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I also recall a science fiction take on the theme. It was a short story by Stanisław Lem. There's this mad scientist named Decantor, who killed / immortalized h
by V-2 6y ago
I also recall a science fiction take on the theme. It was a short story by Stanisław Lem. There's this mad scientist named Decantor, who killed / immortalized his wife by copying her mind onto an indestructible crystal.
The consciousness persists and the mind keeps on thinking, and it can't die - it's virtually immortal. That's the extra twist here. So, it's capable of surviving for millions of years, likely outliving all life on the planet etc., but at the same time deprived of all senses and cut off from the external world. Even an escape into insanity is impossible (since, I assume, there's no biochemistry that could get out of balance).
The horrified narrator considers it as the worst torment imaginable, whereas Decantor can't see it, as immortality - he points out - has always been humanity's most profound longing.
- bobloblaw45 6y agoStephen King also wrote the short scifi story The Jaunt which is similar. Basically a scientist makes a stargate type of device. Nonliving things that go through end up fine but living things like mice would either immediately just die or go absolute insane after exiting. Long story short, the trip is instantaneous. But because they're traveling outside of our normal space time is perceived differently by conciousnes minds. So what seems like a split second to us on the outside things seem almost endless on the inside. Like anywhere from millions of years to the age of the universe. Endless time with nothing but their own thoughts. No body and just white light. Humans they test it out on either also die or end up going all Event Horizon when they exit. They figured out a work around by knocking people out before putting then through.
- hprotagonist 6y agoroald dahl, of all people, does this in “william & mary”