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The subject of death ...


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Poll: The subject of death ... (146 member(s) have cast votes)

The subject of death ...

  1. makes me uncomfortable; let's not discuss it openly (1 votes [0.70%])

    Percentage of vote: 0.70%

  2. does not make me uncomfortable; let's discuss it openly (80 votes [55.94%])

    Percentage of vote: 55.94%

  3. makes me uncomfortable, but let's discuss it openly (59 votes [41.26%])

    Percentage of vote: 41.26%

  4. does not make me uncomfortable, but let's not discuss it (3 votes [2.10%])

    Percentage of vote: 2.10%

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#31 Bruce Klein

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Posted 23 May 2004 - 12:18 AM

There has been some evidence that people after a certain age will not age anymore... there seems to be some type of off switch after a certain point..

let me find that..

#32 Bruce Klein

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Posted 23 May 2004 - 12:21 AM

Hmm.. if i'm reading this right.. it seems Gavrilov sees otherwise... aging does not slow or stop with extreme old age?

---
Claims were made[27] that a simple evolutionary model can explain even the observed age-trajectory of mortality curves including the late-life mortality plateaus (tendency of mortality curves to level-off at advanced ages), but other investigators later found these claims to be unsubstantiated [15,29,54,55]. Thus, declarations that the evolutionary theory of aging should have a dominating status among other biological theories of aging remain to be justified. However, the opposite extreme suggestion that late-life mortality deceleration “raises serious questions about the evolution of senescence”[56] has also proved to be unsubstantiated[14].

http://longevity-sci...g/Evolution.htm

#33 tous

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Posted 06 August 2004 - 08:35 PM

Can't quite remeber were I heard this but basically the man said there are 8 chemical reasons for regression form our prime...."Ageing backwards"...Basically the idea is you age until you reach your prime...then you begin dieing..

You Start as nothing...Then You Are something...Then You grow to Something Better...Then You Regress to something...Then You Regress to nothing
( Its all in the caps ;) )

And the key is to stop you from reching your prime.....because ounce your past that point your beyond help.....I beleive he also said you can stop like 3 of them currently.....I beleive i may be mixing two things together now actually......

This is kinda of topic I realize

Sincerly, TouS

Edited by tous, 07 August 2004 - 06:20 AM.


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#34 fdotseth

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Posted 15 August 2004 - 01:22 AM

Nothing like being late! Death is a word that describes a situation, which is taught as a cultural certainty. It is used because few people understand life.
Our scientific knowledge tells us that energy cannot be destroyed - only transformed. Human beings are totally replaced with new cells approximately every seven years. I believe that replacement is a hologramic replacement. That means we do not or cannot die. We can only be transformed. I beleive we can maintain our present structure indefinitely, if we choose to. But, to do that we must create a different thought structure than that which was imposed on us from early childhood on. The question is this. Do you have the capacity to over ride the past information with the information you have chosen? Very few people have that capacity. Famous thinkers became famous because their feat was so extra-ordinary. As for me - I expect to be that way. And with any luck - fame will avoid me.
Frank

#35 Infernity

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Posted 27 January 2005 - 05:40 PM

The subject of death - does not make me uncomfortable; let's discuss it openly ...
I am not being disturbed by that subject as I used to.
Before I knew about the existence of [ii] ImmInst I was kind of depressed... For as long as I can remenber myself I saw no point in being alive and do anything if someday it shall all be forgotten for eternity without a known coming-back-way. The cause which I was depress about was that no one understood me, and I was going crazy by the thought that I don't even have anyone to share my feelings with and that he shall understand, well and of course that also by the fact that nothing matters, carpe diem, the end shall come... [mellow]
Anyway, now, that I know I am definitely not the only one who gets the meaning of life and the worthless of an ending life, and that Immortality is being developed- I don't feel uncomfortable about the subject of death and I definitely want to discuss about it openly.
Actually, most of the lyrics of the best songs I know by the best artists I know are the exact opposite of my goals and so are *my* songs and writings- all's negative, negative, negative, sorrows, death, and more death... [lol] (Heh, by the way, you all should listen to Soilwork and In Flames, well and someday- to me too...) [thumb] .

Well then, lets discuss it openly :)

Yours
~Infernity

Edited by infernity, 10 March 2005 - 11:20 AM.


#36 drus

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Posted 01 November 2006 - 11:17 PM

One could say that death makes evolution possible and relevant. Once human kind has mastered the mysteries of life and can control matter at the subatomic level, death will no longer be naturally necessary. Death is nature's way of trial and error evolutionarliy speaking. Ultimately the fear of death is futile. We all did not exist at one time and we will cease to exist again at some point in the future, most likely that is but not necessarliy, depending on technology. We are consciously aware of death and so thus I believe we can defeat it.

#37 samson

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Posted 22 December 2006 - 10:06 PM

Fear of The Grim Reaper? Ha! I laugh at your frigtened faces and crack my head open in spite of your silly fears for the oblivion!

Personally, I do not fear death, save for the instinct. No fear, no respect. To me, death is (most likely. Add on default from now on) only eternal oblivion, a state of permanent unconsciousness, nothing to be afraid of. Our consciousness ends, and that's it. No eternal pain, no eternal bliss, just simple oblivion. Fun times. What I DO fear is pain, and more to the point, the act of dying itself. That is, I fear only the sensation of pain, not the knowledge that my consciousness ends.
You see, it doesn't matter after you die, because you WON'T BE THERE TO CARE in the first place. So, it makes little sense to fear the thing you will not care about when it has actually happened.

Personally I NEED death. I need to know that if need be, I am free to end my consciousness. Involuntary life is an abomination as great as involuntary death, to me. Why would you fight to life forever just to be unable to end it?
Several points where I'd perhaps wish to die are when I achieve perfection (not very likely one), when confronted with large amounts of pain, when confronted with hopeless situation (though I would as likely fight till the last breath. You know, just to be an annoying bastard), or when assured of life beyond (even less likely than the perfection-thingy).

Then why would I not kill myself for the heck of it, I greet myself daily. Because I have a cause. To become the greatest bastard ever created with human reproductive organs. That and godhood (perfection). They might be somewhat close to each other.

Although I admit that I lack the needed knowledge to give any statements of credence whatsoever, I claim that death does not exist in nature. Or not in the way that counts to nature. Supposing that nature can count. Which it cannot. Anyways.
Death in nature (as a result of aging) is compromise between maintaining an individual and the destructive forces opposed to it. You see, as time passes, the hazard of an individual to meet it's untimely end increases. As if you didn't see this.
Anyways, because it is evidently inevitable for an individual to meet it's end, either by directly, such as predatation or radition, or indirectly as a result of aging, some other method was needed to maintain the individual. Enter germ line and reproduction. The individual (in this case bacteria or some strange precessor) creates multiple copies of itself and attempts to maintain itself by the sheer multitude of the copies. We can observe that this has worked.
This was very efficient when the complete information of an individual could easily be collected in DNA or RNA string. Not anymore. The information collected in our body (our nervous system primarily, I seem to recall that the rest of our body also retains some information) easily exceeds the practical maximum of a DNA genome that is transferred during reproduction. We can observe why our humongous information cannot be trasnferred during reproduction from the sheer size of our blobbing brain-flesh perched on top of our crappy life-support system. So evidently we need a better way of maintaining our individual information. Enter transhumanism. But that is another topic.

So how does the "meaning" of DNA correlate to immortality? Behold, I will make my great argument! I argue that nature itself is struggling to maintain the information of individuals. The only means it currently has for this, unfortunately, is reproduction. This poses serious limits when faced with large amounts of information, such as the composition of a human and cannot transfer our consciousness at all. I will contemplate and argue on this further later on.

#38 gavrilov

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Posted 14 February 2007 - 06:10 PM

Hmm.. if i'm reading this right.. it seems Gavrilov sees otherwise... aging does not slow or stop with extreme old age?

[/URL]


The apparent aging rate does slow down at extreme old ages, simply because there is little room remaining for further deterioration (redundancy exhaustion). For more please see:

Gavrilov LA, Gavrilova NS. Reliability Theory of Aging and Longevity. In: Masoro E.J. & Austad S.N.. (eds.): Handbook of the Biology of Aging , Sixth Edition. Academic Press. San Diego, CA, USA, 2006, 3-42.

Hope it helps,

#39 apocalypse

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Posted 15 February 2007 - 10:12 AM

The problem with immortality, is that if we live forever we eventually posses all information, what that means is that tree of life and the tree of knowledge are but one tree. If we eat of it, our eyes may open, but we may not like to see what we've become...

#40 caston

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Posted 15 February 2007 - 11:46 AM

Death is just a pipe dream for those who fear immortality.

#41 Infernity

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Posted 15 February 2007 - 04:48 PM

The problem with immortality, is that if we live forever we eventually posses all information

How very true... but impossible to reach.. I mean it'd take the infinite time that's not practically possible to get to

-Infernity

#42 Liquidus

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Posted 09 July 2007 - 12:47 AM

How very true... but impossible to reach.. I mean it'd take the infinite time that's not practically possible to get to

-Infernity


The beauty of the situation is that no matter how deep we try to interpret the scope of what there is to 'know', there will always be infiniteness out there to explore. That's why I think the universe is a key sign of the potential of immortality. The concept of the universe (in terms of the theory that it will continue to expand as is incomprehensible to consider in size) presents the idea that as long as the universe is an infinite entity, the potential for anything is infinite, and therefore, unless you can accept the termination of your own, singular existence, there is absolutely no limit as to what one can know.

Secondly, the experience that one has determines their outlook on the scope of existence. I do not think I could ever come to a point where I know so much that I just decide I want to cease to exist. Considering that there is absolutely no way to know what does lie in the corners of the universe at this time, there is no way we could formulate how we could or could not come to the point where we feel the obligation to kill ourselves for the sake of 'the nature of the universe'.

#43 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 09 July 2007 - 03:41 AM

Since I strive to not believe in anything by faith alone, I have no belief that we'll end aging within my life time, that cryonics will work, or that I'll be around to see the next couple thousand years.

I know that I will most likely die, and do not know when -- so I plan for it in the best ways I can.

Other than being a cryonicist, spreading awareness about our need for education in society (especially science) --I donate to Mprize and I work on how I can educate the most humans (currently hoping to create a story that kids will like) all the while I raise my own children, do a lot of volunteering and hope that in some way within my life-time when it is all said in done, I will have contributed in some meaningful way.

If I get more time, then I get more time. We all justify our existence in different ways--big and small-- I tend to be one that is trying to get us beyond the hurtle of the life that evolved on this planet--so we can travel and learn more about the universe. We all just seem so young...

#44 VictorBjoerk

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Posted 21 April 2008 - 12:03 AM

I voted for number 3.It makes me uncomfortable to discuss.But it is necessary to discuss.Most people discusses it to little and I think it's horrible because if you don't cultivate a strong horror against it you won't contribute to do something about it and it ends up that most people will do their work,have their family,age and die without even having TRIED to achieve something better.
And it is actually quite silly logically to be uncomfortable to discuss it.I have the opportunity to live in a currently healthy body,just think about all the people who have bodies crippled by disease or dying.I really can't imagine how uncomfortable they actually feel.

The strive for immortality is just like life=0.999999999.... compared to imortality=1. Some day your existence will stop just like it hasn't continued before you were born.The big problem is the aging process which will destroy our bodies in a few decades and when it has been defeated we just have to add safety and better health care and we are as close to immortality as we can, at least as I imagine it. ;o)

#45 Luna

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Posted 22 April 2008 - 07:33 AM

Makes me hate the secret even more..
You do realize that The Secret theory works like the God theory?
If all in is you and nothing is really real and the universe bends to your well.
It brings it back to HOW YOU got into existence.

So a pact with a grim reaper? if only all the money those people spend would have been put into immortality instead of silly pseudosciences.

I might have misunderstood and it is not referring "The Secret" theories from the book/movie.
The only thing good that could become of this book if it is, is convincing people to help immortality research and change their stupid opinion of wanting to die.
As we seen, many people do believe what we do is bad.. how human!

Other then that, Infernity kinda said my feeling about the subject, felt exactly the same as you did before imminst..

Edited by Winterbreeze, 22 April 2008 - 07:40 AM.


#46 Cyberbrain

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Posted 22 April 2008 - 03:39 PM

Makes me hate the secret even more..
You do realize that The Secret theory works like the God theory?
If all in is you and nothing is really real and the universe bends to your well.
It brings it back to HOW YOU got into existence.

So a pact with a grim reaper? if only all the money those people spend would have been put into immortality instead of silly pseudosciences.

I might have misunderstood and it is not referring "The Secret" theories from the book/movie.
The only thing good that could become of this book if it is, is convincing people to help immortality research and change their stupid opinion of wanting to die.
As we seen, many people do believe what we do is bad.. how human!

Other then that, Infernity kinda said my feeling about the subject, felt exactly the same as you did before imminst..


U mean .... The Secret .... ;o)



#47 mentatpsi

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Posted 23 January 2009 - 09:21 AM

Makes me hate the secret even more..
You do realize that The Secret theory works like the God theory?
If all in is you and nothing is really real and the universe bends to your well.
It brings it back to HOW YOU got into existence.

So a pact with a grim reaper? if only all the money those people spend would have been put into immortality instead of silly pseudosciences.

I might have misunderstood and it is not referring "The Secret" theories from the book/movie.
The only thing good that could become of this book if it is, is convincing people to help immortality research and change their stupid opinion of wanting to die.
As we seen, many people do believe what we do is bad.. how human!

Other then that, Infernity kinda said my feeling about the subject, felt exactly the same as you did before imminst..


U mean .... The Secret .... :)

[Video]


Holy sh*t. I really thought you posted a video describing it, but this was hilarious. Especially with the parking spot and the kid.

I kind of think though, that the process could work if it's something within your means, that a problem will sometimes solve itself by leaving it on the back burner. Like a complex mathematics problem or algorithm design. I mean a rat's brain while sleeping actually re-emulates the procedures in a maze, so it's possible that by really believing in a solution and occupying your mind in the possible solutions, eventually the brain will work itself to attain some sort of solution. Another example of this is how if you learn something, the brain eventually uses less areas over the course of applying the knowledge, also known as developing expertise.

It's possible that this was the original secret that maybe newton and the other alleged supporters of it talked about, but these new age guys just blew it completely out of proportions. Maybe it can even explain for why the economy sucks... because people aren't believing hard enough :).

Awesome video :).

#48 Esoparagon

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Posted 09 June 2009 - 04:11 AM

Most of the time talking about death is ok for me but sometimes I feel a bit uncomfortable when I have to consider that fact that I may die in a horrible manner. I don't want to die because of a car crash, plane crash, beheading, being murdered, a high fall, burned alive and so on.

#49 bacopa

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Posted 09 June 2009 - 04:29 AM

I guess I agree with Shannon and Winterbreeze's comments, along with most others. But those really stood out for me. I'm going to do everything I can to prolong my existence, but i'm not counting on life extension technologies to kick in in my life time. And I get extremely depressed about this fact! I am also uncomfortable with oblivion as Bruce said. I don't believe in any existence of God, and I hate when people believe in pseudoscience as it is so stupid and a waste of hope and time. I think I feel a tiny bit better, or more than that, knowing that many people here feel similarly to the way I do and are braving the rapids towards the harrowing journey of aging. It's so sad really...defeating aging has been my mission since I was maybe 5 years old, as I'm sure this is true with many of you here too. I am really freaked out about dying of cancer since my mom died of that and I'm now paranoid I'll die in a similar manner....

#50 brokenportal

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Posted 16 June 2009 - 02:21 PM

Death is just a pipe dream for those who fear immortality.



I know, what are they thinking? I mean, what about grave yard overpopulation? At this rate grave yards will be doubled up on themselves in the next century. There will be no farm land or room to build anything.

#51 Akagi

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Posted 18 September 2009 - 10:16 PM

I can not imagine becoming 'comfortable' with the though of oblivion.


We had it before we were born. Shall we whine because we know it will return?

#52 till

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Posted 05 October 2009 - 11:07 PM

Of all the topics on the Imminst fora, this one strikes me as one of the strangest. I'm trying to figure out why, and then I asked myself why I'm even reading it! Well, that's mainly because I received an email the other day, telling me that I hadn't visited the fora for a while. So I did, looked around, and found the same-old-same-old—except in a very few that actually have some meat on them. The rest isn't even skeletal, but qualifies as 'spectral', or maybe 'ectoplasmic'.

So, this topic here is bizarre, probably because you would have thought that for anyone visiting Imminst on any regular basis, and especially for those qualifying as 'members' of any level, there could be only one answer to the question implied, at least from the aspect of "let's talk about it". Of course you'd want to talk about it, for why else the hell are you here, if not to talk about it, or to listen to others talk about, and again and again and again...

And if the subject of death does not make you uncomfortable, then again, what are you doing here? Only reason why anyone would not want to die is because death does indeed make you uncomfortable. That's because it sucks. It's a bad thing. So, why should it do anything but make you feel uncomfortable? Unless you're emotionally indifferent to it. In that case, why not go and die somewhere quiet?

I just don't 'get' these topics. I just don't....

Anyway, this was my fora visit and (totally useless) contribution. Now I won't get any emails for a while. ;)

BTW, for those interested (just in case!), here's my last series of posts from my book Emortalist Practice.

#53 brokenportal

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Posted 09 October 2009 - 08:01 PM

Growing upon the small group of people taking action for this cause is painfully painful painstaking slow going work. You may see few valuable discussions, but we need people like you here to help keep the spark of valuable discussions that there are moving along and proliferating. Slowly but surely we grow this small pool of action. Its like the doubling of the penny. If you double a penny once a month for 35 months you end up with over a billion dollars, so sticking with this is of the essence.

As a side note, topics like this are great for stirring thoughts about why we should even truly contribute. It keeps the philosophy, the how and the why alive in more peoples minds.

However, its certainly true that more action topics would be great. One way you can move in that direction and help us all move in that direction is by filtering your active topics section so that all the non action sections do not appear for you. This is very useful in providing interested parties with the ability to call up lists of topics that have a greater percent of action generating substantially mission related topics in them. Also, as more and more of us do this filtering, it is helping to keep those action topics more and more active, thereby drawing in more viewers and participation.

This cause walks down this path picking up contributors along the way. If we can convince you to walk with us more often then please do. We need every single contributor like there is no tomorrow, and if our efforts are to increase anything like those pennies then your help moving along this path with us here is absolutely priceless.



Of all the topics on the Imminst fora, this one strikes me as one of the strangest. I'm trying to figure out why, and then I asked myself why I'm even reading it! Well, that's mainly because I received an email the other day, telling me that I hadn't visited the fora for a while. So I did, looked around, and found the same-old-same-old—except in a very few that actually have some meat on them. The rest isn't even skeletal, but qualifies as 'spectral', or maybe 'ectoplasmic'.

So, this topic here is bizarre, probably because you would have thought that for anyone visiting Imminst on any regular basis, and especially for those qualifying as 'members' of any level, there could be only one answer to the question implied, at least from the aspect of "let's talk about it". Of course you'd want to talk about it, for why else the hell are you here, if not to talk about it, or to listen to others talk about, and again and again and again...

And if the subject of death does not make you uncomfortable, then again, what are you doing here? Only reason why anyone would not want to die is because death does indeed make you uncomfortable. That's because it sucks. It's a bad thing. So, why should it do anything but make you feel uncomfortable? Unless you're emotionally indifferent to it. In that case, why not go and die somewhere quiet?

I just don't 'get' these topics. I just don't....

Anyway, this was my fora visit and (totally useless) contribution. Now I won't get any emails for a while. :|w

BTW, for those interested (just in case!), here's my last series of posts from my book Emortalist Practice.






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