# Deliberate amnesia to prevent boredom? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 26, 2012, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deliberate-amnesia-to-prevent-boredom/645174 "2012-12-26T10:25:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deliberate-amnesia-to-prevent-boredom/645174/1 "2012-12-26T10:25:20Z")
Hi in the past I imagined a future that included virtual reality and no ageing… the only problem I found was that after an eternity you’d be completely bored… I thought that it would be good it you could turn off some memories… including the memory that you were kind of like a god (being able to create whatever virtual reality scenario you could imagine)… then after a few years or when you “died” you could re-learn that you are god-like… or just become more powerful but not yet become aware of the full extent of your power. Are there any sci-fi/fantasy novels like that? Or religions/philosophies? I think in Kabbalah Center it said that part of us is God and eventually we fit the pieces together like a jig-saw puzzle… ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deliberate-amnesia-to-prevent-boredom/645174/2 "2012-12-26T10:30:43Z")
[The Dark Beyond the Stars](http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Beyond-Stars-Novel/dp/0312866240) ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2012, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deliberate-amnesia-to-prevent-boredom/645174/3 "2012-12-27T00:52:44Z")
So no known novels that include that concept? I’d like to see that idea in a movie… ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2012, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deliberate-amnesia-to-prevent-boredom/645174/4 "2012-12-27T04:04:43Z")
You’ve got something like that in Jonathan Lethem’s [_ **Gun, with Occasional Music** _](http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Occasional-Music-Harvest-Book/dp/0156028972), though the forgetfulness drug is more a method of social control than anything else. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deliberate-amnesia-to-prevent-boredom/645174/5 "2012-12-27T04:13:14Z")
There are modern drugs that turn off your memory for surgery, roofies basically, so it might be closer than science fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2012, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deliberate-amnesia-to-prevent-boredom/645174/6 "2012-12-27T04:51:54Z")
I recall a short story that David Brin wrote that postulated that this reality was a simulation, that the reader was such an amnesiac transhuman, and that this was why we see no aliens. They reach a level of advancement & enhancement where they have exhausted all possible experiences in less than a single lifetime and to avoid going mad from boredom turn inward upon themselves in amnesiac virtual realities. ---
**Author:** ![Chef\_Troy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2012, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deliberate-amnesia-to-prevent-boredom/645174/7 "2012-12-27T05:17:40Z")
By book four of Frederick Pohl’s Heechee series (which begins with the book _Gateway_), humans have started to upload their consciousnesses into computer memory. It’s been a while, but I seem to remember that the system is set up for virtual amusements and experiences, with the uploaded people’s memories of those experiences set to degrade and eventually disappear so they can “do things again for the first time.” ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2012, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deliberate-amnesia-to-prevent-boredom/645174/8 "2012-12-27T05:53:22Z")
so basically, in a world where you can make copies of yourself, reloading an old saved copy? incidentally you might as well create a new, separate you rather than giving up your current state. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deliberate-amnesia-to-prevent-boredom/645174/9 "2012-12-29T22:17:49Z")
> [@shijinn](#): > > so basically, in a world where you can make copies of yourself, reloading an old saved copy? incidentally you might as well create a new, separate you rather than giving up your current state. What would that solve? You’d still be just as bored, but there’d be new clone of you from the past. And, no, you’re not reloading a saved copy. You’re removing some files from your hard drive. You’d never be in the same state you were before. It would feel like you’d just forgotten something, not like you were a completely different person. (Or, if you really want to think about it, you’d die, since there’s no continuity of consciousness between the two entities. The newer you would just cease to be. Kinda like that old transporter story where you get transported, and then realize that you’re the one still on the platform about to be killed, and not the one that got beamed to the other location.) ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deliberate-amnesia-to-prevent-boredom/645174/10 "2012-12-30T14:46:09Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > Hi in the past I imagined a future that included virtual reality and no ageing… the only problem I found was that after an eternity you’d be completely bored… I thought that it would be good it you could turn off some memories… including the memory that you were kind of like a god (being able to create whatever virtual reality scenario you could imagine)… then after a few years or when you “died” you could re-learn that you are god-like… or just become more powerful but not yet become aware of the full extent of your power. > > Are there any sci-fi/fantasy novels like that? Or religions/philosophies? I think in Kabbalah Center it said that part of us is God and eventually we fit the pieces together like a jig-saw puzzle… Heinlein’s got a few of these. “They” [They (Heinlein) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_(Heinlein)) is the most direct example. There’s a hint of this idea in “Beyond this Horizon” and “Stranger in a Strange Land” as well. Keith Laumer uses this idea as well in “Night of Delusions” ---
**Author:** ![Chef\_Troy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deliberate-amnesia-to-prevent-boredom/645174/11 "2012-12-30T23:26:44Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > What would that solve? You’d still be just as bored, but there’d be new clone of you from the past. > > And, no, you’re not reloading a saved copy. You’re removing some files from your hard drive. You’d never be in the same state you were before. It would feel like you’d just forgotten something, not like you were a completely different person. > > (Or, if you really want to think about it, you’d die, since there’s no continuity of consciousness between the two entities. The newer you would just cease to be. Kinda like that old transporter story where you get transported, and then realize that you’re the one still on the platform about to be killed, and not the one that got beamed to the other location.) The stored intelligences retain continuity of personality, and can retain whatever memories they want to hang onto. So they don’t forget their children, but they can forget having gone hang-gliding or seeing _Twilight_.