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you may find this interesting: https://medium.com/@JBramVB/the-rejection-of-the-human-condition-49fc722f1293#.ktqap976j https://medium.com/@JBramVB/the-rejectio

you may find this interesting: https://medium.com/@JBramVB/the-rejection-of-the-human-condition-49fc722f1293#.ktqap976j https://medium.com/@JBramVB/the-rejection-of-the-human-condi... I discuss my thoughts on some of these things. would love to hear any opposing or agreeing views you have.

cLeEOGPw 10y ago
I disagree with that article completely. > We need our bodies and our internal organs to live Implies you can live without body? Neither mind, nor consciousness is live, that's why you literally don't live if you don't have body. There's no philosophical dilemma here - life must be able to replicate. Mind can't replicate. It's not alive. > 2. We must eat to survive Literally. A physical body, which is the only way to be alive, needs physical atoms to exist, and acquisition of the building blocks is called eating. > 3. We must die Only point I can semi-agree with. Life span can be reasonably extended. No immortality though. > 4. We must work to live Not even starting.
- duncan_bayne 10y ago
  What's wrong with #4? Assuming that we continue to require resources, then #4 will continue to be true. Granted: as technology improves, we need to work a lot less to achieve the same quality of life. But there's still a requirement to produce those resources; it is incumbent upon someone to work to produce them, be it a farm labourer or an engineer designing farm robots.
- klodolph 10y ago
  I think it's not really interesting if you disagree with an article simply by using a different understanding of the same words. 1. "Body" in the paragraph means "the rest of the body, excluding the brain". It is not used to mean, "the entire body, including the brain". 2. This is incorrect. The acquisition of matter is not always called eating. I'm not talking about drinking—we can group that with eating—but there are alternative ways to acquire nutrients and there are also other ways to acquire matter that do not involve nutrients. Having a nutrient IV would not involve eating, and if you got a good source of nutrients this way, it would bypass many of the biological problems involving nutrient absorption through the GI tract. Problems with nutrient absorption in the GI tract account for a worrying number of health problems in older individuals. (You can also attach matter to your body with surgery.)
  - cLeEOGPw 10y ago
    How is the brain not a body? Brain is certainly not mind, neither consciousness. Why not replace it too then? Is it because he has enough imagination to think replacing heart is possible, but replacing brain isn't without losing consciousness? As for eating, he clearly stated what he meant - power brain through electricity. Shows complete lack of basic understanding of body functions, of which brain is part of. He believes that brain is powered by electricity. Good example of this whole article - fantasy without any deeper thoughts of why things are the way they are.
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  You've equated biological definitions of "life" with other definitions, and then attempted to preemptively dismiss all possible disagreement with your preferred definition. Philosophical disagreement absolutely exists on these points, whether you acknowledge it or not. Biological definitions of life are not the only interesting definitions. From the point of view of conscious beings, a functioning conscious mind comes a lot closer to our practical boundary between "alive" and "dead"; it seems completely reasonable to consider a mind "alive" even in the absence of all else. A body without a mind is much less interesting, even if by some biological definition it's still "alive". (Conversely, we'd call a person dead even if some individual component cells in their body were still alive.) Your automatic assumption that life requires a physical body seems entirely unsupported. And regarding reproduction, there's a trivial counterexample: a person who has lost the ability to reproduce is still alive. And even biological definitions can vary; I certainly don't see any obvious reason why a biological definition of life needs to include an end. Death is not inherent, and hopefully it's a bug we can fix.
  - cLeEOGPw 10y ago
    > it seems completely reasonable to consider a mind "alive" even in the absence of all else. So AI is alive too if you program it to understand it's AI? Such arbitrary definitions of "life" is not interesting. What if I define life as "abstract existence in anyone's mind" - that way a person, for example, would be considered "alive" as long as he is "alive" in our memory. Also counterexample for life with only consciousness - let's imagine that we advanced technology to be able to replace neurons with analogous mechanisms that perform same function. Now imagine your cells are slowly, gradually being replaced with these mechanisms, all while your consciousness is full intact. That means that this imaginary technology replaces your live cells with machine cells without you losing consciousness, and at the end you are entirely machine. Are you alive? I say no. If you say yes, we disagree. Thing is, consciousness and mind is nothing but a continuity of electrical signals. No magic here. While life is entirely different concept. They are tangential. Neither of them require one another. > a person who has lost the ability to reproduce is still alive. I am talking about multi generational life. If I remove your brain, thus mind and consciousness, you are alive too for some time. > I certainly don't see any obvious reason why a biological definition of life needs to include an end. It doesn't. But an organism that doesn't die cannot adapt to environment through DNA shuffling. But there are organisms that are considered immortal, not nearly as complicated as humans though.

cLeEOGPw 10y ago

I disagree with that article completely. > We need our bodies and our internal organs to live Implies you can live without body? Neither mind, nor consciousness is live, that's why you literally don't live if you don't have body. There's no philosophical dilemma here - life must be able to replicate. Mind can't replicate. It's not alive. > 2. We must eat to survive Literally. A physical body, which is the only way to be alive, needs physical atoms to exist, and acquisition of the building blocks is called eating. > 3. We must die Only point I can semi-agree with. Life span can be reasonably extended. No immortality though. > 4. We must work to live Not even starting.

duncan_bayne 10y ago
What's wrong with #4? Assuming that we continue to require resources, then #4 will continue to be true. Granted: as technology improves, we need to work a lot less to achieve the same quality of life. But there's still a requirement to produce those resources; it is incumbent upon someone to work to produce them, be it a farm labourer or an engineer designing farm robots.
klodolph 10y ago
I think it's not really interesting if you disagree with an article simply by using a different understanding of the same words. 1. "Body" in the paragraph means "the rest of the body, excluding the brain". It is not used to mean, "the entire body, including the brain". 2. This is incorrect. The acquisition of matter is not always called eating. I'm not talking about drinking—we can group that with eating—but there are alternative ways to acquire nutrients and there are also other ways to acquire matter that do not involve nutrients. Having a nutrient IV would not involve eating, and if you got a good source of nutrients this way, it would bypass many of the biological problems involving nutrient absorption through the GI tract. Problems with nutrient absorption in the GI tract account for a worrying number of health problems in older individuals. (You can also attach matter to your body with surgery.)
- cLeEOGPw 10y ago
  How is the brain not a body? Brain is certainly not mind, neither consciousness. Why not replace it too then? Is it because he has enough imagination to think replacing heart is possible, but replacing brain isn't without losing consciousness? As for eating, he clearly stated what he meant - power brain through electricity. Shows complete lack of basic understanding of body functions, of which brain is part of. He believes that brain is powered by electricity. Good example of this whole article - fantasy without any deeper thoughts of why things are the way they are.
JoshTriplett 10y ago
You've equated biological definitions of "life" with other definitions, and then attempted to preemptively dismiss all possible disagreement with your preferred definition. Philosophical disagreement absolutely exists on these points, whether you acknowledge it or not. Biological definitions of life are not the only interesting definitions. From the point of view of conscious beings, a functioning conscious mind comes a lot closer to our practical boundary between "alive" and "dead"; it seems completely reasonable to consider a mind "alive" even in the absence of all else. A body without a mind is much less interesting, even if by some biological definition it's still "alive". (Conversely, we'd call a person dead even if some individual component cells in their body were still alive.) Your automatic assumption that life requires a physical body seems entirely unsupported. And regarding reproduction, there's a trivial counterexample: a person who has lost the ability to reproduce is still alive. And even biological definitions can vary; I certainly don't see any obvious reason why a biological definition of life needs to include an end. Death is not inherent, and hopefully it's a bug we can fix.
- cLeEOGPw 10y ago
  > it seems completely reasonable to consider a mind "alive" even in the absence of all else. So AI is alive too if you program it to understand it's AI? Such arbitrary definitions of "life" is not interesting. What if I define life as "abstract existence in anyone's mind" - that way a person, for example, would be considered "alive" as long as he is "alive" in our memory. Also counterexample for life with only consciousness - let's imagine that we advanced technology to be able to replace neurons with analogous mechanisms that perform same function. Now imagine your cells are slowly, gradually being replaced with these mechanisms, all while your consciousness is full intact. That means that this imaginary technology replaces your live cells with machine cells without you losing consciousness, and at the end you are entirely machine. Are you alive? I say no. If you say yes, we disagree. Thing is, consciousness and mind is nothing but a continuity of electrical signals. No magic here. While life is entirely different concept. They are tangential. Neither of them require one another. > a person who has lost the ability to reproduce is still alive. I am talking about multi generational life. If I remove your brain, thus mind and consciousness, you are alive too for some time. > I certainly don't see any obvious reason why a biological definition of life needs to include an end. It doesn't. But an organism that doesn't die cannot adapt to environment through DNA shuffling. But there are organisms that are considered immortal, not nearly as complicated as humans though.