From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@ricochet.net)
Date: Sat Jun 02 2001 - 14:35:34 MDT
Mitch writes:
>> Would either of you roll over and die if we found out for certain
>> that life in this sector of the galaxy could not continue for more
>> than an additional century? Of course not!
>I am guessing that the smartest of people would be disturbed by the
>eventuality!
Oh, for sure. Even many people not normally considered bright.
I would be rather disappointed too. To think of all humankind's
exalted triumphs as having no permanent place in the universe,
that the happy story had a tragic end. Alas..... Um, by the way,
what's for dinner?
(Well, it's a long time away, ya see, and there are some
interesting things to do meantime---wine, women, song and
all that.)
>Especially with the notion of eternal death or value
>death/ego loss for our Buddhist friends. News of this
>would surely permeate our literature and thoughts.
Yes, it certainly would. A somber pall would be cast
over all of philosophy, and perhaps over many endeavors.
>Escape fantasy would be the meme of the day, for
>that is what we would only have left.
Nonsense! Most people would get used to it in a few
weeks, far more easily than they get used to the loss
of a loved one. If America turned totally socialist
on the same day that it was announced that the world
had to end in a century, then Socialists would be
happier on the whole than they were the day before.
(Same for Libertarians, or anyone else. Again---this
is for a majority of them, not all of us by any means.
A century is a long long long time for most people;
besides, they were planning to be dead anyway, even
their children.)
>> Where does this incredible intolerance for anything but
>> the very best come from? It's a little pathological IMO.
>> Consider the case of cryonicist Mike Perry, who has told
>> me that were he to know for sure that he could only live
>> for some trillions of years but that there would be no
>> immortality, he would be overcome by despair. Now that's
>> over-reacting!
>
>My guess is that for many this "psychological" reaction
>to mortality was subducted into religion
yes...
>for so long that billions of people experienced this
>condition, of despair, [and] the only solution was religion.
Yes.
>For atheists and others, simply switching focus to things
>they can impact has been a temporary palliative. Denial
>ain't just a big river in Africa.
But you're not explaining how it is that these very bright
people are so unappreciative of all that they have. (It
sounded like that's where you were headed.)
Talk about looking at a glass as half empty!
I guess I'm glad that they spoke; I would never have guessed
that highly reflective people would take the marvelous things
that they already have so much for granted.
>I doubt if anyone on this list has been turning down their paychecks,
because
>of their dyspeptic views on our current age. I used to find myself getting
>unhappy after reading freshly minted Arthur C. Clarke novels, because they
>seemed so damn plausible.
So thees talk of theez marvels of the future made you zo
unhappy becauss you could not bee zhere, ja? It vas der
desperate longink for ze promised landt, und you felt zo
deprifed heere und now, ja? Yet you continued to read
about deez tings, despite ze pain.
>Years later, after I realized that Clarke continuously
>overestimated how easy it was to achieve things
>technically, did I find myself better settled mentally.
Zo ees good news for you vhen zhere vill be less progress, ja?
Hmm. Very strange. Tell me more about your fauter...
>For me, the slow, hard, road of technological advances over millennia seem
>more reasonable, even on a list which holds that in 99 years we will have
>attained 'parousia'. Cryo seems a good idea, but a poor technology. "Rotting
>in Good Health" may ultimately prove the better answer-tho' I wouldn't swear
>by it. Where Michael Perry sees the cold sleep of dead bodies as a
reasonable
>answer, I see the fine tuning of an Ultimate Mind, more to my liking (shades
>of religion). But I echo's Perry's despair in the notion that the
existential
>problems need a solution.
Hey, Mike Perry also thinks that getting frozen is the second
dumbest thing in the world to do. But I still don't understand
the despair you're trying to describe. Because of existential
problems? What like "why does anything exist" or instead ones
along the lines of Sartre's or Camus's? (not that I know
anything about them)
Lee
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