The only thing worse than death is living forever

wegs said:
In thinking about this question further...I wonder if living a life without any sense of purpose...if that might feel worse than death? Hmm.

ETA, but we really won't ''feel'' death, so maybe this is all a moot point. :oops:
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Death is very much like being under general anesthesia, total oblivion. While unconscious you will not experience anything at all and when you wake up from anesthesia, you will not know how long you were unconscious. Could be an hour, a day, a week, a year, or fifty years.

Anil Seth has a wonderful lecture on this very subject; "Anesthesia sends people into objects and back again into people"
 
Imagine living through several evolutionary stages until you are much like a homo habilis living in a world populated by homo sapiens.
 
If I were religious I would like to imitate butterflies. Start as human then undergo metamorphosis into an angel with wings. Would be neat wouldn't it?

Heck, if a lowly caterpillar can do that, why can't I.........:?

Seriously, IMO, metamorphosis is a most incredible evolved ability of a living thing! Think of it. It needs two sets of DNA. One set to form the caterpillar which can only eat but not reproduce, the other set to form a most astoundingly beautiful butterfly, which cannot eat, but can reproduce.

Seems to me, somewhere in this remarkable ability, we might find clues to what constitutes DNA coding and how a living organism manages to change from one living being into a whole new living being (species?)
 
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Write4U said:
Death is very much like being under general anesthesia, total oblivion. While unconscious you will not experience anything at all and when you wake up from anesthesia, you will not know how long you were unconscious. Could be an hour, a day, a week, a year, or fifty years.

Anil Seth has a wonderful lecture on this very subject; "Anesthesia sends people into objects and back again into people"
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''When we agree about our hallucinations, we call that reality.'' :D

This is a great video, thanks W4U!
 
I speculate that if heaven existed, there couldn't be anything bad at all about being there.
 
Write4U said:
Death is very much like being under general anesthesia, total oblivion. While unconscious you will not experience anything at all and when you wake up from anesthesia, you will not know how long you were unconscious. Could be an hour, a day, a week, a year, or fifty years.
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Bingo!!! That is I believe a great description of what we call death.

wegs said:
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This is a great video, thanks W4U!
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Plenty of great "TED" videos out there. Quite informative they be.
 
elte said:
I speculate that if heaven existed, there couldn't be anything bad at all about being there.
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I speculate that if heaven existed, nothing positive nor negative would change at all.
Equilibrium must be maintained in all respects of infinite beings. In a dynamic environment the law of "movement in the direction of greatest satisfaction" is sufficient mathematical imperative to feel the emotional "joy of victory and pain of defeat" for any kind of commonly shared self-aware sentience. A binary state must be balanced to remain an equation...:rolleyes:

Humans are but one of an infinite set of expressed examples of those universal evolutionary principles applied from the very subtle to gross expression in reality.
 
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cluelusshusbund said:
Is that speculation based on you'r inturpitation what the holey Bible says about heaven... or somptin else.???
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Heaven to me would be a miraculous place (supernatural), and it would be impossible to be bad in any way at all. I received some schooling in Catholic theology, having parents from an earlier era before modern times now demarked by how religion tends to run on fumes, so to speak. Now, knowledge is more easily available especially including why religion exists, likely a result of human evolution (mental need due to too strong an understanding of reality before scientific knowledge blossomed).
 
Write4U said:
I speculate that if heaven existed, nothing positive nor negative would change at all.
Equilibrium must be maintained in all respects of infinite beings. In a dynamic environment the law of "movement in the direction of greatest satisfaction" is sufficient mathematical imperative to feel the emotional "joy of victory and pain of defeat" for any kind of commonly shared self-aware sentience. A binary state must be balanced to remain an equation...:rolleyes:

Humans are but one of an infinite set of expressed examples of those universal evolutionary principles applied from the very subtle to gross expression in reality.
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It would be miraculous. That's the way I view it. So that contrast effect in present human psychology wouldn't prevent it from always being a completely pleasant place.
 
elte said:
So that contrast effect in present human psychology wouldn't prevent it from always being a completely pleasant place.
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It would be a static place and die.
The Universe is a dynamical place, forever in a minor imbalance which corrects itself in a variety of ways. Dynamical behavior requires an imbalance in physical states, causal dynamics. Force and Resistance.
"Movement in the direction of greatest satisfaction"...sounds pretty logical to me.

(warning crude language)
 
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Write4U said:
It would be a static place and die.
The Universe is a dynamical place, forever in a minor imbalance which corrects itself in a variety of ways. Dynamical behavior requires an imbalance in physical states, causal dynamics. Force and Resistance.
"Movement in the direction of greatest satisfaction"...sounds pretty logical to me.

(warning crude language)
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Humans being basically needs-having-to-be-filled machines is why I view life as a curse.
 
elte said:
Humans being basically needs-having-to-be-filled machines is why I view life as a curse.
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Yes, I can empathize with that, but the mathematical beauty is that the dynamic effort to fill a need also creates the ability to find beauty in symmetry and variety of pattern expressions evolved from the first fundamental patterns which combined to form the Universe. We recognize beauty because we are built from the same patterns.

As Anil Seth says; "You don't have to be smart to experience pain, but you probably do have to be alive"
 
Write4U said:
Yes, I can empathize with that, but the mathematical beauty is that the dynamic effort to fill a need also creates the ability to find beauty in symmetry and variety of pattern expressions evolved from the first fundamental patterns which combined to form the Universe. We recognize beauty because we are built from the same patterns.

As Anil Seth says; "You don't have to be smart to experience pain, but you probably do have to be alive"
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I feel like I've had too much pain for a lifetime
 
Write4U said:
Death is very much like being under general anesthesia, total oblivion. While unconscious you will not experience anything at all and when you wake up from anesthesia, you will not know how long you were unconscious. Could be an hour, a day, a week, a year, or fifty years.

Anil Seth has a wonderful lecture on this very subject; "Anesthesia sends people into objects and back again into people"
Click to expand...
This is cool.
I've realized a similar thing.
There is a discontinuity of consciousness.

You could wake up thinking you're fifty years old but may have actually had your memories loaded from disk 30 seconds ago.
 
elte said:
Heaven to me would be a miraculous place (supernatural), and it would be impossible to be bad in any way at all.
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Yeah thats what i was told about "heaven" in Sunday school when i was 8 so thats also the difinition i have of it.!!!
elte said:
Humans being basically needs-having-to-be-filled machines is why I view life as a curse.
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Yes... an accordin to the Bible... i guess that curse began after Eve ate the apple.!!!
elte said:
I feel like I've had too much pain for a lifetime
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Ironic... you'r life has been hard an you'r a believer... my life has been easy an im a non-believer.!!!
 
cluelusshusbund said:
Yeah thats what i was told about "heaven" in Sunday school when i was 8 so thats also the difinition i have of it.!!!

Yes... an accordin to the Bible... i guess that curse began after Eve ate the apple.!!!

Ironic... you'r life has been hard an you'r a believer... my life has been easy an im a non-believer.!!!
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oops no I'm not a believer
 
I believe God is real, but death can still be a daunting thought, just the same.
 
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