Death

[Narz]

The basic research into curing many diseases is pretty far along. I do not see a lot of successful research on solving the aging process itself, but if we can stave off diseases like cancer, that gives everyone alive now a shot at being alive long enough for aging itself to be cured.

I'm not up to date but aren't heart disease and cancer collecting as many victims as ever?

 

[AmazonQueen]

I'm not up to date but aren't heart disease and cancer collecting as many victims as ever?

If anything more people but then a lot of other things that used to be deadly aren't any more.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I'm not up to date but aren't heart disease and cancer collecting as many victims as ever?

Yes but the basic research is finally making strides. I mean, we could find all the promising treatments now under development are bunk but there are so many novel approaches being taken I can't imagine they will all fail to yield impressive results. We're only just now learning how to use DNA editing and immune system manipulation to treat diseases and are in the very earliest stages of growing new organs from simple cell cultures. The future is going to be lit

 

[Narz]

If anything more people but then a lot of other things that used to be deadly aren't any more.

I know things are way better than 100 years ago but it seems progress has been mostly against infectious diseases.

Yes but the basic research is finally making strides. I mean, we could find all the promising treatments now under development are bunk but there are so many novel approaches being taken I can't imagine they will all fail to yield impressive results. We're only just now learning how to use DNA editing and immune system manipulation to treat diseases and are in the very earliest stages of growing new organs from simple cell cultures. The future is going to be lit

I don't share your optimism but I hope you're right.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I know things are way better than 100 years ago but it seems progress has been mostly against infectious diseases.

This isn't true, cancer treatments have improved by leaps and bounds from a standing start in the last century. They just showed that cancer survival rates have reached new heights and that is mostly thanks to better chemo treatments. Like I said, we're just now getting into DNA editing and immunotherapy and both of those things are very promising. On the far horizon is nanotechnology but I have a hunch we'll get effective nanotech via biological routes pretty soon. True omnipotent nanobots are a way off but we can get alot of the benefit of nanorobots using programmable immune cells.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I believe in God, but I don't believe in religion. If there is an all powerful, Abrahamic God then I'm surely going to hell, but if I do wind up standing before that kind of God in some capacity, I have some probing questions for him.

As for an afterlife, I think that there is at least something after death, whether it's your mind deconstructing your life in the five minutes it takes your brain to die after the body dies, or if there really is a spiritual world. I would like there to be, anyway. Maybe someplace where I can be really happy. Maybe to see my wife again. Maybe someplace without pain.

One thing about the process of death is that it is universal. We all die in various ways. I've cared for the dying, held the hands of those dying alone, and one thing I have noticed is that yes there is fear, but that is replaced by a semblance of peace as the moment approaches. Most of the people that I have cared for came to accept death as a form of oncoming peace. A few, when their deaths were very close, even saw dead relatives or Jesus or God, or Mohamed, or something of a religious nature. I'm sure that some of it can be chalked up to hallucinations at the time of death, but what if they aren't? A part of me likes to believe that someday I will be reunited with my loved ones. Who knows? Maybe God will let me fly amongst the stars?

 

[innonimatu]

I've never really not been there. After my beloved meat pod loses its sentience I will still resonate until everything takes its course. Everything resonates. All the things you've touched, everyone who has laid eyes upon you, every word you've exchanged with someone else, and then they with someone else, ad infinitum. But even the things you do by yourself. It's never really gone. So I'm more concerned with life than with death. How much of me actually fades, and how much of me is really inside all of you is difficult to say. One thing I'm sure of though is that death is not only spectacular, big thanks to DMT, but also the great equalizer, and the only state of existence that is free of suffering.

Interesting, that's pretty much the reason why I never cared too much about death also: we all have our space on the dimension of time, it's not an end so much as one of the limits, as birth was. My frustration with death is only the same as with life: so much to do (and to witness) that I won't. But I can live with that.
Still it must be frustrating, to say the least, if one notices death coming when there are many plans for things to do. Living to old, old age and senility may not be so bad.

This forum is 21 years old and MySpace lasted about 7.

Was about to say just that. This forum is standing up very well to the test of time

 

[hobbsyoyo]

whether it's your mind deconstructing your life in the five minutes it takes your brain to die after the body dies

When I was having intrustive thoughts about death and dying, I coincidentally came across a paper that purported to show that in many cases, some level of brain activity can carry on for days or even longer after death. That really messed with my head.

 

[emzie]

dear god I hope there's no afterlife. Every version I can imagine is hell: Christian heaven? Hell. Christian hell? obviously hell. Reincarnation? Hell. My mom's mystical idea of being a spirit bound by nothing, free to float around the universe, dive into and out of stars? Hell.

I take solace in the idea that one day I won't think, that I won't be conscious. Any other outcome, to me, means my life right now has no meaning.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Reincarnation is about the best alternative I can think of. But even then, if the deal is that you have no memory of your past life then there's no continuity anyway, so in what way would you even be the same person continuing on?

 

[JPetroski]

I unfortunately lost quite a large number of friends and family over a roughly 10 year period when I was younger, so I've spent a lot of time considering this topic. Certainly more so than I'd hope my kids have to.

I'm convinced that there is something more to death than we understand. I won't go so far as to say there is an afterlife, but I've seen enough to convince me that there is some link or continuance, at least temporarily, that has something to do with our energy.

I've witnessed many electrical disturbances and strange happenings in the week or so after people pass. Is it my mind playing tricks on me? Perhaps. I wouldn't blame you if you chalked it up to just that, but I know what I've seen, heard, and felt, and am convinced that "death" isn't the end, at least not immediately.

As for what I want when I die, it's cremation. Not for any other reason than it was what happened to my closest friends and brother. I'll share their fate, whatever it is.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Given how frequently people die, wouldn't you be expecting electrical disturbances to be a continual thing?

 

[JPetroski]

Given how frequently people die, wouldn't you be expecting electrical disturbances to be a continual thing?

A few billion people just said something. Did you hear it?

 

[warpus]

One day I want to take out a hefty life insurance policy to put towards freezing and maintaining my body after death.

You'd think that the rich would be doing this if it was possible. So maybe it's not possible to freeze people like that yet.. or the rich know something (about the impending end of the world) that we don't.

As for death, it seems like a big problem. Quite frankly I think it is unacceptable that nobody's done anything about it yet.

 

[AdamCrock]

This forum is 21 years old and MySpace lasted about 7.

This forum will obviously transcend time and space ! We might as well just enjoy being part of an early access to that growing intergalactic discussion board (I for one will welcome our alien overlords moderators ! )

I really do wonder what digital archaeologists will think reading all this Maybe we should make an effort to "construct" our digital time capsule of some sorts ?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

You'd think that the rich would be doing this if it was possible.

I think the fundamental problem is that it has a 0% success rate, with no real hope that reanimation will ever work. Sure, rich people are rich enough to afford this level of waste on the off-chance that maybe it will work, but I can't begrudge anyone for looking at it and saying its pointless and a waste of money that should go toward surviving relatives instead.

 

[warpus]

I bet when the billionaires of today talk to the experts who could do this stuff, they are told that it's not been tested on humans, so they don't know how to do it in a way that would allow anyone to bring you back later. I mean, essentially it seems like you'd try a bunch of stuff until it works. But we can't, because humans have rights, and nobody would volunteer to be frozen for experiments (probably), and even if they did, I think there are rules against that sort of thing. And if you just throw a naked guy in a freezer, then I'm pretty sure he will die

It's possible that evil billionaires are working on this right now, or rather that evil scientists are working on this on behalf of the evil billionaires, in secret underground labs. The problem is that we'll never find out about it, or be able to partake in the technology. I suppose it's also possible that some world governments are working on this, but in that case I doubt they would tell us if they succeed either. If you're getting frozen, you probably want your location to be super secret to most people

Maybe NASA or SpaceX or some sort of related space company will one day figure it out with frogs or something. And then some crazy guy jumps in the chamber and they revive him a week later and there you go, human testing

 

[Birdjaguar]

Reincarnation is about the best alternative I can think of. But even then, if the deal is that you have no memory of your past life then there's no continuity anyway, so in what way would you even be the same person continuing on?

Since we do not know what happens at death, we each choose something (or nothing) to accept as "truth". Reincarnation can be a very satisfying choice. It comes in several varieties so there is further possible choosing. Typically, a soul migrates from life to life as it winds its way through the many worlds of Illusion and finally is released from Maya to experience itself as the oversoul (paramatma).

As for death, it seems like a big problem. Quite frankly I think it is unacceptable that nobody's done anything about it yet.

Perhaps death is a requirement for life and they cannot be extricated from one another.

 

[warpus]

Perhaps death is a requirement for life and they cannot be extricated from one another.

Apparently there exists an immortal jellyfish that disagrees

 

[cardgame]

I bet when the billionaires of today talk to the experts who could do this stuff, they are told that it's not been tested on humans, so they don't know how to do it in a way that would allow anyone to bring you back later. I mean, essentially it seems like you'd try a bunch of stuff until it works. But we can't, because humans have rights, and nobody would volunteer to be frozen for experiments (probably), and even if they did, I think there are rules against that sort of thing. And if you just throw a naked guy in a freezer, then I'm pretty sure he will die

It's possible that evil billionaires are working on this right now, or rather that evil scientists are working on this on behalf of the evil billionaires, in secret underground labs. The problem is that we'll never find out about it, or be able to partake in the technology. I suppose it's also possible that some world governments are working on this, but in that case I doubt they would tell us if they succeed either. If you're getting frozen, you probably want your location to be super secret to most people

Maybe NASA or SpaceX or some sort of related space company will one day figure it out with frogs or something. And then some crazy guy jumps in the chamber and they revive him a week later and there you go, human testing

The main problem, as I understand it, is that the human body is 70% water and as we all know, when water freezes, it expands. This has the unfortunate side effect of completely destroying the cell walls that contained that water, and the cells die. This can be observed in the every day by freezing a tomato. The cell walls completely rupture and, if I remember correctly, you'll end up with a pile of red goop in your freezer instead of the original fruit you put in there.

Apparently there exists an immortal jellyfish that disagrees

There are actually many immortal animals, including at least one species of lobster - but they are inevitably killed by other factors, ensuring a pretty normal lifespan. In the case of the lobster, it eventually grows so large that it simply requires too much energy to molt and regrow its shell, due to the exponential increase in surface area over time, and starves. Another animal becomes too large/fat to hunt sufficiently and suffers the same fate.