L/C Help me. Lack of an afterlife leads me do depression.

[NotReady]

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I did find your post stirring, but as someone that lives in the logical, tangible world, please elaborate in a way that I can reach.


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I don't think Christianity is illogical. I think a universe without meaning is the definition of illogical.

As far as tangible, we have thousands of manuscripts of the Bible and in the Bible it tells us of the physical resurrection of Christ - He had a body, He could be touched, He ate food and spoke audibly. And the Bible tells us we will have a similar experience, be given a similar body.

[NotReady]

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I genuinely beliive that if you could prove there was no free will I would polarize. I would either go out raping, or would never leave my bed.


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Good point. I would put it in terms of the existence of God because the free will of a finite being remains as meaningless as the determined will of a finite being. But because God exists and created us, we have meaning.

[AWoodside]

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I don't mean transhumanism or the optimistic hope that the singularity will occur. It reeks a bit of escapism and denial to me, but more power to them if they get it done.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is certainly an understandable position to take, and many Transhumanists would agree with what (I assume) is at the root of your statement: That it's a long shot. I put my odds at making it to a "Singularity" type event (I don't particularly like that word but it's proved to be a pretty powerful meme) at around 20 percent or so. I'm 25 years old. There are large and difficult to manipulate social, scientific, economic, and technological currents moving us in this direction which are functionally out of my control. What is in my control is my own personal health and economic means. I believe I can shift my personal probabilities quite a bit by adopting a hyper-healthy lifestyle, minimizing my exposure to risk of bodily injury, and accumulating as much wealth as possible. Certainly my 20 percent figure could be too high (or too low) and I'm willing to shift if based on new evidence. By and large I think I take a fairly rational approach to the whole thing. The payoff of reaching a singularity type event is so absurdly large that its clearly a highly positive expected value move to make significant lifestyle changes if it will make you alive, wealthy, and healthy 10 or 20 years longer than you would be otherwise.

I realize you weren't saying anything about me specifically, just wanted to point out that in my case it's a rational decision that doesn't involve escapism nor denial (I recognize that I may have subconscious psychological biases that are functionally the equivalent, but I do at least attempt to proactively eliminate these). Also, I think you'd be surprised at the fraction of transhumanists that have a similarly level-headed and thoughtful approach.

[chezlaw]

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I genuinely beliive that if you could prove there was no free will I would polarize. I would either go out raping, or would never leave my bed.

^^ To me that is 100% logical.

DUCY?

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Only if that's the way you want to live your life. You want to be a rapist?, if not why on earth would you go out and rape? and what's free-will got to do with it?

BTW I think you're seriously on the wrong track and are not feeling depressed because you don't believe in an afterlife.

chez

[FortunaMaximus]

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Why is my wife (Whom I have touched upon this subject with) so happy? Seriously?

We have discussed it, and she is content without dealing with the issues I have raised. I think that is actually the crux of the issue. Does nobody else see the issue?

[/ QUOTE ]

Around SMP you'll find many do see the issue. They deal with it differently on an individual basis, but such thought about the situations surrounding mortality occur at a higher % here than in the general population.

Perhaps she simply doesn't find it a topic worth thinking too much about like the majority. If you polled people and asked what they thought about the topic, you'd probably find many don't or have pat answers like God or w/e.

It's an intellectual riddle, because the more you think about it the more your sense of scale of such things and comparsions become skewed, especially when you invoke infinity and the size of the Universe. Most people truly do lack the capability to think on such scales, and they are sometimes to be envied that bliss.

You'll be fine though, man. It happens.

NR,

Meaning to who exactly? The individual himself or God? Because that is the issue OP faces. Your last statement needs more depth.

[foal]

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I genuinely beliive that if you could prove there was no free will I would polarize. I would either go out raping, or would never leave my bed.

^^ To me that is 100% logical.

DUCY?

[/ QUOTE ]
No. Can you explain?

[AWoodside]

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AWoodside,

I LOVE the theory you speak of.

Indeed it is clearly the ideal I search for, but in the next 40 years? I think that is a stretch, not that I am phoo phooing it.

Also, what of birth rates under such a scheme?

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Realize that the state of medical technology will be very different 40 years from now. We do not have to reach the "Singularity" (many definitions of this term, for our purposes here I mean it as the point at which, barring extraordinary circumstances, you will be able to live indefinitely) in that time frame, but only increase your expected lifespan enough to make it to the next major medical breakthrough. There is already work being done in many areas in this field, notably the manipulation of telomeres, that has the potential to eliminate the "natural" aging process. Technological advancement has followed a strikingly exponential trend, and there is strong evidence that this will continue in the foreseeable future. Even if technological progress leveled of within the next decade, it would not be shocking if your life expectancy was 300+ years. That's a lot of time to make progress.

As for birth rates, I think this is a largely self-regulating phenomenon. People simply don't (by and large, of course there are exceptions) have children that they can't support. If you have the resources to support a child it is almost self evident that doing so will not contribute to "overpopulation" problems. Look at the majority of first world countries where birth/death rates have basically equalized. In poorer countries where birthrates/deathrates are very high it is often because the families cannot afford NOT to have children. Parents need as many as possible to lower their risk of ruin in old age, and to help with the subsistence farming or whatever it is they're doing. Population levels will find an equilibrium that reflects the current economic conditions, as they always have.

[FortunaMaximus]

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I realize you weren't saying anything about me specifically, just wanted to point out that in my case it's a rational decision that doesn't involve escapism nor denial (I recognize that I may have subconscious psychological biases that are functionally the equivalent, but I do at least attempt to proactively eliminate these). Also, I think you'd be surprised at the fraction of transhumanists that have a similarly level-headed and thoughtful approach.

[/ QUOTE ]

Only indirectly, and no harm meant really. It's just that I take a longer view of what such things will mean for the species. Once your singularity happens, what remains is to resolve the issue of bringing the dead back. When you're immortal and have uncountable millennia to resolve what's left of the Universe, you have expansion and then retrival.

I agree that transhumanists are by and far rational, at least moreso than Christians, who prefer to leave the solution to a unseen God. And reducing/minimizing risk and making sure you're on the front wave of such a shift in humanity is understandable.

But if it will happen anyway, taking any approach has an equal chance of getting you there.

Have you ever thought about how to fill the centuries? Millennia perhaps? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] The range of interests and depth of understanding simply isn't that deep and broad. But better to be there than not, right?

[AWoodside]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I realize you weren't saying anything about me specifically, just wanted to point out that in my case it's a rational decision that doesn't involve escapism nor denial (I recognize that I may have subconscious psychological biases that are functionally the equivalent, but I do at least attempt to proactively eliminate these). Also, I think you'd be surprised at the fraction of transhumanists that have a similarly level-headed and thoughtful approach.

[/ QUOTE ]

Only indirectly, and no harm meant really. It's just that I take a longer view of what such things will mean for the species. Once your singularity happens, what remains is to resolve the issue of bringing the dead back. When you're immortal and have uncountable millennia to resolve what's left of the Universe, you have expansion and then retrival.

I agree that transhumanists are by and far rational, at least moreso than Christians, who prefer to leave the solution to a unseen God. And reducing/minimizing risk and making sure you're on the front wave of such a shift in humanity is understandable.

But if it will happen anyway, taking any approach has an equal chance of getting you there.

Have you ever thought about how to fill the centuries? Millennia perhaps? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] The range of interests and depth of understanding simply isn't that deep and broad. But better to be there than not, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, it wont necessarily happen. If the singularity occurred in the year, say, 2070, my lifestyle choices would have a huge barring on whether or not I made it. I agree that there are murky philosophical and metaphysical issues involved with applications of future technology to thing live reviving the dead. I'm signed up with a cryogenic freezing insurance policy myself, although I don't put much stock in it. As they say, "being cryogenically frozen is the second worst thing you can be" [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

As for filling the time, this is honestly the least of my worries. You seem like a quite intelligent fellow, and I'm confident that if you spent a relatively small amount of mental energy and imagination on the issue you could come up with a plethora of ways in which to spend 10, 100, even 1000 current lifetimes. With the augmented intelligence and perceptual capability that is sure to come with technological progress in the singularity-age (assuming we get there) this will only become easier. And, ultimately, if I ever find myself at the point where I feel like I've exhausted all the personally meaningful avenues the universe has to offer I have no moral qualms with simply offing myself. I can't really imagine that happening for a long long time though (we're talking heat death of the universe timescales).

[mbillie1]

the value of life cannot be estimated

also, antidepressants help, and I'm not being funny.