A Conversation about death...

[amp0193]

How you feel about this show and the people in it is how I feel about death in general and the entire population. I feel bad for these people for missing out on what little life they have, but in the end we all die (for now) and nobody seems to give a sh*t about that.

Growing up religious, I think this is one of it's big cons. By promising life after death, and a "once saved, always saved" doctrine.... it kind of takes the urgency out of life.

If life is "supposed to be suffering", then why try to stop suffering? It'll be better in the next life.

When I accepted to myself that there probably isn't anything more, and this is all that I have... well shit, that got me going. For a while, I had a "death countdown" widget for chrome that would show my number of weeks left when I opened a new tab.

People go their whole life trying not to think about death. I think about it all the time. I imagine scenarios where my wife and kids die, and how my life would change, and what I would do differently. I really like the philosophy of Stoicism which gets into this kind of thing. It lets you be at peace with how shitty and random life can be.

 

[Lex DeVille]

MODERATOR NOTE:
These comments were extracted (copied) from another thread and put into a new discussion. Original discussion found here:
O/T: Health - My 600lb Life: Addiction, Enabling, More (RANT)

I was going to put this in the RANDOM RANT thread but I thought it needed its own thread.

So I got stuck watching a few of these episodes and I've never been so frustrated in my life at human behavior.

What is happening on this show is DISGUSTING, and I don't mean the obese people struggling with food addiction.

This poor guy was 850 lbs. Mostly bed-ridden. Couldn't walk through doors. Terrible lymphedemas.

After watching a few episodes, here are the sad conclusions...

First, every obese person is an addict ... addicted to junk food, sugar, dairy (cheese), meat products, and processed food. THERE ISN'T A VEGETABLE IN SIGHT.

Not one subject was addicted to apples, kale, quinoa, or bananas.

Second, every morbidly obese person is being judged by another obese person.

In the case above, Robert, practically EVERYONE in his life was obese. I'm not talking about 20 lbs, but 100s. These people would interact with him as if he was the only one with the problem -- NO, YOU ALL HAVE A PROBLEM.

Third-- every single one of these people have a disconnect to what they shoved in their mouth (diet) and their weight. They think the FOOD isn't the problem, they think it's the QUANTITY, or something HORMONAL.

They don't see the system around them as the problem when the system is designed for this very function: sickness and obesity = profit.

The system of processed agriculture and the lobbyists/politicians who backstop it is designed to make you FAT and SICK. This is why a COKE is cheaper than a bottle of water. This is why a Bic Mac is cheaper than a deluxe salad.

Fourth -- and the most disgusting and frustrating thing of all -- every single one of these people who have eaten themselves immobile and near death has ENABLERS. Friends, family, and even parents.

I was absolutely sickened to see the mother of this man bring him whatever he wants.

Oh, he gets angry if I don't get him what he wants.
Oh, well Robert likes what he likes.

Are you f*cking kidding me?

Your kid is killing himself and you're only concern is to not make him mad?

Really?

You want your 4 bacon-double cheeseburgers? Get out of bed and go get them yourself.

Fifth -- these people see the "weight loss surgery" as the answer to their problems. Yes, the old EVENT/PROCESS where surgery represents the life-changing EVENT, the SHORTCUT whereas the PROCESS (proper diet) can be dismissed.

To be eligible for the surgery, they are required to lose weight. Then, they lose weight not because of the weight loss implications, but because they view the SURGERY as the quick fix. In other words, after I have the surgery, I'll be able to EAT WHATEVER THE f*ck I WANT again, I just won't eat as much.

Only the perceived access to the shortcut (surgery) is enough to get them to engage in the process (diet).

Sixth -- the enablers (family and friends) of these obese people are selfish and rude accomplices to murder. Even after the doctor clearly says "You are killing yourself" -- family members have NO PROBLEM eating garbage in front of the obese person trying to lose weight.

It's like trying to rehabilitate an alcoholic in a bar, or a crackhead in a crackhouse.

And these are people who supposedly "care" about their obese family member.

Well, we really care about Bill, but not so much to stop eating Mac and Cheese and greasy chicken in front of him.

Sick.

They only care about protecting what they shove in their mouth and how it tastes, and how it makes them feel.

This poor guy above -- even after losing 200+ lbs and FINALLY getting the help he needed ended up suffering a heart attack and dying on the show.

Tragic, but not unexpected.

But hey, at least his mother didn't make him angry and she was kind enough to bring him 2 loaves of bread, 6 perogies, and 3 bags of Skittles.

End Rant.

How you feel about this show and the people in it is how I feel about death in general and the entire population. I feel bad for these people for missing out on what little life they have, but in the end we all die (for now) and nobody seems to give a shit about that.

Obesity is an unfortunate problem, especially when it leads to early death. To me the bigger tragedy is death itself. Extending the lifespan won't solve the obesity problem, but it might help.

Some days I find it hard to get motivated when I think about the fact in another 50 years or so I'll be nothing more than a lingering thought (crossing my fingers for the Singularity though). My existence will extend as far as the legacy I leave behind, and the length of time it continues to be a legacy until the new society decides its not.

Columbus day in Oklahoma is now called "Indigenous People's Day." Not that it matters. Columbus ain't coming back whether we remember him or not.

I just want to have the choice to live and keep living. The thought that it's all coming to an end for everyone is the most frustrating, sad thought in the world. Almost as sad and distressing as the realization that virtually nobody cares and everybody on the planet is an enabler.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MTF]

One of the reasons why I enjoy having crazy adventures and practicing extreme sports is because they remind me of death in a very powerful, direct way.

If you make a technical mistake when climbing (say, unclip the wrong carabiner), you're dead (it's often on my mind when climbing - it's super easy to kill yourself if you get distracted when climbing outdoors).

If you panic in the water when you wipe out on a big wave while surfing, you can drown (haven't surfed big waves yet, but was held down by a powerful wave for much longer than it was comfortable).

If you go offroad driving in a sparsely populated country and meet the wrong people, you can disappear just like that (had two such experiences of meeting people in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, fortunately both times they weren't dangerous).

I often catch myself thinking: "why the hell am I doing this stuff?" But I always soon remember why: it forces me to be in the present moment and these are usually the most precious, memorable moments in life that make you grow as a person. As Seneca said:

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.

If you prioritize safety and comfort in your life, you rarely, if ever, get to think of death in this direct way. I don't think that everyone absolutely has to force themselves to do this stuff, but it's definitely useful if you want to get more comfortable with death.

For me personally it's a good way to live better because I'm constantly reminded that death is not a far-off concept. It's good to be humble and remember that you aren't immortal.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[whiz]

How you feel about this show and the people in it is how I feel about death in general and the entire population. I feel bad for these people for missing out on what little life they have, but in the end we all die (for now) and nobody seems to give a sh*t about that.

Obesity is an unfortunate problem, especially when it leads to early death. To me the bigger tragedy is death itself. Extending the lifespan won't solve the obesity problem, but it might help.

Some days I find it hard to get motivated when I think about the fact in another 50 years or so I'll be nothing more than a lingering thought (crossing my fingers for the Singularity though). My existence will extend as far as the legacy I leave behind, and the length of time it continues to be a legacy until the new society decides its not.

Columbus day in Oklahoma is now called "Indigenous People's Day." Not that it matters. Columbus ain't coming back whether we remember him or not.

I just want to have the choice to live and keep living. The thought that it's all coming to an end for everyone is the most frustrating, sad thought in the world. Almost as sad and distressing as the realization that virtually nobody cares and everybody on the planet is an enabler.

Not to derail but why is death a tragedy?

And why does it matter if you "leave a legacy" or whatever? Why do you need to be more than a "lingering thought"?

I find that these type of thoughts are just an extension of our social & psychological needs that helped us survive until now (especially males).

You don't have to be bound by them or feel bad or stressed or anxious or whatever.

I find it very freeing to know that nothing really matters if you extend the timeline long enough...

I dunno. Maybe I read this wrong but it seems like a bleak stance on death.

I find that acknowledging all this kinda stuff makes me way more thankful and appreciative then I could ever be. That's why I could never eat myself to be 600 lb... or spend my life worrying about useless bullshit, stupid fights, gossip, etc

I'm here due to a string of insanely random events (I think...), I don't understand why anything exists at all - but I'm here and the experience is pretty cool so screw it, I'm gonna live... and when I die, well... I die.

Nothing good about it, nothing bad about it.

The only thing I really like about the idea of a legacy is that it motivates people. I really don't care about the ego aspect of it all...

It would just be cool to live a life that makes the average quality of life on Earth a little better... and in doing so, you might inspire the next generation, and so on, and so forth.

Basically, I like the idea of legacy because I wouldn't be anywhere without my own role models. I would be a mess. So I kinda owe it to become a role model myself...

But yeah, on a long enough timeline nothing matters and everything will be forgotten

But the whole idea that anything exists just boggles my mind so I'm just thankful to experience this stuff

So I'm gonna try to remain under 600 lbs

End rant

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[amp0193]

Damn dude, I thought I was dark.

Not dark, really. Like, it's not a fetish or anything. I'm just driving on the highway and a random thought pops in my head and I briefly contemplate it... instead of burying it.

I acknowledge death, and it in turn enables me to live a more extraordinary life.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[socaldude]

I'm not going to disclose what I believe in terms of death because it gets political, but I would say this which I think is helpful.

The fear of death is the #1 fear we all suffer from. Consciously or not.

It's the biggest fear we have and all of our other fears can be traced back to this fear at least a little bit.

It's the trunk if the tree.

Now. Removing the fear of death greatly increases our quality of life because it greatly reduces or completely removes all other fears or anxieties.

Obviously the question now is how does someone do that?

Which gets political so I will just leave it at that.

I did borrow a lot of these ideas from Sigmund Freud.

 

[lowtek]

Energy/mass cannot be created nor destroyed; only transformed/transferred into something else

So even after death you're transferred/transformed into something else.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GibiNy4d4gc

This is a widely misunderstood point. While mass-energy can't be destroyed, it can be rendered completely and totally useless.

So yes, your life energy is transferred to something else, but that something else is waste heat. It's irretrievably lost to the unending ravages of entropy.

That's assuming, of course, that there isn't something that transcends the material interpretation of the universe. If there's a soul, it's up for debate whether or not it would be subject to the laws of physics.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Lex DeVille]

I see this became its own thread, so I guess we can chat a little more. First I want to clear up a few things...

1) Please do not PM me with unsolicited advice about how I can overcome my fear of death. I never said I fear death and also did not ask for help. Not being a douche. This already happened today.

2) The purpose of my original post was to empathize with MJ's feelings from a different perspective. It wasn't to start a debate about death.

3) I do not care if you want to live until tomorrow, next week, 50 years from now, or forever. Live however long you want. I am not trying to convince you that you should want to live forever. I AM advocating that however long you want to live, you should have the choice and if ever you decide you are done living, that should also be your choice.

Okay, now to catch up...

No disrespect man, truly not meant in what I am about to say.

But isn't what you said above, basically what you said below to @Veloce Grey ?

I doubled checked my post to confirm, and I don't think so. Not sure if I'm interpreting your post correctly, but I assumed you were referring to what I said about spending time in nursing homes not changing my perspective. It isn't that I'm not open to changing my perspective at all, and there are certain situations in which I might choose death over life, though none immediately spring to mind.

The reason I made the statement is because I've been around nursing homes my whole life. My grandmother ran one. She and my grandfather both died of dementia and Alzheimer's. My step grandfather also died of dementia. His funeral was Wednesday. My parents cared for my grandfather in-home during his suffering. I'm quite familiar with what the diseases of old age do to the body, and I still want to live indefinitely because there is a fair chance those diseases will be eradicated within the next 10-20 years and humans will be able to live in young, healthy bodies with young, healthy minds.

I am biased toward life. It's good for survival. That bias is not a belief that I can live forever. Currently it is not possible. But I do believe there is a chance it isn't impossible and spending time around the world's foremost longevity researchers, techno philosophers, and life extension entrepreneurs has reinforced that belief. This bias and belief is not the same as what I've come to call the "typical deathist response" given by those who meet "immortalists" for the first time. That is, a rapid-fire, unresearched, cliche reason why death is good and life is bad (though that person virtually always chooses to continue living given the choice in the moment).

Long story short, I am biased, but there is a difference in what I called out Veloce Grey for.

Not to derail but why is death a tragedy?

I view death as a tragedy because I enjoy life. I enjoy my family and friends. I enjoy experiencing the world. I want to continue experiencing all life has to offer. Therefore death is a tragedy because it is the end of life and all of the things I love.

This doesn't make it a tragedy for everybody else though. What makes it a tragedy for others is that they might not have a choice even if one becomes present. I hate that I might offer my own parents a choice to live longer some day and they might reject it because they've always been taught that death is good, or any number of other reasons, despite the fact that if they really took a moment to challenge their own stance, they might realize new information and decide differently. They also might not. Either way without challenging their own beliefs there is no choice, so tragically, the choice has already been made for them.

And why does it matter if you "leave a legacy" or whatever? Why do you need to be more than a "lingering thought"?

It doesn't matter if I leave a legacy. I made this statement to show a perspective on one reason obese people might choose to indulge and not try harder to lose weight. Fat people die. Skinny people die. So I can empathize with how obese individuals might choose to enjoy food and live obese instead of going through the hard work to lose weight when it doesn't matter in the end.

I find that these type of thoughts are just an extension of our social & psychological needs that helped us survive until now (especially males).

Yes, that makes sense. Humans have evolved to survive. Survival is our natural inclination. Death is not. One more reason I'm biased toward life. All my life I was told death is natural. If that's true, then why do I look both ways before I cross the street?

I find that acknowledging all this kinda stuff makes me way more thankful and appreciative then I could ever be. That's why I could never eat myself to be 600 lb... or spend my life worrying about useless bullshit, stupid fights, gossip, etc

These statements don't make sense to me. They're definitive statements about a future you haven't lived yet. Like saying you could never be more happy than you are right now, but then tomorrow you wake up happier than you are today. They're nice to say off-handedly, but they're not statements of fact.

The fear of death is the #1 fear we all suffer from. Consciously or not.

Now. Removing the fear of death greatly increases our quality of life because it greatly reduces or completely removes all other fears or anxieties.

If we all suffer from fear of death, how can someone remove it? If it can be removed, then surely there are those who do not suffer from fear of death.

I do not suffer from fear of death because I do not fear death. I acknowledge it as a result of the body's processes failing until they can no longer operate as they are supposed to. My job then is to live long enough to take advantage of medical or other technologies that allow the body to continue functioning appropriately even if they begin to fail.

I don't think humans would really do much if it weren't for this underlying, unconscious grappling with our own mortality.

If this is true, then what motivated you today when you felt no risk of your impending doom? What will motivate you tomorrow? Do you thrust yourself into life or death situations to motivate yourself regularly?

There is no rational reason I can think of that humans would stop doing things if they lived longer or forever. Since the human lifespan has gradually increased for centuries, and yet we still continue doing things, we can at least say that living longer does not change our stance on continuing to be productive in a general sense.

If we're talking about living indefinitely, then a universe of possibilities awaits as there is very little chance the world will be anything like it is today in 1,000 or 1,000,000 years. Personally, I want to experience all of it (but that is open to change at later points in time).

The only good I can see from death, is that it makes you place more importance on your time here, and be more "present". Neil Degrasse Tyson gives this reason for him not fearing death, because living forever means you won't care or have the drive to do anything.

Since we don't have the option to live forever, we can't know (and neither can Neil Degrasse Tyson, as much as I respect him) if our death makes us place higher value on our time or be more present. If I knew right now that I would live forever, I would likely still wake up tomorrow and continue building my business and my dream.

I guess all we can do is accept reality as it is and make the best of the life we have left. Prepare where we can and for the rest, sprinkle in a little bit of hope that we won't die early from disease or tragedy.

That's the thing. Acceptance is NOT all we can do. There MAY be an alternative to death, and therefore alternatives to what we can do to avoid it. Presently those alternatives are believed to start by curing the diseases of aging such as dementia and Alzheimer's which shut down the body and lead to death.

First life must be extended. If we extend it long enough, we may be able to take advantage of technologies that allow us to extend life indefinitely (for those who want that). This is NOT a for sure thing. But I prefer an optimistic outlook in any case.

 

[MTF]

If you panic in the water when you wipe out on a big wave while surfing, you can drown (haven't surfed big waves yet, but was held down by a powerful wave for much longer than it was comfortable).

Oh the irony of life. Almost died when surfing today. Before I knew it, I had gotten caught in a strong current pushing me toward huge rocks. Survived without any injuries as I managed not to panic too much (I still panicked, but fortunately wasn't completely paralyzed by fear), but I've never been closer to death.

Strangely, I feel stronger and calmer for some reason now...

 

[Walter Hay]

In my opinion, Heaven is a place made up by humans to help them feel better about a problem they don't know how to solve, and don't believe they can solve - basically a coping mechanism.

As a person with strong religious beliefs I agree entirely with this statement. Most Christian religions believe contrary to what their own guide book (The Bible) actually tells them on this subject.

This entire thread is about having a choice about life and death and about how most people will never have a choice because rather than considering an alternate possibility, they only accept their own beliefs as fact without questioning if that position might not be factful.

Originally a total agnostic, I had no beliefs, but as I wrote in my "Featured User" post, when I discovered a relatively small religion that was, as the philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote in “Power - A New Social Analysis” P81 as: “The best representatives of the primitive tradition (first century Christianity) are the Christxxxxxxs”, I developed beliefs that are based only upon the Bible. I have always been a skeptic, and it took me 4 years to commit to those beliefs. No "instant conversion" for me.

The outcome is that I have no fear of death, though I love life, and I do not follow the musings of philosophers, the dreaming of those who think technology is the solution to everything, the wishful thinking of those who can't bear the thought that we truly are mortal, or the preaching of those who profess to believe the Bible, but repeat the world's first lie, namely "You will not surely die." This lie generated the almost universal religious doctrine of the immortality of the soul.

I'm not wanting to debate religion because I understood the subject is taboo on the forum, but willing to answer questions.

Walter

 

[Lex DeVille]

I'm not "shooting down" your desire-if you want to live to 150-200 or 500/1000 whatever that's fine it's your business and maybe one day science will provide a way to live such a very long time with some decent quality of life.

I'm just telling you that expectation vs reality for that isn't quite so glamorous right now. If you don't believe me feel free to spend as much time around older people in hospitals or retirement homes as I have. My opinions aren't unfounded, they're based around the current science for people living very long lives in that same way that telling a fat person there's current no magic pill to healthily take them from 500 pounds to 180 while still eating vast quantities of junk food is a current scientific reality.

And if you simply want something of your thoughts to live on after, and idea/a school of thought whatever, at least you're better placed than the average person who has come before in terms of tools that can help achieving that.

The expectation vs reality isn't glamorous now, but we're not talking about now. We're talking about tomorrow, and tomorrow might mean 50 years or it might mean 10. Either way our capabilities will be drastically different from what they are today.

The mind doesn't have an expiry date. You don't reach X days old and then you die. It's a result of age-related degenerative illnesses. So the solution has more to do with curing old illnesses (which seems to be happening more and more frequently these days). The problem is that many research programs are underfunded because nobody cares because they believe that death is inevitable.

Currently there's no magic pill that you know of, and even if there isn't, it doesn't mean someone won't invent one tomorrow.

Spending time in nursing homes won't change my perspective. I've already been down the path of believing death was the only option. I challenged myself and my beliefs and what I discovered was a world of possibility that less than the 1% are aware of.

Anyway, this is the last of my responses because we'll only get more derailed from here. If you want to take a day and explore other positions, WaitButWhy.com is a good place to start.

WaitButWhy.com

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Brad S]

MODERATOR NOTE:
These comments were extracted (copied) from another thread and put into a new discussion. Original discussion found here:
O/T: Health - My 600lb Life: Addiction, Enabling, More (RANT)



How you feel about this show and the people in it is how I feel about death in general and the entire population. I feel bad for these people for missing out on what little life they have, but in the end we all die (for now) and nobody seems to give a sh*t about that.

Obesity is an unfortunate problem, especially when it leads to early death. To me the bigger tragedy is death itself. Extending the lifespan won't solve the obesity problem, but it might help.

Some days I find it hard to get motivated when I think about the fact in another 50 years or so I'll be nothing more than a lingering thought (crossing my fingers for the Singularity though). My existence will extend as far as the legacy I leave behind, and the length of time it continues to be a legacy until the new society decides its not.

Columbus day in Oklahoma is now called "Indigenous People's Day." Not that it matters. Columbus ain't coming back whether we remember him or not.

I just want to have the choice to live and keep living. The thought that it's all coming to an end for everyone is the most frustrating, sad thought in the world. Almost as sad and distressing as the realization that virtually nobody cares and everybody on the planet is an enabler.

The worst part is that probably in a couple 100 of years death will have been stopped altogether.

Everything will be selected with custom genetics and aging and sickness will be no more.

We could probably reverse our own aging right now if we only knew how and had the right technology to implement it.

People are working on this.

I know some of them.

But it's a drop in the bucket compared with the amount of people that just accept death, aging and sickness as inevitable.

Our great, great, great, grandchildren will wonder how we ever could have existed at all-knowing every day our bodies are breaking down and we will be back to non existence and have no choice about it.

Talk about the greatest business opportunity that ever existed.

The people responsible for figuring out how to reverse human age and take control over all functions of the body will most likely be the first trillionaires...

 

[andyhaus44]

The expectation vs reality isn't glamorous now, but we're not talking about now. We're talking about tomorrow, and tomorrow might mean 50 years or it might mean 10. Either way our capabilities will be drastically different from what they are today.

The mind doesn't have an expiry date. You don't reach X days old and then you die. It's a result of age-related degenerative illnesses. So the solution has more to do with curing old illnesses (which seems to be happening more and more frequently these days). The problem is that many research programs are underfunded because nobody cares because they believe that death is inevitable.

Currently there's no magic pill that you know of, and even if there isn't, it doesn't mean someone won't invent one tomorrow.

Spending time in nursing homes won't change my perspective. I've already been down the path of believing death was the only option. I challenged myself and my beliefs and what I discovered was a world of possibility that less than the 1% are aware of.

Anyway, this is the last of my responses because we'll only get more derailed from here. If you want to take a day and explore other positions, WaitButWhy.com is a good place to start.

WaitButWhy.com

Lex, thank you for mentioning whybutwait.com (never heard of it). I was on there for just a couple of minutes and stumbled upon a really cool concept, which is how you get 100 10 minute blocks everyday --

https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/10/100-blocks-day.html

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsurIrXGPps

Here is a cool online tracker of using your 100 10 minute blocks -
144blocks | Track your day in 10-minute intervals of time

 

[lowtek]

Growing up religious, I think this is one of it's big cons. By promising life after death, and a "once saved, always saved" doctrine.... it kind of takes the urgency out of life.

If life is "supposed to be suffering", then why try to stop suffering? It'll be better in the next life.

When I accepted to myself that there probably isn't anything more, and this is all that I have... well sh*t, that got me going. For a while, I had a "death countdown" widget for chrome that would show my number of weeks left when I opened a new tab.

People go their whole life trying not to think about death. I think about it all the time. I imagine scenarios where my wife and kids die, and how my life would change, and what I would do differently. I really like the philosophy of Stoicism which gets into this kind of thing. It lets you be at peace with how sh*tty and random life can be.

Damn dude, I thought I was dark.

 

[whiz]

I'm not going to disclose what I believe in terms of death because it gets political, but I would say this which I think is helpful.

The fear of death is the #1 fear we all suffer from. Consciously or not.

It's the biggest fear we have and all of our other fears can be traced back to this fear at least a little bit.

It's the trunk if the tree.

Now. Removing the fear of death greatly increases our quality of life because it greatly reduces or completely removes all other fears or anxieties.

Obviously the question now is how does someone do that?

Which gets political so I will just leave it at that.

I did borrow a lot of these ideas from Sigmund Freud.

I posted about psychedelics last week and I still don't know the forum's stance on them, so I apologize if I'm violating any rules -

I have had several moments with psychedelics where I have absolutely no fear of death at all, meaning I could have died right then and there without a single care in the world.

No checklists of things I haven't done... no thoughts of the things I've done in my life - just complete acceptance.

It's a very nice feeling, and not one that you really ever have on a normal day. You're far too invested in your ego and the many connections that you have with the world and it's people, places, and objects...

But the feeling is great. I would describe the feeling as just - completeness.

But although it's a great feeling to have for a couple seconds, I think a little anxiety and fear of death is good (for motivation).

I don't think humans would really do much if it weren't for this underlying, unconscious grappling with our own mortality.

I think it kinda makes us tick, one way or the other.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Timmy C]

I've been thinking of death a lot lately. I'm turning 30 this January.

Mostly at nights, but also much more throughout the day now. It scares me to my bones.

People often say "it's just like before you were born" as a comforting statement, but that thought terrifies me.

The only good I can see from death, is that it makes you place more importance on your time here, and be more "present". Neil Degrasse Tyson gives this reason for him not fearing death, because living forever means you won't care or have the drive to do anything.

But that doesn't make me feel better.

I guess all we can do is accept reality as it is and make the best of the life we have left. Prepare where we can and for the rest, sprinkle in a little bit of hope that we won't die early from disease or tragedy.

I'm not religious but I use this alot " accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can and be wise enough to know the difference"

 

[100ToOne]

This entire thread is about having a choice about life and death and about how most people will never have a choice because rather than considering an alternate possibility, they only accept their own beliefs as fact without questioning if that position might not be factful.



We do not all have a common fear which is death. This is a vague generalization that can't be proven, and can easily be disputed. Vague generalizations are common among "believers" and this isn't limited to the Muslim religion.



Quotes coming from "the source" don't add weight to the position unless "the source" is agreed upon as a credible authority. In this case "the source" represents your version of your god which is not a credible authority to others of alternate religious beliefs. So indeed, you are preaching.

I may have misunderstood this thread. I thought people in this thread were discussing the meaning of death and how we can't overcome it even though we might extend life but eventually die at the end...it seems people are talking about something different lol..

As for fear of death, I didn't mean fear of death per say, because many Muslims are definitely not afraid of death...but what I meant to say the topics related to death..I mean topics such as: "what about my family, what's after death, what's the meaning of this life if I can just fall and die right now etc." that's what I meant.

As for preaching, again, I meant I'm not here to convert anybody or force beliefs on anybody or "win your soul". I meant I wanted to share what my beliefs are from where I take them - I didn't mean the source you have to agree that is authentic - I meant where I personally take it from that's all...
So I didn't feel like preaching since I didn't want any gain from this except so everyone can know what different parts of the world think....

Anything religion I just roll my eyes to be honest, it's no more real than the tooth fairy and far more destructive.

That's the last I'll say on that, back on topic.

Edited.

Not entirely destructive but I just think it's a bit silly and a coping mechanism.

Many people share your thoughts on that.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Lex DeVille]

Opinions yes, coming from my personal experience. If you have any facts proving otherwise i'd love to see them. The basis of belief is a mixture of mindset and experience. What i stated are my belies and that's a fact.

There's no reason to prove against it. We're dealing in matters of improbability and possibility. Impossibility can't be proven. Possibility can be proven when it becomes reality, but since I'm not trying to change your mind about wanting to live indefinitely, there's no reason to attempt to prove possibility in the first place.

The fact is you cannot prove defeating death impossible, only improbable. There is no need to prove defeating death is possible. If it happens then it proves itself. It may also be improbable that it will happen, but it can't be proven impossible (currently).

There is plenty of evidence to suggest defeating death and aging might happen within the next 10-100 years.

This article mentions startups working on digital immortality:
Will ‘digital resurrections’ let us bring back the dead?

This article discusses a company recently approved to use stem cells to attempt to revive the dead.
New Stem Cell Study Plans to Bring Dead People Back to Life

Here's an article that summarizes death as an illusion:
Is Death an Illusion? Evidence Suggests Death Isn’t the End

This article discusses how some cells continue to fight to survive even after death, which suggests that we don't even know when "death" has officially reached the point of no return if it even has one.
Your Cells Fight To Stay Alive — Long After Your Body Dies

 

[Thomas Baptiste]

Oh the irony of life. Almost died when surfing today. Before I knew it, I had gotten caught in a strong current pushing me toward huge rocks. Survived without any injuries as I managed not to panic too much (I still panicked, but fortunately wasn't completely paralyzed by fear), but I've never been closer to death.

Strangely, I feel stronger and calmer for some reason now...

Reminds me of how I almost fell 4 stories last week while putting up atenannes on a roof for my telecommunications company. Had a laugh about it afterwards but damn my heart skipped a couple beats. The deadly calm we experienced afterwards I feel is the after-effect of adrenaline.

 

[luniac]

diet and exercise keeps you "biologically" young for a long long time.
A lifetime of regular exercise slows down aging, study finds

Also the answer to alzheimers prevention ain't Sudoku, it's exercise.
Aerobic exercise may be key for Alzheimer's prevention

Sweating makes skin younger too, so break that full body sweat every day.
Younger Skin Through Exercise

im sure by 2100 they'll have the singularity or whatever, just gotta stay healthy long enough

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Roli]

I just want to have the choice to live and keep living.

We are kindred spirits!

Any time I tell people that I hope I'm alive long enough to either be uploaded to the cloud or simply 'resleeved' I am looked at like a madman, and get many of the responses you've had on this thread.

I think we've got a good chance, although perhaps you have a slightly better chance than me, as from the way you talk about death I'm guessing you're 10-15 years younger.

I recently wrote an article about it actually. I postulated the fact that the first step to immortality will be A-mortality, in that we will live forever, barring accidents and natural disasters. Which in turn might make us super cautious...

Anyways, if I don't make it to A-mortality, I at least want to be some kind of cyborg and live to my 120s.

Hopefully we'll be sharing a glass of beer in a couple of hundred years reminiscing about this conversation.

 

[MakeItHappen]

Strangely, I feel stronger and calmer for some reason now...

I also came close to death 2 times. The last time a couple month ago.

The first time it happened out of nowhere, so I hadn't time to think about anything like "Shit I am going to die..."

The second time it was different. I had time to think..., however the only thing that I was really concerned about was not having a chance to say goodbye to my family and thinking about the sadness they will have to go through once I am gone.

I was no concerned about "stopping to exist", I wasn't concerned about all the goals I haven't reached yet and I also wasn't concerned about all the experiences I haven't had yet. All of these things however where occupying my mind quite often in my daily life before.

I often had the fear of one day being 90 years old lying on my deathbed thinking about all the "potential" I wasted and all the things I could have done/achieved.
I don't care about this anymore after this experience. The only exception is family/relationship related. I will very likely be sad about not having been the best son/husband/father/friend that I could have been, so this is still a concern.

What I learned for myself from this experience is this:
- for me death isn't something to be scared of anymore (it was before in a big way), this is kinda liberating
- goals/experiences aren't nearly as important to me anymore, I still have them but I don't let my happiness depend on them as much as I used to
- the goals that I have now are based more around my family/relationships

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[LuckyPup]

Growing up religious, I think this is one of it's big cons. By promising life after death, and a "once saved, always saved" doctrine.... it kind of takes the urgency out of life.

If life is "supposed to be suffering", then why try to stop suffering? It'll be better in the next life.

When I accepted to myself that there probably isn't anything more, and this is all that I have... well sh*t, that got me going. For a while, I had a "death countdown" widget for chrome that would show my number of weeks left when I opened a new tab.

People go their whole life trying not to think about death. I think about it all the time. I imagine scenarios where my wife and kids die, and how my life would change, and what I would do differently. I really like the philosophy of Stoicism which gets into this kind of thing. It lets you be at peace with how sh*tty and random life can be.

I also think about death every day and had the same Chrome widget, but it made me so anxious and depressed that I deleted it.

 

[Veloce Grey]

I just want to have the choice to live and keep living. The thought that it's all coming to an end for everyone is the most frustrating, sad thought in the world. Almost as sad and distressing as the realization that virtually nobody cares and everybody on the planet is an enabler.

Whatever your thoughts on death, if you live long enough, eventually there will come a point where you're not quite so keen to keep on going. My parents lived long lives, especially my Dad who ate fairly healthily, but the fact is the mind simply has an expiry date too and in his case it meant mind went before body. If I could have done it legally, I'd have taken both my parents out and put a bullet in them a couple of years before they died. It would have been merciful. Living beyond your mind's expiry date is far sadder than dying.

As to the American diet, I occasionally go to stores in NZ that sell imported sweets from the USA to make some novelty purchases. The thing is neither I nor anyone else I've offered them to has been able to eat many of these things. They simply don't resemble food to us. I tried a Twinkie for the first time this year and they are truly awful, not just in taste but you don't feel like you're eating food. The marshmallow fluff spread stuff I couldn't even bring myself to try but my enduring memory of it was first seeing it on a tv show where some public schools in the US were giving it to kids in sandwiches for lunch. Who could possibly think that is a good idea?

 

[minivanman]

I used to really freak out when my wife would go on a trip... she goes on a lot of trips all over the world for work. I never really told anyone but I was freaking out inside. Like you, I'd imagine horrible accidents happening. I still have Flight Aware saved and check it regularly when she is flying but I don't freak out quite so bad these days.

I've never felt undeserving personally but I'm going to talk to my partner tomorrow about that. We are an open book so it doesn't bother me to talk to him about it. Plus, I can lead it to it by talking about this being his 1 year anniversary of his operation. By the way, he was only 350lbs but his doctor made him get the operation because something was messed up with his blood pressure and if he didn't get the operation, they said he would have died in 2018. Since the operation his blood pressure is normal.

I'm with you on Twinkies, they suck.... go get some Little Debbies Swiss Rolls. But you can't just eat the Swiss Roll, you have to eat it correctly.... 1 layer at a time. lol

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Veloce Grey]

Currently there's no magic pill that you know of, and even if there isn't, it doesn't mean someone won't invent one tomorrow.

Yeah I agree no need to derail this one as there's already the other extensive thread on the topic anyway.

I know it's something you think deeply about, so I sincerely hope for your sake that in 200 years I'm glancing down from Heaven and I see you still chugging along somehow.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Posts copied and extracted into its own thread.

Original discussion originated here:
O/T: Health - My 600lb Life: Addiction, Enabling, More (RANT)

 

[samuraijack]

I've been thinking of death a lot lately. I'm turning 30 this January.

Mostly at nights, but also much more throughout the day now. It scares me to my bones.

People often say "it's just like before you were born" as a comforting statement, but that thought terrifies me.

The only good I can see from death, is that it makes you place more importance on your time here, and be more "present". Neil Degrasse Tyson gives this reason for him not fearing death, because living forever means you won't care or have the drive to do anything.

But that doesn't make me feel better.

I guess all we can do is accept reality as it is and make the best of the life we have left. Prepare where we can and for the rest, sprinkle in a little bit of hope that we won't die early from disease or tragedy.

 

[socaldude]

I posted about psychedelics last week and I still don't know the forum's stance on them, so I apologize if I'm violating any rules -

Yeah I did read your post.

I think a lot of people are reluctant to try these kinds of things because #1 of social stigma and #2 because of fear of losing their minds.

Despite the fact that metaphysically speaking our present imagination, memories and emotions meet the criteria and properties of intellectual confusion and are really no different than an illusion anyways.

These things are tools that help break the stubbornness of these things.

I think it was Plato that said the Body was the greatest weight on the soul. In other words our body is confused anyways.

 

[whiz]

If this is true, then what motivated you today when you felt no risk of your impending doom? What will motivate you tomorrow? Do you thrust yourself into life or death situations to motivate yourself regularly?

There is no rational reason I can think of that humans would stop doing things if they lived longer or forever. Since the human lifespan has gradually increased for centuries, and yet we still continue doing things, we can at least say that living longer does not change our stance on continuing to be productive in a general sense.

I'm not saying that people would stop doing things.

I'm just saying that fear of death probably plays a huge role in why people do what they do.

Why they make the choices they make amongst all the noise.

If you had infinite time here, you'd choose to spend your time differently.

You might put certain things off or rearrange your life events because you know you have forever.

And without the reaper over your shoulder, you might not be motivated to have such a specific bucket list.

I'm sure people like us might view a longer life in a productive way...

I just don't like how some people waste their time because they believe in some place in the clouds where all their relatives are waiting and they have super happy mega fun time 24/7 for eternity...

In that sense, I find the loom of death to be a great motivator to experience life while you're here

I'm having a hard time trying to put this all into words...

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.