I realized something, that religous people tend to not care about the concept of immortality, or desire it, but non-religous do. Share your opinion.
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I realized something, that religous people tend to not care about the concept of immortality, or desire it, but non-religous do. Share your opinion.
Not sure how you mean that - isn't the whole basis of religion that believers are immortal? Isn't that in the final analysis its whole drawing power, and the reason so many people are willing to turn their backs on science and reason and embrace religion instead, or compartmentalize?
Pretty much this. The point of nearly all religions is to reach immortality, either through some kind of heaven, or reincarnation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkmatters
Again - a stab at clarification - as I understand his other posts - it is about striving for immortality by doing science.
And that religious people have no motivation to further research in that direction - because they believe they already have it.
Which - in my understanding - is a bad thing, in the OPīs sense.
Religious people holding back longevity and immortality research - or am I wrong here?
That might be what he meant, but he said this:
So maybe if he meant it the way you say he could reword the OP and get it on track. My point being that obviously religious people care very deeply about immortality, but because they believe they already have it taken care of, they aren't interested in scientific ideas about it (or increasing longevity).Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
A very important question:
If said person became immortal, would we still age? Because the older you are, the more likely you are to suffer from some neurodegenerative disease (like Alzheimer's), along many other health issues.
Non-religious immortality and religious immortality seem to be very different concepts, because the later one ignores the physical body (and ironically enough, still assumes that we will be entities capable of experiencing reality).
This makes sense to me. I also think that some hardcore religious people can see research into longevity as a way of playing god so that might also turn them away from it. It seems to me that a lot of Christians, in particular, blame good things on God, bad things on the devil, and they themselves are supposed to just float somewhere in between without any agency of their own. Which is weird because they're supposed to believe in free will, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkmatters
I almost feel like a lot of religious people want to die, because this life is quite an ordeal for them. They would rather take their death-reward for subscribing to the religion. I think that's another reason why religious people might be more inclined towards disinterest or outright opposing longevity research. Longer life means longer time away from 'paradise'.
I really wish you made the poll:
Yes (religious)
Yes (non-religious)
No (religious)
No (non-religious)
I think that would have given more meaningful results. I'm one of the people that said no to immortality (assuming that means never dying or decaying). All things in this world are temporary and if I was truly immortal, it would kind of suck being the one thing that isn't temporary. When there are no people left, when this planet dies, might be a bit of a hellish experience. I could see how living for a couple thousand years might be interesting though.
Well, if greater longevity or immortality were achieved technologically then you wouldn't be the only one - that would only apply to magical immortality - and even then you probably wouldn't be completely alone - there would be a cadre of vampires or what-have-yous to enjoy eternity with. That's not to say your friends and family would necessarily be among them.
If we're talking techno-immortality then maybe it would only be the rich who can achieve it? Or those who get on the really good health care plan? :lol:
Of course if immortality is achieved by downloading our consciousness into mechanical bodies or hard drives of some sort, then we wouldn't have to worry about biological defects of the kind Zoth brought up - doubtless there would be redundant backups constantly being updated in realtime and stored in the Cloud or somewhere in case your hard drive gets corrupted (just playing around with ideas here - obviously this concept doesn't really work, as a copy of you isn't actually you).
There's the problem of resources - we cant have enough energy to sustain 8 billion brains at the same time forever. There's got to be sacrifices - and now we enter the murky areas of morality and consequences.
I'm not religious but I don't like the concept of immortality.
I prefer the concepts of cycles and rebirth, with the new washing out the old, and everything having its time and then yielding its energies to the next generation of things in the cycle. The journey from birth to death and the epic tale between I feel is the defining and key experience of being human. I do not think you have lived a full life until you've stood at the doors of death. And then the story has its final chapter, and you get your final retirement.
In a way I find the concept of immortality to be a bit of a red herring to tell the truth. Immortality, in the sense we're talking about, is better called something like permanence of consciousness. But I tend to think that consciousness is somewhat illusory and, more importantly, overvalued. After you're done being human you'll start being trees and flowers, and that doesn't sound so bad to me. You will be recycled into the next generation of life and even though your memories will be gone, the bits and pieces of biology that had constituted your body will go on living in other beings. It's hard to express it like I want to.
I understand how you feel - its like we are a part of something bigger than us.
Exactly, religious people don't care about immortality in life because they believe they will be immortal in the after life, in heaven.Quote:
Not sure how you mean that - isn't the whole basis of religion that believers are immortal? Isn't that in the final analysis its whole drawing power, and the reason so many people are willing to turn their backs on science and reason and embrace religion instead, or compartmentalize?
You are right, StephL. I believe, and I hope I'm not offending anyone, that immortality in life using science is the only way to become Immortal, because I don't believe in the after life, and if more people have the same perspective as I do, there would be more research in that field.Quote:
Again - a stab at clarification - as I understand his other posts - it is about striving for immortality by doing science.
And that religious people have no motivation to further research in that direction - because they believe they already have it.
Which - in my understanding - is a bad thing, in the OPīs sense.
Religious people holding back longevity and immortality research - or am I wrong here?
Let me clear something out. I mean Immortality in life. That's why religious people don't care about it, because they have it in the after life(or at least that's what they believe).Quote:
That might be what he meant, but he said this:
Quote Originally Posted by LouaiB View Post
religous people tend to not care about the concept of immortality, or desire it
So maybe if he meant it the way you say he could reword the OP and get it on track. My point being that obviously religious people care very deeply about immortality, but because they believe they already have it taken care of, they aren't interested in scientific ideas about it (or increasing longevity).
Yes, without the aging process, because that is the concept, stoping the aging process for you to never get old and die.Quote:
A very important question:
If said person became immortal, would we still age? Because the older you are, the more likely you are to suffer from some neurodegenerative disease (like Alzheimer's), along many other health issues.
Non-religious immortality and religious immortality seem to be very different concepts, because the later one ignores the physical body (and ironically enough, still assumes that we will be entities capable of experiencing reality).
Yes, that is exactly the case, religious people even desire death if they are unhappy with their lives, so of course the concept of immortality in life doesn't appeal to them at all.Quote:
I almost feel like a lot of religious people want to die, because this life is quite an ordeal for them. They would rather take their death-reward for subscribing to the religion. I think that's another reason why religious people might be more inclined towards disinterest or outright opposing longevity research. Longer life means longer time away from 'paradise'.
Yes, technological immortality.Quote:
Well, if greater longevity or immortality were achieved technologically then you wouldn't be the only one - that would only apply to magical immortality
Well, it wouldn't be so hard when we achieve it(if we do). When humans become more advanced, obstacles become much easier. I'm sure people had similar doubts when,for example, flu shots where invented, because distribution and quantity was a big deal, and look how easy and simple it is now.Quote:
There's the problem of resources - we cant have enough energy to sustain 8 billion brains at the same time forever. There's got to be sacrifices - and now we enter the murky areas of morality and consequences.
Conscious is what makes you, you're personality, your self. Losing it will mean losing everything you have. Man I hate dying.Quote:
I'm not religious but I don't like the concept of immortality.
I prefer the concepts of cycles and rebirth, with the new washing out the old, and everything having its time and then yielding its energies to the next generation of things in the cycle. The journey from birth to death and the epic tale between I feel is the defining and key experience of being human. I do not think you have lived a full life until you've stood at the doors of death. And then the story has its final chapter, and you get your final retirement.
In a way I find the concept of immortality to be a bit of a red herring to tell the truth. Immortality, in the sense we're talking about, is better called something like permanence of consciousness. But I tend to think that consciousness is somewhat illusory and, more importantly, overvalued. After you're done being human you'll start being trees and flowers, and that doesn't sound so bad to me. You will be recycled into the next generation of life and even though your memories will be gone, the bits and pieces of biology that had constituted your body will go on living in other beings. It's hard to express it like I want to.
Big post.
Anyways, I think we arent supposed to be immortal - almost everything goes against us humans.
But if you want to be immortal, you need unlimited energy. And here's the biggie -Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
Conversion of energy means you get energy to sustain you.
But efficiency means the amount of energy that is created after conversion, and Efficiency can NEVER be 100%, which means if you are immortal, in the end, you will exhaust all the resources of the universe, the universe collapses, you die. Which essentially means you are mortal.
Well, I guess so, unless we find energy that renews quickly. Maybe longevity would be achieved by chemical compositions that would be renewed and always available. Look at what Harvord did to for the aging process of muscles and loss of energy with aging. They used chemical compositions to slow those aging processes.Quote:
Originally Posted by imda1
Cool. But renewing too takes energy, just as conversion does. And if the efficiency problem is solved, we wouldn't need to worry, as matter is always converted, never destroyed.
Yes, exactly. I sure hope we reach this technology before I die:P.
Not if we reversed the aging process, which has recently been done on mice (look it up).Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
Yes, done in Harvord:D
This is so awesom!!!:panic:
"At Harvard, they bred genetically manipulated mice that lacked an enzyme called telomerase that stops telomeres getting shorter. Without the enzyme, the mice aged prematurely and suffered ailments, including a poor sense of smell, smaller brain size, infertility and damaged intestines and spleens. But when DePinho gave the mice injections to reactivate the enzyme, it repaired the damaged tissues and reversed the signs of ageing."
cool stuff, thank you for sharing! :D
My comment is the same as it was in that other thread.
If you dream of physical immortality for the human race then you need to ask how the hell do you deal with children? Given the immortality of your life you could literally have millions or billions of children. The earth can't sustain an immortal species, unless you're planning to infect the rest of the universe and risk war with natives who don't like you. Or you can sterilize the immortal human race, in which case no new humans are born. That's a far worse tragedy then your death.
You spout 'religion' 'religion' as being the thing that has stopped you from achieving immortality and then make silly claims that science will miraculously save you, if only those religious fools would open their eyes.
I don't know what science you're looking it, but it's a fairy tale.
If you want science to give you answers then open your eyes and look at the whole of nature, after all, science is the observation of reality. Everything dies. Nature found balance by creating a system that creates new lifeforms instead. "Religion" "religion". The basis of all religions were first hand spiritual experiences. Spirituality was also the first natural science, as it was the conscious understanding that all form passes. Being angry at religion will never change that.
Whatever immortality science can grant you, it won't be human, it wont be biological and it won't allow for new life. And if science does prove that consciousness can be transferred from one form to another, then it's proof consciousness was never limited to the brain to begin with.
But who doesn't believe in religoun, knows that things existed not for a reason, and the laws of nature can't limit us, since maintaining the biological body is very well possible, and there is no soul that, when leaving the body, will cause death of the biological body. Plus, when given immortality, I'm sure most of the population will gladly sacrefice having children to live forever, even religious people, who will realize that their belief was just a way to deal with death.
I hope I'm not offending you, or any religious person. I'm just speaking my point of view.
Excellent points, especially the last paragraph -- that one sentence may perhaps be the root of this entire conversation.Quote:
Originally Posted by juroara
I believe that, if physical immortality were to be achieved -- especially on a mass scale -- many, if not all, "rules" of society and existence as we know them would change dramatically. After all, everything we do in our lives now, like it or not, is based on the singular goal of moving our DNA forward one more generation.... if that goal becomes irrelevant, then everything would be very different. How, I don't know (though it will be fun to think about), and whether our lives would be better or worse without an innate need for things like procreation seems a truly debatable thing.
well, when one has the oportunity to be immortal, then the last thing that would matter is the changes in scociety. And procreation is an instinct that could be dealt with. Immortality guys! Would you say no to it for those reasons!? We would not need to end our lives, and lose our self. I would rather face any problem, even if very dificult, for me to not face the ultimate problem, death. Trust me, any problem would be dealt with, and even if it doesn't turn out well, it's better than nothing.
You are not putting your eyes on the prize. Everything we do is to make our lives prosper, but immortality is the ultimate prosparity.
It's like I come to you and tell you that I will give you a million dollars if you give me a hundred, and you deny because you don't want to pay a hundred. Come on, you know I'm right. No body wants to die and face eternal unconsciousness!
^^ Well said, both times!
Perhaps immortality is the culmination, the perfection, of our natural instinct to survive? That would make it our purpose, in a very natural way. Wouldn't it?
And yeah, I wonder how many people, if offered immortality, would turn it down.
Overpopulation isn't a problem. You tell people if they become immortal they can't have any more children until we expand out into space. They are immortal so shouldn't have an issue with waiting a few hundred years before having children right? In fact, I don't think you even need to tell people that, they will do it on their own. If you are immortal and you can have children at any time during your life, why would you have children when you are 20-30? People rush children now because they feel like they are running out of time, without that time pressure, everyone is more than happy to wait. In fact even with that time pressure a lot of people are putting off children.
There will probably be some religious people who wouldn't want to take part in immortality, but eventually they will die out because they are not immortal like everyone else. That should help reduce population as well. Though really we just need to wait until we can expand into space. We have the technology today that we could travel to other solar systems. The only problem is that it takes a really long time, however time isn't an issue to people who are immortal. So we are definitely going to travel to other planets and stuff.
As for using all the energy in the universe, that might be true but not for trillions of years. With trillions of years, that is more than enough time to solve all the problems regarding that issue. By then it may be possible to travel to other dimensions, or create new universes. Look at how much advancements are made in the last 10 years, with a trillion years it is mind boggling what people might come up with. Either way, why would you die at 80, instead of living a few trillion years and using all the energy, then dying? Stopping at 80 seems a bit silly because of something happening a trillion years in the future. Might as well give it a few million, or a billion years first to see how it is going before you decide.
Well, I guess if someone would have like 20 more years to live, and immortality is an open opportunity for everyone, then he would have to take it sometime, when he feels that he wants to live more, also the instincts, I guess would drive him to it too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
I know I would take it in the very first second it comes.
Sorry if I offended anyone with this thread. I just wanted to see your opinions.:/
It's really amazing what human race can do! But what if the immortals get bored of thinking eventually? Meh, they'll find a solution before that happens, maybe create a refreshing machine:pQuote:
Originally Posted by Alric
I don't think it will be possible for anyone to get bored. If you did nothing at all but watch tv, you could watch tv forever and never see the same thing twice, since new tv shows are made faster than a person can watch them. So you could watch tv until tv becomes obsolete and no one ever makes a new tv show, and you would still be watching old shows for thousands(possibly millions) of years after they are stop being made. That is just one thing, watching tv. Then you throw in video games, board games, movies, and books and you got an endless amount of things to do, since new ones are always being made. That is just without repeating anything. There are some things, especially games, that you are going to watch/play/read more than once.
Boredom is a momentary state, you get bored because there isn't anything immediately interesting in front of you. People get bored even today, but it is because they don't feel like searching for things to do, not because there is a lack of stuff to do. You might feel lazy and relax and lounge around if your immortal, and you might get bored at times, but there is pretty much an infinite amount of things to do in the world.
That, I like:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Alric
To boot, unless we make huge advancements in human memory as well, you'd eventually forget what happened in the shows or want to watch them again. And you'll have every episode of every season of every show in history. That is, to say the least, a lot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alric
^^ I assume, or at least hope, that you guys are using watching TV as some sort of metaphor, but I for one like to think that if I were to stumble upon immortality I would have the time to develop myself to occupy my eternity with something more than TV shows! ;)
That said, you make a good point, TimeDragon, in that an immortal being would likely develop a memory system which discards old memories to make room for new ones -- especially if immortality doesn't include an upgrade in brain capacity.
Since our identities are based so heavily on our memories, an immortal being would, in a sense, become a new person each time a complete set of old memories are replaced with new ones... making only the body, and not the individual, immortal. I suppose the immortal could lessen the impact of these memory exchanges by holding on to some old memories, but even these would eventual become little more than dusty curios of events otherwise forgotten.
So maybe physical immortality is limited to just the length of time that your brain can retain its original complement of memories. I'm guessing that would still be many centuries, though, so I'd still be game... oh, and I have a feeling I'd never be bored; the number of things to do in this universe is likely infinite.
I voted yes, but the concept of immortality is a bit vague to me. Does it mean that one remains conscious for as long as one wants, or does it mean that it is literally impossible to die, and that you're forced into an infinite existence?
If it's the former, I don't see how anyone could turn that opportunity down, our natural lives are short, while the amount of potential worthwhile experiences is enormous (hopefully not including too much TV ^^).
However, if immortality entails the later, all or nothing situation, I would approach the offer with much more trepidation. It's impossible to know what the consequences of being conscious 'forever' could be. But I don't think it's implausible that insanity is the inevitable outcome.
I like the development part very much. Imagine a human developed to a very high level. Developing infinity! It would be much better with infinite memory.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
We can fix insanity! It's great never dying!Quote:
I voted yes, but the concept of immortality is a bit vague to me. Does it mean that one remains conscious for as long as one wants, or does it mean that it is literally impossible to die, and that you're forced into an infinite existence?
If it's the former, I don't see how anyone could turn that opportunity down, our natural lives are short, while the amount of potential worthwhile experiences is enormous (hopefully not including too much TV ^^).
However, if immortality entails the later, all or nothing situation, I would approach the offer with much more trepidation. It's impossible to know what the consequences of being conscious 'forever' could be. But I don't think it's implausible that insanity is the inevitable outcome.
I think we meant that boredom would be impossible even if our activies were limited to watching TV.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
Atleast one, but we've had this discussion enough times already and you and I still can't see eye to eye.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
Yeah; I hear you. 'Nuff said!
I can't find any aversion to death in me, so I'm pretty sure you're wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
I would definitely turn it down. I don't even understand why people are attracted to the idea. I'm not suggesting they shouldn't be, just that I don't understand it. And no I don't believe in conscious immortality after death, or desire that either, it amounts to the same thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
"Me" has a context. How does it make sense to try to extend that beyond its natural context? I'd be bored after a hundred years and probably psychotic after a few hundred. Other people will live, why do I need to? And there is also a context for people in general living, and it would be unnatural and painful to extend that indefinitely. There are people elsewhere.
The desire to prolong human life indefinitely seems gruesome to me, unnatural, sick. A near-term scientific or medical solution that even extends life for a few hundred years would be a catastrophe for humanity. As we age we get too rigid, stuck in another time, and its not purely a matter of our bodies breaking down, to some extent its inherent in the way our minds developed as we lived and grew. Older people should be concerned with raising the young, not with prolonging their own bodies, zombie-like. Even in a universe where there were no killing and where bodies didn't fail, there would still be a kind of subtle personal death, as a part of the transformation that is essential to freedom from the past. But we're not right for that spiritually, so for us our kind of death is absolutely essential.
I can't agree. If we can prologue life to infinite years, then we can surely heal our bodies and renew them, and surely "refresh" our mental health and psychology. Refresh is just the first term that came to my mind, but you get the point:). Also, refresh it without deleting any info or memories or anything(maybe bad experiences, yaaaaay!)
To live forever, the blessing of a lifetime...the many great friends and relationships you will make...the never ending life progressively getting worse and worse...the death and tragedy you will endure...then...loneliness when everyone you ever loved has passed away.
I would take immortality but be allowed to die when I want...I couldn't bare to see my perfect girl die while I carry on living, I don't want to live if my heart is no longer living.
...Wow, that went deep.
why let them die!? Immortality for all!
Pluss, even if they die, you will recover, but you will never recover death
You raise a marvelous point about everyone living foreverQuote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
You Can recover but I just don't think Id have it in me, I grow very attached to the people I love dearly.
That is normal, I think. I, for one, feel very capable of letting go of people from my life, people that I love(except a very few special individuals, very special to my heart). But, maybe that is because I always had been moving from one school and home to another(like 7 times!), so I got used of letting go of people and friends. I don't have trust issues or issolation issues, on the contrary, I can't spend a day without meeting someone and talking to them about a lot of stuff. Meh, it's about what your used too. I think that it becomes easier with practice:cheeky:Quote:
Originally Posted by jackc45
I think you identify too deeply with an arbitrary set up qualities contained within a membrane known as skin, life is more than this.
IMO, life, conscious, self are products of biological factors, neurons, health. Not soul, or higher self or similar things. I think that is what you meantQuote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
I never mentioned soul. There is a concept of what you are, which is not truly what you are. You are attached to prolonging the false identity because you have no awareness of anything more than that. I understand this, but one does not need to presume a soul to be aware that they are more than what's within their skin.
of course. So, why is immortality bad then? You stay conscious, alive, feeling,... And ,IMO, all these conscious, happiness, feelings are hormones and brain activity, so if immortality is to be achieved, surely they can sustain their well-being, or mental health so to speak. I really don't see where the problem is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
Because it stops the process of evolution, both mentally and biologically.
It also removes the most prolific reason to appreciate life for what it is, which is that it's a temporary phenomenon.
who cares if your never gonna die! I live for pleasure, and I can't have pleasure if I die.
Pleasure is only made noticeable through its counterpart. One seeking pleasure will only shift up and down for all eternity, much like sisyphus rolling his boulder. I live for happiness, and happiness comes from being grateful for what you have and appreciating life for what it is. The fact that I exist in a temporary phenomenon highlights the preciousness of every single thing I am aware of. Everything is regarded as precious and beautiful for it all changes and goes away in the end. This makes for a very beautiful life.
Without death, one is also never forced to come to grips with the fact that they must eventually let go of their material possessions, so they have no reason now to see through the value they place on them. Awareness of death is my single greatest source of happiness. It is the catalyst for all the work I've done toward letting go and dwelling in peace. And believe me, peace beats the shit out of the up and downs and pleasure and pain. Those still exist, but you get to reside about six inches away from them.
May I introduce the idea that we need to die...
Death may not be the end, death as we know it could very well be the beginning.
I think we can fix that. Again, a refreshing machine. Maybe not the right thing, refreshing. Well, whatever happens, I know it is better than the deletion by death( I believe in no life after death)
Why not simply refresh through the birth of a brand new person? Seems like one accomplishes the exact same thing in a much more efficient way. And of course there's no life after death, otherwise it wouldn't be death (hence of counterpart of life). That's what makes life so precious. Rather than running from non-existence, I embrace it and enjoy what I have.
I don't wanna lose myself! who cares about continuity, or life cycle, or whatever. I care about my own personal consciousness, and don't wanna lose it. Accepting death is impossible for me, unless I face it at that moment, then I have no other choice.
I'll give you a hint. Your conscious identity exists to reduce cognitive dissonance. Your perception and reactions to it are bound together merely to enable consistent behavior. You are a colony of cells that followed a strength in numbers strategy. And likewise, the business, community and society in which you participate is also a type of organism, its own awareness working through the perception of the organisms that make it up, its response based on the decisions of organisms places in management positions, just as our individual cells give us awareness and our neurons give us response.
What you are afraid of losing, you only attach yourself to through misunderstanding of what life is. You are not just an individual, you are legion.
Very very meaningful and sense full!
I always tried to comfort myself by saying that death is only the end of my perception, responses, mechanisms of thinking and acting. I will just not be anymore, like I had never been before I was born.
Edit: You seem very educated and sophisticated! That is gonna be very helpful, very! congrats for that!:D
It's an illusion caused by my glib verbosity.
hahaha...ha...ha..........don't know what that means:?Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
I like what Original said. We think that we are something real, when we are simply a collection of atoms combined into a temporary form, no more permanent than a cloud. Our sense of time is proportionate to our lifespan, but to the consciousness of a sequoia or a planet we a a blip on the screen.
It has been determined that just by the law of averages, each human on earth contains 100-150 of the trillions of atoms that once made up the body of Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter if you believe in Jesus, since it is statistics, you can substitute any human from 2,000 years ago or earlier. We are utilizing the atoms that were dispersed from his body after it disintegrated. Logically, we likely also contain atoms from Socrates, Alexander, and everyone else as well.
We are as insignificant as every ant that is also utilizing the same atoms. But there is something interesting we can do with this temporary experience. If a person from an advanced civilization on earth from only 100 years ago were to be on one side of a curtain and be able to ask any question of you with your smartphone on the other side (or wtf, just let Siri answer), he would think that he was talking with a person from an extremely advanced, probably alien intelligence. You would be able to give accurate descriptions of any place on earth as though you were looking at it from the sky. You would be able to answer any question he could pose. He would think what you could do humanly impossible.
That is where we are today just four generations from the man from 1914. We can be the ones who take life that same 100 year distance, but in only 20 years. That is pretty awesome. Who needs eternity?
Don't do it for yourself. Do it for life.
JJ
Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
Note the positive correlation on this site between wanting to live forever and being skeptical of shared dreaming.
Shared dreaming requires relaxing your identification of self with your own person. Do that and you don't care so much about personal immortality. Or vice versa.
my phone is horrible!
Ok, I don't believe in shared dreaming, because we don't have that mechanism in our brain, but a biological body's sustanance is possible
We don't?
Uh oh; here we go again...
You don't believe in shared dreaming because you'd rather post opinions on the internet than find out about the things you're posting about. Maybe its laziness, or you want to keep your mind private.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
Its almost the same as what I said about demons. In jnana yoga, you move your thought of identity. If you use that same kind of movement, you can become someone else a little bit, and allow them to become you a little bit, and share thoughts that way. Saying its not possible because you don't know the mechanism is both arrogant and ignorant. Had you lived before Maxwell, would you have disbelieved in compasses, and declined to look when someone offered to demonstrate one? Here you have to find your own internal compass, but its not hard.
A couple of months ago I argued with someone who suggested that premonitions work through entanglement. Now I think he's right, even if there's more to it than that. It works the same way as shared dreaming, and entanglement is by definition what I'm doing with my identity, at some level. In physics, all particles are entangled with all other particles, no matter how remote, except that most of those interrelationships are out of phase and add almost to zero. Apparently there's some way to intentionally amplify the engtanglement that does not require physical proximity. In any case, its empty talk unless you're willing to try it.
Funny thing, shared dreaming is nothing scientific, it is a myth, a part of early stages of the development of how we look at the world, and we develop for a reason. Why aren't the shared dreaming projects giving any results? We don't know how to do it? We know every part of the human brain, and I assure you there is not transmitters and recievers there. Telepathy? Now that is just a story human created for amusement, or to explain normal dreams or hunches.
I don't think you are right at all. People who are suicidal or living in extreme pain do not want to live, and they sure as hell don't want to live forever. If living forever equated to a happy hunky dory life, then sure people would go for that but it doesn't. I would neverEVER want to live forever, but maybe I am in the minority on this.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
When I was suicidal the major thought that consoled me was that I'd only be alive for a few more moments anyway, surely I can wait it out.
Yeah, that's why I did the poll. Actually, simply being positive is enough to change a whole state of sadness to happiness. It is very simple. In the end, we are simple biological creatures designed to react to specific actions with specific reactions, programmed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chickadee23
Hmmm, sorry for that. Yeah, life is short:(Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
We understand only some generalities and a few specific details about the working of the human brain. Most of it is not understood by anybody. For example, the way the eye and the optic nerve works is pretty well understood, and its known that perception of color involves the visual cortex, but after that its mostly handwaving. What goes on in the visual cortex when a particular color is experienced is not known much beyond vague statements like 'activity'.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
If you think telepathy involves "transmitters and receivers", you haven't been paying attention when people describe how it works, at least not in the beyond-dreaming forum. Its not like sending and receiving a signal, and if you try to do it that way you're unlikely to find anything.
I can't comment much on the success or failure of shared dreaming projects, because I have not participated or read the threads. From what I have seen, I think many of the people pursuing it are partially misunderstanding what dreaming is. I'm speaking from my own understanding and experience of what works. If someone else tries something else that doesn't work, that doesn't say much.
Try it, open yourself to it, find out how it works. Ask questions if you have them. That way, if you're right and the other person is wrong, you'll have actual understanding and experience to go with your assertions, and if they're wrong you'll be able to point out where the fallacies are. Or if they're right, you'll find out something new, so you win either way.
If you don't want to do that, that's perfectly reasonable. But then its not reasonable to continue to spout opinions about things you have no interest in becoming informed about. And its even less reasonable for me to waste my time replying.
Exactly. Our understanding of the brain is very small, and our understanding of the mind is near zero.
Currently, scientists do not even understand how the harmonious movement of a school of fish or flock of birds work, but it's clearly understood that when we learn how it works, we'll have learned something new about both physics and the nature of the mind.
We are just barely creasing the surface of the doorway toward understanding these deeper mysteries. Any presumption at this stage is a hindrance.
Currently, there remains no scientific evidence of shared dreaming. But people are doing it, anyways, just as people have been practicing all sorts of things years and centuries before scientists could grasp how these practices worked. All you can do is choose not the believe the people claiming to participate in shared dreams. I believe in nothing that I hear, too, but I remain open to possibility.
huh. Well, I'd have ti stick with my current opinion, but I will never dismiss it before hearing what the other person has to say.
Ok, thnx for your replies, I appreciate you taking the time to share with me your opinions- and many others' I'm sure :)
All I'm saying is there's no evidence to support your opinion. Just because you don't believe in something doesn't mean you have to believe in its falsity. I have participated in shared dreams and still don't believe in them. Why? Because I only believe in half of what I see...
yes, I am always open-minded to other opinions, and adopt an attitude of "I am a neutral participent, I have no opinion, I will give my part of the arguement are study the OP's arguement, then, like a new student figuring which is more reasonable, go for the opinion or create a hybrid."
Also, I could be wrong, so I don't attach to a certain idea(as much as a human can before he feels extremely insecure ;) )
I would press further into a state of neutrality but I'll just refer to Buddha; only give as much attachment as you're able and if you can't do that, give up the attachment to give up more attachment than you're able. The ego likes having opinions, I suppose.
@Darkmatters and StephL
I think that a more sophisticated religious person would support longevity research. I mean, if someone truly believes that his religion is the truest truth you'd think that he would support such a thing because he "knows" that immorality is unachievable by human beings and if anything this research would better people's lives i.e. be beneficial to humanity which is exactly what most religions preach about.
Considering I believe in pure nothingness after death, immortality is my greatest ambition. Even being locked in a cave for centuries would be vaguely bearable, compared to nothingness (which, by definition, can't be bearable).
How the fuck did you logic that one?
Perhaps I've got an unusual phobia of nothingness and I may be vastly over exaggerating the bearability (surprised its not a word) of that situation, but I'd rather experience anything than nothing. Of course, torture isn't exactly a preferred outcome, but both that and the cave scenario carry an element of hope with them that things could better, especially if we're dealing with a truly infinite lifespan, in which case all non-zero probabilities become one. Nothingness, being an end state (if such a word is applicable), holds no hope with it. It probably comes down to preference. Some (actually, many) would choose cessation of existence, over pure agony for any length of time. I, bizarrely, wouldn't.
Nothingness doesn't carry no hope. It carries neither hope nor nonhope. In fact, it's not even nothingness, it's no thingness. That's why I find preference in its comparison baffling, because it definitively cannot be compared, nor even definitively anything. Trying to define what it is is only to lie about it. Trying to say it's more or less bearable than anything also means you've got a misconception about it, for there are no conceptions at all in its regard.
Can you explain what this means? You'll have to forgive me -- I often have a difficult time understanding these things.Quote:
Originally Posted by shadowofwind
You say that its baffling to prefer one over the other and yet you choice nothingness over immortality, in a previous post. Unless you're defining your own choice as baffling, I can't help but sense a contradiction. I do, however, agree with you that it is nearly impossible to define, which may contribute to my deep seated fear of it. Would "the absence of existence" be a decent definition.
I don't stake enough importance on perpetuating my self, that's all. I choose nothingness so that I may be recycled back into existence and provide space for others to grow and experience as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by splodeymissile
And no, absence of existence is not a proper definition, it's a signpost. It helps to talk about it, but it doesn't define it in that it does not enable one to wrap their head around it.
That's a pretty admirable viewpoint, I think. But it doesn't change the fact that you're, in this scenario, at least, choosing one over the other. I may just be misunderstanding you, but it does still seem like that you have a contradiction in your argument. Don't take that as me entirely dismissing your point, though. Its just odd to me. And I agree with you on its indefinability, which again contributes to how terrifying I consider it to be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
(Every already remains outside your definition of it, anyways. This is only terrifying until it's embraced)
Perhaps you're right. I choose death for no reason relating to death itself, but for the release I gain now from knowing eventually everything that matters to me will cease to matter. All significance I place upon anything has a finite lifespan. This knowledge releases me from all my burden and stress. It gives me peace. So I find life right now more tolerable, not the nothingness that waits at its end.
Isn't having your mind and brain better than having nothing? I also wish for immortality, even if I would spend it in a cave for iternity. Then, I would yell "yes! Lucky me knows LDing!!"Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
Are you asking me this question so we can repeat the exact same conversation I just had with splodey?
Your waking life experience is only a dim, distorted reflection of what's going on in your mind and around you. And what's really going on involves all the weird and undefined elements of death, among other things. So I don't understand how a person would be terrified of death without already being terrified of living. As I experience it, one contains the other.Quote:
Originally Posted by splodeymissile
Consider the experience of an Alzheimer's patient. He's already 95% dead when he dies. What do we expect will happen when he dies that's very remarkable? We're all Alzheimer's patients. And yet, life goes on. What you value does not disappear when you die, because its not fully dependent on you even now. You're like a stone its standing on, and when the stone sinks its still standing on other stones.
That sounds a little bit like choosing despair as an alternative to anxiety. But I guess it makes sense in relation to things that will actually be lost, to the extent that its clear what those thing are.Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
NoQuote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
We have different opinions because we have different beliefs of what will happen after death. So there is nothing to debate, really.
No, because if you're alive someone else won't be. Populations ebb and flow, but in the very long run, on average, every person is replaced with exactly one other person, who is replaced by one other person. Your wish amounts to a wish to deny life to those other people.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
For an immortal, part of rejuvenation would be letting go of what is no longer relevant to make room for what is fresh and new. Is continuity of identity so important? It is like being afraid to fall asleep at night. Yes you go to sleep knowing that you'll be 'you' again the next day. But either suddenly or gradually 'you' have to change anyway, or you will be a caveman or a dinosaur in your world. Avoiding death would be like avoiding sleep by resting semi-redundant parts of your brain at different times. The fixation doesn't actually avoid or accomplish anything.
This is not true. His opinion is based on the belief that death is oblivion, just like yours is. There's nothing to debate because you're just making stuff up.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
Par of my belief is that we are matter only. Not creating new lives doesn't mean we are denying that person a life, because a human is nothing. He is just matter, when build, has those expectation, beliefs, wishes. So, we are really not denying anyone from anything.
Shadowofwind is right. I hold no certainty on oblivion or continuation because my philosophical understanding of death is that when it happens, the result is the same. Everything that occurred in this life will cease to be meaningful. If we continue in some way or another, this life will matter as much as a dream woken from. That is to say, perhaps we learn something from the experience, but other than that it becomes purposeless.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
And, to state for the umpteenth time, I stake absolutely no certainty in life after death. I have experienced death on psychedelic drugs, but that experience is irrelevant because I do not hold out for an afterlife. My view on death remains the same. It is not despair, it is liberation. It reminds me now that I need be burdened by nothing for eventually my burdens will be lifted. I need hold back not an inch of joy that I may possibly touch at this very moment. I have no reason to hold myself back from it, no reason to save from myself any bit of enjoyment I can possibly leech out of this moment. And the power to know this comes from knowledge of oblivion, knowledge of the eventual destruction of my physical form and with it, in your presumptuous and impetuous reasoning, my consciousness; and with it, in my own presumptuous and impetuous reasoning, all its significance. And the two are the same, our views on the afterlife remain philosophically the same. Whether or not such a thing exists, it is irrelevant.
I'm sorry, but this fear is completely unfounded. You cannot experience nothing. Nothing is the lack of an experience. I think what you may be actually fearing is the end of "me". The idea of "Me Me Me, all for ME!" is the source of most of the evil in this world. That's the reason people commonly say that money is the root of all evil. It wouldn't be if money didn't by things for "me".Quote:
Originally Posted by splodeymissile
As for nothingness, or oblivion, I've experienced it before. It's easy to recreate. Just get super drunk, and smoke a bowl of the best bud you can find. If you're anything like I am, you will pass out, and you will not dream of anything (or at least not remember anything when you wake up, which is arguably the same thing). As an analogy for death I think it works, since just before you pass out, the only thing you can think of is how tired you are. You will look toward sleep as a welcome comfort. For those of you that believe in reincarnation, the analogy continues: I've heard birth is a painful experience, but so is waking up with a killer hangover.
And that's precisely why I abhor nothingness: a combination of selfish desire for continuation (which, to an extent, most humans have), a fear of the ultimate unknown and the (perhaps unfounded) belief that no matter how bad things get, they can (and will, if we're dealing with infinities) get better. At any rate, rational or no, my belief and fear of nothing after death, has allowed me to appreciate the value of life much more than before. If it ever came down to a choice between my immortality and the life of another, I like to think that I'd choose to save the one.
No matter how good things get, they will inevitably get worse, too. Either way your life is meaningless, whether it lasts forever or not. Either way all that can matter is now and the happiness you pull from it. Death simply reminds me not to procrastinate celebrating life.
1) A selfish desire: Realize that even if immortality is attainable, it will not be attained in our lifetime. The first step is to find a cure for all cancer. If we live forever, cells will have to replicate indefinitely, the more replications the more copy errors you will have. We are currently using very primitive chemotherapy agents, and their main side effect is that they are all carinogenic. So you may kill the cancer but you will cause more in the long-run. ACCEPT WHAT YOU CANNOT CHANGE. Eat some magic mushrooms, it helped me immensely to realize this fact.
2) Fear of the Ultimate Unknown: You don't know everything about the universe currently, but you seem to be happy to live in it forever. So I guess I don't understand where your argument is here.
3)No matter how bad things get...: Imagine living until the last stages of the universe. Either it expands into nothing, in which case you would freeze to death and if you're immortal, experience the feeling of having all your molecules slowly dissolve into photons and finally to have the photons sizzle out...or the universe collapses and you get to experience the feeling of all matter and energy condensing back into a singularity. Either way it doesn't sound like it gets better for physical beings.
While its certainly unlikely to be attainable in our lifetimes, I don't believe its outright impossible. Perhaps I'm too optimistic. At any rate, I do celebrate life. I merely wish to celebrate it, as much as possible. I do get your second point, but given an infinite amount of time, the universe can be understood. Nothingness itself, might be understood, given enough time, at which point, I may stop fearing it. With regards to point 3, considering the time scale here, whats to stop humanity (or whatever we become) from developing technology to prevent or protect from heat death or outright leaving for a new universe. Almost entirely unlikely, but you've got to have hope. And, personally, the lack of any set meaning in the universe, just gives humanity the excuse to set its own, so, even if I am inevitably going to die, that doesn't make anything I've accomplished, any less valid.
You know what? I think if I managed to live for the many billions of years that span now and the end of this universe, I would probably either be a) mightily embarrassed that I haven't thought of a way to step out of the way of this current collapsing universe, b) a being of such knowledge and power that dying universes are meaningless, or c) a being with the deep wisdom gleaned from billions of years of experience and learning, that that final dissolution would be not only understood but welcomed, and perhaps observed with interest.Quote:
Originally Posted by FoxyGrandma3000
Contrary to the popular depictions on TV (where everyone seems to hate it),immortality does not equal an inability to change, to grow, and to learn not only new things but new ways to exist, and, yes Original Poster, to seek and achieve as yet unimagined levels of happiness and joy. To assume, FoxyGrandma, that you would be the same person -- even physically -- after several billion years is short-sighted at best. We can change dramatically in just our given four-score & ten; why would that changing stop?
I think if I were still around at the end of the universe, I would be mature enough to appreciate the fact that I was around for billions of years, and that was a good thing, and mature enough to understand that, given such a long life, finally sinking back into a singularity (if unavoidable) isn't such a bad end.
We don't even understand any of the things we think we understand. No matter how much data we acquire, certainty is simply not in the realm of human perception. Even if we live forever.Quote:
Originally Posted by splodeymissile
Becoming immortal is one of the last things on my mind. In a single lifespan I can follow my ambitions, raise a family, work at a job I love, improve my art and music and lucid dreaming abilities and even better the world. What more can I do that will be meaningful to me if I lived forever. What purpose would it have?
Also, I don't think being immortal is congruous with the brain we own. Our existence is built around a short enough lifespan. Our memory and our social behavior is dependent on who are in this day. To be immortal, significant changes would have to made to us, to not only allow us to last forever but more importantly be able to cope with it. The moment a human is altered in such a way, would he be part of the same race we are?
^^ I don't know, Dutchraptor, that answer might just be a bit too clear-eyed for these environs! ;)
As long as I'm here:
No, he would not. Would that be a bad thing?Quote:
Originally Posted by dutchraptor
I don't believe life has any purpose, beyond what we set ourselves. So, if an immortal beings considers his existence worthless, he's right. If he thinks its meaningful he's also right. And no, we probably wouldn't be human anymore, but, as Sageous said, would that be a bad thing? Especially considering the large amount of genetic variation we already have amongst the species.
Plus, we evolved through the years.
The purpose of immortality is to enjoy partying for the rest of eternity, to be happy. With time and wisdom we gain, we will conquer each challenge and live forever happy without problem. Get crazy? NO, we can fix that. We will be able to fix any mental and physical problem.
I agree with splodeymissile in what he says. He explained it the way I believe it.
Death? Eternal Happiness and Pleasure?
Which one would you like?
OP say they like enjoying life bcz they know it will end. Joy is not caused by the knowledge of death, or is not Increased.
Feel joy for eternity, that is completely possible. You can be happy even after a billion years, I assure you. You will still produce those hormones.
Yes, life has no meaning. There is no bigger cause. The confusion we are in is created by the self-awareness and intelegence we evolved to have. Examples of these confusions are: Why do we exist? How did we exist? What created us?
We are smart to see those things, but maybe they are false(we created such definitions for existance that bring up these questions), or we need more intelegence to answer them if they are true(do exist).
I couldn't tell you. It seems to me that it is both in our nature to strive for improvement and to retain what makes us who we are.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
What you say about life being meaningless is exactly what turns me from immortality. I live my life now because I happened to find myself here, ending my life would be just as meaningless as continuing it. I choose to continue my life because my body tells me to, unfortunately as highly as we think that we can rational think of the world, a large number of our decisions are still dominated by our instinct.Quote:
Originally Posted by splodeymissile
My reasoning is similar in the case of immortality. Whatever happens both cases are equally meaningless, but my natural state is to live a short life. As far as I'm concerned, why put extra work into something that is unnecessary.
Very good point, Dutchraptor.
It is in our instincts to live, but since when we die we lose our instincts, there is no reason to want immortality. Living is just an instinct. So, it is life that makes us want to live it, and when we leave it, we lose that desire(other than the fact that we lose conscious also). Hope I made sense
I suppose its just a difference in ideologies, then, Dutchraptor. I'm an anti-nihilist, you seem to be a nihilist. I doubt we'll find any way (or reason, for that matter) to change each others' perspectives, but as long as we at least understand the others' views.
Louai, I don't see how our wants coming from instincts makes them meaningless. It it the loss of life (and, as you say, consciousness), that makes me fear death. Perhaps, if I could find proof of an afterlife, I'd be fine with a finite lifespan.
Here's the thing, when you die, you lose fear, you lose feelings. It is like an eternal sleep. It is not scary, but like an eternal shutdown. Do you remember anything before being born? It is like that.
Don't get me wrong, I prefer eternal life over oblivion, but I just want to make the OP clear.
Death is the end, but we lose consciousness, so it is like we never existed. Death is experiencing nothing, so it is not scary.
When we are shut down, what does that mean? Not being conscious means what? Not existing means what? We will not have self awareness, no feelings, no self at all. This is why the OP says death isn't bad, cuz it is experiencing nothing, which also means losing our awareness that makes us want to live, so nothing would be even wanted then.
I do understand the point, I just disagree with it. Its like lucid dreaming. We enjoy it, so we try to have it as much as possible. I feel the same about life and existing; I enjoy life, I want more of it. I can't (by sheer definition) enjoy nothingness so it is to be ignored or (since it prohibits me from enjoying life) outright avoided. And just because you can't feel fear at the time, doesn't make the concept any less scary for me.
Once again its a simple difference of ideologies, I see nothingness as bad, some don't.
Stress is reduced by knowledge of death, but really stress is reduced by knowledge that all factors creating stress are temporary and meaningless. You don't necessarily need death to find that. I mean, change itself creates the same realization of how precious the present moment is. Nothing lasts forever so enjoy your experiences while you have them. Take nothing for granted. If you can do that and still cling to immortality, fine. I don't care for immortality because, and I'm just as selfish as the next guy.
Why is immortality selfishness?
You yourself called it selfish.
Oh sryQuote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
I'm actually a nihilist, and I do kinda share the "I only live because my body wants to" mindset of dutchraptor, but that's really because I'm currently trapped in the depressing, monotonous, gruelling hell that is my junior year of high school.
Louai, O.P.:
Well, at least we can all agree that immortality is selfish! Uh-oh, I feel a "but" coming...
But is that a bad thing, really? Yes, extending your own life indefinitely is a uniquely selfish action, though it may only reflect the natural selfishness already wired into us -- that, and our survival instinct, which is mostly selfish, but at least has the "greater good" in mind because your survival, in normal life-span terms, does serve to help continue your DNA line. But, couldn't that selfish act be offset by the good a being able to accumulate centuries or millennia of wisdom sharing that wisdom with the ephemeral masses? Lots of selfish people do good deeds, albeit sometimes just to admire themselves doing so (but the deeds are still done); can't immortal people do the same, only on a much grander scale?
If immortals remain a decided minority and mange to find a (humble) place in society, I think they might be able to add good things the world, regardless of their selfishness. Of course, the odds of them remaining in our society, much less doing so humbly, are likely pretty slim, so this opinion is pretty much moot (but so, for now anyway, is this thread, I guess).
Oh, I adore this kind of threads and I absolutely love OP's responses.
Anyway, I'll give you my view by posting something I posted a little time ago on a different forum
Here we go:
"Life: (self) consciousness.
Death: Absence of (self) consciousness.
Now, we cannot know for sure what happens after we die, but on a logical level only two things can happen: either our consciousness survives (afterlife, multiverses etc.) or it does not.
In the first case there is nothing to worry about since only our body would die, but our consciousness would survive anyway and we are "alive" because we are "(self) conscious"
The alternative is that, once we are "dead", we are no more conscious. But can we be conscious of being unconscious? For example, were you conscious of being unconscious before you were born? Of course not! It would be like saying that I feel sad because my GF cheated on me and I don't know that she cheated on me. Absurd! In fact, if it wasn't for your parents and the people around you telling you were born, you could very easily say that you were never born, because everything you've experienced is life, non-life cannot be experienced.
Since it is impossible for us being conscious of being unconscious, we are subjectively immortal."
Wisdom is not created alone through time. In fact, the inevitability of death and ignorance of what lies beyond it are powerful conditions for creating wisdom. One can live 500 years and not gain the same wisdom one would gain through 5 years dealing with cancer. Even if you live a million years, without the proper conditions present you'll still never gain the proper lessons. Not unless you simulated them, perhaps by creating virtual reality and wiping your mind of any prior knowledge to your experiences within it in order to simulate the experience of mortality. And how do you know that's not, essentially, what this is in the first place?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
Risk and emotional turbulence are catalysts for wisdom. One must be tested, meaning one must take risks. There are hidden advantages in any disadvantage, but not everyone will succeed, otherwise you couldn't really call them risks.
I like the above posts, alot, all of them, and agreed! But I have a thing to state(you won't like it):
I don't think being immortal and not giving life to newborns is selfish. I don't think we are souls. No brain created means no harm done. After all, it is our instinct which makes us want to live, and no brain equals no instinct. Also, if you agree that death is not bad cuz everything we want and need will just be terminated(I think that, cuz I believe in no life after death), thus removing any bad factor, then you must agree that not giving a life is not bad because there is no aspiration(right word?) to start with in the first place. Immortality still sounds nice(it has too, it's in our instincts to want to survive), and it still is what I wish for, even though I no longer see a benefit from it.
Hmmmmm, I guess I kinda joined the OP now?
Yes, wisdom is not created by time alone -- just as it is not created by "the inevitability of death and ignorance of what lies beyond" alone. Yes, those are powerful conditions for creating wisdom, but must they be the only ones?Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
Really? And you know this how? To me, the assumption that we cannot improve our minds over vast stretches of times seems short-sighted at best, and a sort of wishful thinking at worst... I just noticed the tone of that bit, O.P.; please ignore it -- I wasn't being sarcastic, just brief, and am writing before my coffee.Quote:
One can live 500 years and not gain the same wisdom one would gain through 5 years dealing with cancer. Even if you live a million years, without the proper conditions present you'll still never gain the proper lessons.
This seems like a plan that sort of makes being immortal moot. Perhaps the experience of immortality -- the knowledge that you can slowly, carefully, and thoroughly learn and experience so much more than you're permitted to do in a human life-span -- might trump the experience of mortality?Quote:
Not unless you simulated them, perhaps by creating virtual reality and wiping your mind of any prior knowledge to your experiences within it in order to simulate the experience of mortality.
I don't... and be assured that the stuff I say in this conversation is not the only thing I include when considering my own existence... indeed, it's pretty much at the back of the line of my metaphysical musings. I'm here because it's fun to discuss this stuff, not because it's of any particular importance.Quote:
And how do you know that's not, essentially, what this is in the first place?
Agreed. But again, there are other catalysts for wisdom. And besides, who says an immortal can't take risks?Quote:
Risk and emotional turbulence are catalysts for wisdom. One must be tested, meaning one must take risks. There are hidden advantages in any disadvantage, but not everyone will succeed, otherwise you couldn't really call them risks.
Hmmmm... I assure you wisdome is created by much more factors than fear and suffering. Love, happiness, joy, extacy, jeliousy, etc. All create experiences that bring wisdome with them. Philosophy is the most effective tool, especially for the deep wisdome, bcz it does revolve around knowledge and understanding about many deep elements of life. Really suffering is great for wisdom, but not the only great one(I personally love philosophy)
Forgive me if I came off simplistic. By not living for eons, we also miss out on that experience and thus that type of wisdom. Wisdom is experiential learning, each unique experience brings its own wisdom. It's not a simple quantity, you cannot simply have more of it than another person, for they gained the wisdom of their unique experience and you gained the wisdom of yours.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
So where does wisdom of death help? Of existence? Being immortal will help us be even more wise about death while we wittness whole planets die and we stay alive, learning.Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
Yeah, I've gotta go with Louai here. Surely the more you have lived the more wisdom you can accumulate. And I'm pretty sure you can have more wisdom than another person. A man who has lived for a century, assuming his mind is still sound, is wiser than an infant who died not long after childbirth.
You do not accumulate wisdom without experience. You do not accumulate certain, specific wisdom without certain, specific experience. You gain a certain type of a wisdom from being a boy and a certain type of wisdom from being a girl. You gain a certain type of wisdom from owning up to death and facing it and living with it, while you could gain a lot of different certain types of wisdom from never having to die. Humans in LOTR live with a different wisdom than an elf, but an elf gains a lot more different experiences and different wisdom. However, you cannot make the claim that more time creates better wisdom than less time for the same reason that you couldn't claim the wisdom of being a boy would be better than the wisdom of being a girl.
The meditation on Death is 27 steps according to the wikihow I just looked up. Previous ones I've practiced did not number the steps and the steps seemed to go a different fashion than this particular one but the main premise remains the same. We spend a lot of time running from and distracting ourselves from death, and taking time to be present with death can have a profound experience, especially if you live a life as short as ours. I could go on to list all the advantages of this wisdom (you have no reason to escape the present, you are driven to accumulate as much joy and experience as you can without procrastinating things, etc) but I challenge you to discover them for yourselves. Indeed, otherwise you could simply argue the potential for all those advantages exist in theory, in an immortal life as well. But only by actually being present with death can you really know the difference it can make in your own attitude.
To anticipate the final retort, I'm sure it'll be argued that on an infinite timeline, we can always simulate a change in gender or a life where we die without any knowledge of what happens after. Indeed, we can simulate every experience to gain every piece of wisdom. And in response I would challenge: how do you know that's not what we're doing now? What better a way to simulate the grand wisdom of death than by removing and even forbidding by the nature of the program all types of hard evidence of an after-life? So every day every single person has within them the knowledge that they simply do not know, no matter how badly they attempt to ignore it? I am not pressing that possibility any further than possibility, but I am willing accept the experiences this life has given me which are those of a mortal boy. Even if when I'm 45 aging is stopped and the possibility for natural death disappears I'd still assume unnatural death is inevitable on an infinite timeline and attempt to remember the wisdom I gained from my time spent with the knowledge of such a short life.
^^ Well said, but I'm not sure you're allowing for the scale of immortality (though you did sort of mention it). The range of potential experience available to an "immortal" would certainly outpace any range we can encounter in 80 yrs, even if you include some sort of hard-wiring of an understanding of as-yet unexperiencd experience. A person living for centuries or millennia will have enough time to explore places, lifestyles, and undiscovered countries that surpass anything that could be experienced in one lifetime. I would imagine that an immortal could become quite wise without ever even considering the wisdom gained from the mortal human condition; I could easily imagine that an immortal would never get around to simulating ephemeral human conditions, as there would be more than enough to learn without that input.
There is simply too much to be learned in this universe to say that it all can be learned in one lifetime... and fear of death may be a driver for wisdom, but it is not the only one (did I already say that?). The wisdom potential of immortality simply surpasses that of a normal lifetime, and this is because wisdom itself would surpass the dictates of a normal lifetime, regardless of the presence or absence of death... there is just too much to pay attention to in this world!
Keep in mind that I am not saying that immortality equals wisdom, as I'm sure that there would be plenty of immortal idiots who manage to live for millennia without gaining an iota of wisdom... I'm speaking of potentials here.
I feel like I'm either repeating myself or rambling, so I'll stop.
I speak of potentials, too, obviously. Most people live their entire lives without ever being aware that such a meditation exists that I linked to in my post above, let alone actually reading it, and far from practicing it.
The only point I can really make against your position is that we are discussing theory, and it takes experience to know. So I can theorize all I want to that being immortal will not produce death wisdom (or that perhaps it does through simulation and we're already immortals experiencing that simulation right now) but you're admitting you cannot even fathom the type of wisdom that can be gained through immortality, and continue to theorize that surely because you have more time to experience more stuff, that means the wisdom of immortality will not just be different but superior, because there's more of it.
And my response remains the same, if you only know immortality and cannot even take advantage of the potential of the meditation on death I linked to, then you cannot know that experience and therefore cannot compare its wisdom to your other experiences. Experience can't really be measured in value. For example, a wealthy white person in this society has more opportunity to see different places and do different things and explore a much wider range of experience than a destitute black person, but there's this whole scientific theory developing on the hidden advantages of disadvantage which you can learn more about here: Malcolm Gladwell: The unheard story of David and Goliath | Video on TED.com
What this conveys to me is that what one would theorize as an obvious advantage does not always prove true in experience. Since we're talking about timelines, one could look at Middle Earth which compares races that live massive differences of time. Now I know this is also just theory, but it coincides with my particular theory on what we'd see. If one were to compare the societies of ents and men, for example, the ents are not obviously superior even though they live so much friggin' longer. What they care about at that point in time differs greatly to what men still care about, men always acting so young and naive to them, and ents individually appearing much wiser. However, society itself contains a morphic resonance which is much wiser than any individual. This is known as an ethos and it outlives you, so to compare the value of long lives and short lives I would prefer to compare the ethos of each society rather than the wisdom of the individuals. The ethos of a society of short lived creatures is much more adaptable in LOTR, and the kingdom of men rules just as strongly as any particular kingdom of elves. They're also arguably much more driven to leave their mark on the world, which isn't necessarily a superior quality. They're also typically run by a bunch of fucking idiots but again this is all just theory and Tolkien didn't really try to show which races were superior, only to show how the length of your life affects your personality and society. And now I'm the one rambling.
^^ Well said again, and I see your point. I don't, of course, agree, but I see it. Any more said will just be reptitition, I fear, so, until next time!
This boils to one thing:
_Why does an immortal need wisdom of death?
_Is wisdom a mean of knowledge association? Do only we experience wisdom, only intelligent creatures? Is self awareness needs for wisdom, or is it needed only for death wisdom?
Wisdom is what we conclude. Wisdom is knowledge. A man can read a war book, and gain wisdom about war, pain and suffering. You might say he needs to be there to see the real stuff, but that just depends on empathy/sympathy and the book's credibility.
If you have a body that doesn't age, you still need to keep it from being killed. Only a limited number of people can be immortal, due to limited resources. Since they don't die, at some point you have to use force to stop new mortals from becoming immortal. Or you have to stop mortals from creating more mortals. And you have to compete with mortals for food. Wars, famines, and other disasters come and go. Or else long periods of authoritarian order that suppress the wars and famines, and that power becomes corrupt, in cycles. Eventually you have to commit atrocities to get through it all. You may not have an ethical problem with that, but it requires that you keep your conscience and empathy in a stunted state, to be able to live with yourself. And that mostly precludes attaining wisdom.
The only other alternative is to solve the problem of evil so that you can have both your heart and your immortality. But if that problem even has a solution, its not going to be attained in the pursuit of technological immortality. Find a solution and you already have conscious immortality as a side effect.
Wisdom is what you learn from experience. A book gives you theory, not experience. There is a profound difference between wisdom and knowledge. You can have knowledge of death, but you have no wisdom of it because (in theory, since I don't have the experience of being you) you've never been present with it. Radical changes happen to people that have brushes with death that would not happen anyways. But you don't need to have a near death experience to see this, you can practice a meditation and be present with death, as well. Then you can gain the wisdom to understand the profundity of the advantage in all its aspects. Only then, otherwise you don't know.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
Hmmm... OK, sounds interesting.
Death meditation? Makes me real...dead, in a way?
I've been noticing that the poll, which started out deeply in favor of immortality, seems to be headed for a tie. Yes, 18 DV lurkers does not a survey make, but you do seem to have made an impact, O.P.!
Perhaps I've missed something obvious, but how do we know death meditation is remotely close to actual death? Especially if death meditation leads to a simulation of nothingness, when the reality (which we can't actually prove) is that there is an afterlife.
Death meditation makes one present of the temporary sensation of life. It allows you to account for everything that is not oblivion and see it is fleeting and precious.
You can't imagine oblivion, but you can paint around it by discovering everything that it is not. What you have left over is still a sensation of peace, but the meditation is not really about being comfortable with the sensation of being dead, it's about being comfortable with the sensation of the temporary phenomenon of life.
The way I was originally taught, you imagine your body rotting, maggots and all. The link doesn't go so gruesome, and takes special measure to tell you not to be distracted by your initial depressing reaction to death. I no longer find death a depressing topic, personally, buuut I suppose I can see how one would.
I suppose the fact that it is fleeting and precious is one of the reasons why I would seek to prolong it. As I said in another topic, I believe that life is a rare and, in the majority of cases, a very precious and beautiful thing, to say nothing of sapience and sentience. As such, both life in its entirety and individual instances should exist for as long as possible, if not indefinite.
Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not about to dive into a bomb shelter, whilst wrapped in cotton wool at the drop of a hat. And I would even give my life if I believed the cause was good enough. If its more associated with the temporary sensation of life, shouldn't it really be called mortality meditation? Makes more sense to me, anyways. Either way, I already appreciate life as is, and, while the temporary nature may make me appreciate it more than I would otherwise, I'm still not entirely comfortable with oblivion and I doubt meditation, however accurate or not to the real sensation (not an entirely accurate descriptor, but bear with me), is going to do much to change that.
You are attempting to grasp the concept free from the experience, I will not give you the satisfaction. If you want to understand it, practice it.
Well I am really not a religious person but I don't desire immortality. I`m kind of afraid of it, i think that it could bring a lot of problems. Let`s say that you can achieve it: nobody is going to die anymore--> overpopulation--->increase in food, water, wood, coal, oil and all other ressources demand----> in a few years earth is going to be dryed of ressources--> fight between nations for the remaning ressources---> huge wars---->nations destroiyng eachother---> the number of humans would decrease a LOT---> people doing some really bad stuff to survive---> lack of what makes us ''humans''. This is my opinion about it. And if this does not happen, the human mind its not designed to remember more then 1 century information, so if you would live for 1000 years if you don't ''note'' your identity you`ll forget who you are. Maybe others don't think like so but this is how I see things.. And by the way I`m not a religious person, I`m the kind of guy who combine the religion with science (Like thinking that God created the universe trough big bang) so this would make me a religious person, but its a difference: I don't believe in prayers, in going to church, in heaven or hell and all that things....
A valid point and I agree with you, though we might find ways to remedy those problems over the years (hopefully, before it got really out of hand). I think the question was more asking for personal immortality, so, just you.
Who's to say we'll be stuck on Earth forever? And it's not like we won't still die from disease, etc.
Yeah me too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
Well, death makes my awareness disappear, so there is no fear or anything at all when dying. This means it is not scary, but I still feel the want to live forever this joy that I have now.
Well, honestly, I think the thread reached to it's conclusion, right?
I actually deeply fear immortality. I am terrified of being forced to live forever.
(On that note, I fear the idea of a life after this one as well. The lack of freedom to become nothing is rather nerve wracking.)
No one said you would be forced to live.Quote:
Originally Posted by Soulless
Generally, immortality means you couldn't kill yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by TimeDragon97
The immortality we're talking about only encompasses not dying of old age. Things like starvation, disease, and injury could still kill you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Soulless
I was thinking of something else.
We don't know what happens after we die, but it's possible that there is a continuation and that we're here for a purpose, and that purpose is temporary. Worse comes to worse, I face Oblivion which is just oblivion, but potentially I could face something else entirely, I could wake from this dream to something I can't even imagine. I don't really want to remove that potential just because I don't have any certainty of it.
How do you know what criteria exist to determine a continuation. Perhaps only those who strived for immortality may join the gods, or perhaps those who were nice to others get sent to oblivion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
As far as you know, there is potential that anything may happen, and you can't predict it.
In fact could be that you are removing your potential for continuation just by having posted that.
Indeed it could, it could also be that what comes after I die is, in fact, a very preferable change from this current existence. Maybe it's easier, the Tibetan Book of the Dead claims being human is the most difficult (and spiritually rewarding) type of incarnation. While I acknowledge the preciousness of such an existence, it might be tremendously relieving to move on to lighter modes of travel.
Again though, it's a personal type of preference. Maybe you'd choose not to give death the benefit of the doubt and instead say since you can't know what happens, best just live forever.
Well the point of my post was that I give neither the benefit of the doubt.Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
No form of reasoning can discern the reality behind the situation logically. Whether I should live or die and the consequences therein are undefined and will remain so as long as I do not have the meaning of life.
I currently choose to live out my natural life and then die, purely because I do. I want that because to me it feels natural, but how that feeling originated or whether it is the right thing to do I cannot know.
In a way there is a beauty in this situation in that, no decision can be faulted or praised.
I do not necessarily grant death the benefit of the doubt, I play with possibility.
I almost feel like you're taking basic absurdism and transforming it into a nihilistic approach. Almost, it's not quite hard headed nihilism of course. An incapability of knowing does not remove the fruit of the search for knowledge, and a lack of objective meaning does not devalue subjective meaning, inherently. The concept of meaning is not irrelevant simply because it is untouchable.
It's a funny thing we do as existentialists. We advocate in concept that we grasp no essence and merely play a part for a purpose beyond the reasoning of the part we play. But as long as we play, we may as well play it out, our reasoning suggests. Experientially, of course, we instill essence into everything and even if logically we know the essence is granted subjectively, it's only in very brief moments of confrontation with the absurd that we ever truly act like it.
Really, the information, or lack thereof, exists and causes us to choose. The choice you make may simply be acceptance of your nature, but if so and immortality became a possibility would it be your nature to make that choice? And if not wouldn't you be advocating the authentic wild course of natural selection over the directional pivot of civilized man? We accept that man has made all sorts of technology we utilize and it's as natural as a crow dropping nuts from a traffic light. But in some instances we choose to steer away from the potential technology gives us, for example where it's risky or ultimately detrimental. We don't know the outcome, whether we pursue or steer clear of particular technological potential. We make choices based on data and predictions.
You may need to make the choice whether to die, for all you know. This choice has to be based on some amount of data, or lack thereof. Advocates of immortality say there's not enough information to prove an afterlife so they may as well just keep going. I also agree, but I think there's not enough data to prove most things, and though when I was 13 I decided that I should act as though god and the afterlife don't exist since I can't know for sure, I've since moved on from that position. Part of the reason I moved on is because I've compiled such a tremendous amount of data about different cultures' beliefs on the afterlife and it's moved me into a position of more confidence. But what's really helped is ascertaining the nature of consciousness and understanding I can ultimately be free of my identity and the irrational compulsion to continue it. Granted, I can't make the choice to die unless I were in tremendous pain or something. I've very briefly (both in death meditation and DMT) hit that ineffable and insightful feeling I'm trying to promote its examination but if I lived in a world where the only way I had any certainty I would die is if I chose to do so, I don't know. I mean, essentially one also caresses the unknown which, with death, sits at our shoulder at all times anyways, but it's an easy poltergeist to distract yourself from, especially if you have no certain knowledge of its inevitable visitation.