Do you know the movie 'The Box'? I didn't until I clicked the 'play' button last weekend and gave this movie a chance. IMDB wasn't very positive with a 5.6 rating. Normally, I would ignore such a movie. However, the short summary I read intrigued me enormously.
It was about the choice between doing nothing and receiving money with a dead person as a consequence. Not just any money. A million dollars. In the 70s! That's a lot of money! A movie with an 'impossible' choice, or maybe better said, a 'difficult' choice.
Money versus Morals ...
Although it was to be predicted the money would be chosen, the movie was still quite interesting in some respects. A story with unexpected twists here and there. Not too bad acting. Nicely portrayed. Great cinematography. With a huge retro look and feel. Colours jumped off the screen!
The plot (no spoiler alert): A lot of things happen that we cannot directly relate to what we know from science, which could give this film the label of science fiction. However, the story revolves more around the choice and how to live with the choice instead of being a SyFy movie; The pressure we experience when we choose something we know is the wrong choice from the start.
I myself like these kinds of choices. Not to make them, but to philosophize about them. For example, I find the choice between the finite life we know and an infinite life very interesting. For many, an easy choice: The finite one. However, for me, this choice is not so obvious at all. I would like to experience our world as it is say, 100 years from now. The 22nd century. And, if we make it, also the 23rd century. If I were to choose the normal end of my earthly existence, I would have to hope for an afterlife or something similar, where I still have some kind of contact with earthly life. But hope is not a certainty. The choice for infinite life guarantees that I can experience everything I would like to experience. What has AI resulted in, for example? Are humans living in harmony with AI in the 22nd century? How have our societies transformed? Does the concept of 'money' still play a role? What has replaced it? How centrally or decentrally are our societies organized? Are we living in peace and harmony? Have we settled somewhere outside our planet? Will HIVE still exist? Oh, that last one might just be THE reason to choose infinite life 😆
But yeah, an infinite life is also a bit much. When I eventually hit 200 years, my life has just begun. On my 1000th birthday, I'm still not very far along. At 10,000 years, I still have a long time ahead of me. At a million, I may be the only human left. And what if I reach one billion years? Maybe the Earth no longer exists? Am I on some kind of spaceship? Maybe picked up by aliens, like Arthur Dent was picked up in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? As I write this, I think, "What an adventure that would be! Maybe I should just choose infinite life after all!"
Infinite is not finite. It will never, ever stop.
Uhm...
So I become ice-cold, 0 degrees Kelvin when the universe continues to expand and never implodes. Or do I become part of a black hole when the universe contracts and the inverse of a big bang take place?
Uhm...
When the universe implodes, isn't that the end of the infinity of my existence? That certainly offers possibilities! 🙃 How beautiful would it be if the choice for infinity ultimately results in finiteness?
In that case, the choice for me is super easy: I'll go for it!
What would you choose?
70 to 100 years of life on Earth?
or
Eternity
I get headache thinking about the choice. 😵
Certainly not eternal life. Perhaps life on conditions other than those that exist now
As for the movie, I did see it, and didn't like it at all🙂.
Tough decision indeed, but shall not induce bodily discomfort.
Well, the choice is binary: Either continue with the Earthy life as you know it, or Eternal life. Nothing in between. When we can choose something in between, eg 200 years, the choice wouldn't be difficult to make. I always like it when thinking in extremes. Makes me think about the choices provided from all angles and in-depth. Not only that it stimulates my brain, but also gets me to dig deep into a certain topic. Anyways, that's beside the story 🙃
Eternal is indeed a very very very long time. And when you watch the timelapse vid of how our universe (could) age, one can get a little feel about how long eternity perhaps is: like trillions x trillions x trillions of years, and then still just started with the eternal life.... unless eternal stops when our universe is entirely dead after the last sun/star implodes into a black hole, and after the last black hole evaporated. Well, then there are the other universes when the model of the multiverse is not just a model, but reality 🙃
What you didn't like about the movie? The movie itself? The acting? Or more the story?
Does anything ever die? What is the beginning and the end? What happens to cells? When we talk about the end of the universe, what is that? When I plant flowers they feed off nutrients in soil that has evolved from decaying material. It's all recycled. So, yes, an end to life as we understand that end. But... is there really an end?
Anyway, as for The Box. It's been a long time, and I would never re-watch that movie because I didn't like it. What I do remember is the sense that it was unnecessarily cruel. The people were trapped in a terrible situation and that left me with a bad feeling. The movie reminded me of a classic Spanish play (the idea might have been derived from the play). In the play, someone is given the option of committing murder. The victim would never know who or why. It was entirely remote. The bounty would be wealth. I can't remember the name of the play or the author, but I do remember one scene, where the murderer hears a cry. The scene was so striking I remember the word, gritó. There was no cruelty. It was a matter of conscience, and that was powerful.
Anyway, I vote 'no' for The Box😆
I get you. It is cruel indeed. That said, such questions are great to ask peeps to understand how selfish someone is and how such a person who receives the question decides where morals and ethics stop in favour of oneself. But agree, in itself such a story is cruel to the max.
No rant, just talk?
No, wait, no talk - it's laughing aloud hahahah watching the first video 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Ok, now the talk part. What a nice surprise to see a post from your pen, well, keyboard, and with this easy question, almost easier than whywhy's questions about the meaning of life ;) Ok, let's go to the philosophy part now... but first, a new attack of laughing
A kind of spaceship? 😂😂
Ok, infinite versus finite life.
Yeah, though I think I know how to stand with two feet on the ground, (sometimes) I also like to visit the dream fields and wish to do many things that my real, finite and too short (compared to infinite) life would not allow me. We simply can't squeeze everything we would like to see, hear, try, experience, touch, know, learn, do, create and feel in one life. Add to it the curiosity, like you want to see how certain things will unfold. How good would be that infinite life but with the option of a "finite" button at a certain point? But then, it is like searching for the impossible. The same as it would be action without reaction. Or doing whatever we want without consequences. I mean, can I eat whatever I want, in the quantity I want and stay thin? hahaha, back to laughing.
So, no, I would not choose infinite life with my (or any other) human body or in any connection to a material thing (spaceship hahah) but we can try to make the infinite already in our finite life, you know, mind - soul - heart or whatever we want to call it - state and express a few crumbs of that infiniteness through arts, words, science, creative process while we are walking on this blue planet. Maybe all our ancestors that left some of those creations to history wanted the same and somehow made path of how the future will look like?
Don't know, just ignore my comment hahaha, I know what my near future has to be, go and make another coffee to wake up for real 😂
Hahahaha so nice your comment. Glad my post did have an effect on your laughing muscles. Every day we shall laugh for at least 5 minutes, they say... Not sure who 'they' is, but it is they 😀
Yea, infinite seems to be a tad too long, to be honest. True, we shall try and make the most out of our earthy life. But also, I believe we shall take earthly life as it comes. Don't expect too much, learn as much as possible. At least for me, since learning is something that makes me happy, in a way. The happiness like whywhy described. Well, the 'happiness' state I told him we all are looking for. Or perhaps not looking for it, but we all will become better humans when we find such happiness 🙃
So true what you wrote: Action is Reaction, that's for sure. Everything has its consequences. Newtonian law isn't only applied to physical things, but also to mental things. In that respect, Newton was one of the greatest scientists ever, although he created this theory just for the physical world. Let's make the most of what we can 🙃
Owww did you realise when what a bunch of religions believe in is true? Our souls serviving our earthly life? Heaven? And all that? When true, we may not even have the choice between finite or infinite life. We may be doomed right from the start. And when was the start? Eternal life after all. As a given, a fact. Even when believing in reincarnation. When such belief is actually true, we may end in infinite times the return to Earth, or when it's finite times, still infinite life in the afterlife. When true, I may experience everything I want to, how things will unfold in decades, centuries, millennia etc, and not even have to make this difficult decision. Such a relief! I'll just have to convert my thoughts into believing the afterlife is real 😂
How was the coffee?
The coffee was good, thanks. Bad thing - I think I am again 100% a coffee addict.
Bad bad bad me.
(no new deals? 🤔)
Yesterday morning, before I had my coffee (but had it prepared and the cup already in my hand) I read the title of a post: Hell instead of Heli (helicopter) 🤣🤣
Oh, I don't want that word connected with this infinite life topic haha
nothing wrong with being a coffee addict... I just hope it isn't making miss migraine visiting you more often 😉
hell or heli: on the one hand I say that the state before the coffee is the right effect 😂😂😂 on the other hand, apparently coffee makes you see more clearly, which by some is considered a better state of mind to the somewhat lesser clear state of mind from before the coffee. personally, am not much in favour of the latter, the clear state of mind 😂😂😂
Clear state of mind - what's that?
...
😂
re-read my previous comment. was with some errors I noticed. edited a bit. but perhaps you read through the errors already, seems I wasn't to clear when typing the original comment 😂
exactly: you got it 😂
I felt it a bit strange at first, reading the original, unedited message, but just for a second. As I know your state of mind is exactly how you like it to be 😁
And I just realized today that a piano is actually an evil robot which is not evil anymore. Read through that comment thread 😁
I don’t have time for movies these days but this flick sounds like it would be a good watch! I love ones that make you think like that, it’s good to challenge things!
Ah I would as well enjoy being able to look from the outside to our planet after my earthly existence expires and see what we’ve become. Have we destroyed ourselves again and knocked us back to the Stone Age to rebuild yet again? (Lots of interesting theories around the pyramids in Egypt and it being from 1-2 civilizations previous to the one we are living in, since the technological movement of the stones on boats is just impossible to be quite honest lol). Good stuff man!
The punch of the story is better than the movie itself. Though ok, the movie itself isn't a high flyer. Soooo, you would go for the infinite life?
On the topic of pyramids and all that. I would love it when something like the Holographic Universe idea is actually true. in said idea, time doesn't exist. The universe isn't real. No matter exists. Whatever we regard as real are anomalies in a homogeneous fabric of whatever such fabric is made of. The core of this idea is that everything is connected, in analogue to how holographic information is stored.
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