3 ms·
People like FINITE things, "BOUND" things and things that seem UNDERSTANDABLE and that have a PURPOSE that doesn't lie in the thing itself and most people HATE
by nnq 14y ago
People like FINITE things, "BOUND" things and things that seem UNDERSTANDABLE and that have a PURPOSE that doesn't lie in the thing itself and most people HATE open ended things (I know, for future oriented technologists like us it's hard to understand this, but ask you... mom). The "fear of immortality" (even if it's more professed than truly believed actually) is FEAR OF INFINITY and fear of being part of something whose purpose is itself.
An infinite life would be:
1. infinite (obviously)
2. not "understandable" - your mind will evolve infinitely and your future personality/self might end up so different of you present self that you might disagree even on the most basic questions of morality and what's "good" and "bad" (you have to accept that you're actually different persons and the same thing will apply if you "cloned" your mind now and the two minds will meet each other in 1000 years time), and your present self can't even imagine what the future self might become, the actual "self" becomes "not understandable" potentially
3. open ended
4. there's no "final", imaginable "purpose" - because you're future life is beyond the edges of you present imagination, you can't imagine a purpose for life itself (like "be good and go to heaven")), so the purpose of life has to be life itself
...and most people (I call them "un-open minds", to not be superior or mean and to state that I think they have the potential to be "opened") are AFRAID of (1) to (4)... it's against the way they've been brought up and it takes away their "shield" for other fears... imagine convincing a frightened little girl to so skydiving or maybe closer to getting her join the army and become a paratrooper.
- icebraining 14y agoPlease don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html #passive-aggressive
- nnq 14y ago...sorry, didn't knew this style was considered rude around here, just used it instead of the bold/strong style that's available on stackoverflow and most other discussion boards