Cicero talks about how you can get comfortable with the fact that you eventually won’t be around in his On Old Age... he says the key is making a positive, meaningful impact. If you do that, then even if you die, your positive influence lives beyond your own years.
“The actor, for instance, to please his audience need not appear in every act to the very end; it is enough if he is approved in the parts in which he plays; and so it is not necessary for the wise man to stay on this mortal stage to the last fall of the curtain. For even if the allotted space of life be short, it is long enough in which to live honorably and well...
But somehow, my soul was ever on the alert, looking forward to posterity, as if it realized that when it had departed from this life, then at last would it be alive.”
If you were raised by good parents, you will feel their contributions benefiting your life long after they are dead. And if you have children, you will probably pass it on. The effect of a life can last for generations.
That's why they say family is more important than work. Your work will probably not outlive you, unless you're a rockstar scientist or lucky businessperson. That famous Feynman's letter to his friend was right.
Lately there's been quite a few articles on HN about cancer, death and a variety of subjects regarding mortality. I read all of them, and the HN comments as well.
Plus, ever since having a kid, I've begun to appreciate living more and more.
What we observe at the moment is one thing that most people fear the most: Change
The future seems to be grim and dark at the moment, but in the darkness, the light shines the brightest! So, lets work together to make things work, burn away the darkness and do not let our self get trapped in depression.
On the topic of how overexercise can damage the heart by James OKeefe, a cardiologist and lifetime obsessive runner:
Notably he points out that they tested people blood after doing long distance events and found that many of them had chemicals usually found in heart attack victims, indicating heart damage.
Basically he says that the long term overexercise/heart damage means the heart muscle constantly has microtears which heal up and the healed tissue is scar tissue which is hard and not like normal heart tissue - much harder and less elastic. So people who overtrain end up with a heart much older than their physical age.
I'm a big fan of walking. Unless you are literally wheelchair bound, most people can walk.
Most of us don't do enough of it and it's one of the safest forms of exercise. We really should be designing our cities and built environments to be more walkable so more people get in 30 minutes of brisk walking daily just from running errands without really trying to exercise per se.
People would be healthier. Pollution levels would be lower. Studies show that walkable, mixed use neighborhoods foster higher sales for local businesses and are thus typically more prosperous. "Eyes on the street" is a known antidote to crime and you get that primarily by having a pedestrian-friendly built environment.
And I don't believe walking has any track record of fostering heart attacks.
During lockdown, if allowed, a walk can be really nice. Some fresh air. Not sitting. Its a complimentary reason to get a dog (I don't like dogs, do like walking, so don't opt for one). Also, you can combine it with an audiobook, podcast, meditation (I got taught a mindfulness technique focussed on walking), music, or just the sounds of nature or the city. Or combine it with public transport, or an errand. My daughter is almost 3, she loves walking outside.
While you're right from an exercise standpoint, you're dead wrong from a design one, at least if you want to apply it broadly. A lot of us live in places where summer days can easily top 100 degrees, and the better part of the year it's just too darn unpleasant to walk outside. I suppose it's possible if one works at an office with showers and lockers to allow for changing clothes, but even then it's unpleasant and still unsuitable for everything else.
Historically, Middle Eastern cities were built on plateaus above the desert floor and streets were oriented such that prevailing winds cooled them. That plus other design decisions helped keep streets at tolerable temperatures during the day, even when it was above 100 degrees Fahrenheit out on the desert floor.
We have forgotten how to do that kind of thing, but that doesn't mean it cannot be done. There is a lot we can do to mitigate urban heat island effect and use design to make even our outdoor public spaces pedestrian-friendly in terms of local weather.
I run r/UrbanForestry. It's brand new and we are likely to talk about passive solar design at the city level as part of what we do there. I already mentioned the thing I stated above about Middle Eastern cities. You are welcome to join us there.
Some terms that may be helpful in a search: Iranian vernacular architecture; desert vernacular architecture; passive solar.
It is something I hope to put more information together on, but one challenge is that I imagine a lot of primary source materials from that region of the world are not in English and I never learned any of the major languages of that area, like Farsi and Arabic.
I do occasionally speak with Middle Eastern planners and the like and ask them questions, but I haven't yet hit pay dirt in a big way. My recollection is that articles about Iranian architecture have generally been the most useful and promising so far. Iran was previously known as Persia and it is one of the older cultures on the planet and has a rich history.
That's a very good idea, until you realize how specialized the modern city is. How many people does a single supermarket serve? How many a bakery, dentist, bicycle shop, etc.? Walkable means about 2-3km away, and that's not as the crow flies. If you really want that kind of city, you end up with something pretty dense. Personally I would prefer a tad more space.
I live in a small town. America used to have a lot of thriving small towns with lively downtown areas. I am interested in seeing more support for that sort of thing.
Not everyone lives in the big city. Not everyone needs to. Even within the big city, there is lots of room for improvement.
And making it possible for more people to run some of their errands on foot doesn't mean "You aren't allowed to leave this 5 square kilometer area and can never drive or use public transit." It just means some of the things you do normally can be reached on foot (for a greater percentage of people than is true currently).
I should have mentioned that I live in europe. By US standards, our cities are extremely walkable. That being said, I have three super markets that I regularly buy from. Two of them are in walkable distance (when carrying few groceries). For the third, cheapest, I have to use either a car or a cargo bike.
If you start adding up how much of that space between you and your destination is parking lot space and not a building/home, you'll realize that you could still have some space in your home but have a business area that is not 70% asphalt with white lines.
There is no parking space between me and my usual targets that can easily be removed. The little parking space there is is part of the roads and removing it would consequently move the buildings far closer together, by about 2m out of 10m to 15m, I guess. I don't want to have the building on the other side of the road be 10-20% closer, I like my sunlight and some privacy.
All of the science I've been seeing lately in this area seem to say, 1. short-term high-intensity training (sprints, for example) and 2. weightlifting are the best forms of exercise for general health.
Running marathons and the like do not seem to promote health and can actually harm the body. And anecdotally, I've known a few folks that are obsessive long-distance runners and cyclists, and they physically look older than others in their age group.
Them looking older is probably just the gaunter look associated with endurance sports (low muscle mass, low body fat). It's especially noticeable in the face, where cheek & jaw bones will stand out. I happen to like the look; gives people's faces more character. Sun damage probably also contributes.
>Running marathons and the like do not seem to promote health and can actually harm the body.
I mean, the literal original Greek Marathon Runner who ran the 26 miles to warn of the war/invasion, according to lore, actually killed him upon his delivery of the message....
If you are training properly at running however, then you are doing high intensity exercise. The track repeats, the hill reps, they are that high intensity interval training, with easier runs the rest of the time.
The idea that running is just shuffling along at a steady pace is a straw man, and looks nothing like what actual runners do!
The whole point of HIT is that you get all of the cardiovascular benefits of endurance sports without the repetitive stress injuries.
And the current evidence is that your maximum exertion is what matters, not time spent exercising. So someone that does a few sprints, to max intensity, over 20 minutes actually will have better cardiovascular health than someone that runs or jogs for an hour or more.
If you’re sprinting at full exertion for a few minutes, you’re able to hit a much higher max than you would if you were running long distance.
> The whole point of HIT is that you get all of the cardiovascular benefits of endurance sports without the repetitive stress injuries.
And the current evidence is that your maximum exertion is what matters, not time spent exercising.
This cannot be true, it contradicts literally all the best training knowledge for distance runners. NCAA cross country coaches and professional distance coaches have their runners doing high mileage easy days and intervals on hard days, and as someone who has experienced this training first hand, you absolutely cannot do the hard days at a proper intensity if you haven’t built up your aerobic capacity through a LOT of easy to medium effort long runs. If they could get all the cardiovascular benefits from HIT, they would only be doing that. The teams that win college championships and the pro teams sending athletes to the Olympics are the ones with the fittest runners, the fittest runners are the ones with the best training. They are doing the majority of their mileage in long easy efforts.
Anecdotally, myself and many teammates I’ve known have seen our biggest jumps in performance come from increasing weekly mileage (more easy miles) and while keeping the volume of hard efforts the same. Time spent exercising matters very much.
> HIIT (high-intensity interval training) and sprint interval training (SIT) for 6-8 wk increase VO2peak more than or at least comparable to MCT (moderate-intensity continuous training).
> The clinical and physiological benefits of HIIT compared with those of MCT are shown in Table Table1.1. In multiple RCTs, a wide range of targets, including skeletal muscles[19-22], risk factors[21], vasculature[19-22], respiration[22,23], autonomic function[24], cardiac function[20,22,25-27], exercise capacity[26], inflammation[27], quality of life[27], physiological markers such as VO2peak, and endothelial function, showed better improvements with HIIT than with MCT.
This is true even though the HIT groups were spending just minutes sprinting a few times a week, vs the MCT groups that spent 30 minutes to an hour running or jogging.
I'd love to see links to this research because it contradicts everything I know and have read regarding physical adaptations in our aerobic and anaerobic systems. Specifically, it is my understanding that you need the minimum effective dose in both to force those adaptations and then maintain them.
I'm naive in the space so take this with a grain of salt, but I believe the original Tabata study[0] showed comparable increases in participant VO_2 max compared to non-HIIT, with only a 4 minute workout.
Put that alongside evidence that sustained exercise (how sustained I have no idea) has negative effects (as per above comments), and the argument seems plausible.
I am familiar with the original Tabata study. I guess my point here is that it's been widely accepted, at least for the last decade or so (Dr. Maffetone was figuring some of this out in the early 80s, FWIW...), that HIIT (and strength training) cause concentric cardiac hypertrophy, whereas LISS primarily causes eccentric cardiac hypertrophy. I'm speaking very generally here, but... 1 increases the size of your heart, thus the volume of blood and therefore oxygen (it has to pump less to deliver oxygen to your muscles leading to a lower BPM), and the other makes your heart stronger (it can pump all of this extra blood). This is all of course a very unscientific explanation and I'm not an expert.
Training properly for long distance runs is different than training properly for high intensity runs. The two forms of exercise cause different adaptations. To get better at running long distances, one must run long distances.
I think we are talking cross purposes here. Training for running races, even long distances, involves some long running, lots of medium runs, and a good amount of intense work. Human physiology is complex and to get the most out of it, you have to train it all. If all you do is long runs, you will get nowhere near your potential. Marathon runners will regularly run 400m repeats on the track - speedwork helps in so many ways!
It also doesn't mean it is unhealthy. And yes long ditance running itself isn't HIIT, but if you are training to race a long distance, you will invariably be doing a lot of high intensity work.
You might not call it Tabata training, or HIIT, but once a week you are probably doing 6x15second sprints, every other week will do something like 10x60 hill repeats (which others might call a sprint), and most weeks will be running some form of speedwork. This could be 8x800m/2 minutes, some form of pyramid (1min, 2min, 3min, 2min,1min, 2 sets), or some other combination. All of these though come down to going unsustainably hard for a short period and then having a recovery period. Is that not what HIIT is?
The same applies to many other sports where this simple caricature is applied. Most sports, done right, do involve high intensities, and recoveries.
I can concur, I've had family members who ran obsessively and they looked 10 years older than they were. They weren't causal runners, their lives revolved around running.
I'm surprised (okay, maybe completely unsurprised) just how much evidence keeps pointing me towards the same conclusion about how to maximize for a long, fulfilled life: all things in moderation.
The trouble with "everything in moderation" is that moderation is an ambiguous, catch-all term. It means different things to different people. It's the mantra of the obese and unhealthy.
Ultimately we strive for moderation, but ought not without consideration as to what it should entail.
Serious competitors will accept any risk in order to win. That might not be ideal for long term health but look how many take PEDs despite the side effects. It's the same thing with intense training programs.
Famously, after the Greeks triumphed, the soldier-messenger Philippides set off at a run toward Athens to announce the good news, covering the roughly 25 miles without a break. When he arrived at the Greek assembly, he burst into the chamber, exclaimed, “We have won!,” and died on the spot.
That doesn't really do justice to the story. First he ran more like 150 miles to request assistance to help them combat an invading force. The 25 or 26 miles he ran before dying was the tail end of a much more epic effort.
I made my peace with my mortality in my thirties when I spent a year at death's door. And then, silly me, tried to share that with people in online discussions and it didn't go like I expected.
One day, someone older than me more or less told me "You are scaring people because they haven't yet made their peace with their own mortality."
Stories like this can be a good thing to write for the author. It can be a therapeutic process that helps them get unstuck from a big emotional experience and move on and live more in the present with the time they have left.
And it can be experientially valuable to the reader. It can be interesting to read of the subjective experience of coming that close to dying and what that looks and feels like to this one person who stood that close to the void and didn't quite fall in.
But stories like this are unlikely to help most people come to terms with their own mortality -- though if you, also, find yourself standing on the precipice or having recently come back from it, stories like this may be especially meaningful and valuable. But for those who haven't spent time anywhere near the precipice, this is highly unlikely to be some means to deliver enlightenment or some such.
How you relate to a piece like this will have a lot to do with where you are in life and where you have been.
Thanks for sharing. I can empathize with the readers of your previous story. I haven't made peace and often when I see stories of people younger than me dying I reach in every direction for an explanation for why that wouldn't happen to me. "Oh they must have done a lot of drugs. They must have not exercised." etc.
What I think I want to know about from older individuals (like 80+): are you afraid of dying? My grandma went last year (92) and her and I had long wonderful conversations knowing she was weeks out. She talked about how much of a wonderful life she had and that she was not in the slightest scared.
That's a mental gap for me. I can't grok the concept of not being afraid to death like that. I would love to learn that the overwhelming majority of older people don't fear it, suggesting that it's very likely I won't fear it either if I make it to old age.
As for dying early... I think it's best not to think about it any more than to build a sufficient motivation to live life well.
To put yourself at ease I have never seen an old person fear death. Though I have seen then struggle thru the active process of dying but that is temporary. My family lives unusually long, usually at least into their late 90's most go over 100. This is on both sides of the family. I have watched all of my great grandparents pass (also more recently, 2 of my grandparents), most of which were thru my teenage years to the last one dying when I was 30. The last one was my great grandfather, he was 107 he was diagnosed with a treatable cancer. He told the doctor that the reality is at 107 he has 5 more years maybe if he decided to treat it, that his time was up, that he missed his wife and that he was most assuredly going home to die. He did not view his death as a tragedy but rather the completion of a life story, a story in which most of the characters had move on and thus he was ready to move on.
As a note: much like the GP post you replied to, it was around that 30 mark and my great grandfathers passing that I no longer worried about death.
> To put yourself at ease I have never seen an old person fear death.
Really?
It seems like the Covid situation is unveiling exactly how most old people are seriously terrified of dying even requesting everything being put to a halt.
That has not been my observation, it seems to me that it has been other individuals making a "think of the old people" argument. Now that is anecdotal but I have not heard many of the elderly I know voice fear over the situation. Concern maybe but not fear. It also helps to frame what we term as old I am not talking about someone in their 60's still fit and able to enjoy life. My frame of reference has been my very elderly grandparents and the friends that they have left. I have heard more complaints about loneliness from them than fear of death. Now I have heard them express that they would rather not go out by COVID as it seems like a pretty crappy way to go.
I don't think anyone ever truly gets over the fear of the process of death. I know that while I do not fear it, if I imagine myself burning to death or falling to my death in a plane crash with other people around me screaming in futility. I can give myself that oh crap I hope I does not go down like that feeling, but that is different than being terrified of being dead.
> "You are scaring people because they haven't yet made their peace with their own mortality."
This so much. I just read Montaigne’s “To philosophize is to learn how to die” [1] and I’m just sad I can’t really share it with anyone because nobody seems to be really mentally prepared to accept and embrace their death.
One enormous advantage many of the religious have in terms of mentally coping with life is that they don't believe they will ever truly die. Hats off to those who find motivation to live without that.
> Hats off to those who find motivation to live without that.
My motivation is that the odds of me actually existing in the first place are so long that I'd be a fool to waste my brief time in the universe.
Looked at through that point of view everything is amazing from a tree leaf to the latest giga image of Orion.
"Given enough time, Hydrogen starts to wonder where it came from, and where its going." - Edward Robert Harrison.
Think of all the amount of time and events that had to take place for you to be able to contemplate the universe.
Spend some time looking at https://orion2020v5b.spaceforeverybody.com/ zoom in and realise that everyone of those white dots is a star, they where around for millions or billions of years before the statistically unlikely event that led you to be able to look at the dots, they'll largely be around for billion years after you are gone, to me that is the true meaning of awe - that I can sit here with a coffee and get to in a very small way comprehend a very small part of a vast universe.
I get to appreciate it because a million and a half years ago my ancestor took the left path and not the right, the one with the predator, I get to appreciate it because two thousand years ago my ancestor didn't drink from the strange smelling stream and because 40 years ago the cashier at the petrol station agreed to a date with the security guard doing the cash pickup, it's all random, there is no meaning but what we ascribe.
>it's all random, there is no meaning but what we ascribe
This kind of thinking is bizarre to me, I genuinely want to understand this. I don't believe we all exist randomly or that our existence was an accident. I am a deeply religious person precisely because I don't believe all of this is random.
If all is random, why does every person who claims to believe this not live as if it were true. Almost all of these people plan out their lives and their retirements, etc. etc. and then claim that everything is random. Why do you say "I'd be a fool to waste your brief time in the universe" if your brief time here is an accident. It's a fluke and nothing you do during your time here matters at all because you yourself don't matter at all, so why pretend that doing good and spending your time wisely is important?
Sorry if I sound harsh, but I really wish to understand this kind of thought, and you just never can talk about this kind of stuff this way with people in real life.
I plan for the future because the probabilities make it likely that I'll be around in 25 years.
> "I'd be a fool to waste your brief time in the universe"
To me that means the odds of me existing are so small that out of personal curiosity I want to appreciate it.
> It's a fluke and nothing you do during your time here matters at all because you yourself don't matter at all.
Yep - nothing I do one way or the other will meaningfully affect the universe or it's future, only the people/society around me that I care about.
Odds are 100 years from now I'll be utterly forgotten.
> so why pretend that doing good and spending your time wisely is important?
Treat others as you would treat yourself, I treat people well in the hope/expectation they'll do the same, I care about the environment because I don't want my step-son or other kids his age to grow up in a world worse than I did.
As someone who was once religious, I can tell you at at least for me, this never really dealt with existential dread. Maybe I just didn't believe hard enough. But it stands to reason that thoughts of the afterlife do not do much: religious people do not seem, in the main, to have significantly less fear or avoidance of death. The drive to live would be pretty anemic if a mere mental trick could defuse it.
Personally, now that I'm secular, I still fear death. But at least I understand that that fear only exists because of my built in neurobiological values, which are there because they helped my ancestors reproduce. That doesn't really change things much either, but at least it's a true explanation. Before there was always a cognitive dissonance: if things are going to be way way better after we die, why do we try so hard to avoid death?
I remain deeply religious, and there is something of a fear of death, but it is mostly related to the fear of the unknown. I believe I will see God face to face and that's kind of terrifying. I am honestly more afraid of pain than death.
Any religious faith is a faith, even though people like to suggest silly arguments that faith necessarily is blind or unbounded, but it is still a hope in something unseen.
Which god? Faith just makes you live a life without evidence. Seems like a poor choice to me. And with all of the negative associates of being religious seems to me you're blowing the one absolutely confirmed life for some fairy tale.
Living life without evidence is one way to look at it, another way to look at it is living to a moral code that thousands of years of humanity has agreed provides a happy life. If you look at most of the world religions they pretty much agree on what those are: Abrahamic religions call them out as Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust (note on this, it is all consuming desire it is not just sex but sex is a powerful vector for unhealthy lust. As an example one can lust after social acceptance), Anger, Greed and Sloth. Buddhism calls the three fires out as ignorance (Greed, Sloth), attachment (Envy, Lust, Gluttony), and aversion (Pride, Anger).
I don't see it as a poor choice to live to those defined moral codes. The negative association with being religious is due to many people letting other people think for them now days. If one take the actions and words of a person over studying for oneself what the text say then that is exactly what one is doing. If one ascribes negative connotations to the underpinnings, without knowledge of whether those that claim knowledge yet may be ignorant of what the text says, then one acts in the same ignorance. Most of the religious texts, espouse universal love, non-judgment (by other people) and harmony. Most of the people that claim they understand them, have never event read the texts from end to end, much less any of the competing religions text to compare and contrasting one against the other.
For example let's take Abrahamic religions because they are fun to pick on, most Muslims, Jews and Christians (especially Christians) could not even tell you what Psalm 137:9 is, much less explain why someone would be happy to dash child against the rocks. Well deeper understanding would be that this is what the Israelites wanted, revenge for their dead children that were bludgeoned to death. But what happened was not revenge, but rather judgment and that is the lesson being conveyed, our hearts will seek revenge but what puts things in balance is not revenge but judgment. Point being, I have been hard pressed to find a single laymen from any of the 3 Abrahamic branches, that know the verse much less that could explain it (honestly Muslims where the most knowledgeable on the subject). Further most Christians don't even realize that Jesus was a devout pacifist, cavorted with mainly "sinners" and routinely spoke out about the pious.
As a side note Jeremiah 32:35 is another fun one. Why did it not enter his mind? Is he not all knowing and omnipotent?
While it may be a fairy tail, by all accounts Jesus and Buddha were pretty awesome dudes, I want to be like them, even if it's just for the time I am here.
> I don't see it as a poor choice to live to those defined moral codes.
As I'm sure you are aware, most atheists follow similar moral beliefs and, as far as I'm aware, there's little evidence that being religious helps you adhere to these rules any better.
Yes please don't read that as an implication that by default that 1) All religious people are moral 2) all non-religious are not. My point was more of the fact of the outlook the two views seem to produce. The reality is Atheism did not produce an MLK or a Ghandi, rather it has produced Nihilism and Nietzsche from its fruits. There is nothing wrong with that, without ying there cannot be yang. I was just highlighting (in my other post) that as observers we can actually choose how we see reality.
Some of that choice may appear delusional, or may in fact be delusional, but does not make it any less real to the observer. Take for example the monks that claim enlightenment, they believe suffering is an illusion and that basically you just have to not believe in suffering to not suffer. This could be deluded thinking and sounds crazy on the surface, until you see one of them trance and ignore the most extreme pain. Their delusion manifests itself into reality just by their will.
There is similar delusional thinking that comes from Atheistic points of view and they have had real world manifestations. I am hesitant to name some of them due to the fact that it will look like I am claiming them atheism is not a moral choice. Which is not the intent.
Please do. What delusional thinking do atheists engage in? To be an atheist one only needs to not be convinced god(s) exist? Are you saying we are deluded into thinking that the existence of gods has been proven? Please expand on this?
It's easy to live by moral codes when you cherry pick your own religion. You seems to avoid the moral codes mentioned in the same book that encourage genocide, rape and slavery.
How do you know which morals to cherry pick? That would be humanistic morals - you pick the ones that we follows. The ones that encourage being good to others and respect their wellbeing.
Religion provides no benefit or advantage over atheistic humanistic morals. It does provide benefits to the region - money, power, control and the ability to avoid responsibility.
Jesus encouraged people to devoid themselves of personal goods and family and follow him. Well at least in the Bible fables. More cherry-picking.
Forgive me if I am wrong, but I do not suspect that you are well read on the subject matter:
On the matter of genocide, the texts are very clear that we all have to experience death, no one escapes it. In the text god does not see death as a tragedy. It is the expected outcome, this is exactly why I referenced Psalm 137:9 because most people do not know how to explain what is going on, because they have not read the full text much less many times to understand the context. Again I ask why would someone be happy to bash children against rocks. Did god command them to do it, did he condemn them for it? Jeremiah 32:35 get's to the heart of it. If there is a god and he is eternal and he views our lives as eternal then the death of this life is no more than telling a child to not touch a hot stove but it is clear throughout the text, that he exalts the innocent and the downtrodden. If one makes a habit of abusing these classes he tends to anger, there is no inconsistency here. In the old testament before the time of kings he was in direct commandment of his elect. He exacted judgment on several nations specifically due to the fact that they where sacrificing their children to Baal. While you may not agree with it, this is extremely consistent with the fact that from the outset humanity is to be judged by death.
On rape, I will forgo rehashing it, I would assume that wikipedia is a fairly well vetted war zone. It is fairly well accepted that the Torah condemns rape. Now we can certainly argue over our present day view against the remedies for said act as laid out in the Torah but to say that the book encourages it is not factually true.
As for slavery Matthew 19:1-9 and Mark 10:2-9 describe this very succinctly, and that is man is flawed, man enslaves man or more aptly put man's inhumanity to man. It is clearly laid out that slavery was not by design, but rather slavery is man's desire to be their own gods and subjugate other men. God recognizes that we are fallen but does not condone the practices that we do that are inhumane. The text do not advocate for slavery yet over and over repeat the lesson of exalting the meek. The Jews were slaves exalted out of Egypt. Joseph was of wealth and favor and sold into slavery by his brother. He was a loyal and faithful servant thru his suffering and was in the end redeemed. The text never says slavery = good. It says if you find yourself in that situation, do not lament your situation, be kind, be humble, be of service to people. If we contrast it with Jainism they teach a very similar concept of suffering is an illusion. None of this says slavery is good, rather the lesson to be learned is suffering is part of this life, no matter what you are presented with, try to make the best of it.
Your powers of rationalization are substantial
I find that most people have not taken the time to read all of the major religions texts a least a few times to understand them. So it is hard to argue rationalization when one does not fully comprehend the text. I know because I was one of those people that used to mock the religious but it came from a position of ignorance as I had only cursory reading and cherry picked evidence. When in fact most of the religious text (Pick your religion) are fairly logically consistent, especially when it comes to moral codes. That does not make them true, but it does mean that one does not have to rationalization them. They very well may be fairy tales, but where certainly written by smart men who where logically consistent. The problem is that the texts span thousands of years. Five minutes of reading the cliff notes will not suffice if one wants to truly understand the texts and not listen to what the Baptist or Dawkins have to say is in them, because the reality is they both are flat out wrong.
The funny part is I see the same thinking on both sides and it has been a real eye opener as to why so many sect of the Abrahamic religions can exist. Almost none that "believe" actually read the thing end to end, so they just take what their flavor tells them is the truth as the truth. On the other end, you get the majority of detractors who just parrot Dawkins and have never read the works to decide for themselves if it tells a rational and logical story, or they hear some text that seems really f'ed up and just go yep fruitcakes, or like me they were raised in it, never read it, were told what the text said at a young age, had no interest in reading it, and checked out before that interest could develop, due to other people saying what was in the text.
Jesus encouraged people to devoid themselves of personal goods and family and follow him. Well at least in the Bible fables.
Jesus said this world is temporary and the pursuits of it are trivial. None of that is untrue, it all goes away when you die. Even, if he was a crazy dude that thought he was the son of god, he is still right. None of it matters in the end. He advocated for a full and abundant life and said he was the example to follow to achieve that. It's not that crazy of a thought that the guy placed experiences and happiness about material pursuits, and saw that as the example of how to achieve happiness, as from all I have seen material pursuits are a trapping and we become slaves to our possessions. Meanwhile those that have not succumb to this material world seem to be much happier:
I actually found death a lot easier to deal with after I stopped being religious. The idea of existing for eternity is more terrifying to me than anything else I can imagine. I can deal with things ending.
It would be weird after a trillion years when your human life was just a tiny sliver of your whole life.
I can't handle that thought any more or less than the thought that I'll die - As a cartoon dog said, I just distract myself with pointless stuff, it seems to work.
Not to get too esoteric, but at some point a trillion years is meaningless. Nothing really matters or doesn't matter - it's how you want to look at it. And distracting yourself with pointless stuff is totally valid. In fact, it's probably what we're all doing in one way or the other.
I can't find it now but there's an interesting dialogue by Asimov, a dialogue between God and the brilliant scientist God chose to grant infinite afterlife to. I won't spoil what they discussed.
> The idea of existing for eternity is more terrifying to me than anything else I can imagine.
But the presumption here is that the same “time passage” we’re familiar with here, exists there, and pretty much 100% of NDE accounts (depending on whether you believe thousands of witnesses of it constitute credible eyewitness testimony) state that there’s “no time” there or that “time is weird”. Here’s a simple question: Do you think there are immutable aspects to your person? Aspects that have remained unchanged your whole life thus far? Because those are apparently the things that continue on to the next adventure, as it were. And yet, this is supposedly a learning experience of some
sort...
because eternal life conceptually feels like a coping mechanism it honestly never appealed to me, because the fact that it feels like coping kind of devalues it, to me there's more dignity in accepting death just head on. It might suck, but at least it feels like accepting things as they are.
Also it just weirds me out, like I'll end up trapped in an eternal versin of animal crossing or something. Of course religious people don't think of it like that and it's all more sublime and full of unity with god and so on but it still doesn't sound great.
i don't know if this is just the hacky pop-culture reading of Buddhism but I've always liked the idea of Nirvana more than the kind of stories told by the Abrahamic religions.
TLDR full of philosophy and my personal assumptions.
because eternal life conceptually feels like a coping mechanism it honestly never appealed to me
It's strange but I used to be an agnostic and viewed the idea in pretty much a similar light to you, always dismissed it as wishful thinking, but three things always struck me: 1) The something from nothing paradox. 2) The fact that the universe looks like a data store. 3) The composeability of nature as almost a form of programming e.g chemistry, genetics, light/matter duality.
So I was always an uncomfortable Agnostic I always said that if I had to flip a coin, I would be 70% on heads that there is a design to all of this.
So with that, I kind of just meandered around philosophy and theology for a long time, not really liking religion for the people involved which kept me from really understanding the underlying philosophy trying to be conveyed in them.
As I have grown older and given my being OK with either outcome I have come to understand, if there is a architect intelligent life existing for a period of time and then extinguished seems to be the least logical option. Human knowledge transferred thru generations seems to be the most inefficient way to evolve it assuming knowledge is the only point and usually in nature we see the path of least resistance. So I generally assume we are not ants just here to build something and our lives are insignificant.
If that is the case then a transformed existence after this one seems logical (based on a bunch of faith and assumptions I will give you).
When you look at it in that light the philosophy of many religions has some good reasons, though the explanations may be dated, as to why things are the way they are.
Logical explanations about free will, why death would exist, why we seem to be abandoned to our own fate and a recognition that in our current state, eternal life would not be that great and how transformation is needed if we are to be eternal beings.
Now in saying all this in my flipping coins odds thinking I am less of a betting man on the concept that this is a science project that someone abandoned. That I am closer to 50-50 on.
Now please do not take this as a pitch for hey go find god. I believe every person according to their free will needs to live their life according to that free will. I am just telling you a story of how I got to from where you are, to where I am now. So anyways back to the 50-50 odds I came to the conclusion that we either are abandoned and if that is the case nothing really matters, not happiness, not love, not Hitler, not Stalin, not Gandhi, not Christ. While they all may matter in the temporal, in the grand scheme of things it all burns out and the Architect throws it in the trash bin. There will be no observer for any of it to ever matter.
I for obvious reasons don't like that line of thinking so I figure this Architect either left an manuscript to life or it did not. Either there are instructions or it figures we will learn what we need to learn in this existence.
So I started reading a lot of religious text and I saw a lot of similar themes. For example in Buddhism Nirvana is the final state of enlightenment where one has extinguished the 3 fires (greed, hate, ignorance). It is the destruction of desire. The Sikh's use a little different terminology in that it is the end of suffering. The Hindus see it in a similar light but see it as unity with Brahman.
Now I bring this up to directly contrast it with Abrahamic religions as I really don't see them as all that different I think what is different is the style in which the concept is conveyed. Whereas many eastern religions tend to get straight to the philosophy. Abrahamic philosophy tends to be woven into a tome that is part history, part parable, part philosophy which can make it harder to extract from the text but when one understand that, in my opinion the layers of the philosophy and theology tell a deeper story. Going back to Nirvana for a moment, this concept is played out in the fall of man, the inability of man to see their imperfection, the inability of man to accept devine authority, those that finally do see life for what it is "will see" (enlightenment) and finally according to one sect of Abrahamic religion will unify with creation (i.e the bride of christ). Again not a pitch for christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism. I just find it fascinating that there are many parallels in what they say the lesson is to learn.
Anyway a really long winded post to explain that I don't see an existence after this as wishful thinking anymore, I see the purpose, but only if there is any purpose at all.
Well, usually adherents also believe that there is a higher power watching out for them, or that they will eventually be judged for their actions.
What it really highlights is that the will to live is dependent on personal perspective. There are plenty of great reasons to live, and plenty to not live. It just depends on what lens you ultimately choose to view from.
If you're feeling like you don't have the will, there is absolutely a way of reframing your thinking in such a way that you could find the will.
Doesn't your personal belief help answer that question though? It seems if you sincerely believe you have free will, you'll end up doing things that look a lot like the exercise of free will.
My 15 year-old cousin collapsed during the half-time of a basketball game and died - in a time before AEDs were so prevalent. This sent my aunt and uncle on a quest to make sure there were AEDs anywhere people congregated. To date, there have been many lives saved due to their efforts.
If you care to donate, go to https://gregaed.com. If you need help getting an AED for a location that should have one, there are discounts and in some cases funding available as well.
Oh wow, I took an intro to philosophy class with this guy. I started getting suspicious when he referred to himself as John and that he taught Camus. He's a good teacher. What I learned in that class has stuck with me. It was a disproportionately influential class. It didn't change any of my beliefs, but the different philosophies I learned meant a lot.
It doesn't seem like the author fully or directly addressed the title "how to live with dying".
In any case, the quickest shortcut I know of is to take some psilocybin and think about death. With the proper set and setting, dying will feel normal, as it is, just another part of life. Yoga, meditation and breathing are also great ways to achieve that kind of consciousness state.
By the way, probably the biggest issue with dying is that in most western cultures it has become a huge taboo, which is kind of ridiculous given we all are going to die at some point. Death should be something that we accept and welcome, not something that we fear and reject. That doesn't mean we should seek death, just that it is one of the most natural things in life.
> in most western cultures it has become a huge tabu ... Death should be something that we accept and welcome, not something that we fear and reject.
I don't love every part of "Midnight Gospel" - There's a lot of pseudoscience in it - But I liked episode 7 [1] when he interviewed Caitlin Doughty. [2]
"Caitlin Marie Doughty (born August 19, 1984) is an American mortician, author, blogger, and YouTube personality known for advocating death acceptance and the reform of Western funeral industry practices"
Pain and suffering are also natural; that doesn't make them good. We should make peace with death, yes, but never accept it – never welcome it. It is the last enemy.
The world where Buddhism and hundreds of related practices have existed for thousands of years, which allow anyone (who puts in the work), to detach themselves from suffering.
In a more western-mainstream note, we also have therapy, pain killers and anti-depressants, all tools that allow us to avoid pain and suffering. Maybe not forever, but definitely at least temporarily.
- Most people are afraid of suffering. But suffering is a kind of mud to help the lotus flower of happiness grow. There can be no lotus flower without the mud.
Why would you detach from suffering? Suffering is life. Like love, bitterness, and joy. They are how we feel, and if we detach from any then others follow.
To not have to suffer. The goal of Buddha was to end "suffering". What he found was that the/one way to do that is to become aware of feelings/emotions/sensations, to the point where we don't spontaneously react to them, but instead can consciously choose how to act when we encounter them. How you do that is by first fostering awareness and then by detaching yourself from your own reaction patterns. The idea is not to desensitize yourself, you still very much feel everything, but you can then choose what you do afterwards. Which means you still feel pain, love, bitterness and joy, but you don't need to suffer.
The philosophical thinking around regenerative medicine is interesting.
On one side there's the union of opposites where without death there can be no life, without pain no pleasure, etc.
Then there's the scientist approach which just wants to reverse engineer life and increasing life span/quality.
I sympathize with both sides. I think someone like Kurzweil is doing too much and blinded by hope and that his idea of the future halfway sounds like hell but at the same time I think a lot could be gained by say doubling life expectancy and there's no need for any metaphysics.
Death is part of life, so is some element of suffering and pain, but neither are desirable. I don’t really subscribe to the “death is natural” idea. It’s certainly not a taboo for me, but my experience of life is the ultimate natural high and sure when it has gone I won’t be here to mourn the loss. But you can be upset (naturally so) and grieve for what you will lose, by knowing your life will be cut short or the shared future you have lost when someone you love dies.
Without that capacity, we would lose the precious ability to imagine a better life.
Hope is the feeling that takes us out of absurdity. Hope that one day the nature of the universe will be understood.
Might be due to Judeo-Christian culture that sees death as not the way things should be. Hebrews says Jesus came to save people from the fear of death.
> On the eighth day, the forty-year-old hobo said to Billy: "This ain't bad. I can be comfortable anywhere." "You can?" said Billy. On the ninth day the hobo died. So it goes. His last words were: "You think this is bad? This ain't bad.
there's one worthy goal in life, and that's curing death, or alternatively, merging with a machine. The essence of our existence is the informational structure in our brains , and it's the only entity with agency in the universe. Moral views of death invariably assume there is another one, even if it is "the benign indifference of the universe", as camus said. The universe doesnt have indifference, and it can't help because in fact it doesnt exist, only my brain exists.
On the other hand, curing death would cause many societal problems.
If you think the current amount of wealth inequality is bad, just wait until the young need to compete against generations of immortals who have accumulated hundreds of years of assets and interest.
the book / show Altered Carbon does a good portrayal of this. defacto immortality has been created, but with it still being inaccessible to much of society even after hundreds of years.
I'm not sure I understand what you are stating here. The universe does in fact exist. When _your_ brain ceases to exist the universe will still be here, and my brain's interpretation of that universe is my consciousness.
i mean a universe with agency or any human-like properties. And more generally, we can't really know if the universe exists outside of us. We are limited to perceive that there exist regularities in the information content that our brains exchange with each other.
The beauty of life is in its mortality. Enjoy every moment on earth and with your loved ones, cherish what you do with them and rest peacefully that you lived a full life.
That’s how I try and get over the depressing fact that all my loved ones and myself will be no more one day.
Beauty of life is not mortality. We mostly live in the moment, if involuntary death wasn’t an issue (and everything else was similar) then life would be subjectively better.
I don't believe it would and I think Steve Jobs summed it up better than I could on the subject "Death is very likely the single best invention of life". It puts pressure on us and if we take the correct view of death it empowers us into action. It's funny I don't really fear death and I don't really understand the existential crisis that people have over it. I do however understand that living forever in this existence would soon grow old. All of my ancestors have lived for unusually long lengths of time. Most of them going to 100-110 years of age. My last great grandparent died when I was 30, until 2013 all of my grandparents were alive. The reason I bring this up, is none of them where in fear of what was coming after nearly a century on this earth they were ready to go. My last great grandfather was 107 when he passed, he was diagnosed with a treatable form of cancer. The doc told him it could be treated and that even at his age his chances of survival where close to 90%. He looked at the doc and said WTF are you going to give me 5 years? I am 107 years old, my wife has been dead for several years, I am going home to die. You see he saw death as mercy from a long life and the older I get the more I understand that. If there is something after and it is eternal then I would think it would be of a vastly different nature than the life we experience now. Simply put we are not designed mentally or physically to live forever. Now I have faith there is something else, and I believe that this existence is a learning experience along that path and one of those core lessons is learned via death and that is on our own left to our own devices immortal existence is a futile endeavor. I think that is pretty apparent just looking of the last two centuries of human strife and the state of current affairs. Without death, life would just be a default not something to appreciate and enjoy, it would be taken for granted and our very nature would be different. I have the benefit of if I am wrong well then I am just dead. Either way I am OK with the outcome, because I really have no choice in the matter. Worrying about it only distracts from what we should be doing and that is living in the time we have.
As a side note, I am not trying to be somber and I enjoy living, but living for eternity in this reality, based on what I have seen just in my lifetime, seems like a hell and not something I would strive for.
We aren't designed to live forever. But that's a product of evolution. If we can achieve immortality, we can achieve ways of having good lives during that time. Problems are soluble.
Assuming that we achieve immortality in our current state I would assume this means a cure for natural death. e.g no more death from old age. That still leaves death from murder, accidents, etc.
Given that reality, I still don't see the second part as solvable. Because at the root of it, what we would have to solve is man's inhumanity to man (greed, envy, hate). Because the reality is people you know and love are still going to die, maybe they live longer but there is still going to be death. At a certain point when you lose enough people it makes one tired in the soul. I am of the opinion that you have to eliminate all suffering for an eternal existence to be worth living and we as humans have been pondering that subject probably longer than any other human problem that has existed.
Now if we are talking about another form of reality say a simulation where none of that stuff ever exist and we upload our minds into it we are really no longer talking about eternal life in this existence. Rather we are talking about heaven, enlightenment whatever we want to call it just by a different name and the reality is, even though it may be a instantaneous upload, we still have to die to get there. If not we just exist in two realities one where we are immortal and a wholly different being and one we are still very mortal and still suffer from the imperfections of this existence.
I just don't see how it is solvable by making what we are now, live forever.
You don't know that. Most old people who are ready to die would think much differently if their peers and loved ones also lived longer. The rest of them would rather continue living. "I actually really do want to die eventually" sounds a lot like Stockholm Syndrome.
I personally don't like this view point. I think I find value in the things I do because of characteristics inherent to them, not because I won't be around forever. Or at least I think the latter view holds some merit because, at least for now, humans lives are finite - but I would like to imagine even with immortality that my interest in things wouldn't change.
> the lies we frequently tell our loved ones, our children, our coworkers, ourselves for the sake of genuine happiness. Are these lies morally problematic? [...] such half-truths are not only permissible but required in the living of a virtuous life.
One argument against lies, is they undermine people's thoughtful engagement with the world. To an uncontrollable extent. Given the story, this paragraph on honesty for me has a flavor of "here is one root cause my life's difficulties... but I'm not yet ready to face that or change". Though he does emphasize the topic (eg, '"John, you with me?" I think I nodded. It was a lie.'), so maybe WIP?
Couple of years ago I fell into anaphylactic shock. As I was passing out I remember cozy warmth and divine calm. I made my peace and was feeling happy. I remember thinking that's it. Thank's god arenalin shot brought me back. Not sure that was close to dying but I sure have no fear.
Atheism, or a disbelief in a lack of an afterlife is as much a belief system as theism. There is no way to prove it one way or the other, so I still caution against subscribing to such a hardcore position. Especially because that afterlife does not need to be immediately after death but could be in the far future, but you would have no concept of time until then.
I don't see why it's so fantastical to think that it's possible that eventually a sufficiently powerful computing system will be developed in the far future and we will all be recreated in simulation in it, from which in our own perspective it will seem and be for all practical purposes an afterlife.
In fact maybe the eschatological doctrines of many world religions throughout history is just to motivate mankind to reach such a technological state and then effective "revive the dead".
An excerpt from In the Shadow of Tomorrow, The Worship of Life, by Johan Huizinga:
The obsession with life is to be viewed as a manifestation of excessive full-bloodedness, to remain in the terminology of the life-philosophy. Through the technical perfection of all comforts of life, the in every way increased security of life, the greater accessibility of all types of pleasure, and the vast and still lingering growth of material prosperity, society has got into a state which in the old pathology might have been called a “plethora.” We have been living in spiritual and material superabundance.
We are so preoccupied with life because it is made so easy for us. The ever-growing power of observation and the facility of intellectual communication have made life strong and bold. Till well into the middle of the nineteenth century even the well-to-do section of European society was in more more direct and constant contact with miseries of existence than we are today and think our due. Our own grandfathers were given only very limited possibilities of killing pain, healing wounds or fractures, shutting out cold, expelling darkness, communicating with others directly or indirectly, avoiding filth and stench.
On all sides man was continually made to feel the natural limitations of earthly well-being. The efficient ministering of the technical, hygienic and sanitary appliances with which man has surrounded himself is spoiling him. He is losing the good-humored resignation in the daily imperfections of human well-being which formed the disciple of earlier generations. But at the same time he runs the risk of losing the natural ability to take human happiness as it offers itself, as well.
Life is made too easy. Mankind’s moral fiber is giving way under the softening influence of luxury. In earlier civilizations, whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or any other, there was always this in
contrast: in principle the value of earthly happiness is deprecated relatively to celestial bliss or union with the All.
As all these religions, however, do recognize a relative worth of early pleasures, and consider them as God-given, denial of the value of life meant ingratitude. It was the very realization of the precariousness of every moment of human well-being which caused it to be appreciated at its true value.
In the present there is a contrast also, but it is a very different one. The increase of security, of comfort, and of the possibilities of want-gratification, in short the greater ease of living has had two
results: On the one hand, it has prepared the soil for all forms of renunciation of life: philosophical denial of its value, purely emotive spleen or aversion from life; on the other, it has installed the belief
in the right to happiness. It has made people expect things from life.
Related to this there is another contrast. The ambivalent attitude which wavers between the renunciation and the enjoyment of life is peculiar to the individual alone. The community, however, without hesitation and with more conviction than ever before, accepts earthly life as the object of all striving and action. It is indeed a true worship of life.
Now it is a question for serious consideration whether any advanced culture can survive without a certain measure of orientation to Death. The great civilizations of the past have all had it. There are signs that the philosophical thought of today is also coming to it. It seems only logical, more over, that a philosophy which rates “living” above “knowing” should also include the end of life in its vision.
Once dead, you cease to be, so it's only natural that people focus on their life and living it. I don't see any need to obsess or focus on death. Death comes as a shock, true, but, you cease to be after and so it doesn't matter. It's a point on the journey that is life and it's best to focus on the journey.
we gotta understand that life and death are two aspects of only one real thing.
it is only our language which separates them into seemingly contrasting opposites. language is not reality, it merely has the ability to mirror reality.
the difference between "life" and "death" is greater (many would even argue significantly greater) than the difference between "different" and "two aspects of".
I insist, both life and death refer to the same real underlying phenomenon of existence along time. the words are not the meaning.
but I suppose I have also wound up believing that "everything" and "nothing" are more similar than one would initially guess. though not as similar as life and death.
hallucinogens in general indeed forcefully show one things like this.
but it's really about realizing and acknowledging a separation between what we are, our language, and the way in which the elements of language (symbols-vocabulary) are representations distinct from what they represent, with this, one can realize that life and death, while distinct concepts within language, are in fact aspects of a whole which cannot be logically fitted into languages such as ours.
You've lived a privileged life if you fear death. In any case we've never experienced nothingness and so I find it odd that people even assume it something to be concerned about. Universe very well could just repeat all the variables again for your experiences to happen and maybe even slightly different depending on the iteration.
Not really a hope but just a theory. Nothingness is similar and for some people even better. I do find it amusing that people downvoted my earlier comment. People don't even have a grasp that their life isn't very special when something can simply just repeat it all again. It already happened, why not again, and when the maybe first iteration was possible?
“The actor, for instance, to please his audience need not appear in every act to the very end; it is enough if he is approved in the parts in which he plays; and so it is not necessary for the wise man to stay on this mortal stage to the last fall of the curtain. For even if the allotted space of life be short, it is long enough in which to live honorably and well...
But somehow, my soul was ever on the alert, looking forward to posterity, as if it realized that when it had departed from this life, then at last would it be alive.”
Summary of Cicero’s On Old Age here as well:
https://butwhatfor.substack.com/p/takeaway-tuesday-on-old-ag...