4 ms·

I enjoyed the docu recently and I‘m still in awe how „software-defined“ the voyager system was/is for it’s time

dylan604 2y ago
Makes me wonder if Ed was aware that Voyager was fixed and once again operational before he passed. One of those situations where he held out long enough to see that, and then was able to let go knowing his project would long out live him.
- sneak 2y ago
  People don’t really get to “hold out” against death. It’s not like you can clench really hard to stay alive or something.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    have you never heard the expression? as 1s and 0s left brained as I am, even I can let the lyrical notions be. i take solace in the fact that there's someone less poetic on life than myself. there is yet hope
  - strogonoff 2y ago
    There may be a degree of truth to “holding out against death”. It’s obvious if you step outside of the dogma of monistic materialism, but even that aside it looks like decrease in life expectancy after losing a spouse in old age, “diseases of despair” (with terminal ends), reduction in mortality associated with late retirement are allegedly things that exist. The will to do various things that correlate with not dying can do wonders.
    - adrian_b 2y ago
      Yes, that is true. My father was going to die anyway, due to cancer, but he was expected to live one more half of year. Nevertheless, he was stable and without any visible difficulties, so much that his spouse was completely unaware that he had cancer (he preferred to delay telling her, to keep her happy, without worries, as there was nothing to be done anyway). Unfortunately, she died suddenly due to a hemorrhagic stroke, shortly before completing 65 years of marriage. Precisely after one week, he also died (due to some kind of kidney failure), after saying at her death that his wish had always been for them to die together, so his wish was fulfilled very soon.
      - strogonoff 2y ago
        I know similar cases. Sorry for your loss.
      - schiffern 2y ago
        Kidney failure suggests that unconsciously he may have avoided drinking enough. I suppose that doesn't make it any less of a "mind-body connection," really. Sorry for your loss.
  - robocat 2y ago
    Actually some people can do so for a few days at least. I saw a western study looking at death rates and if I recall correctly: there was a dip in death rates just before 25th December, and then a bulge the same size as the dip after Xmas.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    Surely you can 'hold out' against dying from pneumonia and similar sicknesses to some degree?

Makes me wonder if Ed was aware that Voyager was fixed and once again operational before he passed. One of those situations where he held out long enough to see that, and then was able to let go knowing his project would long out live him.

sneak 2y ago
People don’t really get to “hold out” against death. It’s not like you can clench really hard to stay alive or something.
- dylan604 2y ago
  have you never heard the expression? as 1s and 0s left brained as I am, even I can let the lyrical notions be. i take solace in the fact that there's someone less poetic on life than myself. there is yet hope
- strogonoff 2y ago
  There may be a degree of truth to “holding out against death”. It’s obvious if you step outside of the dogma of monistic materialism, but even that aside it looks like decrease in life expectancy after losing a spouse in old age, “diseases of despair” (with terminal ends), reduction in mortality associated with late retirement are allegedly things that exist. The will to do various things that correlate with not dying can do wonders.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    Yes, that is true. My father was going to die anyway, due to cancer, but he was expected to live one more half of year. Nevertheless, he was stable and without any visible difficulties, so much that his spouse was completely unaware that he had cancer (he preferred to delay telling her, to keep her happy, without worries, as there was nothing to be done anyway). Unfortunately, she died suddenly due to a hemorrhagic stroke, shortly before completing 65 years of marriage. Precisely after one week, he also died (due to some kind of kidney failure), after saying at her death that his wish had always been for them to die together, so his wish was fulfilled very soon.
    - strogonoff 2y ago
      I know similar cases. Sorry for your loss.
    - schiffern 2y ago
      Kidney failure suggests that unconsciously he may have avoided drinking enough. I suppose that doesn't make it any less of a "mind-body connection," really. Sorry for your loss.
- robocat 2y ago
  Actually some people can do so for a few days at least. I saw a western study looking at death rates and if I recall correctly: there was a dip in death rates just before 25th December, and then a bulge the same size as the dip after Xmas.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  Surely you can 'hold out' against dying from pneumonia and similar sicknesses to some degree?