We may not die

[Keith&Co.]

I can't believe this thread is being debated this way.

I will simplify then quantify it. The only known medium for good is life; therefor, it is good to live. It is not good to be dead. And since more people are not suicidal most of the time, I think it's safe to assume that the good in life outweighs the bad. There is net good so far.

Ever heard of the Struldbruggs of Gulliver's Travels?
I imagine Blackadder's opinion:

BLACKADDER NARRATES: With some time left before our ship left port, we arranged a visit to the nearby island of Luggnagg, which was reputed to have some unique attraction in members of their population.

(Three extremely weathered old salts sit at an outside table, drinking. BLACKADDER and BALDRICK walk up to them.)

BLACKADDER: Excuse me, gentlemen, I'm trying to find some unique attraction your population is supposed to have? Something of interest to travelers?

saltiestPERCY: I believe you might be referring to the Struldbruggs.

BLACKADDER: And what are the Struldbruggs?

saltiestELIZABETH: Immortals.

BLACKADDER: Really? 'Never to be forgotten' immortals, or 'not fearing death' immortals, or actual 'live forever or die trying' immortals?

saltiestGEORGE: The last, as it happens.

BLACKADDER: Interesting. And how is this achieved? Potions? Elixirs? A steady regimen of healthful activities while avoiding the draining rigors of bathing, washing or fresh air?

saltiestPERCY: No. By some strange chance, some of our children are born with a red dot on their forehead, and they live normallly except for the fact that they never die.

BLACKADDER: 'Live normally?' I see. Come along, Baldrick, we're going back. (they start walking along the street back to the barque)

BALDRICK: But sir, we haven't seen the straddlebugs.

BLACKADDER: And what on Earth makes you think you'd want to?

BALDRICK: Oh, just think about it, sir, about what immortals might tell us.

BLACKADDER: Yes, their 'things were better then' stories would rival the Book of Genesis for outrageously tall tales.

BALDRICK: But their observations of the human condition would stretch across generations.

BLACKADDER: So did Grandmother MacAdder's, and all she ever talked about was how much her corns hurt in 1703, how hard her knee was wrenched in 1697 and just how many times she fell down the stairs in 1692. The Human Condition is misery, Baldrick, and anyone with a clear view of it is going to be miserable.

BALDRICK: Why are you so down on immortality, sir? Why don't you see it as a wonderful opportunity?

BLACKADDER: Because it's not something they aspire or conspire to, Baldrick, it's just something Nature does to them. And Nature is not our friend.

BALDRICK: Nature gives us a supreme intellect!

BLACKADDER: Right. (Stops, holds up both hands, one finger raised in each) I'm planning to poke you in the eye with one of these fingers, Baldrick. If your supreme intellect can determine which one it is, I won't do it.

BALDRICK: Um...(finger waves between BLACKADDER's hands)...uh...(points) THAT one?

BLACKADDER: Wrong. (pokes both fingers in BALDRICK's eyes) So, what does that tell us?

BALDRICK: That your intellect is superior.

BLACKADDER: And Nature...

BALDRICK: Hates me.

BLACKADDER: Excellent. Now, off we go. (resumes walking)

BALDRICK: But don't you want to see what it's like to live with an endless possibility of tomorrows? I mean, you could invest a shilling, at one percent interest, and live to see it become a million pounds.

BLACKADDER: Which, with inflation, would be worth about tuppence by then. One p after taxes, of course.

BALDRICK: Well, what about finding a companion among other immortals? Someone to share your life with for eternity?

BLACKADDER: Baldrick, the only relationship I've ever had that lasted more than three years has been with you. The prospect of spending eternity with you would drive me mad.

BALDRICK: But if there were others like you...

BLACKADDER: Ever read Chaucer, Baldrick? For all that the man was allegedly writing in English, his words are particularly opaque in meaning. Languages change over time. It wouldn't be long before anyone born of this age would end up isolated from society by the inability of anyone older or younger to understand him.

BALDRICK: But you could learn the new language, being there as it formed.

BLACKADDER: Think of the old people you know, Baldrick. Do you think they're more likely to learn new things and new ways of living and philosophy, as the conventions of their time fade into history, or are they more likely to just bitch about how everything changes, and for the worse?

BALDRICK: I believe I take your meaning, sir.

BLACKADDER: The body ages, Baldrick, and the mind, firmly rooted inside, rots along with it. The aspect of living for eternity is worse than becoming a haunt. Ghosts seem to fade after 400 years; immortality would be an endlessly accumulating series of decline and deterioration, ending with the purest form of misery known to mankind.

BALDRICK: What's that?

BLACKADDER: An unrequited death wish.

(they arrive at, and board, the barque)

 

[ryan]

This is pessimism at an alarmingly high level. For every negative possibility, I can find 10 positive possibilities. I guess it is how you want to look at it.

Perhaps this extreme pessimism is what evolution takes out next.

 

[Keith&Co.]

So we need to boost money spent on health research - a lot - if we are going to see this day where (delta life expectancy)/(delta time) > 1.
.

I would just think there's a lot of problems that the same money could be spent on with much better chances of success and improvements for everyone's lives.

Not all of us are terrified of oblivion.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Ray Bradbury are full of cautionary tales where people get immortality but dislike the costs or the conditions, or the boredom or any number of other issues that weren't fully thought out before someone hit the switch.

There's also a few about people who spend their whole life looking for the Tree of Life or the Fountain of Youth, aging 50 or 60 or 80, and then finding an alien that's spent a thousand or two thousand years looking for immortality... They're just naturally long-lived. But it drives home what a waste it is to be that scared of the End, and how futile it could be.

I am working on this, and I hope others will too. We may not die, but you have to intervene by promoting this change.

Um, no.
I don't HAVE to. And am not going to. Research for health, maybe. Research to fill up the planet with old fogies, no.

- - - Updated - - -

This is pessimism at an alarmingly high level. For every negative possibility, I can find 10 positive possibilities.

Possibilities or desperate rationalizations?

Perhaps this extreme pessimism is what evolution takes out next.

Perhaps your irrational fear of oblivion is the next to go. huh?

 

[Keith&Co.]

This is pessimism at an alarmingly high level.

How do you figure it's alarming?

Seems to me, more like having an attention span.

When TV was invented, they were promising us that this technological marvel was going to solve, among other things, human illiteracy. They could pump learning directly into the home. We got Sesame Street... And Jackass. And The Kardashians. How's the nation's literacy, ryan?

The internet was supposed to do the same thing, solve illiteracy within a generation.
Last time i was at Taco Bell, there was a poster on the wall for how to construct menu items... It was fully of pictograms so no one had to be able to read in order to make my taco.

How many prescription drugs are sold illegal for illicit use, rather than medical treatments?

People screw up everything they can get their hands on. What would make you think Immortality would be any different?

 

[ryan]

I would just think there's a lot of problems that the same money could be spent on with much better chances of success and improvements for everyone's lives.

How better can you improve a life than with a cure/remedy for a life-threatening illness?

Not all of us are terrified of oblivion.

I totally disagree.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Ray Bradbury are full of cautionary tales where people get immortality but dislike the costs or the conditions, or the boredom or any number of other issues that weren't fully thought out before someone hit the switch.

Fiction is not very interesting when there are no problems.

There's also a few about people who spend their whole life looking for the Tree of Life or the Fountain of Youth, aging 50 or 60 or 80, and then finding an alien that's spent a thousand or two thousand years looking for immortality... They're just naturally long-lived. But it drives home what a waste it is to be that scared of the End, and how futile it could be.

I trust science more than a magical cup.

This is pessimism at an alarmingly high level. For every negative possibility, I can find 10 positive possibilities.

Possibilities or desperate rationalizations?

Perhaps this extreme pessimism is what evolution takes out next.

Perhaps your irrational fear of oblivion is the next to go. huh?

I would think that people who were more careful in life and avoided dangers would be most likely to live. At least that's what the underwriters and actuaries at the insurance company I worked for claimed.

This is pessimism at an alarmingly high level.

How do you figure it's alarming?

Seems to me, more like having an attention span.

When TV was invented, they were promising us that this technological marvel was going to solve, among other things, human illiteracy. They could pump learning directly into the home. We got Sesame Street... And Jackass. And The Kardashians. How's the nation's literacy, ryan?

Those were hopeful byproducts; I don't think medicine from medical research has the same kind of chances.

The internet was supposed to do the same thing, solve illiteracy within a generation.
Last time i was at Taco Bell, there was a poster on the wall for how to construct menu items... It was fully of pictograms so no one had to be able to read in order to make my taco.

How many prescription drugs are sold illegal for illicit use, rather than medical treatments?

People screw up everything they can get their hands on. What would make you think Immortality would be any different?

This is an example of pessimism. Are you saying that we are better off without drugs than with them? Come on, you just want to argue, right?

 

[Horatio Parker]

But there are many other beings besides you and I. It will continue without us is all.

Without life, we have no idea of anything that matters.

Right, we don't know. All we can do is make the best choices with the best information we have.

To attempt to understand is the most persuasive meaning of life I've run across.

 

[ryan]

Right, we don't know. All we can do is make the best choices with the best information we have.

To attempt to understand is the most persuasive meaning of life I've run across.

I am not sure what we are talking about. All I know is that I would rather be alive than dead, and I am not the only one who feels that way.

 

[Keith&Co.]

How better can you improve a life than with a cure/remedy for a life-threatening illness?

But are you really improving life by removing all chances of death? As you said,

Fiction is not very interesting when there are no problems.

How much are we going to cherish life itself when there's no risk of death?

Not all of us are terrified of oblivion.

I totally disagree.

What? You're telling me you feel differently about oblivion or are you saying that all of us are as terrified of oblivion as you are?

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Ray Bradbury are full of cautionary tales where people get immortality but dislike the costs or the conditions, or the boredom or any number of other issues that weren't fully thought out before someone hit the switch.

Fiction is not very interesting when there are no problems.

My point was that many people have thought out various conditions of immortality and it's not all beer and skittles. You dismiss such thinking because you must, but the rest of us don't need to.

There's also a few about people who spend their whole life looking for the Tree of Life or the Fountain of Youth, aging 50 or 60 or 80, and then finding an alien that's spent a thousand or two thousand years looking for immortality... They're just naturally long-lived. But it drives home what a waste it is to be that scared of the End, and how futile it could be.

I trust science more than a magical cup.

Uh huh... That point sailed right over your head.

Tell me, though, who's going to get this immortality first? Nice people, good workers or the very, very rich?
And as they have an endless series of tomorrows to gather and hold their resources, how widely will they share this technology?

This is pessimism at an alarmingly high level. For every negative possibility, I can find 10 positive possibilities.

Possibilities or desperate rationalizations?

Perhaps this extreme pessimism is what evolution takes out next.

Perhaps your irrational fear of oblivion is the next to go. huh?

I would think that people who were more careful in life and avoided dangers would be most likely to live. At least that's what the underwriters and actuaries at the insurance company I worked for claimed.

Okay.
But then, is donating significant resourced into a pipe dream being more careful or less careful?

What would make you think Immortality would be any different?

This is an example of pessimism.

This is not an answer. Why would immortality be different from the other techs we've developed that get used in ways that reflect greed more than generosity?

 

[ryan]

But are you really improving life by removing all chances of death? As you said,

People don't actually die of old age; they die by something specific. If you don't treat diseases such as MS, cancer, Alzheimer's, heart diseases, etc. your quality of life isn't going to be very good.

How much are we going to cherish life itself when there's no risk of death?

You can look at it that way, or maybe people will enjoy life more. They may do things they were too afraid to do before. You are in some kind of glass-is-half-empty trance.

What? You're telling me you feel differently about oblivion or are you saying that all of us are as terrified of oblivion as you are?

The latter, maybe not as much as me, but everyone fears death to some degree. Everyone as in at least 99% - I feel like you are ready to pounce on anything.

My point was that many people have thought out various conditions of immortality and it's not all beer and skittles. You dismiss such thinking because you must, but the rest of us don't need to.

It is so unfortunate that people are taking entertainment so far. This is such a ridiculous way to argue. Don't argue with sci-fi because I won't reply to that anymore.

Uh huh... That point sailed right over your head.

You're using a story again!!!! How can you expect to use this as an argument? A writer can make a 1000 books giving a positive spin on immortality, but it won't sell because it would bore people to death. You have to have conflict: man vs man, etc.

Tell me, though, who's going to get this immortality first? Nice people, good workers or the very, very rich?

What do want, socialism? What if that actually slows down the economy and thus slows down progress?

And as they have an endless series of tomorrows to gather and hold their resources, how widely will they share this technology?

I don't know. Immortality doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is going to lose all of their morals and conscience.

Okay.
But then, is donating significant resourced into a pipe dream being more careful or less careful?

In the OP, I put a link to research showing that health research is good for the economy. A good economy usually means a good environment to live in.

This is not an answer. Why would immortality be different from the other techs we've developed that get used in ways that reflect greed more than generosity?

I don't know what you are talking about. I see a system where the corporations help sustain medical research by paying for the licencing and patents from the university or research firm and then paying out further royalties from sales. It's a competitive and very risky business venture.

Then there are the philanthropists and other international support systems that actually enjoy helping developing nations with less than us.

People like to donate: I do, everyone in my family does and we are not at all wealthy. And then there is a certain percentage of people who give anonymous donations. They are so sweet that they won't even tell anyone.

 

[fromderinside]

Stop clinging to life.

FDI award for best post in thread. Now we can say "... people clinging to their guns, religion, and life".

Replacement for the holy trinity. Indeed.

 

[abaddon]

Here’s what I’d like to see regarding medical advances and people’s attitudes to longevity:

1) convince medical science to stop drugging the symptoms of illness and put far more focus on prevention and optimal health. I'm feeling the effects of age and have been medicated for a number of things, and they ARE ALL POISONS. I fully sympathize with those who wish they could find "natural remedies" instead; they want to be healthy, not just drugged.
2) if people are going to live to 80+ then hopefully they will do it with more pleasure rather than melt in facilities. Help them be vital longer, not drugged longer.
3) advocate a revaluation of our sick postchristian values rather than only make a 'humanistic' display of them as if they're factual. For one thing, make voluntary suicide acceptable and widespread. This could aid people to live their best life and then die with dignity rather than become rotting meat due to excess longevity. Life rather than longevity would be valued.
4) care more about life instead of mere humans. It's always a mistake to discuss the value of "life" and only reference humans; it's narcissistic and maybe worse. Life is the ecosphere and all the events within it. Humans are only a facet of that, one of its events, not the pinnacle of it. People who love life would use science in its best capacity -- to understand and treasure nature’s ways, rather than abusively manipulate them. The ecosphere has a long-evolved complexity and wisdom that far exceeds humans' capacities. Homo rapiens (the animal falsely called ‘homo sapiens’) has a great deal to learn, and almost none of that has anything to do with increased technology. It's our culture's values that doesn't get the revaluation it so desperately needs.

The value of longevity is subjective. 70+ years is a very long time or a very short time, depending on no facts and no logic but only just values, and those are changeable -- very easily for mindful individual, less so culturally. You can fill the years with quality time, or you can fret. You can love nature or feel horrified by its features (like that aspect of life called "death").

The horror of death does not reflect anything objectively "true". Death is not an illness and is not innately bad.

 

[ryan]

Here’s what I’d like to see regarding medical advances and people’s attitudes to longevity:

1) convince medical science to stop drugging the symptoms of illness and put far more focus on prevention and optimal health. I'm feeling the effects of age and have been medicated for a number of things, and they ARE ALL POISONS. I fully sympathize with those who wish they could find "natural remedies" instead; they want to be healthy, not just drugged.

This is where all of us come in. We can't make businesses do this and expect them to thrive; we have make sure it happens through the government, collectively. We must make this such a big issue that the Democrats will take this as an opportunity to stay in power. You have to do something now.

2) if people are going to live to 80+ then hopefully they will do it with more pleasure rather than melt in facilities. Help them be vital longer, not drugged longer.

Hopefully this can be monetized. But if businesses can't, then we have to make a collective push.

4) care more about life instead of mere humans. It's always a mistake to discuss the value of "life" and only reference humans, it's narcissistic and maybe worse. Life is the ecosphere and all... ALL... the events within it. Humans are only a facet of that, one of its events, not the pinnacle of it. People who love life would use science in its best capacity -- to understand and treasure nature’s ways, rather than abusively manipulate them. It has a long-evolved wisdom that far exceeds humans' capacities. Homo rapiensens (the animal falsely called ‘homo sapiens’) has a great to learn, and almost none of it has anything to do with increased technology. It's our culture's values that doesn't get the revaluation it so desperately needs.

Humans are god to lower level species. We have to protect and master ourselves before we can protect and fully understand them.

... death is not an illness and is not innately bad.

I wish we could stop pretending that death is anything but the worst thing about life. I just don't understand why we should lie to ourselves anymore about it now that we can do something about it. 100 years ago, sure, for everybody it would have been wise to put death in other perspectives. But doing so now for me in my 30's, I feel is totally irresponsible, and I deserve all of the pain in the world from watching people die and not doing more. I just hope that I am doing enough to minimize my regret that is yet to come.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But are you really improving life by removing all chances of death?

People don't actually die of old age; they die by something specific.

Kinda like talking to a politician... Won't answer the actual question, but keeps plugging away on the selling point.

 

[ryan]

People don't actually die of old age; they die by something specific.

Kinda like talking to a politician... Won't answer the actual question, but keeps plugging away on the selling point.

The next sentence you cut out directly answers your question.

 

[abaddon]

I wish we could stop pretending that death is anything but the worst thing about life. I just don't understand why we should lie to ourselves anymore about it now that we can do something about it. 100 years ago, sure, for everybody it would have been wise to put death in other perspectives.

Should we put it in a different perspective today than modern day ecology’s perspective?

But doing so now for me in my 30's, I feel is totally irresponsible, and I deserve all of the pain in the world from watching people die and not doing more. I just hope that I am doing enough to minimize my regret that is yet to come.

You're a sort of manichean gnostic. What gave you the duty to save humanity from nature?

Feeling pain because you can't change everyone's perspective is a poor choice to make.

 

[ryan]

Should we put it in a different perspective today than modern day ecology’s perspective?

But doing so now for me in my 30's, I feel is totally irresponsible, and I deserve all of the pain in the world from watching people die and not doing more. I just hope that I am doing enough to minimize my regret that is yet to come.

You're a sort of manichean gnostic. What gave you the duty to save humanity from nature?

Feeling pain because you can't change everyone's perspective is a poor choice to make.

There's nothing more important than what I am promoting. Death is the loss of everything for the poor soul who has to become of it. And it leaves behind the most painful kind of mental devastation for the loved ones of its victims. You can put any positive spin on death you want; you will only empower it and keep people hopeless and fearful. But I am a human, and I see its purely inhumane nature.

If you don't like the idea of keeping you and your loved ones healthier and alive longer, you can at least take some satisfaction that this could veer the whole world's attention to focus on a single enemy that we all have in common. The more we all work together on it the more we will all have in common, and the more valuable life will become as a result.

 

[DBT]

We may not die

We die constantly and continually, we are not the same as we were as infants, as children, as teenagers, young adults and so on, the process of endings and beginnings in altered form being a matter memory and a sense of continuity. The continuity being provided by memory, which itself is neither perfect or constant, reformed and reworked it provides us with identity and purpose, but without it we do not exist.

 

[bilby]

Not all of us are terrified of oblivion.

I totally disagree.

What? You're telling me you feel differently about oblivion or are you saying that all of us are as terrified of oblivion as you are?

The latter, maybe not as much as me, but everyone fears death to some degree. Everyone as in at least 99% - I feel like you are ready to pounce on anything.

Not everyone is obsessed with death.

Most people not only do not fear death; They don't even think for a second about it, unless prompted.

I can't speak for everyone else (and nor can you), but until reminded of it by this thread, I was not conscious of my inevitable death at all; And now that I have been reminded of it, and am consciously considering it again, I find myself completely lacking in anything that could be described as 'fear'. Death is inevitable, but it is likely a long way off, and exactly how far off it is is unknown. It's an abstract transitional event, that likely leads to oblivion - nothing to be frightened of in oblivion. Dying might hurt - and it might hurt for a long time. I fear degenerative disease, and I fear the ghoulish and obscene laws that render euthanasia illegal in my jurisdiction, and that could lead to the medical profession deliberately preventing me from ending my own suffering.

But death is simply not something of which I am the slightest bit afraid.

Your attitude reminds me of when I planned to emigrate to Australia. A friend said 'But they have huge spiders in Australia. That's terrifying!'. I responded that I was not afraid of spiders. He responded 'But they are huge, and some are venomous, and they will be everywhere'. I pointed out that I was not afraid of spiders. He said 'But you must be'. He couldn't grasp that his phobia might not be shared by everyone else.

You, Ryan, are phobic about death. That's OK; People are scared of lots of things, and as phobias go, yours is mostly harmless. But it is not shared by everyone; and the rest of humanity will not thank you for saving them from a fear they simply do not share. Anymore than I would have thanked my friend, had he stolen my passport to save me from being exposed to the terrifying Australian spiders.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It does sound rather phobic, but ultimately the perception rests on one's understanding of what "death" is. A neighbor imagined herself buried while the coffin filled with water and no one heard her cries. So she was terrified at times.

To me death is just the end of a complex chemical process where all the parts get reincorporated into other things, same as before the complex chemical process. It's nothing to fear. Dying and death are very different things, and death is not the one I ever think about.

 

[ryan]

We may not die

We die constantly and continually, we are not the same as we were as infants, as children, as teenagers, young adults and so on, the process of endings and beginnings in altered form being a matter memory and a sense of continuity. The continuity being provided by memory, which itself is neither perfect or constant, reformed and reworked it provides us with identity and purpose, but without it we do not exist.

We don't know enough about physics to put any weight on these assumptions.

And I like my memories and identity. I want to continue.