Immortality

[Konicomi]

Djinn

[Konicomi]

If mortals in the abyss are immortal does that mean that Tammarine is immortal as long as she stays in the abyss with Tom?

[Tizzy]

That’s an interesting topic, and an uncomfortable discussion I have with Rede in book 4.

Being in the Abyss doesn’t make you immortal, it just means you can’t die. And this, as I explain is because it is a fixed afterlife (unlike the afterlife sites created in the Outer Planes by the gods) and there is literally no where for a soul to go there. Mana bodies and real bodies regenerate there, except when they are corroded by the “weather” in which case you can end up with sort of a homeostatic balance of perpetual decay-regeneration.

An immortal is somone who has figured out how (and the acquired the power) to stay alive anywhere they go in the multiverse (within certain limits)

[Konicomi]

Ok not true immortality but would she ever die of old age like other Djinn since she will be in the abyss with tom 99% of the time? If she will still age in the Abyss why? And if she won’t why did Orcus have more then one Djinn in the past?

[Tizzy]

Well, most djinnternships are for a limited time. One presumes they want to get on with the rest of their lives at some point. Djinn tend to be information collectors, so once they feel they have all the good info they can get, they often move on to new research projects.

So for example, a djinni serving a human would normally serve the human’s life, or a good part of it, before moving on. It’s a learning experience for the young djinn, and very explicitly a chance to “experience the material world” and it’s pleasures and sensations.

Finally, djinn aren’t actually material beings so the determination of their lifespan isn’t a function of physical age. For example, djinnnistan is on a demiplane, it’s not a material plane as we think of it. Which is on reason young djinn do djinnternships. And when they go, they leave their memories behind for later generations.

[Mikey]

[quote=Konicomi;7326]Ok not true immortality[/quote]

Kevin Smith’s Smodcast discussed “Limmortality” years ago: https://soundcloud.com/smodcast/smodcast-131-limmortality

[The Author Guy]

I’d forgotten about that! Definitely.

I also like the word a lot as well.

I think I’d be OK with L’immortality. The real thing would get old, particularly after the universe is over and you are all that’s left.

Below is not spoiler, but rather crazy philosophy:
[SPOILER]

I’m pretty sure that’s why God shook things up with the big bang. Just hanging there, by yourself, being everything, the beginning, the end, the alpha, the omega…and what with no time, the beginning, the end and the middle all exist at the same point, simultaneously, Just seems like a bummer.

So, to get some excitement, I’d blow myself up and start ordering myself with time so I could sequence things, stretch stuff out enjoy it/appreciate it/myself. And then I’d let all my little fragments develop fragmented consciousness and fight each other, engage in war and melodrama, or just survival of the fittest, the circle of life (which again doesn’t work real well without time–so that’s the most important).

Maybe, eventually some fragments could realize they were all just little parts of me and come to some sort of Zen oneness with each other and me and achieve enlightenment and then when enlightenment got boring, they could be killed by a less enlightened fragment of myself to shake things up.

Here’s the thing, as discussed by Tamarin, Kierkegaard thought he had existential dread, and god, with “his plan” could cure it. But who is going to cure god’s existential dread, which, of course, is the opposite of Kierkegard’s? He is the meaning, he is there forever and ever because there is nothing outside of him or her, he’s all there is, was or will be for ever and for once and how do you deal with that?

Like all depressed people you watch TV/read books/see plays/go to movies, In this case, you just have to create them yourself, because you are all there is, so you create them out of yourself, and then you observe it all!

How do you observe it though without spoiling the plot which you know since the plot is a time ordered part of you? You observe it by being an actor, and in fact you are every actor because, Valentine Michael Smith, they are you, you just don’t know you are you and so you have the illusion of not knowing, and you get to be, independently, on each side of every argument, experience every combination, know the fear of mortality and the power of life and death over other creatures (that are also you).

You solve your divine existential dread by turning it inside out into limited Kierkegaardian existential dread because that fear is what makes life sweet, sweeter than it ever can be if you are truly immortal and you have nothing to lose, nothing to truly look forward to.
[/SPOILER]

[Dirk Flamberge]

That’s some heavy stuff, Doc.

[Tizzy]

I think T-A-G may have raided my cookie stash one too many times.

[Author]

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