right place! 26 We should distinguish between complacent optimism and conditional optimism. Complacent optimism is what a child feels while idly waiting for presents on Christmas morning. Conditional optimism, by contrast, is what motivates the child who dreams of a treehouse, and realizes that if he gathers some wood and nails and enlists the help of other kids, he can build one. We probably shouldn’t be complacently optimistic about an Eternal Blissful Life, but we have every reason to be conditionally optimistic.

Consider a seventeenth-century English peasant, living in conditions typical to that time and place. All things considered, he seems to enjoy a relatively good life, though he is somewhat poor and must work hard to survive. One day, he hears of an intriguing new opportunity. A group of his countrymen are about to flee the religious persecution of England, and set sail for the New World! Our peasant has already heard fantastic stories of settlers in America, and knows that it’s a place free from tyranny or persecution, where people can do whatever they want, and where honest and hard-working men can prosper.

The peasant is overcome with excitement, and decides to emigrate to America. He finds a ship that can take him there in a few months. There’s plenty of work to be done, of course. He still needs to get his bearings, save some money, sell his farm and so on. But the whole endeavor seems feasible, and he sees no reason why his plans shouldn’t work out.

Our peasant is convinced that he’ll soon enjoy a new and wonderful life in America. He believes in it. At the same time, he understands that plenty of things could go wrong. He might lose the money he needs for the journey; the ship might sink; or America might not live up to its magnificent reputation. It might even be worse than life in England, as some stories claim. But despite these legitimate worries, he remains optimistic about his voyage and the exciting new life that lies ahead of him. When others ask him what his circumstances will be like in a few years, he confidently asserts that he’ll be enjoying the fruits of his labor in America. He holds this truth to be self-evident – and just the thought of America makes him happy and motivates him.

Yet he isn’t blindly optimistic. He listens carefully to stories of danger and disappointment. He even makes an effort to understand these stories, to better fortify himself against any adverse incidents. But he doesn’t let the cynicism or failure of others distract him from his ambitions.

The conditional and informed optimism that we admire in our peasant has application to our own lives today. It’s precisely this kind of optimism that should influence your feelings about the future, and shape your hopes for an Eternal Blissful Life.

Personally, I take it as a given that I’ll have an Eternal Blissful Life. I trust that I’ll one day wake up 27 After hanging in cryogenic suspension for a few centuries, perhaps – or after the Singularity . . . and discover that humanity has solved all its major problems. 28 The transition between your Current Life and your Eternal Blissful Life may be blurry and gradual, with consistently better rejuvenation technologies becoming available over time, and the planet slowly becoming a happier place. Or the transition might happen in the blink of an eye: you die, you live through a period of cryogenic sleep, and you wake up! From that day on, humankind will remain in a state of equilibrium, and there will be no more suffering for anyone.

I look forward to traveling the Milky Way, witnessing advanced space colonization, and visiting cities the size of planets. I can’t wait to explore a myriad of civilizations and cultures just as colorful as the ones on Earth, but spread throughout the universe, each with its own unique and compelling foundation story.

I’m looking forward to using cognitive enhancement techniques to engage more effectively with magnificent new scientific theories, compared to which string theory will probably look crude and boring. And I’ll finally be able to grasp the beautiful elegance of even the most complicated mathematics:

So that no more with bitter sweat
I need to talk of what I don’t know yet,
So that I perceive whatever holds
the world together in its inmost folds.
See all its seeds, its working power,
And cease word-threshing from this hour.

– Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I am confident that I will have all the time and resources I need to create the most sophisticated and beautiful pieces of art or constructions of thought, share them with others, or explore the ones created by others. And I will be able to connect deeper to the people around me – and indeed the whole human race – better than ever before.