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Topic: On the meaning of life and the long-term merits of technologic improvement - page 4. (Read 23683 times)

legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
Contrary to Camus, who says the first question one has to ask is if life deserves to be lived, I think the first question is if there is anything else than the present life (an after life, a god, etc), because the answer to it will affect the answer to Camus's question, as well as all issues about meaning.

For a believer, life has already his determined meaning, usually to be a test for an afterlife.

What believers don't answer is what is the meaning of the afterlife. Are people really happy forever on "heaven" or do they ask for the meaning of their afterlife, bored to death, without even the last resource of terminating their own immortal life?
legendary
Activity: 3374
Merit: 1824
Very interesting topic.
In my opinion, in seeking the meaning of life we should not rely on changeable human values but we should rely on God's absolute and unchanging values.
Human thinking is constantly changing, during day, month, year, life, 100 years, 1000 years etc.
Can we create stable and happy society if our values are not stable and we are in conflicts all the time?
Meaning of life we can find only in God, our Creator.
Technology should serve and help man, their creator.
legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
More quotes on meaning and death:


A dead atheist is someone who is all dressed up with no place to go. ~ James Duffecy


A friend of mine stopped smoking, drinking, overeating, and chasing women --all at the same time. It was a lovely funeral.


"Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened."   — Terry Pratchett.

"Want to know what happens after death ? Go look at some dead things."    — Dave Enyeart.

"Your worst day when you're alive is better than your best day when you're dead."

"One thinks one's something unique and wonderful at the center of the universe, when in fact one's just a slight interruption in the ongoing march of entropy."    — Aldous Huxley

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is, or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy."    — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
full member
Activity: 168
Merit: 100
I wanna add some,
Just think about future. If you don't hold place in people's hearts and minds; you will be completely forgotten in 300 years. Even everyone remembers you will be dead. So actually, life race in many ways is meaningless because we die physically also die when we don't get remembered.
Technology plays good role in second stage, uploading people into pcs. So there may be no real death.
Somehow, you are right but Tech will make you to be remembered after you died in both sides.. perfect and bad sides of you... seconds one is the worst i guess
legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
"Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."    — Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), roman emperor.

Stating the obvious, being death just a state, mostly caused by the weakness of the human body (a real treason against the conscience), doesn't make any kind of sense interactions with it. It doesn't have any kind of conscience. But if it were possible any meaningful interaction, except in the case of suicide, smiling to it would be like kissing Judas. It would be smiling to an odious being, that imposes it self on ourselves and on our love ones.

Laughing or mocking our tragic destiny is a much better reaction:

"Life is a sexually transmitted, fatal disease" (this one is brilliant, thanks Neil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gaiman)

"Health /n./ The slowest possible rate at which one can die." (don't know the author, but it's excellent).

"They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days."    — Garrison Keillor.

"The first thing you should do when you get up is read the obituaries. You never know when you'll see a name that will just make your day."    — Ed Salisbury.

"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it."  Jack Handey

I hate funerals and would not attend my own if it could be avoided ~ Robert T. Morris

"I swear on my dead relatives — and even on the ones who are not feeling too good." Jacopo in The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), probably the author is Jay Wolpert

"Everybody knows that the great russian poet Maiakovski commited suicide. What is not so well known is that his last words were: 'Comrads, don't shoot'..."    — Fred Botten.

"I told you I was sick." — Tombstone of Spike Milligan (1918—2002), British actor.

"That's All Folks !"    — Epitaph of Mel Blanc, The Man of a Thousand Voices.

Die, my dear doctor! That's the last thing I shall do! ~ Lord Palmerston

"Life sucks, but Death swallows!"

"Half of all adults in the United States say they have considered registering as an organ donor, although only some have purchased a motorcycle to show that they're really serious about it."

The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.
 from Will Rogers

"Support the American Kidney Foundation. Don't wear your motorcycle helmet."

"I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather, not screaming in terror like his passengers."    — Emo Phillips or Will Shriner?

"100 000 lemmings can't be wrong." [animals famous for throwing themselves to death from precipices fowling hordes of thousands]

"Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"

"After a year in therapy, my psychiatrist said to me: 'Maybe life isn't for everyone'."    — Larry Brown.

"The last thing we'll hear is some scientist saying 'It works!'"    — Jon Stewart about how the world will end.

The annoying thing about being an atheist is that you'll never have the satifaction of saying to believers, ‘I told you so.' Mark Steel
legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
"Without the threat of death, there's no reason to live... at all."    — Marilyn Manson

The quote has some merit. One of its points is that we need bad things in life to give value to the good. If one does only what one wants, one gets bored. Beside, the conscience of the shortness of life is a serious motivation to do things now and not tomorrow.

However, death will be always with us. Humans might only be able to postpone it for very long.

legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
Small update in the OP.
legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
I'm convincing that, if we don't screw up, our descendents will live hundred of years, probably thousands of years, thanks to new technology, including on aging.

The idea that our bodies are like machines that will necessarily slowly decay is wrong. We are programmed to get old and die, to leave resources to the young. That is the most efficient way for a species to survive on a world with scarce resources. But they are working not only on stopping but even reversing aging (see https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.13000982).

But, sorry for being negative, death will wait for all our descendents patiently, a million or a billion years if necessary. Soon or later, something will go wrong to each and everyone of them. Death will be their final destination also, even with several of your SF solutions.

I wouldn't count on a heaven waiting for us. Deep down, even religious people normally don't count on it.

One of the most astonishing things is the importance religious people give to all the details, material resources and honors they have in this life and how scare they usually are of dying. Even suicidal bombers hesitate or give up some times.

For a real believer, this life of, say, 100 years, should be irrelevant compared with the next immortal one. That all of them (more or less, at least in some moments) are ready to sin against others and god, risking their immortality, seems completely absurd. Unless, deep down, they feel this is really the only life they will get.

sr. member
Activity: 518
Merit: 250
My post was made under a scientific perspective. From this perspective, death is our final destination. Frozen ourselves only delays it (but if it increases our life, while we wait for a cure for our problem, go for it).

We should reconsider what we mean by ourselves and conscience. Death our final destination? We have to be open minded.
Let me give you some science fiction ideas to become immortal:

replacing our hardware.
We have some early technology: pacemaker, fake legs. If we completely replace all of our our hardware, we would live for 100s of years or perhaps even longer.

fixing our hardware.
The vary traditional method. In the event of sickness use pills etc. Can we stretch life this way to infinity?

time travel
Live your life from young to old. Everytime you get old travel back in time to being young.

brain transplant
transfer the brain into new body. Humans would have a new body every 50-100 years.

components
We divide our conscience (brian) into components. We implement these components into a new living human being. In practice there are cases known of human beings losing part of themselves due to brain damage (left/right disconnection and others). What if we could simply take components and put them in any human being? This also implies you can become a mix with your wife or friend. That is to say, to become one.

recreating ourselves.
In the event we die, we print ourselves exactly as we were.  Yes, I do mean a 3d printer that prints human beings. This means an exact copy of our body. This also implies that you could be alive in several bodies, all across the world or space. Different versions of yourself could be alive at the same time (Young, adult).

reincarnation
We download our conscience (brain, about 2.5 petabytes of data and additional structure / system). By uploading you can then literally be reborn as any animal, machine or space system. Download and upload could be simultaneously, so any type of traffic would be obsolete (Trains, cars, planes etc).

The later two have severe consequences. Here are some thoughts:
  • You could meet yourself and shake hands.
  • You can see yourself die and go on with your life
  • You can be at zero or more places at the same time
  • You can be anywhere in the world within a split second
  • You could be half of you if merged with another brain
  • You could be a bird on monday, a dolphin on tuesday and a giraffe on wednesday.
  • You could be everything that lives in different shapes

These are truly fantasies but as a scientist you should remain open minded. But why be immortal when everyone else goes to heaven  Wink
legendary
Activity: 3332
Merit: 6809
Cashback 15%
I wanna add some,
Just think about future. If you don't hold place in people's hearts and minds; you will be completely forgotten in 300 years. Even everyone remembers you will be dead. So actually, life race in many ways is meaningless because we die physically also die when we don't get remembered.
Technology plays good role in second stage, uploading people into pcs. So there may be no real death.
Yes, and I like to pretend the things I do have meaning.  If I didn't have my little illusions and delusions, I would have committed suicide years ago.  I do despair for the future generations though.  I see technology bringing about a lot of really shitty things.
legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
My post was made under a scientific perspective. From this perspective, death is our final destination. Freezing ourselves only delays it (but if it increases our life, while we wait for a cure for our problem, go for it).

I didn't write that waiting for our turn is fair or necessarily always enjoyable. Smiley

But in this case, it's better to be on a long line than to be our turn next. Death is the proof that delaying the inevitable might be a sound decision.
sr. member
Activity: 518
Merit: 250
Warning: this text might depress you. Read at your own risk.


Traditionally, a philosophical or religious question, the issue of meaning is starting to be the subject of scientific studies.

Meaning is important because we are self-aware and we are conscious of the certainty of our death. Meaning is one of the ideas that help us dealing with death. Is part of our "terror from death management" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory). It helps us dealing with the fact that we live in a death row (for a crime we didn't commit), trying to entertain our selves while we wait for our turn (A. Camus). Or, to use more crude words, said clearly to shock the reader, that we "are corporeal creatures—breathing pieces of defecating meat no more significant or enduring than porcupines or peaches." (Solomon: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fear-death-and-politics/).

Interesting post. It's a very pessimistic way of viewing life. I'm very critical about the view of 'entertain our selves while we wait for our turn', as we age the quality of life worsens. I think at some point some of us can no longer entertain ourselves. In some lives there is no space for entertainment at all.

Hal Finney is cryonically frozen. Perhaps death is not the final destination.  Huh
legendary
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1027
meaning of life..

To make new worlds.. travel threw space..This planet will blow up one day..LIFE..
meaning survive.. you don.t survive you have no life..so its important we have space science..
new energy systems.. new means of propulsion systems..new ways of feeding our selves I.E a pill with all the nutrients we need to survive..

the long-term merits of technologic improvement
3D PRINTING WILL CHANGE THE PLANET
the only thing you need to save is your brain and heart in an accident I.E if you get run over if your heart and brain survive its almost certain you live
but if no accident you only need your brain if you get old ..one day we will 3D print body parts all from our own DNA it will replicate you an arm or a new leg if we have accidents..

But if we get old we could replicate the whole body and put our brain in a whole new body..
So as long as we keep our heart and brains safe.. i know we will live for as long as we want too
So much much much more to discover..you could say man and women are still in the womb..

And now back to the meaning of life..

if you were to study all those sciences i have mentioned then you would never be bored to ask what is the meaning of life because you be to busy to ask why Grin

SO THE MEANING OF LIFE IS KNOWLEDGE..
Know knowledge  and the long-term merits of technological improvements will come Wink Wink

Think about it your asking the meaning of life because your bored ..
I.E what is it all about Sad
If your busy there is not enough hours in the day to be thinking what is it all about..because your wishing for more time..
So if your asking what is it all about then you got to much time on your hands or are bored with your life or the situation your in..
SO THE MEANING OF LIFE IS KNOWLEDGE LEARN KNOWLEDGE AND YOU WILL THEN KNOW THE MEANING OF LIFE Wink
legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
On the issue of "our" origins, it seems the multiverse theory found another support on observation, beside being a good explanation for the fine tuned physical laws we have and the String Theory and its several new spatial dimensions: clusters of galaxies are moving fast to certain directions without visible cause ("dark flow"). One explanation is that there is matter attracting them from outside of our universe: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100322-dark-flow-matter-outside-universe-multiverse/

If this was correct, it would mean that different universes can attract each other, even if they are ruled by different laws, including on the force of gravity.
legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
One of the issues is a semantic one.

But no argument from me on the others. Nothing like a researched post.
legendary
Activity: 1135
Merit: 1001
^ like genetic engineering. But other species do something like it. Bacteria for example. They clone themselves to reproduce. But then they can do horizontal gene transfer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer This lets some genes pass along to other bacteria or even completely different organisms. And it's one of the reasons for antibiotic resistant bacteria being a problem.

Our species (and most of them) evolved under the assumption that to make the species more resilient it's necessary to promote differentiation between individuals.

There was no assumption. It's just the way it turned out during the course of evolution.

To avoid the cloning system normally used by creatures with negligible senescence and promote differentiation it's more adequate a reproductive system based on the mix of genes of two individuals.

It doesn't have to be one or the other. There are species that use both. For example hydras. In good conditions with lots of food they use asexual reproduction. When in bad conditions sexual reproduction.
legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
Still on aging, a few creatures (animals, plants and bacteria) simple don't get old. Their bodies are continuously repairing themselves. They have what is called Negligible senescence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligible_senescence)

From an evolutionary and capacity to endure as a species perspective, this isn't good. These creatures normally clone themselves, therefore there are little gene variation in the species. A climate change or a disease can wipe them all more easily.

Our species (and most of them) evolved under the assumption that to make the species more resilient it's necessary to promote differentiation between individuals. Different individuals can resist better general diseases that could wipe out the species if we were all clones (even the black plague couldn't kill all of our ancestors) or better resist changing conditions in the environment. To avoid the cloning system normally used by creatures with negligible senescence and promote differentiation it's more adequate a reproductive system based on the mix of genes of two individuals.

But that comes with a heavy cost. With every kid being the result of the mix of two individuals, after a few generations the trace of us in our descendents is very small. After several generations, the genes from us that survive in each of our descendents are almost irrelevant.

Anyway, our mortality is a condition for allowing the species collectively to endure on better. Of course, both things might be possible, with a touch of human magic.

legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
On the issue of aging, there were some recent news about the hopes on a drug already available to diabetes: metformina

Trials on humans were just approved:

www.nature.com/news/anti-ageing-pill-pushed-as-bona-fide-drug-1.17769

http://wjbf.com/2015/12/02/us-fda-approves-diabetes-drug-metformin-for-anti-ageing-human-trials/
legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
It seems the existence of midlife crisis has been confirmed by research:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-11-midlife-crisisevidence-wellbeing-early-40s.html

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/21/midlife-crisis-is-real-happiness-u-shaped

But the reason doesn't seem to be the feeling that one wasted half of his life and death is approaching, but rather the burdens of midlife: “You are looking after your children, your parents, yourselves".
legendary
Activity: 1455
Merit: 1033
Nothing like healthy scepticism and hard evidence
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