From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Sat Jun 02 2001 - 09:54:20 MDT
In a message dated 6/2/2001 10:56:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
lcorbin@ricochet.net 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! 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. Escape fantasy would be the meme of the day, for
that is what we would only have left.
<<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, but I think that you are too.>>
My guess is that for many this "psychological" reaction to mortality was
subducted into religion for so long that billions of people experienced this
condition, of despair, the only solution was religion. 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.
<<I'm sure that you would agree that we cannot OVERSTATE
<<how unbelievable exhilarating and wonderful life shall
<<be later on---but that should NOT come at the cost
<<of denigrating life now.
<<Lee
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. Years later, after I realized that Clarke
continuously overestimated how easy it was to achieve things technically, did
I find myself better settled mentally.
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.
Mitch
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