Freedomain Radio

I can hardly think of a place where rational thinking is held in higher regard than in this forum. And yet, even in the midst of it there appear to be signs of something that may resemble superstition. I've went through some mortality related topics, usually focusing on the fear of death which ultimately focuses on the fear of or incomprehensibility of non-existence.

So what does superstition have to do with it? Well, it's simple. If you say that death = termination of existence than you are making an assumption that might be just as big as the assumption that death = afterlife, made by most religions. I suppose that this assumption is taken as valid because the body decomposes after death and becomes practically indistinguishable from earth. However, that's really like second hand evidence for non-existence of something that itself is quite abstract - life and the essence of life which really is in the mind - thoughts.

So can we really know for sure that the decomposition of the body means the decomposition of life or is there, even if remote, a possibility that what's actually going in is merely a conversion? Whatever it is, I'm not trying to say that there IS a conversion or that there IS some sort of a life after death. I'm just saying that I don't think we can be so absolutely sure that there ISN'T. Remember that everything in reality is in fact energy (as aptly shown by the famous Einstein's equation E=MC2), something which can never be destroyed and merely goes in and out of form, a constant state of conversion. If everything is energy then nothing fundamentally ever "dies" or ceases to exist. It merely converts into something else. So who is to say with absolute certainty that all the human being turns into is the visible pile of dirt? Who is to say that the energy in our minds, at least, doesn't convert into something else?

In any case what we can be sure about is that we don't quite know and wont know until we actually experience it. Thus the fear of death really comes down to the ultimate form of fear of unknown. Death is the ultimate unknown.

When I read typical statements like "death is inevitable" or "we are limited" it frankly sounds somewhat at odds with much of else that is being said in this community. It almost seems like saying "government is inevitable" or "humans are inherently evil" or things like that, and just accepting that as if there's nothing more to it, as if it's nothing to be questioned. When in fact, THERE IS. Even if death actually is a complete termination of our life, just leaving it at that and then proceeding to lie to ourselves how it's actually some sort of a good biological function that drives us to live fuller lives.. would be a gross mistake and akin to putting a blindfold across your eyes that make it impossible for you to see the breadth of possibilities and freedom that is deploying before our eyes.

It is becoming quite possible for humans to decide how long do they want to live. That's better than immortality because it gives YOU the choice. Immortality implies impossibility to die, but if you can choose your time and prepare for it, that is empowering, that frees you of that fear and allows you to truly prepare, live your life on your time, do all the things you dreamed of doing and then when you are absolutely and fully satisfied, do that one last experiment and allow yourself to die, just to discover that last frontier - face one last unknown.

Take a look at genomics, an emerging science which now allows humans to program and reprogram life. Rapid regeneration of organs is soon to become a technological reality. Combined with nanotechnology it will become possible to devise what I call an "immortality pill", though it'd more precisely be a "life extension pill", which you can drink daily or weekly as a juice that puts nanobots throughout your body which add rapid regeneration and healing capability to your organs, including your brain. When a cell dies, the nanobot regenerates a new one in its place. At first sign of cancer, the nanbots neutralize it before you even notice. It could go as far as regenerate deep stabbing wounds before you lose enough blood and organ functions to kill you.

So don't tell me "death is inevitable". The more I learn about myself, humanity and universe at large the more I realize. The ultimate superstition is one that invokes the concept of impossibility and the dogma of limitedness. Whenever these concepts are evoked they dumb the mind - they tell the mind "there's nothing more to discover here, there's nothing more to try, go away.. " and the mind who believes in this horrid definiteness of these concepts so willingly complies and remains blind. When you don't know, it's better to accept the unknown than to come up with the explanation of the gaps. Even atheists tend to do that. It's just that the thing they fill their gaps with are more sophisticated than religious people's "god of the gaps". But don't fool yourself.

You know.. I don't believe in god. I believe in myself. I believe in human capability to evolve. But more on my pantheistic tendencies elsewhere. ;)

Let me know what you think.

memeverse:

So don't tell me "death is inevitable". The more I learn about myself, humanity and universe at large the more I realize. The ultimate superstition is one that invokes the concept of impossibility and the dogma of limitedness.

I don't think the ultimate goal is to escape impossibilities and limitedness.

If it were, you'd be limiting yourself by saying you cannot impose limits.

Seeking truth seems more UPB compliant.

And the truth certainly seems to be that changes to the brain (getting drunk, getting Alzheimer's, getting whacked in the head) make changes in my thoughts (forgetting things, forgetting things, and forgetting things, respectively).

Death of my brain = death of me seems pretty elementary.

Here's my take on this question:

Consciousness is the result of a particular order of cells in our brains...and changing the cells connections means changing the consciousness in the person.  I don't understand how the death of all of those cells can possibly mean anything other than the death of the mind.

To say otherwise would be akin to saying a computer still calculates after I have taken it apart.  The calculations are a result of a specific arrangement.

If newly non-functioning brain states get transferred into other realms, would you say that someone who gets brain damage has had their previous optimal state of consciousness "transferred" into another realm? 

What about the constant replacement of cells in our brains that result in a completely new brain every 5-7 years...does that mean we are constantly being transferred and updated into this other realm as old brain processes die?  What about things that I have forgotten?  Do those things get tranferred into this other realm?

But the central issue is that the burden of proof is on the person who believes in life after death.  It's not a 50/50 proposition.

Them's my 2 cents.

memeverse:

So don't tell me "death is inevitable".

What were you feeling when you wrote this?

 

Memeverse, most people here have already had this debate and heard these arguments.  I would suggest listening to the 6 part series on agnosticism (use the search under the podcasts section) and then let us know which particular arguments may be invalid and the reasoning as to why.

DDFM:

I don't think the ultimate goal is to escape impossibilities and limitedness.

I didn't say it's the ultimate goal. Every person can decide for self what the ultimate goal is. I meant that the assumption of impossibility and limitedness can be the ultimate superstition because it completely blinds you to the possibilities that may actually exist. You certainly wont try to do what is impossible nor explore the possibilities you already decided don't exist.

DDFM:

If it were, you'd be limiting yourself by saying you cannot impose limits.

That's not quite the point. The point is in enabling you to do whatever you will, basically, without imposing limitations that contradict that before actually exploring whether such limitations and impossibilities must exist. It is exactly the power to impose your own limitations rather than be subject to something or somebody elses that is being sought.

DDFM:

Seeking truth seems more UPB compliant.

And the truth certainly seems to be that changes to the brain (getting drunk, getting Alzheimer's, getting whacked in the head) make changes in my thoughts (forgetting things, forgetting things, and forgetting things, respectively).

I wont argue with that, but all of these are your own impositions. However, saying how you have some unknown date of your termination that is absolutely out of your control is like having this ill faith that something is out of your hands. It's an assumption of a limitation that in my opinion many are too quick to make, but making it makes them obviously blind to the possibility that this too might be something they may have more control over then they thought.

DDFM:

Death of my brain = death of me seems pretty elementary.

I don't know.. I'm not saying that's not true. I'm just not at the point where I would take that as the only possibility... more below..

threebobs:

Here's my take on this question:

Consciousness is the result of a particular order of cells in our brains...and changing the cells connections means changing the consciousness in the person.  I don't understand how the death of all of those cells can possibly mean anything other than the death of the mind.

One way to think about it is not as an arrangement of cells, but an arrangement of energy flows (or patterns, not sure how to word that). Cells are merely the medium, at this point. But thoughts are the fundamental thing and thoughts are purely energy. I guess then the question comes down to whether the thought energy is or can be transfered into another medium without losing the cohesion that makes them an unique mind. Does nature do such a thing? I'm just not overly convinced that we can be absolutely sure it doesn't, because this is something that's hard to measure and hard to experiment with since somebody basically has to die for the experiment to be done...

threebobs:

To say otherwise would be akin to saying a computer still calculates after I have taken it apart.  The calculations are a result of a specific arrangement.

Right, but it can also be said that the calculations are just ordered energy impulses that could occur in various other mediums.

threebobs:

If newly non-functioning brain states get transferred into other realms, would you say that someone who gets brain damage has had their previous optimal state of consciousness "transferred" into another realm? 

What about the constant replacement of cells in our brains that result in a completely new brain every 5-7 years...does that mean we are constantly being transferred and updated into this other realm as old brain processes die?  What about things that I have forgotten?  Do those things get tranferred into this other realm?

But the central issue is that the burden of proof is on the person who believes in life after death.  It's not a 50/50 proposition.

Them's my 2 cents.

I don't know.. Maybe they do and maybe they don't. You're right the burden on proof is on the person who believes in life after death. I don't. My point was that death is the unknown. And I just ventured to describe some possibilities, but I'm not claiming them as facts.

Nathan:

Memeverse, most people here have already had this debate and heard these arguments.  I would suggest listening to the 6 part series on agnosticism (use the search under the podcasts section) and then let us know which particular arguments may be invalid and the reasoning as to why.

I probably will. I already watched a video on agnosticism a while ago and I can ask this. Does the rejection agnosticism (which I am actually fine with) equal a rejection of "unknown" - that there may be some things which we simply don't know yet, not because they are unknowable, but because we just didn't have enough experience nor collected enough evidence to form a proven theory?

I'm not sure that people have said that death is scientifically inevitable, and will never ever be conquered, or that it is a 'good' biological function, whatever that might mean...

As for death being the end of life, well every shred of empirical and rational evidence points to this, so magical thinking to the contrary does not seem reasonable to me.

What in your life changes when you imagine or expect immortality - what different decisions do you make?

GregG:

memeverse:

So don't tell me "death is inevitable".

What were you feeling when you wrote this?

 

Perhaps somewhat triumphant about the human power to evolve? :) Frankly, it's easier for me to describe what I'm feeling right now when I reread that statement because that would be more precise. I said that after a second argument I made, one which doesn't depend on the argument that death is the unknown etc. so it's a separate argument. Current technological evolution is clearly paving the way towards building rapid regeneration technologies that could eventually postpone death as long as you want. As threebobs says you get a new brain every 6 or 7 years (I wasn't even aware of that, but it favors my position). If biology already does regeneration for you, clearly it is possible to just continue the process of regeneration longer by technological means. So when I hear a statement that "death is inevitable" I feel it's made out of ignorance towards how far have we've come technologically. I feel like shouting, which I pretty much did in that statement, "Oh no it's not! Just you watch, and I'll ask you that in 20 years!".

Stefan Molyneux:

I'm not sure that people have said that death is scientifically inevitable, and will never ever be conquered, or that it is a 'good' biological function, whatever that might mean...

Right. I'm happy with that admission to be honest. That's all I wanted to hear. We CAN conquer death. I'm sure of it. Whether it will happen in my life time or not I don't know, but given current technological progress lots of scientists are beginning to say things like if you manage to survive next 20 years you have good chances of living 150 or even 300 years. And within such long time the technology will only continue to advance so we may get into a situation of perpetual life extension.

Stefan Molyneux:

As for death being the end of life, well every shred of empirical and rational evidence points to this, so magical thinking to the contrary does not seem reasonable to me.

What in your life changes when you imagine or expect immortality - what different decisions do you make?

What it does is give me a little more hope that if I somehow fail to achieve my dreams technology may provide me a way to "buy" more time. And frankly I believe it is perfectly within my right as an individual to seek such an opportunity if it is available. We evolve. So we might as well take advantage of the "fruits of our evolution" so to speak.

But no it doesn't terribly alter my plans in life. I still think within the "time is limited" paradigm and strive to accomplish things I desire as soon as possible, and so far I think I'm doing pretty well. :)

But my ambitions go so far and I feel that there wont be an end to them. I want to become a wealthy voluntaryist, found an influential Voluntaryist Media Network. Then I want to found a space company, offer space tourism services to build up and then use the resources acquired this way to build a space station for liberty lovers that is modular (each module one's own home with own engines that can be fired up in any direction of space). A bulk of this station would at some point proceed to establish our very own colony on Mars or floating at Venera. I want to be here when humans invent faster than light engines and I want to explore deep space. I want to invest in all of this myself, doing my little bit. And of course I want to invest into immortality tech.

And achievement of any of these I feel is gonna only inspire me to dream up something even bigger and so on indefinitely.

This isn't to say that if I lived only 70 years and achieved only becoming fairly wealthy and converting thousands (or millions?) of people to voluntaryism with my Media Network while investing into beginnings of the above mentioned awesome technologies - and then looked back to my life before death - that I wouldn't be satisfied. I would. But if there is ANY opportunity that this doesn't have to be the end then I want to seize it. If I am given time to achieve even more, I want to do that.

I wonder why you are so passionate about something that doesn't really change how you act and decide... Do you have any idea why?

Stefan Molyneux:

I wonder why you are so passionate about something that doesn't really change how you act and decide... Do you have any idea why?

It just feels exciting to try and destroy limitations which seem unfounded or unnecessary to hold. I guess you could say I'm on a streak of some sort... from becoming a voluntaryist onwards it's been a journey of self empowerment that seems like having no end in sight. I no longer actually believe in failure and I don't really believe in impossible. If universe can do it, we can do it too eventually. We just need to learn the action-reaction process involved and copy it. :) Of course same goes for inner growth.. I can become anything I really want to be.

I see humans as a god like race in the making. We will in the coming decades and centuries either become utterly free and powerful or die. And I'm placing my bets on the former, which I think is well founded, but for the sake of not going into a larger rant I'll save the reasons for later. :)