SecularFuture

WHAT?! Thinking is far different than it was 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago. Yes – we’re still very stupid, but we have made much progress, and we will continue to make progress.

First Step for a Better Future:
* Make it SECULAR

Belief in magical concepts, like angels and God(s), is holding us back!! If we thought more realistically, we would be a much more responsible people.

ju'iblex

a) what do you consider 'progress'
b) changes in thinking is not a radical change, as far as im concerned, humans are parasites and until we stop leeching and destroying both each other, this world, and possibly the next, there will be no profound change.
c) religions, of different sorts will always exist. where there is a gap to be filled, someones going to make some shit up to fill it.

bjklein

It's quite interesting to see the varied viewpoints from so many interested people concerning the topic of physical immortality. Few people seem to be on the middle on the issue... it's either 'I want to live forever' or 'immortality sucks'. Most people feel strongly that living forever is not such a good idea because it'll be to boring or they'll end up decrepit.

There does seem to be glimmer of hope expressed from SecularFuture and others concerning the possibility of transhumanism. In a similar vein, immortalism is a nascent and promising philosophy worth looking into. It may turn out the be the ultimate philosophy…. The main reason why this will be so is because we'll never be certain if we're immortal or not. Immortalism may always be a question… a way of life is you choose.

For more into on the immortalist philosophy.. or to express your distaste at the idea. check: http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.p...f=105&t=842&s=

ImmInst.org is a coordinate project I'm working on with others.

SecularFuture

Dang its really hard to keep up with all of these different threads. I promise I won't start anymore. My new (more refined) Transhumanist thread is HERE

My responses for the two response above will be in that thread.

Opera Nut

I'm going to an anti aging/weight loss doctor and after I start on the program, I will let you know what injectable human growth hormone does for me.

My insurance won't cover it, but if I lose some weight that will make my health problems improve greatly (hypertension, high cholesterol).

Amaranth

In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2.55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.
Life, the Universe, and Everything, by Douglas Adams


I'll pass on living forever, thanks. Sunday afternoons are already bad enough without the hope of eventually not having to deal with them.

Amaranth

Marduk

Oh there’s nothing I’d like better than to get up and go to work for another 20 billion years or so
stick a fork in me, I'm done

abe smith

responding this to the OP at this thread =*Why would you want to die?*) , sonnet, I forget the number of it; [ it's in ALEXANDRINES, not pentameters; lead-line "Tired with all these, for restful Death I cry..." If you insist on reading it in pentameters it clunks along like rocks poured down a flight of stairs; but in six-beat lines judiciously-caesuraed it comes out very limpid & thoughtful. There may be others of hisn that shd be metered so....}
Well there's shakespeare's answer to your qy.

wildernesse

Shakespeare Sonnet #66

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly--doctor-like--controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

--tibac

Marduk

Scottyman said:
“There is plenty of research ongoing into the field of mental transference or what some call "whole mind uploading" which is basically the transference of your concience into a supercomputer. Some are saying it's not too far off, perhaps 50 or so years away. I would opt for this without question.”

I’m not convinced this will work in the way people hope. I guess it all depends on the uploading process. Will it move you from your body to the machine or simply copy you into the machine? If the former than yes you may get to live forever, if the latter than you will just die with your body the old fashioned way and a copy of you will see the future. But this will essentially just be another being that happens to have your memories, not you.
Picture yourself going through the transfer procedure, will you awaken in a new computer body or your old body which will die? It all depends on how this is done, will your old body be like an empty suit with you now in the computer or is it just making copies, which will do you no good at all.