The thing that sucks about conscious eternity is that you go for so long you pretty much forget everything at some point that makes you you. I remember thinking of that concept for the 1st time after reading Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice lol. One of her characters was so old he couldn't remember much of his original life he was just damned to constantly living and being the same creature but slowly losing his identity to time and experience. In a way its awesome because its an existentialist dream to just experience without too much bias like that, but I would assume after a while it would become quite maddening.
the way i see it:
live a 100 years, enough? BILLION? mad, couldnt stand.
etrnity? thats.. worst kind of torture existable.
i want an ability to leave. and even if you have that, you might forget your past identty who then is a living dead observor of the never ending madness.
ive actually long believed "i" die while i sleep, and the consciousness next day is just another entity taking the mandatory role.
why? look at science, human brain cells alone are replaced all the time,(100% of them) but then, ive believed so before i knew that.
and it came spontaneously to me, now i havent thought about whole thing for years.
in materialistic sense, none of us exists for long at all. only the vessel we occupy does.
for long time, i look a half year into my past through memory, and i dont see any similarities to the person "i" was.
the illusion of memory attempts to give us identity, but i dont believe in it.
thus i cant say for certain the person replacing me would be always smarter than the previous one if enough time is given for possible failures to occur.
but the promise of biological death gives me the certainty this body will get peace if a future entity is not smart enough to end its suffering were it to live worthlessly.
ive come to the conclusion there is no "me". closest thing to that, is this body, especially organ brain.
i see many whove reached a state where they believe to gain identity from something and thus repeat a loop of doing that until their deaths occur.
that seems rather.. painful, to exist in a loop without space for change in the new entities taking over your body. just mimicking the old patterns.
when i come to think of it, identity is only an illusion. we are all the same.
edit:
this is actually a very old philosophy of mine from childhood, which ive forgotten yaers ago, yet now your words brought it upon, thank you for that, since this answers where my identity has been in its absence for years when i didnt even remeber my fundamental philosophy.
and that not remebering this, caused a minor narcistic personality dirsorder for me in 2011 whose source i now understand.
as ive always had this i am whatever i consider perfect attitude, but npd is imperfect in its limitations for achieving real happiness.
Again, where is the middle option? too many extremes...
i couldnt see any, so i didnt create one, giving you the power to define what the two options mean.
