7 replies to this topic

[Florian Xavier]

Richard Dawkins say that our brains have evolved to understand what 50 years means, but not much more. 1000 years feel mysterious. For him, we fear death because of the "forever". Maybe immortality-related toughts brings the exact same feeling, and that our brain is actually ok to have a short lifespan. 

Edited by Florian Xavier, 01 April 2015 - 06:07 PM.

[Dolph]

I don't think so. The main problem is, in my view, that even if we managed to live potentially "forever", we would be still mortal, for example in the case of violence or accidents.

That means that we would fear tremendously to be "betrayed" of our "endless" lifes early on by some minor incident which would create a constant feeling of inhibition and the lack of ability to actually enjoy life.

[Babol]

I suppose that the main problem is, that we do not know what is laying beyond death. 

[Mind]

Anders Sanberg has proposed something similar to this as well. People reject indefinite lifespan and cryonics because the human brain cannot handle the high level complexity of far future scenarios (or long-chain reasoning). http://www.aleph.se/Nada/

Edited by Mind, 04 April 2015 - 11:41 AM.

[A941]

Yes this sounds right, but we also cant understand nothingness (Death) this is a concept far more alien to our thinking than eternity, which we too cant grasp.

 

I hope we will be able to find a way to manage large expensions of time/space with an upgrade of our mind, cause the management of information will too become a problem.

[Russ Maughan]

Humans are prone to immitation once they have abandoned they're natural awareness either from conditioning or boredom. Humoring elders is a long standing tradition in many cultures. Learning to sing is a good example. Not very logical but it does come in handy. Who would want to sing forever? Not me. I rather enjoy the peace of mind of detaching myself from everything. In that state of mind living forever seems natural. As soon as I am engaged by another human though I must reach into memory for a mindset compatible to comunicate on that persons level, be it polite, authoritative, humble, nimble, etc. I do not allow myself to hate. Hate is a contagious mental dissorder.

Edited by Russ Maughan, 06 April 2015 - 10:20 AM.

[Antonio2014]

I don't think it's something written in the structure of our brains but something cultural (and thus learned).

[Multivitz]

I wouldn't trust Dawkins to tie my shoe laces, let alone give interpretations of an experiment result imo. But culture/environment breeds all sorts. From birth we get overwhelmed with macro senses input with poor diet, and Left brain crippled examples. Just because alot of people have agreement with someone doesn't mean their view is wholly sound. It's like the disclaimer theorist give before a talk about a subject. Examples, Black Holes, Dawinian Evolution lol

Edited by Multivitz, 20 December 2015 - 08:29 PM.