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Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 1:04amSanction this postReply
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I'm 22 and I plan on living forever!

Post 1

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 1:45amSanction this postReply
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Clarence, careful with that hubris, buddy. Hubris never goes unpunished and I'd hate to see you croak before your time. :-)

Interesting Tibor, my grandparents ran a funeral home in my hometown when I was growing up. It was the place in town be conveyed to the otherworld. I'd run around and play in the funeral home as a 5 year old and many times I stumbled upon a prepped, stiff old lady in a casket surrounded by flowers. Many times the phone would ring and my grandmother would offer her condolences and take down information for the obituary.

I had no desire to go into that business but considering death is something I've always done. I came within a foot or two getting into a high speed boating accident when I was about 21 and that really made me obsess about death. Whenever I consider that experience I realize that all this is borrowed time for me.

So...what to think...well, there is certainly nothing to worry about. By all indications, being dead will "be" just as it was before we were born. One must be careful to fend off thoughts such as "what's the point to all this? We're gonna be dead in "x" years." There is a dark side to death if one wants to consider it as dark. All things are impermanent: love, the internet, good wines, a child's laughter...but really it is the impermanence of these things that make them special. 

(Edited by Lance Moore on 5/04, 1:48am)


Post 2

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 1:49amSanction this postReply
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Haha, Clarence! At your age we *all* plan on living for ever. We assume it, even! As the decades creep, then rush, by, we face the fact that science has not yet unlocked the key to immortality. Creaking joints & under-performing appendages confirm the grim prognosis, along with hair that grows everywhere but where we want it. Or so I'm told.

Of course, we're all waiting for our resident anti-aging scientist, Dr. Marcus Bachler (pron Barkler), to discover the elixir of youth. He really ought to study our resident economist, Tim Sturm, who, at the age of 53, was refused a beer during a SOLOC 4 outing because he looked under-age. Now, the "dismal science" cannot be responsible, since it's all rubbish, & it's not the beer, since he can't get served it. So, Dr. Barkler, what is it??!! :-)

Anyway, very nice piece, Tibor. I picked that one out among the 500 others you have in the queue 'cos I liked it particularly! :-)

Linz

Post 3

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 2:42amSanction this postReply
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Clarence,

We're only immortal for a limited time.

Enjoy it.


Post 4

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 5:14amSanction this postReply
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He really ought to study our resident economist, Tim Sturm, who, at the age of 53, was refused a beer during a SOLOC 4 outing because he looked under-age. Now, the "dismal science" cannot be responsible, since it's all rubbish, & it's not the beer, since he can't get served it. So, Dr. Barkler, what is it??!!
Ah, Mr Perigo. The secrets to eternal youth and beauty are not so easily yielded up. 

(Although you might want to knock that 53 number down by a fairly large margin).


Post 5

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 5:58amSanction this postReply
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Interesting article Tibor. I have mixed feelings these days. While I dont fret about death, I am very aware that time is running out and there is much to do and enjoy. This is it. I have started to think about the things I want to do (more travel and learning for example). I do fret *somewhat* that time will run out. But this just makes me seek out the things I value with *more* energy. Some things I had filed away, saying to myself that I will get around to it "later", I know I need to probably start doing now.

John

Post 6

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 6:17amSanction this postReply
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Good post, Tibor. Mirrors my own notions. You are right: David Norton advances a wonderful perspective, not just on death but on life. I couldn't recommend Personal Destinies more highly.

I also want to call everyone's attention to this article by Charles Tomlinson. Charles, who died a few days after last Christmas, was an Objectivist, a dear friend, a fellow basher of environmentalism and one of the most exemplary men I've ever had the pleasure to know.

His thoughts while facing his own imminent death contain great wisdom, and are an enduring window into what was a remarkable soul.

(Edited by Robert Bidinotto on 5/04, 6:18am)


Post 7

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 10:22amSanction this postReply
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Personally I find all your attitudes toward death sad. 

 

When a young child sees something or someone die, a typical parent might respond something along the lines that it is natural, that it is the way of things, that we all get our share of life and then move on to give others their turns.  The same parents might tell their child that it is morally required to help others who are in need, that capitalism is ok but some regulation is needed, that you can never know what is right or wrong for sure so respect all opinions.  The children grow up to be socialists, moral relativists and religious deathists. 

 

Rand's teachings were a catalyst that broke through a persistent and nearly impenetrable cult of altruism for many of us.  A similarly evil cult still persists in many objectivists, the cultish worship of death.  If we are to hold ourselves and our own existence as our own highest value, we should, each and everyone one of us desire an eternal existence.  If your life is your highest value, your actions should further that value.  Yet I see things like

 

"but really it is the impermanence of these things that make them special"

 

Is freedom to be revoked so we can appreciate it?  Does my wealth need to be revoked so I might know of what value it is?  Must we stop thinking in order to value thought?  Rubbish! Intelligent rational men can understand what it is to be without something regardless of having that something taken way, they can empathize, emulate, and create emotional simulations of situations and get approximates of which to gauge their values on.  While we can not imagine ceasing to exist, do we really need to imagine such a thing to prefer existence over non-existence? 

 

“His thoughts while facing his own imminent death contain great wisdom, and are an enduring window into what was a remarkable soul.”

 

Whatever nonsense we delude ourselves with to come to terms with our inevitable demise is just that, nonsense. It is an attempt to find value in something that is the destruction of all values, so we convince ourselves we must lose values to truly value them.  If you have ‘come to terms’ with your death the only thing you have accomplished is the devaluation of your own life. 

 

In this generation, the next, or one very close, men will have indefinite life spans at their disposal.  I hope to live to see that day, and do what I can to help bring it about.  Scientifically defeating death and aging does not have a mainstream acceptance because of the cult of religious deathist worship we were all raised in, including the scientists and doctors in charge of that research.  The only strides forward are reluctant and awkward, people who directly advocate immortality as a scientific goal are chastised.  But just like the cult of altruism, the cult of religious deathism must die its deserved death.   

 

We are but one planet among hundreds of millions in this galaxy, and our galaxy one among hundreds of millions of galaxies.  There is plenty out there to do, to see, to create, to investigate, to enjoy that would keep any intelligent rational being happy and occupied for eternity. 

 

In my post in a Buddhism thread I presented my thoughts on how the embracement of life, and the utilization of technology in any manner to indefinitely expand it, is a logical extension of eudaimonism and objectivism. 

 

http://solohq.com/Forum/GeneralForum/0396_1.shtml#28

http://solohq.com/Forum/GeneralForum/0396_1.shtml#38

 

The organized groups that embrace this ideology, while lacking philosophical direction, nevertheless know they value their own existence above all else, and will never convince themselves that they are inherently valueless and thus be OK with dying.  Extropianism and Transhumanism are common terms used to describe these movements.  I prefer the former, since I feel the latter implies a value judgment. 

 

www.extropy.org

 

It is not some great attribute of objectivism to be ok with dying, one can recognize the truly and utterly cosmic injustice in the cessation of existence.  It is more of a testament to objectivism to value your own life so much as to feel compelled to do something about it’s allegedly inevitable end. 

 

I invite anyone interested to read a recent thread posted on the extropy-chat mailing list, in which a list member sadly announces the lost of his nineteen year old brother, who was murdered.   This post and thread will hopefully instill a true appreciation for the life that many here are so readily able to accept the end of. 

 

http://forum.javien.com/conv.php?new=true&convdata=id::URDpfCfx-Y3hv-yDHF-sUJn-bXHsiQa5QiPW

 

Yehuda's death is the first time I ever lost someone close enough for it to hurt. So now I've seen the face of the enemy. Now I understand, a little better, the price of half a second. I don't understand it well, because the human brain has a pattern built into it. We do not grieve forever, but move on. We mourn for a few days and then continue with our lives. Such underreaction poorly equips us to comprehend Yehuda's death. Nineteen years of life and memory annihilated. A thousand years, or a million millennia, or a forever, of future life lost. The sun should have dimmed when Yehuda died, and a chill wind blown in every place that sentient beings gather, to tell us that our number was diminished by one. But the sun did not dim, because we do not live in that sensible a universe. Even if the sun did dim whenever someone died, it wouldn't be noticeable except as a continuous flickering. Soon everyone would get used to it, and they would no longer notice the flickering of the sun.”

 

Death is not OK, it never is and never should be for people who profess to love life.  You must burn with passion for your life and fight those enemies who would take it away. 

 

Michael F Dickey


Post 8

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 11:23amSanction this postReply
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The ending of something is not the destruction of something, but the conclusion of it - life by its nature has to have a conclusion, just as it has a beginning.....

Post 9

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 11:45amSanction this postReply
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life by its nature has to have a conclusion, just as it has a beginning.....

Hey, whatever you have to do to convince yourself to feel better about dying.  Some make up gods, some make up eternal abstractions, others, such as yourself, some arbitrary karmic balancing act.  Men are naturally inclined to die, but are also naturally inclined to be altruists (as so eloquently argued in Eddie's Enigma ) and are naturally inclined to be xenophobic, social group seeking, create religions, etc. etc.  Why are all those other things to be disregarded, while the fact that we 'die' celebrated as being 'natural'?  Natural is not in any way shape or form synonomous with good. 

Michael F Dickey


Post 10

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 11:53amSanction this postReply
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oh my - so much a grasshopper : )

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Post 11

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 12:07pmSanction this postReply
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Michael FD, I too, look forward to a time when science grants us immortality, but I have a problem with your posts above. The attitude one takes towards death is an ethical choice, and requires pertinent knowledge of what death is. That knowledge (free of mystical baggage) is contextual.

So take the point of view of someone at death's door, right now. There is no more use to protest dying then, what remains is acceptance of the inevitable. Raging against the dying of the light makes sense when it furthers ones life; it doesn't make sense when it just turns a dying man into a grouchy dying man.

This will all change, of course, when science does end death. Then, it will be unethical to resign oneself to dying because there is a choice *. But we should not mistake the future prospect of maybe having a choice, with the current reality that there is still no choice.

What to do then? Those who are in the prime of their lives should seek to extend their lives (either doing the research if they are capable, as Marcus B., and/or simply maintaining good health). Those who are aged enough to see that they may not live onto the medical promise of immortality are better served contemplating a rational acceptance of death, as Dr. Machan has here, while still keeping as healthy as possible.

Objectivism is not OK with death, just as surely is it not OK with denying what is currently inevitable.



Live long and prosper \\//_, **
num++


___________________________

* There are rational cases for suicide and euthanasia, but that is a topic for another thread.

** I've tried to keep this post free of the sentimental tone you seem to react against, hence the Vulcan salute.



Post 12

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 12:48pmSanction this postReply
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Num++,
     Great post.  I especially liked the line
But we should not mistake the future prospect of maybe having a choice, with the current reality that there is still no choice.

Thanks,
Glenn


Post 13

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 4:08amSanction this postReply
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"I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens. " Woody Allen



Post 14

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 12:57pmSanction this postReply
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“Michael FD, I too, look forward to a time when science grants us immortality, but I have a problem with your posts above. The attitude one takes towards death is an ethical choice, and requires pertinent knowledge of what death is. That knowledge (free of mystical baggage) is contextual.”
That’s fine, but that is not what I am seeing here.  I am seeing many different ways so of saying that death is OK.  If you are on death's doorstep, consider cryogenic preservation.  It is a much better option than rotting in the ground or being embalmed.  Alcor has perfected vitrification of human heads (vitrification is solidification without crystalization)  There are many animals which can be frozen and unfrozen and brought back to healthy life.  Just recently a form of artificial suspended animation has been attained with lab rats through breathing high quantities of hydrogen sulfide, slowing their breathing down to 1/10th the normal rate, their metabolic rates dropped 90% and their core body temperature significantly dropped, slowing all chemical reactions. 
 
Alcor - Cryonics myths - http://www.alcor.org/cryomyths.html
Mice put in 'suspended animation' - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4469793.stm
”This will all change, of course, when science does end death”
And when will science defeat death?  Not anytime soon when people who proclaim their lives to be the highest of all virtues think death is just fine, and actually welcome it, suggesting it actually gives value to the life that has ended.  As if death was the end and life was the means.  Life is an end of its own.  Science will not defeat death when the vast majority of scientists and people are philosophically opposed to immortality, are religious deathists. 
 
Nor will sitting around and hoping 'other people' defeat death for you accomplish much.  For a group that admirers great struggles against tremendous odds and in the face of overwhelming opposition, few seem to put much value or effort into the greatest battle of all of their existence.  The answer is out there, it will not come through divination or internal introspection, but only through a massive and unshakable effort.  Through hard work and dedication.  There are 6 billion humans minds out there, the greatest computers to ever exist, while half are trying just to stay alive or not offend whatever murderous despot happens to rule them, the other half have no excuse, other than having been raised in a culture that glorifies death as some twisted source of value, and being lazy.  Accepting axiomatically the doctrine that death is good or ok will quite obviously undermine any effort to defeat it.  Accepting axiomatically that no matter what one does they can not do anything to defeat death is an incredibly easy way to completely justify inaction.  As Rand said, all the great innovations of all of mankind originated in the mind of one single individual. 

Michael F Dickey
“The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon.  It is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter.  We may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity, for the sake of easy transport.  Agriculture may diminish its labor and double its produce; all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of old age, and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian standard."

"Your observations on the causes of death, and the experiments which you propose for recalling to life those who appear to be killed by lightning, demonstrate equally your sagacity and your humanity.  It appears that the doctrines of life and death in general are yet but little understood. . . .  I wish it were possible . . . to invent a method of embalming drowned persons, in such a manner that they may be recalled to life at any period, however distant;  for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to any ordinary death, the being immersed in a cask of Madeira wine, with a few friends, till that time, to be then recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country.  But . . . in all probability we live in an age too early and too near the infancy of science, to hope to see [such] an art brought in our time to its perfection. . . ." 

- Benjamin Franklin

 


Post 15

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 3:14pmSanction this postReply
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Some of the responses here remind me of many book reviews in The New York Review of Books--very little review of the books, a good deal of stuff on whatever the reviewer hasn't had a chance to say elsewhere. Then there is this temptation by some to attribute odd motives to me who just wants to understand death--as if one could discern the multiplicity of my motives by simply reading one post from me. Why not simply accept that I just want to get it right, not whistle in the dark, play games, make things easy, whatever.

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Post 16

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 4:04pmSanction this postReply
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Tibor,

I loved your article. I do believe that accepting anything but reality will always be the wrong way to go.

The biological reality of all life right now is that if a living organism is lucky enough to live to old age and die of natural causes, it has had the most successful life that its species permits.

Part of getting older is a creeping decadence. You can ignore it and you can rail against it, but it happens to all of us who are lucky enough to get there.

Part of the serenity that comes with wisdom, which you so exquisitely demonstrate, is in recognizing and dealing with your own limitations as they develop. I sincerely believe that, at our stage of evolution and knowledge, striving to have a good youth, a good middle age, a good decadence and a good death is the most selfish thing a human being can do.

Michael


Post 17

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 4:43pmSanction this postReply
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Tibor Machan said:
Some of the responses here remind me of many book reviews in The New York Review of Books--very little review of the books, a good deal of stuff on whatever the reviewer hasn't had a chance to say elsewhere.
Since you are obviously and not so subtly referring to me here, Id like to ask you for what reason you posted this to SoloHQ.  Did you wish us to comment on your writing style?  Just a few overall comments on how good your article was?  Or do you post things to as an introduction to an interesting topic and to hopefully stimulate discussions on that topic.  Can we not discuss its content?  That of dealing with one's own inevitable demise?  A very important topic indeed.  Next time let us know, so I can be sure to simply start a different thread that references this one and hopefully avoid offending topic initiators. 

As for a review of your article, I obviously do not think it was good, because as an objectivist or at least an admirer of Rand, which is usually a persons which places his own life as his highest value, you decided that you will willingly accept your own death.  A death which you can do something about now, you still surely have at least a few good decades left.

I am not content to sit around while religious deathists seek to spread the meme to other objectivists that death is OK and to accept it as natural and that life has no meaning without death.  It should be fought to the very last spark of life. 

"so why not simply come to terms with it?"
What is it you mean, exactly, by 'come to terms with' ? If you are OK with dying, good for you, but don't expect me to sit around while this thread works to convince objectivists that they should be thankful for the time they have and accept death as the end which gives the beginning meaning.

Michael F Dickey


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Post 18

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 5:12pmSanction this postReply
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Michael Dickey,

I am confused by something you wrote:
... don't expect me to sit around while this thread works to convince objectivists that they should be thankful for the time they have and accept death as the end which gives the beginning meaning.
1. I didn't see anyone on this thread, nor Tibor in his article, try to convince anyone that they should be thankful for the time they have, although I do feel that fostering an emotion of general gratitude towards existence is very healthy.

2. I didn't see anyone on this thread, nor Tibor in his article, try to convince anyone to "accept death as the end which gives the beginning meaning."

Who are you arguing against?

Michael


Post 19

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - 5:38pmSanction this postReply
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Yes - he seems to totally miss the point, that death is a part of life, just as birth is a part of life.   There is no 'opposition', no 'destruction' but it is a conclusion  to life - an integral aspect of it. To be aware of it is not to worship it, as seems claimed, and as Christians do precisely because they posit it in opposition to life, as a desired instead of life.   Objectivists merely recognise it as - as said - an integral aspect of life.

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