Hilbert's hotel

i) Traditionally, the duration of hell is unending. But let’s bracket the duration of hell for the moment and discuss temporal punishment generally. In principle, a temporal punishment can have three basic durations: (a) definite; (b) indefinite, or (c) interminable.

ii) One thing these all three have in common is that someone can only endure his punishment a day at a time. Whether the punishment is a month, a year, or a lifetime, the experience can only be processed day-by-day. In that respect it feels the same from one day to the next.

iii) However, the difference in duration can also have a different psychological effect. Indeed, that, of itself, can have a punitive aspect.

iv) A definite sentence may feel less punitive if it leaves the convict with some hope. If, say, he’s sentenced to serve 10-15, and he goes in at the age of 17, he will still be fairly young when he gets out. He will still have a fair portion of his life ahead of him.

So that’s hopeful. He can mark days off the calendar.

v) Of course, that depends on the length of the sentence. If it’s a life sentence, or if he goes in at 50, and he’s sentenced to serve 30 years, then that’s pretty hopeless even though the interval is definite. His punishment might as well be unremitting.

In that respect, a definite sentence can be equivalent to an interminable sentence.

vi) An indefinite sentence may leave the convict feeling ambivalent. There’s a Kafkaesque uncertainty to the outcome. That can be both hopeful and despairing.

It’s more likely to be hopeful in the early phases. But as time wears on, hope wanes.

He could be released any day, or he could die in prison. There’s no telling. And that uncertainty is punitive in its own right. Never knowing whether today will be the last day, or there will never be a last day–until he’s carted out with a toe-tag.

vii) We traditionally discuss hell as everlasting punishment since that is objectively the case. But psychologically speaking, that may not reflect the perspective of the damned. After all, most of the damned didn’t really believe in hell before they died. So it’s possible that many of the damned have no idea how long they will be there. Even though they will be there forever, they may not know that.

Perhaps that’s revealed to them at the Final Judgment. The psychological prospect of never-ending punishment would be punitive.

On the other hand, Kafkaesque uncertainty (from their blinkered viewpoint) would also be punitive. Not knowing. Living day after day, year after year, not knowing if or when your punishment will cease can also be punitive.

And subjective uncertainly regarding the duration of hell is entirely consistent with the objective eternality of hell.

viii) Take a conman who’s used to beating the system. He’s so clever. All he’s life he’s be able to outfox the authorities.

Perhaps his infernal punishment consists (at least in part) of nursing the futile hope that he can break out of hell. He and some of his fellow conmen in hell scheme and plot how to outsmart the system. They pride themselves on their cunning, tireless ingenuity. And suppose God humors their misguided pride by allowing them to think they succeeded.

Take those science fiction stories set in a simulated penal colony where a prisoner or group of coconspirators plan their escape, and imagine that they succeeded. Their captors allow them a few hours or days of illusory freedom, then it suddenly dawns on the escapees that this was all a trick. The penal colony is a concentric prison. Cells within cells. Every time they “escape,” they soon discover that the “outside” world is still within the confines of the prison. The penal colony is endless. Instead of “infinite” time, you have “infinite” space (the functional equivalent). Like Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel. So Their hopes are dashed.

Yet they continue to nurse the futile hope that if they try just one more time (and there’s always one more time), they will finally breach the perimeter of the prison. So they spend eternity scheming the next jailbreak. Each time they “succeed,” they revel in the momentary exhilaration of their success­, exchanging high-fives–only to find, once more, that they are no closer to freedom than the last time, or the time before that, or the time before that.