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>Maybe it's better that people die, and all we're left with is our memories of them, or written statements of their ideas or accounts of their deeds. We pick up

>Maybe it's better that people die, and all we're left with is our memories of them, or written statements of their ideas or accounts of their deeds. We pick up what we find useful from them, and have the freedom to discard what isn't. Every political movement has a built-in time limit based on the deaths of its most powerful leaders. Greater diversity in people and thoughts grows, because we don't have the luxury of keeping them the same forever. Many mistakes will die with their creator, and everyone else can move on. Fantastic points. I was about to type something along the same lines when I saw your reply. You said it much better than I could have.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
That's exactly the Deep Wisdom. Ask yourself - do you want to die? We'll all have your memories. Do you want your father or your mother to die, and if they already did, are you happy about it? Why were you mourning? Death is bad, it's scary and meaningless, and we construct really complex and elaborate excuses to deal with it.
- scintill76 11y ago
  You're conflating wanting death and accepting that it will happen, in both the case of oneself and family/friends. You think that "acceptance" is some BS we cooked up because we had no other choice, and that's a fine position, but don't caricature acceptance as actively wanting death. > do you want to die? No. I also want an infinite supply of resources (for me, and for everybody else, why not), the ability to experience any scenario I can dream up with any people I want even if they don't want it, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. The inevitability of death is perhaps a classic denial, but there are infinite other ways you can't always have what you want. (At the risk of sounding defeatist, trite, and in favor of The Order of Things.) If you could wave a wand and force any person to love you, would it be meaningful? If you were guaranteed to get whatever you wanted in any other sphere? Maybe I'm rambling here, but the point is, how will removing death solve all the other problems that come with billions of autonomous agents with generally incompatible wills existing together in a single, inherently meaningless universe with (probably) immutable physical laws and finite time, matter, and energy? OK, so solving death is an incremental improvement, and thus may be worth it to some... but perhaps I've described a reason not everybody is going to be obsessed with it -- it's just one form of a vastly large general problem. Also, I'm wondering what "more people car[ing]" about eradicating death would look like to you. The article discusses "digitizing the brain", there are thousands of scientists and dollars spent on eradicating certain cancers and other diseases, and many other sciences that could be applied to this problem. You're welcome to fund/conduct your own research, but apparently other people have more pressing concerns.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    > Maybe I'm rambling here, but the point is, how will removing death solve all the other problems that come with billions of autonomous agents with generally incompatible wills existing together in a single, inherently meaningless universe with (probably) immutable physical laws and finite time, matter, and energy? > OK, so solving death is an incremental improvement, and thus may be worth it to some... but perhaps I've described a reason not everybody is going to be obsessed with it -- it's just one form of a vastly large general problem. You answered it yourself. It won't. Removing death will just solve the problem of death. But having more time to live and study would probably be a big step in the direction of solving other problems. > I also want an infinite supply of resources (for me, and for everybody else, why not), the ability to experience any scenario I can dream up with any people I want even if they don't want it, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Well, you can't get absolutely everything you imagine, but that doesn't mean it's not worth going after things you can. Getting rid of death is something we could get. Full omniscience and omnipotence maybe not, but a subset of it is something worth aiming for, and personally I am going to try. That's what science and technology is for - multiplying our power, both collective and individual.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

That's exactly the Deep Wisdom. Ask yourself - do you want to die? We'll all have your memories. Do you want your father or your mother to die, and if they already did, are you happy about it? Why were you mourning? Death is bad, it's scary and meaningless, and we construct really complex and elaborate excuses to deal with it.

scintill76 11y ago
You're conflating wanting death and accepting that it will happen, in both the case of oneself and family/friends. You think that "acceptance" is some BS we cooked up because we had no other choice, and that's a fine position, but don't caricature acceptance as actively wanting death. > do you want to die? No. I also want an infinite supply of resources (for me, and for everybody else, why not), the ability to experience any scenario I can dream up with any people I want even if they don't want it, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. The inevitability of death is perhaps a classic denial, but there are infinite other ways you can't always have what you want. (At the risk of sounding defeatist, trite, and in favor of The Order of Things.) If you could wave a wand and force any person to love you, would it be meaningful? If you were guaranteed to get whatever you wanted in any other sphere? Maybe I'm rambling here, but the point is, how will removing death solve all the other problems that come with billions of autonomous agents with generally incompatible wills existing together in a single, inherently meaningless universe with (probably) immutable physical laws and finite time, matter, and energy? OK, so solving death is an incremental improvement, and thus may be worth it to some... but perhaps I've described a reason not everybody is going to be obsessed with it -- it's just one form of a vastly large general problem. Also, I'm wondering what "more people car[ing]" about eradicating death would look like to you. The article discusses "digitizing the brain", there are thousands of scientists and dollars spent on eradicating certain cancers and other diseases, and many other sciences that could be applied to this problem. You're welcome to fund/conduct your own research, but apparently other people have more pressing concerns.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > Maybe I'm rambling here, but the point is, how will removing death solve all the other problems that come with billions of autonomous agents with generally incompatible wills existing together in a single, inherently meaningless universe with (probably) immutable physical laws and finite time, matter, and energy? > OK, so solving death is an incremental improvement, and thus may be worth it to some... but perhaps I've described a reason not everybody is going to be obsessed with it -- it's just one form of a vastly large general problem. You answered it yourself. It won't. Removing death will just solve the problem of death. But having more time to live and study would probably be a big step in the direction of solving other problems. > I also want an infinite supply of resources (for me, and for everybody else, why not), the ability to experience any scenario I can dream up with any people I want even if they don't want it, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Well, you can't get absolutely everything you imagine, but that doesn't mean it's not worth going after things you can. Getting rid of death is something we could get. Full omniscience and omnipotence maybe not, but a subset of it is something worth aiming for, and personally I am going to try. That's what science and technology is for - multiplying our power, both collective and individual.