Immortality
Offline This idea has been a serious interest of mine for a long time. I remember seeing a video awhile back about a scientist, cannot think of his name, who views aging as a disease that's killed billions. It's kind of funny but he has a point, aging, just like any illness, leads to death. Right now I'm 20 years old, by current rates I have about 60-70 years left, assuming i don't get killed. I hope that's enough time for me, for scientists to find the key.
I happen to believe an afterlife is very possible, but it's only a possibility. What if there isn't? To me non-existence is the ultimate hell. I would rather be in one of the many religions imaginary hells than to not exist. I get claustrophobic and nervous just trying to think about it. I feel like if there is no afterlife, I should commit what little time I have to getting rich, funding these scientists, and supporting them in every way possible. Whether it be through robotic, cloned, or synthetic organs, brain preservation futurama style, or brain transplants lol. I do not want to loose consciousness and revert back to dead matter, I want to excel beyond animals and nature, i want to evolve forcibly into an immortal trans-human.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts. =D
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My thoughts?
Come to terms with the fact you're going to die. Even if someone can figure out a way to stop the basic aging process we'll still die. Even if we can figure out a cure for every disease, you'll still die. Even if we can put our brains in machines, we'll still die.
Fun to think about though...and I'd rather live a thousand years than 100
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
First off your 20 years old; STOP wrrying about death in 60 to 70 years, your too too fuckin'young. Now I am goingto paraphrase Samuel Clemmons [Mark Twain] ; What did you realy experience or remember about the billions of years that existed before you were born? Or just the day or month before you were born? Yourself after death will be the same thing.
I'll quote another scientist [name unknown] "The older I get the less interest I have in living forever" . Personally I'm 55, I don't have one foot in the grave but it is on a banana peel if my eternal rest is interrupted by some heaven/hell entity then something is going to get an earfull of invictives untill I do get that eternal rest.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
I'm with Jeffric lol. My eternal rest gets disrupted, I won't be a happy camper at all. Leave me alone!!! Haha I'm not a fan of getting old either but my sugestion is get rich and buy stock in oil of olay, since I don't believe in surgicaly staying young. I don't wanna look like Mickey Rourke ewwwww!!!!
Don't read twilight books either. It's depressing as hell.
If all the Christians who have called other Christians " not really a Christian " were to vanish, there'd be no Christians left.
I suppose it's just the paradox I have an issue with, how could I be resting if I never wake up, or if I'm unaware that I'm resting? Also Jeffrick, I just happen to think a lot, I'm not driving myself crazy over the idea lol. Anyway, I agree that being immortal would get old after awhile, but it would be amazing to have a greatly extended life, then when I've experienced everything I want to experience, ill shut myself down, dying on my own terms.. maybe back up my mind on a futuristic hard drive in case anyone needs me haha.
Also, I dig the quotes =D
Why? While we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist
Anyway, in afterlife I wouldn't be worried about resting, the general consensus of afterlife explorers is, that you'll get all of it that you desire, unless mourning people disturb you. The problem is the desire itself. They say it is holding people back, in the parts of afterlife where we shouldn't remain for long. I recommend that before death you should finish all your work, pay all your debts (or get paid what people owe you), dedicate all your property to someone else and stop considering yourself an earthling and master of your house. Dead people must free the house for new owners and not selfishly haunt the place to scare them away.
Btw, if you like quotes, here's one:
I'm not old, I like the future!
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
I really am 59 soon to be 60. I remember being 20 - and at 20, I was truly unhappy at the thought of being dead one day. Now? Death is closer, and it isn't as big of a deal. If you live long enough, you might feel better about it yourself.
"....being immortal would get old after awhile...."
Read or watch Bicentennial Man if you haven't already. It has a nice shutting down scene at the end.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
oh, you young people...
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
actually i think it's good that you're thinking about death. that sounds really fucked up but what i mean is that you can think about what you want to do with your life while you have the time. i'm 44 and the years have gone by so fast. i live with regrets about things i've done and things i haven't done. i think everyone has those thoughts eventually. but being as young as you are you should really reach for the things you want, RIGHT NOW. if you want to travel, DO IT! hell, if you want to be an astronaut, GO FOR IT! you get what i mean. you have your whole life basically to LIVE. that's the important thing, don't be so concerned about death that you don't LIVE and you waste all that precious time.
everybody is afraid of death. everybody thinks about it. people handle that reality in different ways. some people use religion. it gives them some hope and comfort. i've just come to terms with the fact that i won't know until it happens. i can't see an afterlife in my future and it is scary.
"Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand."
Bertrand Russell
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Vortex... You cannot die. There is no such thing. Everything is transformed in the Universe, matter, energy... nothing dies, everythings transforms, even conscience.
You will get to a place and to a state of being that no words can describe. By comparison it would be like if you wake up from a long and fuzzy dream, it will be as if this life was nothing.
Just remember to release yourself from the shackles of materialism and strong desires your body demanded in this life. Do what Luminon told you, so you can be released from this ilusive dream, the true hell of ignorance and of materialistic drunkness.
Keep your mind open to the possibility of new realms of existence and have the courage of leaving it all behind. If you do this all that you need will come to you. Just leave in your heart a place where only Love can get in and nothing else, not even reason.
Death is real, you live on only as memories in other people's minds.
Consciousness is a pattern, a process. When you die, the pattern is irretrievably lost - entropy rules.
The energy that animated the process does indeed continue, but retains no trace of the pattern...
Teralek, hold onto that fantasy if you must, if it helps you cope with life, but don't let the hope for that as the ultimate 'purpose' of life distract you from getting the most out of this life, it will be too late when you face death, and it turns out there is nothing after.
Even if there is some form of after-life, there is absolutely no way to know for sure, or know whether it will be a heaven or a hell, or infinite boredom, so don't miss this one...
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Define the "pattern of conscience" for me!
Don't worry Bob, I'm living the best I can, I'm happy as I am.
The ultimate purpose of life say that I have to make an effort to love you as if you were my brother.
Whatever else I do is up to me... so getting the most of life is what I want. Learing to love others is part of that plan
The 'pattern' of consciousness is what makes it consciousness, otherwise it would be no more conscious than the electrical energy flowing through the wires in your house.
Whether you believe it is a pattern of actual energy flow, as I do, which we actually are getting closer to observing in detail, or the pattern or structure of some ethereal 'substance', there still has to be something to distinguish your consciousness from every other consciousness, whatever forms the basis of it.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
There is no model whatsoever that explains how chemical reactions and an electric field can create a conscient thought or the awareness of self. All that is speculation and a correlation, not a cause...
I would only believe it when you can create a conscience in a laboratory.
That's why I said 'pattern' - it is the pattern of interactions, the ordered process, that seems to give rise to consciousness, regardless of the underlying chemical or electrical processes.
You could equally well ask how could droplets of ink on sheets of wood-fibre convey the greatest thoughts of the greatest writers...
Or how could a bunch of electronic circuits (a computer) discover new theorems of mathematics? Which they have.
Electric fields and chemicals drive neurones, which 'power' brains, so the real question is how complex interconnecting elements can give rise to conscious thoughts. Expressing the real problem in such overly reductionist terms is a bad argument technique, probably best described as the
***
Fallacy Of Composition:
assuming that a whole has the same simplicity as its constituent parts. In fact, a great deal of science is the study of emergent properties. For example, if you put a drop of oil on water, there are interesting optical effects. But the effect comes from the oil/water system: it does not come just from the oil or just from the water.
Another example: "Atoms are colorless. Cats are made of atoms, so cats are colorless."
***
You could argue that the computer was designed and programmed by a mind, but when running, they are still just a bunch of silicon chips connected together, or if you like, just a bunch of sub-atomic particles buzzing around, so trying to make any argument like you do based on what something is made of is to completely miss the point.
Then you could say those 'discoveries' by a computer were 'programmed in', but the output of a computer program typically has far more content, by whatever measure you like, 'information', novel patterns, than could possibly be described or defined within the code.
We already have computer programs that can do things that used to be thought only possible for a mind, like design other novel computer programs, often generating code that is better than we can design ourselves to solve tricky problems, they can play chess and other games, generate 'art work' than can fool experienced art critics, and so on.
So far they are only successful in relatively narrow areas, but to realize just how successful they can be in many of these areas must give you pause for thought about what the future may hold.
Every time a computer manages to beat us at something, like chess, people shift the goal-posts and re-define the task as being really just a mechanical process after all, or say the computer is just applying 'brute-force' calculation, not doing it the way a human mind would. Which is definitely true in some cases, such as some of the chess programs. But by no means all.
Put it another way: if a computer responded to you in exactly the way you would expect a conscious human person to, how would you 'prove' it was not 'conscious'? This is effectively the famous Turing Test, where you communicate with 'something' via a keyboard and screen, or some other way perhaps, that does not allow you to identify by any visual or other such clues whether there is a computer program or a 'real' person at the other end. All you have is their responses to whatever to say or type to them.
Can a computer program be devised that will fool enough people long enough into not being able to decide whether it is a human being or a computer on the other end?
That is the Turing Test, and there is, naturally, dispute over just what would be 'proved' by a program able to pass the Test to a high degree, ie 'fool' a lot of people for a long time. But it is very interesting. For more, see here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/#AssCurStaTurTes
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Paul Kammerer was a German mathemathician who's work is very similar to later developed chaos theory.
Even if there is no way to know about afterlife for sure, it is possible to gain a good degree of certainity. The methods are study, research and experience. For example, Edgar Cayce gathered cases of 20 children who very vividly described their past life experiences. Robert Allan Monroe was a great explorer of afterlife, reincarnation and soul. Theosophy provides a comprehensive guide to the afterlife. Then there are countless historical traditions to study and compare, like tibetyan or egyptian books of the dead. There is certainly more than enough of material to get busy with the question.
Christianic doctrine of Heaven and Hell must not be taken seriously, because it's a 6th century fabrication enforced by emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Kammerer's idea is totally inconsistent with Quantum Mechanics, which is one of the most successful results of a process of "study, research and experience", which shows that any system can only 'record' a finite amount of information, and that very small changes get lost in the uncertainty principle. His idea will assumes a world in which effects can be defined with infinite precision.
That is not ours, based on QM. Sorry.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
"This idea has been a serious interest of mine for a long time. I remember seeing a video awhile back about a scientist, cannot think of his name, who views aging as a disease that's killed billions. It's kind of funny but he has a point, aging, just like any illness, leads to death. Right now I'm 20 years old, by current rates I have about 60-70 years left, assuming i don't get killed. I hope that's enough time for me, for scientists to find the key. "
I would have to say be careful what you wish for.
Think about it for a minute: If we cure all diseases people would live longer. That's a good thing right.
Well look at it this way population is a problem now if you could increase the life expectancy of all people it would only get worse.
Here is a thought for you: If population today is two times what is was 50 years ago. Then we triple our population every 50 or so years.
Do the math, it want take long till those movie we watch and think "that shit would never happen " will....
Your idea to prolong life would be detrimental to our civilization..
Throughout human history as our species has faced the frighten terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are and where we are going; it has been the authority (the political, the religious, and the educational authorities) who have attempted to comfort us. By giving us order, rules, and regulation. Informing or forming in our minds their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question these authorities. THINK FOR YOURSELF…
As far as I current know the universe is expanding and eventually all usable energy exchange will be gone as it spread across the ever increasing space. So even if you were somehow able to put your mind into another form the universe will eventually die a heat death. I would like to know if this has changed.
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
Me personally, I haven't really studied too much about nor dwelled on the idea of an afterlife, after I abandoned religion. I look at it this way, if I live my entire life, with my thoughts focused on what could be happening after it is over, I feel the chances are good that I might not take the time to enjoy what I know I have for certain and that is THIS MOMENT.
Unless something really radical happens in science, it seems that death is inevitable and that there is no way to get around it, so why dwell too deeply on it ?
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno