If Life is Meaningless Anyway, then What's Wrong with Religion?

[henryp]

All experienced instances are sets of instances.  There's a disconnect I can't identify here.  Maybe I missed something earlier in the discussion.

I was differentiating between one's experienced life as a whole and an isolated experience. You had conflated the two in your analogy.

I understand you want to differentiate between them.  I just don't follow how you're justifying it.  A picnic is a set of experienced instances over a period of time.  Life is a set of experienced instances over a period of time.

But this definitely has nothing to do with the earlier discussion.  My guess is that life just has magical connotations because it's LIFE!!  And those matter.  Black, Blue, All, etc..  And nobody likes picnics.

[Arkilogue]

Come on now. 

Obviously when someone speaks of being immortal, it's pretty much understood that one does not age. 

If you get old YOU ARE NOT IMMORTAL, the fact that one ages means that they are in the process of dying.

As far as I'm concerned you don't know anyone who is perpetually in the prime of life that wants to end it, period.

I wasn't talking about immortality at all. We were talking about human beings -- mortals. We've been dying since the day we were born.

And -- I've known people in the prime of life physically who certainly wanted to end it ... and two who succeeded in doing so.

Since the day we are born? Surely, there is a growth processes and gaining of information/order before there is cessation of growth and accumulation of disorder. Unless you're talking about telomerase.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101128/f...0.635.html

And then there is the spiritual quality of "dying" inside before the body does. Losing the "spark" of life and will/want to live. Aka the death of the heart, the waxing of love, the human soul turned cold.

My personal metric for that death of the heart is when I stop playing. That is when the death process has over come the inertia and willed pattern of my life process. If I can still express joy on the day of my death, I will have never died. Something to aim for, anyway.

[Huggy Bear]

Come on now. 

Obviously when someone speaks of being immortal, it's pretty much understood that one does not age. 

If you get old YOU ARE NOT IMMORTAL, the fact that one ages means that they are in the process of dying.

As far as I'm concerned you don't know anyone who is perpetually in the prime of life that wants to end it, period.

I wasn't talking about immortality at all. We were talking about human beings -- mortals. We've been dying since the day we were born.

And -- I've known people in the prime of life physically who certainly wanted to end it ... and two who succeeded in doing so.

But EP WAS speaking of immortality.

Quoting Mister Agendas post:

Sometime being when? Do you really think, that given the option of immortality, there will ever come a point for you when you'll just think this is it, it's my time to go, I've lived for too long now?

Yes. I don't know when, but I suspect that I wouldn't make it close to the trillion trillion years-old mark. People already choose to die because they feel they've lived long enough already.

*emphasis mine*

Also my point was that you don't know anyone PERPETUALLY in their prime that would want to kill themselves. An eternal being would have wisdom and experience far beyond your typical 20 year old.

There is no comparison.

[Arkilogue]

I was differentiating between one's experienced life as a whole and an isolated experience. You had conflated the two in your analogy.

I understand you want to differentiate between them.  I just don't follow how you're justifying it.  A picnic is a set of experienced instances over a period of time.  Life is a set of experienced instances over a period of time.

But this definitely has nothing to do with the earlier discussion.  My guess is that life just has magical connotations because it's LIFE!!  And those matter.  Black, Blue, All, etc..  And nobody likes picnics.

Except for the several quadrillion ants on the planet...human are so specie-centric.

[Arkilogue]

*emphasis mine*

Also my point was that you don't know anyone PERPETUALLY in their prime that would want to kill themselves. An eternal being would have wisdom and experience far beyond your typical 20 year old.

There is no comparison.

Well they certainly weren't a super successful young musician with all the drug their money could buy at age 27.

And what are the magic parameters of this imagined immortality? Would they not fly apart as I spun them up to 10,000 rpm's in zero-G?

[henryp]

From an evolutionary perspective, wouldn't it make sense for people's will to live to erode as they entered old age? And from a sociological perspective, the goals we are told make our life a life well-lived are usually well in the rear view mirror when you hit your 80's or 90's.

From both perspectives, at a certain point, you've done it. You've successfully human'd it up.

[Arkilogue]

From an evolutionary perspective, wouldn't it make sense for people's will to live to erode as they entered old age?  And from a sociological perspective, the goals we are told make our life a life well-lived are usually well in the rear view mirror when you hit your 80's or 90's.  

From both perspectives, at a certain point, you've done it.  You've successfully human'd it up.

The kick about being a human is that you aren't limited to learning from your own mistakes in a linear fashion, you can learn from other's mistakes in non-linear accumulation and make quantum leaps of internal growth.

"Human? Where we're going, we don't need...human." ~Doc Brown.

That mode of travel becomes no longer necessary. We have engineered new vehicles based on higher laws.

[Arkilogue]

"Human" is like a momentary arising on the traveling wave that is DNA through time (evolution).

[Thumpalumpacus]

I wasn't talking about immortality at all. We were talking about human beings -- mortals. We've been dying since the day we were born.

And -- I've known people in the prime of life physically who certainly wanted to end it ... and two who succeeded in doing so.

Since the day we are born? Surely, there is a growth processes and gaining of information/order before there is cessation of growth and accumulation of disorder. Unless you're talking about telomerase.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101128/f...0.635.html

And then there is the spiritual quality of "dying" inside before the body does. Losing the "spark" of life and will/want to live. Aka the death of the heart, the waxing of love, the human soul turned cold.

My personal metric for that death of the heart is when I stop playing. That is when the death process has over come the inertia and willed pattern of my life process. If I can still express joy on the day of my death, I will have never died. Something to aim for, anyway.

I knew someone would get pedantic with the poetic.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I wasn't talking about immortality at all. We were talking about human beings -- mortals. We've been dying since the day we were born.

And -- I've known people in the prime of life physically who certainly wanted to end it ... and two who succeeded in doing so.

But EP WAS speaking of immortality.

Quoting Mister Agendas post:

Yes. I don't know when, but I suspect that I wouldn't make it close to the trillion trillion years-old mark. People already choose to die because they feel they've lived long enough already.

*emphasis mine*

And that wasn't what I was talking about, which I made plain already.

Also my point was that you don't know anyone PERPETUALLY in their prime that would want to kill themselves.

Thanks, that's pretty obvious. What should be just as obvious is that I was speaking to the human condition, which is clearly outside the bounds of your special condition.

An eternal being would have wisdom and experience far beyond your typical 20 year old.

There is no comparison.

Well, it's a good thing I wasn't comparing a human to an immortal, then!