[HN Gopher] How to Live with Dying
___________________________________________________________________
How to Live with Dying
Author : exolymph
Score : 111 points
Date : 2020-10-24 17:13 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theamericanscholar.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (theamericanscholar.org)
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| It doesn't seem like the author fully or directly addressed the
| title "how to live with dying".
|
| In any case, the quickest shortcut I know of is to take some
| psilocybin and think about death. With the proper set and
| setting, dying will feel normal, as it is, just another part of
| life. Yoga, meditation and breathing are also great ways to
| achieve that kind of consciousness state.
|
| By the way, probably the biggest issue with dying is that in most
| western cultures it has become a huge taboo, which is kind of
| ridiculous given we all are going to die at some point. Death
| should be something that we accept and welcome, not something
| that we fear and reject. That doesn't mean we should seek death,
| just that it is one of the most natural things in life.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Pain and suffering are also natural; that doesn't make them
| good. We should make peace with death, yes, but never accept it
| - never welcome it. It is the last enemy.
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| "Good" is subjective. However, pain and suffering are
| avoidable, death is not.
|
| Seeing death as an enemy might end up making you suffer a
| lot.
| copperx wrote:
| Pain and suffering are avoidable? What kind of fantasy
| world do you live in?
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| The world where Buddhism and hundreds of related
| practices have existed for thousands of years, which
| allow anyone (who puts in the work), to detach themselves
| from suffering.
|
| In a more western-mainstream note, we also have therapy,
| pain killers and anti-depressants, all tools that allow
| us to avoid pain and suffering. Maybe not forever, but
| definitely at least temporarily.
|
| Which of the above do you consider fantasies?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| And it might let us push death back another century - or
| longer. I'd be willing to walk through fire for that.
|
| In the unlikely event the Second Law of Thermodynamics
| doesn't hold, then we _can_ end death.
| [deleted]
| yters wrote:
| Might be due to Judeo-Christian culture that sees death as not
| the way things should be. Hebrews says Jesus came to save
| people from the fear of death.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| > in most western cultures it has become a huge tabu ... Death
| should be something that we accept and welcome, not something
| that we fear and reject.
|
| I don't love every part of "Midnight Gospel" - There's a lot of
| pseudoscience in it - But I liked episode 7 [1] when he
| interviewed Caitlin Doughty. [2]
|
| "Caitlin Marie Doughty (born August 19, 1984) is an American
| mortician, author, blogger, and YouTube personality known for
| advocating death acceptance and the reform of Western funeral
| industry practices"
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_gospel#Episodes
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitlin_Doughty
| harwoodleon wrote:
| Death is part of life, so is some element of suffering and
| pain, but neither are desirable. I don't really subscribe to
| the "death is natural" idea. It's certainly not a taboo for me,
| but my experience of life is the ultimate natural high and sure
| when it has gone I won't be here to mourn the loss. But you can
| be upset (naturally so) and grieve for what you will lose, by
| knowing your life will be cut short or the shared future you
| have lost when someone you love dies.
|
| Without that capacity, we would lose the precious ability to
| imagine a better life.
|
| Hope is the feeling that takes us out of absurdity. Hope that
| one day the nature of the universe will be understood.
| macromagnon wrote:
| The philosophical thinking around regenerative medicine is
| interesting.
|
| On one side there's the union of opposites where without death
| there can be no life, without pain no pleasure, etc.
|
| Then there's the scientist approach which just wants to reverse
| engineer life and increasing life span/quality.
|
| I sympathize with both sides. I think someone like Kurzweil is
| doing too much and blinded by hope and that his idea of the
| future halfway sounds like hell but at the same time I think a
| lot could be gained by say doubling life expectancy and there's
| no need for any metaphysics.
| stanrivers wrote:
| Cicero talks about how you can get comfortable with the fact that
| you eventually won't be around in his On Old Age... he says the
| key is making a positive, meaningful impact. If you do that, then
| even if you die, your positive influence lives beyond your own
| years.
|
| "The actor, for instance, to please his audience need not appear
| in every act to the very end; it is enough if he is approved in
| the parts in which he plays; and so it is not necessary for the
| wise man to stay on this mortal stage to the last fall of the
| curtain. For even if the allotted space of life be short, it is
| long enough in which to live honorably and well...
|
| But somehow, my soul was ever on the alert, looking forward to
| posterity, as if it realized that when it had departed from this
| life, then at last would it be alive."
|
| Summary of Cicero's On Old Age here as well:
|
| https://butwhatfor.substack.com/p/takeaway-tuesday-on-old-ag...
| copperx wrote:
| If you were raised by good parents, you will feel their
| contributions benefiting your life long after they are dead.
| And if you have children, you will probably pass it on. The
| effect of a life can last for generations.
|
| That's why they say family is more important than work. Your
| work will probably not outlive you, unless you're a rockstar
| scientist or lucky businessperson. That famous Feynman's letter
| to his friend was right.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _Famously, after the Greeks triumphed, the soldier-messenger
| Philippides set off at a run toward Athens to announce the good
| news, covering the roughly 25 miles without a break. When he
| arrived at the Greek assembly, he burst into the chamber,
| exclaimed, "We have won!," and died on the spot._
|
| That doesn't really do justice to the story. First he ran more
| like 150 miles to request assistance to help them combat an
| invading force. The 25 or 26 miles he ran before dying was the
| tail end of a much more epic effort.
|
| I made my peace with my mortality in my thirties when I spent a
| year at death's door. And then, silly me, tried to share that
| with people in online discussions and it didn't go like I
| expected.
|
| One day, someone older than me more or less told me "You are
| scaring people because they haven't yet made their peace with
| their own mortality."
|
| Stories like this can be a good thing to write for the author. It
| can be a therapeutic process that helps them get unstuck from a
| big emotional experience and move on and live more in the present
| with the time they have left.
|
| And it can be experientially valuable to the reader. It can be
| interesting to read of the subjective experience of coming that
| close to dying and what that looks and feels like to this one
| person who stood that close to the void and didn't quite fall in.
|
| But stories like this are unlikely to help most people come to
| terms with their own mortality -- though if you, also, find
| yourself standing on the precipice or having recently come back
| from it, stories like this may be especially meaningful and
| valuable. But for those who haven't spent time anywhere near the
| precipice, this is highly unlikely to be some means to deliver
| enlightenment or some such.
|
| How you relate to a piece like this will have a lot to do with
| where you are in life and where you have been.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. I can empathize with the readers of your
| previous story. I haven't made peace and often when I see
| stories of people younger than me dying I reach in every
| direction for an explanation for why that wouldn't happen to
| me. "Oh they must have done a lot of drugs. They must have not
| exercised." etc.
|
| What I think I want to know about from older individuals (like
| 80+): are you afraid of dying? My grandma went last year (92)
| and her and I had long wonderful conversations knowing she was
| weeks out. She talked about how much of a wonderful life she
| had and that she was not in the slightest scared.
|
| That's a mental gap for me. I can't grok the concept of not
| being afraid to death like that. I would love to learn that the
| overwhelming majority of older people don't fear it, suggesting
| that it's very likely I won't fear it either if I make it to
| old age.
|
| As for dying early... I think it's best not to think about it
| any more than to build a sufficient motivation to live life
| well.
| abhinav22 wrote:
| The beauty of life is in its mortality. Enjoy every moment on
| earth and with your loved ones, cherish what you do with them and
| rest peacefully that you lived a full life.
|
| That's how I try and get over the depressing fact that all my
| loved ones and myself will be no more one day.
| ivalm wrote:
| Beauty of life is not mortality. We mostly live in the moment,
| if involuntary death wasn't an issue (and everything else was
| similar) then life would be subjectively better.
| Dahoon wrote:
| Maybe to some. I really wouldn't want to live for hundreds of
| years. Eventually everything gets boring.
| ivalm wrote:
| That's why I said involuntary death. I am all for voluntary
| death.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| You don't know that. Most old people who are ready to die
| would think much differently if their peers and loved ones
| also lived longer. The rest of them would rather continue
| living. "I actually really do want to die eventually"
| sounds a lot like Stockholm Syndrome.
| kls wrote:
| I don't believe it would and I think Steve Jobs summed it up
| better than I could on the subject "Death is very likely the
| single best invention of life". It puts pressure on us and if
| we take the correct view of death it empowers us into action.
| It's funny I don't really fear death and I don't really
| understand the existential crisis that people have over it. I
| do however understand that living forever in this existence
| would soon grow old. All of my ancestors have lived for
| unusually long lengths of time. Most of them going to 100-110
| years of age. My last great grandparent died when I was 30,
| until 2013 all of my grandparents were alive. The reason I
| bring this up, is none of them where in fear of what was
| coming after nearly a century on this earth they were ready
| to go. My last great grandfather was 107 when he passed, he
| was diagnosed with a treatable form of cancer. The doc told
| him it could be treated and that even at his age his chances
| of survival where close to 90%. He looked at the doc and said
| WTF are you going to give me 5 years? I am 107 years old, my
| wife has been dead for several years, I am going home to die.
| You see he saw death as mercy from a long life and the older
| I get the more I understand that. If there is something after
| and it is eternal then I would think it would be of a vastly
| different nature than the life we experience now. Simply put
| we are not designed mentally or physically to live forever.
| Now I have faith there is something else, and I believe that
| this existence is a learning experience along that path and
| one of those core lessons is learned via death and that is on
| our own left to our own devices immortal existence is a
| futile endeavor. I think that is pretty apparent just looking
| of the last two centuries of human strife and the state of
| current affairs. Without death, life would just be a default
| not something to appreciate and enjoy, it would be taken for
| granted and our very nature would be different. I have the
| benefit of if I am wrong well then I am just dead. Either way
| I am OK with the outcome, because I really have no choice in
| the matter. Worrying about it only distracts from what we
| should be doing and that is living in the time we have.
|
| As a side note, I am not trying to be somber and I enjoy
| living, but living for eternity in this reality, based on
| what I have seen just in my lifetime, seems like a hell and
| not something I would strive for.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| We aren't designed to live forever. But that's a product of
| evolution. If we can achieve immortality, we can achieve
| ways of having good lives during that time. Problems are
| soluble.
| ausbah wrote:
| I personally don't like this view point. I think I find value
| in the things I do because of characteristics inherent to them,
| not because I won't be around forever. Or at least I think the
| latter view holds some merit because, at least for now, humans
| lives are finite - but I would like to imagine even with
| immortality that my interest in things wouldn't change.
| abhinav22 wrote:
| Thanks - good viewpoint too
| abellerose wrote:
| You've lived a privileged life if you fear death. In any case
| we've never experienced nothingness and so I find it odd that
| people even assume it something to be concerned about. Universe
| very well could just repeat all the variables again for your
| experiences to happen and maybe even slightly different depending
| on the iteration.
| throwaways885 wrote:
| A nice hope, but even if true, it's not one that affects me by
| definition.
| abellerose wrote:
| Not really a hope but just a theory. Nothingness is similar
| and for some people even better. I do find it amusing that
| people downvoted my earlier comment. People don't even have a
| grasp that their life isn't very special when something can
| simply just repeat it all again. It already happened, why not
| again, and when the maybe first iteration was possible?
| abnry wrote:
| Oh wow, I took an intro to philosophy class with this guy. I
| started getting suspicious when he referred to himself as John
| and that he taught Camus. He's a good teacher. What I learned in
| that class has stuck with me. It was a disproportionately
| influential class. It didn't change any of my beliefs, but the
| different philosophies I learned meant a lot.
| exolymph wrote:
| "On and on you will go, making sense of the world, forming
| notions of order, and being surprised in ways large and small by
| their failure, forever." -- Albert Burneko on Wile E. Coyote:
| https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-wile-e-coyote-explains...
| andrewstuart wrote:
| On the topic of how overexercise can damage the heart by James
| OKeefe, a cardiologist and lifetime obsessive runner:
|
| Notably he points out that they tested people blood after doing
| long distance events and found that many of them had chemicals
| usually found in heart attack victims, indicating heart damage.
|
| Basically he says that the long term overexercise/heart damage
| means the heart muscle constantly has microtears which heal up
| and the healed tissue is scar tissue which is hard and not like
| normal heart tissue - much harder and less elastic. So people who
| overtrain end up with a heart much older than their physical age.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6U728AZnV0
|
| Transcript:
|
| https://singjupost.com/run-for-your-life-at-a-comfortable-pa...
|
| Another video:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g8eEYwtfSo
|
| And from another author on extreme exercise and the heart:
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/extreme-...
| samstave wrote:
| The {sp?} Haji tribe in Africa walk ~30+ miles a day - and they
| are said to have the best heart health...
|
| Imagine, a Japanese (mostly fish+seaweed) diet + walking 30
| miles a day, and how healthy that pop would be...
| drenvuk wrote:
| citation for the tribe please. i can't find anything.
| Luc wrote:
| Hadza probably. Foragers.
| ktothe wrote:
| Here you go:
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/17/tsimane-
| of-t...
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I'm surprised (okay, maybe completely unsurprised) just how
| much evidence keeps pointing me towards the same conclusion
| about how to maximize for a long, fulfilled life: all things in
| moderation.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I'm a big fan of walking. Unless you are literally wheelchair
| bound, most people can walk.
|
| Most of us don't do enough of it and it's one of the safest
| forms of exercise. We really should be designing our cities and
| built environments to be more walkable so more people get in 30
| minutes of brisk walking daily just from running errands
| without really trying to exercise per se.
|
| People would be healthier. Pollution levels would be lower.
| Studies show that walkable, mixed use neighborhoods foster
| higher sales for local businesses and are thus typically more
| prosperous. "Eyes on the street" is a known antidote to crime
| and you get that primarily by having a pedestrian-friendly
| built environment.
|
| And I don't believe walking has any track record of fostering
| heart attacks.
| nostromo wrote:
| All of the science I've been seeing lately in this area seem to
| say, 1. short-term high-intensity training (sprints, for
| example) and 2. weightlifting are the best forms of exercise
| for general health.
|
| Running marathons and the like do not seem to promote health
| and can actually harm the body. And anecdotally, I've known a
| few folks that are obsessive long-distance runners and
| cyclists, and they physically look older than others in their
| age group.
| ahelwer wrote:
| Them looking older is probably just the gaunter look
| associated with endurance sports (low muscle mass, low body
| fat). It's especially noticeable in the face, where cheek &
| jaw bones will stand out. I happen to like the look; gives
| people's faces more character. Sun damage probably also
| contributes.
| samstave wrote:
| > __ _Running marathons and the like do not seem to promote
| health and can actually harm the body._ __
|
| I mean, the literal original Greek Marathon Runner who ran
| the 26 miles to warn of the war /invasion, according to lore,
| actually killed him upon his delivery of the message....
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| It was to announce the end of a battle.
| boyband6666 wrote:
| If you are training properly at running however, then you are
| doing high intensity exercise. The track repeats, the hill
| reps, they are that high intensity interval training, with
| easier runs the rest of the time.
|
| The idea that running is just shuffling along at a steady
| pace is a straw man, and looks nothing like what actual
| runners do!
| polishdude20 wrote:
| Training properly for long distance runs is different than
| training properly for high intensity runs. The two forms of
| exercise cause different adaptations. To get better at
| running long distances, one must run long distances.
| watwut wrote:
| That does not make marathon healthy thing amd it does not
| make long distance running into HIIT.
| nostromo wrote:
| The whole point of HIT is that you get all of the
| cardiovascular benefits of endurance sports without the
| repetitive stress injuries.
|
| And the current evidence is that your maximum exertion is
| what matters, not time spent exercising. So someone that
| does a few sprints, to max intensity, over 20 minutes
| actually will have better cardiovascular health than
| someone that runs or jogs for an hour or more.
|
| If you're sprinting at full exertion for a few minutes,
| you're able to hit a much higher max than you would if you
| were running long distance.
| isthatsoup wrote:
| This is absolutely not correct.
| bluntfang wrote:
| GP's point is that long distance runners are also doing
| HIIT if their training is managed properly.
| scruple wrote:
| I'd love to see links to this research because it
| contradicts everything I know and have read regarding
| physical adaptations in our aerobic and anaerobic
| systems. Specifically, it is my understanding that you
| need the minimum effective dose in both to force those
| adaptations and then maintain them.
| yters wrote:
| Anecdote I was told by a hospice medic is athletic people's
| hearts tended to outlast their life, i.e. at the end the only
| thing going was their heart.
|
| Also, there is supposedly a study showing 30 min of jogging 4
| times a week halves a person's heart risk.
| twooclock wrote:
| Couple of years ago I fell into anaphylactic shock. As I was
| passing out I remember cozy warmth and divine calm. I made my
| peace and was feeling happy. I remember thinking that's it.
| Thank's god arenalin shot brought me back. Not sure that was
| close to dying but I sure have no fear.
| SommaRaikkonen wrote:
| Lately there's been quite a few articles on HN about cancer,
| death and a variety of subjects regarding mortality. I read all
| of them, and the HN comments as well.
|
| Plus, ever since having a kid, I've begun to appreciate living
| more and more.
| exolymph wrote:
| I think it's very important to internalize and accept one's own
| mortality. We need to digest the true stakes that we're dealing
| with.
| xwdv wrote:
| This year all the world seems to be in a dying mood. As the new
| decade begins in 2021, we can only imagine a grim dark future.
| RalfWausE wrote:
| What we observe at the moment is one thing that most people
| fear the most: Change
|
| The future seems to be grim and dark at the moment, but in
| the darkness, the light shines the brightest! So, lets work
| together to make things work, burn away the darkness and do
| not let our self get trapped in depression.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| What keeps me up at night is, once everything is fixed, a
| lot of innocents will be dead, and many who survive will
| not have learned the lesson.
| hawkoy wrote:
| I take them positively as you but I have failed so hard at
| taking constructive steps to improve the situation.
|
| I keep getting sucked into negativity online and I feel I am
| toxic as well.
|
| I will take a break from HN and go play with my dad.
| naringas wrote:
| we gotta understand that life and death are two aspects of only
| one real thing.
|
| it is only our language which separates them into seemingly
| contrasting opposites. language is not reality, it merely has the
| ability to mirror reality.
| xdavidliu wrote:
| the difference between "life" and "death" is greater (many
| would even argue significantly greater) than the difference
| between "different" and "two aspects of".
| naringas wrote:
| I insist, both life and death refer to the same real
| underlying phenomenon of existence along time. the words are
| not the meaning.
|
| but I suppose I have also wound up believing that
| "everything" and "nothing" are more similar than one would
| initially guess. though not as similar as life and death.
| xdavidliu wrote:
| what about "different" and "two aspects of"? Are those two
| phrases also two aspects of the same thing, or are they
| distinguishable in some way?
| s3krit wrote:
| Love DMT, me
| naringas wrote:
| hallucinogens in general indeed forcefully show one
| things like this.
|
| but it's really about realizing and acknowledging a
| separation between what we are, our language, and the way
| in which the elements of language (symbols-vocabulary)
| are representations distinct from what they represent,
| with this, one can realize that life and death, while
| distinct concepts within language, are in fact aspects of
| a whole which cannot be logically fitted into languages
| such as ours.
| momokoko wrote:
| This is some white people shit
| Konohamaru wrote:
| > On the eighth day, the forty-year-old hobo said to Billy: "This
| ain't bad. I can be comfortable anywhere." "You can?" said Billy.
| On the ninth day the hobo died. So it goes. His last words were:
| "You think this is bad? This ain't bad.
| Ninjinka wrote:
| One enormous advantage many of the religious have in terms of
| mentally coping with life is that they don't believe they will
| ever truly die. Hats off to those who find motivation to live
| without that.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| As someone who was once religious, I can tell you at at least
| for me, this never really dealt with existential dread. Maybe I
| just didn't believe hard enough. But it stands to reason that
| thoughts of the afterlife do not do much: religious people do
| not seem, in the main, to have significantly less fear or
| avoidance of death. The drive to live would be pretty anemic if
| a mere mental trick could defuse it.
|
| Personally, now that I'm secular, I still fear death. But at
| least I understand that that fear only exists because of my
| built in neurobiological values, which are there because they
| helped my ancestors reproduce. That doesn't really change
| things much either, but at least it's a true explanation.
| Before there was always a cognitive dissonance: if things are
| going to be way way better after we die, why do we try so hard
| to avoid death?
| abnry wrote:
| I remain deeply religious, and there is something of a fear
| of death, but it is mostly related to the fear of the
| unknown. I believe I will see God face to face and that's
| kind of terrifying. I am honestly more afraid of pain than
| death.
|
| Any religious faith is a faith, even though people like to
| suggest silly arguments that faith necessarily is blind or
| unbounded, but it is still a hope in something unseen.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| How do you choose your supernatural beliefs? Why not choose
| more fun ones, like that God is a loving cool dude to hang
| out with?
| abnry wrote:
| I mean, do you have any knowledge of Christianity and its
| history? Not sure if you are sincere.
| mistermann wrote:
| One might just as well ask how a hardcore "there is no
| god" atheist chooses their belief.
|
| There is a long history of spontaneous religious beliefs
| throughout history and around the world, which can be
| interpreted in more than one way.
| SpikeDad wrote:
| Which god? Faith just makes you live a life without
| evidence. Seems like a poor choice to me. And with all of
| the negative associates of being religious seems to me
| you're blowing the one absolutely confirmed life for some
| fairy tale.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| snegu wrote:
| I actually found death a lot easier to deal with after I
| stopped being religious. The idea of existing for eternity is
| more terrifying to me than anything else I can imagine. I can
| deal with things ending.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| I can't find it now but there's an interesting dialogue by
| Asimov, a dialogue between God and the brilliant scientist
| God chose to grant infinite afterlife to. I won't spoil what
| they discussed.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| This doesn't make any sense to me, but I guess it just goes
| to show the vast diversity of human thought and experience.
| katzgrau wrote:
| Existing as a human forever would suck, but I'm sure an
| eternal being could find other ways to keep himself occupied.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| It would be weird after a trillion years when your human
| life was just a tiny sliver of your whole life.
|
| I can't handle that thought any more or less than the
| thought that I'll die - As a cartoon dog said, I just
| distract myself with pointless stuff, it seems to work.
| katzgrau wrote:
| Not to get too esoteric, but at some point a trillion
| years is meaningless. Nothing really matters or doesn't
| matter - it's how you want to look at it. And distracting
| yourself with pointless stuff is totally valid. In fact,
| it's probably what we're all doing in one way or the
| other.
| ianai wrote:
| This. I hope being human is merely something we're doing to
| experience human existence as one of many options.
| pmarreck wrote:
| > The idea of existing for eternity is more terrifying to me
| than anything else I can imagine.
|
| But the presumption here is that the same "time passage"
| we're familiar with here, exists _there_ , and pretty much
| 100% of NDE accounts (depending on whether you believe
| thousands of witnesses of it constitute credible eyewitness
| testimony) state that there's "no time" there or that "time
| is weird". Here's a simple question: Do you think there are
| immutable aspects to your person? Aspects that have remained
| unchanged your whole life thus far? Because those are
| apparently the things that continue on to the next adventure,
| as it were. And yet, this is supposedly a learning experience
| of some sort...
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Timelessness in Near Dearh Experience has more to do with
| the experience of dreams and anesthesia than with whatever
| the afterlife may be.
| noir_lord wrote:
| > Hats off to those who find motivation to live without that.
|
| My motivation is that the odds of me actually existing in the
| first place are so long that I'd be a fool to waste my brief
| time in the universe.
|
| Looked at through that point of view everything is amazing from
| a tree leaf to the latest giga image of Orion.
|
| "Given enough time, Hydrogen starts to wonder where it came
| from, and where its going." - Edward Robert Harrison.
|
| Think of all the amount of time and events that had to take
| place for you to be able to contemplate the universe.
|
| Spend some time looking at
| https://orion2020v5b.spaceforeverybody.com/ zoom in and realise
| that everyone of those white dots is a star, they where around
| for millions or billions of years before the statistically
| unlikely event that led you to be able to look at the dots,
| they'll largely be around for billion years after you are gone,
| to me that is the _true_ meaning of awe - that I can sit here
| with a coffee and get to in a very small way comprehend a very
| small part of a vast universe.
|
| I get to appreciate it because a million and a half years ago
| my ancestor took the left path and not the right, the one with
| the predator, I get to appreciate it because two thousand years
| ago my ancestor didn't drink from the strange smelling stream
| and because 40 years ago the cashier at the petrol station
| agreed to a date with the security guard doing the cash pickup,
| it's all random, there is no meaning but what we ascribe.
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| > it's all random, there is no meaning but what we ascribe
|
| As Yoda would say, "there is no why"
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=TJ8KIzkCAto
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| >it's all random, there is no meaning but what we ascribe
|
| This kind of thinking is bizarre to me, I genuinely want to
| understand this. I don't believe we all exist randomly or
| that our existence was an accident. I am a deeply religious
| person precisely because I don't believe all of this is
| random.
|
| If all is random, why does every person who claims to believe
| this not live as if it were true. Almost all of these people
| plan out their lives and their retirements, etc. etc. and
| then claim that everything is random. Why do you say "I'd be
| a fool to waste your brief time in the universe" if your
| brief time here is an accident. It's a fluke and nothing you
| do during your time here matters at all because you yourself
| don't matter at all, so why pretend that doing good and
| spending your time wisely is important?
|
| Sorry if I sound harsh, but I really wish to understand this
| kind of thought, and you just never can talk about this kind
| of stuff this way with people in real life.
| katzgrau wrote:
| Well, usually adherents also believe that there is a higher
| power watching out for them, or that they will eventually be
| judged for their actions.
|
| What it really highlights is that the will to live is dependent
| on personal perspective. There are plenty of great reasons to
| live, and plenty to not live. It just depends on what lens you
| ultimately choose to view from.
|
| If you're feeling like you don't have the will, there is
| absolutely a way of reframing your thinking in such a way that
| you could find the will.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Also depends on what entity is making that choice and to what
| extent free will exists.
| katzgrau wrote:
| Doesn't your personal belief help answer that question
| though? It seems if you sincerely believe you have free
| will, you'll end up doing things that look a lot like the
| exercise of free will.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| because eternal life conceptually feels like a coping mechanism
| it honestly never appealed to me, because the fact that it
| feels like coping kind of devalues it, to me there's more
| dignity in accepting death just head on. It might suck, but at
| least it feels like accepting things as they are.
|
| Also it just weirds me out, like I'll end up trapped in an
| eternal versin of animal crossing or something. Of course
| religious people don't think of it like that and it's all more
| sublime and full of unity with god and so on but it still
| doesn't sound great.
|
| i don't know if this is just the hacky pop-culture reading of
| Buddhism but I've always liked the idea of Nirvana more than
| the kind of stories told by the Abrahamic religions.
| blueridge wrote:
| An excerpt from In the Shadow of Tomorrow, The Worship of Life,
| by Johan Huizinga:
|
| The obsession with life is to be viewed as a manifestation of
| excessive full-bloodedness, to remain in the terminology of the
| life-philosophy. Through the technical perfection of all comforts
| of life, the in every way increased security of life, the greater
| accessibility of all types of pleasure, and the vast and still
| lingering growth of material prosperity, society has got into a
| state which in the old pathology might have been called a
| "plethora." We have been living in spiritual and material
| superabundance.
|
| We are so preoccupied with life because it is made so easy for
| us. The ever-growing power of observation and the facility of
| intellectual communication have made life strong and bold. Till
| well into the middle of the nineteenth century even the well-to-
| do section of European society was in more more direct and
| constant contact with miseries of existence than we are today and
| think our due. Our own grandfathers were given only very limited
| possibilities of killing pain, healing wounds or fractures,
| shutting out cold, expelling darkness, communicating with others
| directly or indirectly, avoiding filth and stench.
|
| On all sides man was continually made to feel the natural
| limitations of earthly well-being. The efficient ministering of
| the technical, hygienic and sanitary appliances with which man
| has surrounded himself is spoiling him. He is losing the good-
| humored resignation in the daily imperfections of human well-
| being which formed the disciple of earlier generations. But at
| the same time he runs the risk of losing the natural ability to
| take human happiness as it offers itself, as well.
|
| Life is made too easy. Mankind's moral fiber is giving way under
| the softening influence of luxury. In earlier civilizations,
| whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or any other, there was
| always this in contrast: in principle the value of earthly
| happiness is deprecated relatively to celestial bliss or union
| with the All.
|
| As all these religions, however, do recognize a relative worth of
| early pleasures, and consider them as God-given, denial of the
| value of life meant ingratitude. It was the very realization of
| the precariousness of every moment of human well-being which
| caused it to be appreciated at its true value.
|
| In the present there is a contrast also, but it is a very
| different one. The increase of security, of comfort, and of the
| possibilities of want-gratification, in short the greater ease of
| living has had two results: On the one hand, it has prepared the
| soil for all forms of renunciation of life: philosophical denial
| of its value, purely emotive spleen or aversion from life; on the
| other, it has installed the belief in the right to happiness. It
| has made people expect things from life.
|
| Related to this there is another contrast. The ambivalent
| attitude which wavers between the renunciation and the enjoyment
| of life is peculiar to the individual alone. The community,
| however, without hesitation and with more conviction than ever
| before, accepts earthly life as the object of all striving and
| action. It is indeed a true worship of life.
|
| Now it is a question for serious consideration whether any
| advanced culture can survive without a certain measure of
| orientation to Death. The great civilizations of the past have
| all had it. There are signs that the philosophical thought of
| today is also coming to it. It seems only logical, more over,
| that a philosophy which rates "living" above "knowing" should
| also include the end of life in its vision.
| grok22 wrote:
| Once dead, you cease to be, so it's only natural that people
| focus on their life and living it. I don't see any need to
| obsess or focus on death. Death comes as a shock, true, but,
| you cease to be after and so it doesn't matter. It's a point on
| the journey that is life and it's best to focus on the journey.
| smoyer wrote:
| My 15 year-old cousin collapsed during the half-time of a
| basketball game and died - in a time before AEDs were so
| prevalent. This sent my aunt and uncle on a quest to make sure
| there were AEDs anywhere people congregated. To date, there have
| been many lives saved due to their efforts.
|
| If you care to donate, go to https://gregaed.com. If you need
| help getting an AED for a location that should have one, there
| are discounts and in some cases funding available as well.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| there's one worthy goal in life, and that's curing death, or
| alternatively, merging with a machine. The essence of our
| existence is the informational structure in our brains , and it's
| the only entity with agency in the universe. Moral views of death
| invariably assume there is another one, even if it is "the benign
| indifference of the universe", as camus said. The universe doesnt
| have indifference, and it can't help because in fact it doesnt
| exist, only my brain exists.
| smallnamespace wrote:
| On the other hand, curing death would cause many societal
| problems.
|
| If you think the current amount of wealth inequality is bad,
| just wait until the young need to compete against generations
| of immortals who have accumulated hundreds of years of assets
| and interest.
| ausbah wrote:
| the book / show Altered Carbon does a good portrayal of this.
| defacto immortality has been created, but with it still being
| inaccessible to much of society even after hundreds of years.
| xarthna wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand what you are stating here. The
| universe does in fact exist. When _your_ brain ceases to exist
| the universe will still be here, and my brain's interpretation
| of that universe is my consciousness.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| i mean a universe with agency or any human-like properties.
| And more generally, we can't really know if the universe
| exists outside of us. We are limited to perceive that there
| exist regularities in the information content that our brains
| exchange with each other.
| mncharity wrote:
| > the lies we frequently tell our loved ones, our children, our
| coworkers, ourselves for the sake of genuine happiness. Are these
| lies morally problematic? [...] such half-truths are not only
| permissible but required in the living of a virtuous life.
|
| One argument against lies, is they undermine people's thoughtful
| engagement with the world. To an uncontrollable extent. Given the
| story, this paragraph on honesty for me has a flavor of "here is
| one root cause my life's difficulties... but I'm not yet ready to
| face that or change". Though he does emphasize the topic (eg,
| '"John, you with me?" I think I nodded. It was a lie.'), so maybe
| WIP?
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