Death: The High Cost Of Living

[Vraith]

Personally I would embrace any opportunity that did arise to perpetuate my own existence, but I do not believe there is much likelihood of such a thing happening in my lifetime. I'm not going to let something that cannot be changed bother me much, though.

There's a thread where we talked about this stuff that was interesting while it lasted [i'm too lazy to search for it].
I would also take that opportunity. But I think it is possible, though highly unlikely in my lifetime...but if you're 30 or under better than 50/50 in yours...for both of two options to occur: complete digital copies [though I would argue that "you" still die...and there are lots of side issues of identity and copies].
The other is kinda like the "Cymeks" or whatever they were called in the Dune prequels. Human brain, tech body. We are already very very close to brain-controlled tech [we even have it in an inelegant/incomplete/primitive/limited way]...and we now know a bit about stem cells, and that the brain DOES grow new neurons, which only a decade or a little more ago they thought wasn't true. Those 2 together make a potentially constantly changing/growing/learning/expanding mind.

[I'm Murrin]

Yeah, that's the problem with computer uploading. I'd not be moving into the machine, just making a copy. But you could also view it from the perspective that the copy is identical to you and will appreciate you having done it.

The only option, really, is some way of transition from man to machine, in the manner you mention, or a method for extending biological life indefinately. I wouldn't rule the latter out as impossible, through gene therapies or the like.

[aliantha]

I picked "inevitable" for the reasons others have said. I tended toward "nothing to worry about," because I'm not worried about it -- but clearly other people are.

And yeah, I'm not anxious to push the process along.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

The only option, really, is some way of transition from man to machine, in the manner you mention, or a method for extending biological life indefinately. I wouldn't rule the latter out as impossible, through gene therapies or the like.

I will have to search to find the article where some researchers were able to slow--possibly even reverse--the aging process in some lab mice with telomerase treatments.

What, you may ask, is telomerase? Facts about telemorase from UT Southwestern.

[sgt.null]

i have decided to not die. i'd rather close up shop whenever this world ends.

[Avatar]

Yeah, if given the choice, I'd want to live forever, no doubt. As it is, I'm going to die trying.

There's no way around it. It's an inevitable consequence of living. I'm not thrilled by the idea, but there's nothing to be done about it. We're born, we live, we die. It would get pretty crowded if we didn't.

--A

[Orlion]

I like to think I've died several times all ready. I'm a different person from what I was as a five-year-old. Hell, I've change the make up of my identity withing the past few months. Identity isn't constant, death could be viewed as a continuation of this change.

I also like to think that this Earth will eventually be engulfed by the Sun, and all evidence of our existence will be gone and any outside observer will never know anything about us. In the long term, we don't exist.

I like to sometimes go further and consider the "heat-death" scenario of the universe, when it will cease to exist....meaning in the grand scheme of things, nothing exists.

I then like to consider a higher dimensional plane, where time is an axis along with three-dimensional space and each moment is a stationary point in this space and the beginning and ending of the universe are merely boundary conditions, and every moment of all times and spaces exist eternally on this level.

Then I laugh at the awesomeness of existing eternally and never existing at all.

[Fist and Faith]

I like to think that...


Damn, I forgot what it was! But I'm sure it was cool!

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I like to think I've died several times all ready.

You would make a good samurai, especially if you already think of yourself as dead.

[Orlion]

I like to think I've died several times all ready.

You would make a good samurai, especially if you already think of yourself as dead.

Dead, immortal, and about to fall off the precipice towards oblivion or eternity

[lucimay]

i voted "inevitable" because...even tho intellectually i know there is "nothing to worry about", i am a worry wart. i can't help worrying
so there is no use to tell me not to, or for me to try and tell myself
not to. i'm going to worry over it. death, that is.
the good news is that my worry list is so long that this worry is
fairly near the bottom of the list, right beneath worrying about
toenail fungus. (just to give you an idea of the extent of my
worry-wartism, i started worrying about menopause when i was
30!! )

i have tried on many philosophical hats in my 52+ years (53 in august)
was raised christian (don't ask what flavor protestant cause i've never
been able to figure out, somewhere between disciples of christ and southern baptist
if i had to guage) so i have all that stuff in my head (and some vestiges of it left in my heart as well),
looked into buddhism (several different flavors of that - dad became a buddhist in his later years before his death),
and have read or marginally looked into a lot of different ideas about death. mostly because i am curious. partly
because, when i set out for an inevitable destination (say the Safeway or
the Walgreens or whatever) i like to know which bus to ride to get me there.

the only idea that has really stuck with me is one that occurred to me a
long time ago...when i was around 23 or 24.
that we are made up of a lot of stuff, water, blood, tissue, bone, and energy.
and i learned that the first law of thermodynamics is that energy cannot
be created or destroyed, it can only change forms.

this, of all the philosophies and theories i've come in contact with or heard about or learned about,
is the only one, nearly 53 years down the road, that still rings true to me.
it keeps me from worrying overmuch.

i'd like to believe that i will continue on, in some way. i'd like to live at least 800 years.
(not forever cause that's too long. 800 years seems a
good round number) i still have a lot of questions about the nature of
conciousness but i no longer worry about pleasing some god or other.
i no longer wonder if every thought or act i have or do is going to have
some horrible repercussions down the road. i try not to worry about
judgements because that is based in fear. i try not to be fearful because
that's no way to live.
i try to be a good person according to the things i've learned from
all the sources i've had contact with (whether it be christianity, buddhism,
science fiction, philosophy, the consultation of "oracles", or from just
watching my fellow human beings navigate their own lives.)
i have faith that in the end, i will find the answers to the questions i still
have, and if not, if there are no answers forthcoming, i try to be okay
with even that.
and i try,
hard as i can,
not
to
worry.

[Avatar]

Don't worry about it.

--A

[Loredoctor]

and we now know a bit about stem cells, and that the brain DOES grow new neurons, which only a decade or a little more ago they thought wasn't true.

Yes, I just read an article yesterday regarding the dendate gyrus and depression; it turns out that neurons being generated might be a protective factor against depression.

[rusmeister]

I couldn't answer the poll because no answer really gives any context for my answer - which is not mine, anyway. But as I said, it is something that occurs in nature - NOW - and so is "natural" and "normal", but on the other hand, is not what we were created for, but is a consequence of the Fall, and so in terms of design and Creatorial intent is neither natural nor normal.

I think the answers become interesting when a person answers them in the context of being able to see it as coming RIGHT NOW, or even already having happened (like Scrooge seeing - really seeing - his own grave). For me, seeing someone else in their coffin and getting that that is me, or might as well be, has the same effect.
But as long as a person sees it as far off and thinks in terms of continuing to live in this world, as opposed to grasping the fact of one's own death, I think it possible (note: possible, not certain) to evade serious grappling with that fact, that moment when everything that I have worked toward and become ceases to be - at least from a material standpoint.

[Avatar]

I was pretty sure you've claimed it's wrong in the past?

--A

[rusmeister]

I was pretty sure you've claimed it's wrong in the past?

--A

Well, I meant it's wrong in the sense I briefly described above - and I have since seen that people can and do take words like "unnatural" and "abnormal" wrongly. So the simplistic answers would simply be misleading.

Like I said, I think there are people who really grasp "Wow - this is really going to happen to me" - who can look at their hand and see more than just the momentary flesh on the skeletal form - and there are people who can't - who live pretty much only in the "now", and think of the contemplation of death as simply "morbid" - as if that was all I did day and night, was to moan about death - and this was the reaction of some to the monk's prayer on the other thread - "redolent with fear", one said, which I think was an imposing of particular and incorrect/incomplete misunderstandings onto what that monk really saw/thought.

But I do live my whole life in view of it, not ignoring it or acting as if it doesn't matter or that there is no point thinking about it because it is inevitable, having a worldview that makes sense of it - that makes meaning where otherwise there really is meaninglessness (for the person whose vision stretches into the future and the past).

[lorin]

i have decided to not die.

I get that. In my mind I think "yeah, it happens, but surely it won't happen to meeeee........I keep trying to find an escape clause.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Av, you didn't have a category for "all of the above," so I just chose "inevitable."

Also tnx for the Portal2 spoilers, Murrin. I'm never gonna play that game, but find it kinda fascinating. (and I find the credits, which I watched in a YouTube video, HILARIOUS.)

Personally I would embrace any opportunity that did arise to perpetuate my own existence, but I do not believe there is much likelihood of such a thing happening in my lifetime. I'm not going to let something that cannot be changed bother me much, though.

I am not very informed, but I think that in the old tales, there is always a cost... usually a dark cost. (Since we have invoked the name of Gaiman on this thread, I'll ask.. have you read or watched his "Starlight"? I'm sure that's Gaiman at his most lighthearted.) I don't want to go too far down that road, but... I think the ancients intuitively knew something about this.

[Portal2 creepy voice]But maybe now if we work together... we can come up with something better... for SCIENCE. [/Portal2 creepy voice] (irony intended)

I think.. in other fashions, our existences WILL be perpetuated - for good or for ill. Right now I'm just desperate to spend my few short days on this earth BECOMING more and more something whose existence is worth perpetuating. I think this type of focus - when I truly have it - makes life very exciting.