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Eternal life would be deathly dull + Ontology, materialism, & all that jazz (video) - Printable Version

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Eternal life would be deathly dull + Ontology, materialism, & all that jazz (video) - C C - Jul 18, 2018

Eternal life would be deathly dull
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/08/live-for-ever-eternal-life-deathly-dull-immortality

EXCERPT: . . . Maverick scientists such as Aubrey de Grey are trying to find a “cure” for senescence, while transhumanists are looking to avoid the problem of your body packing up by packing you up and sending it to something more durable, like a virtual reality.

[...] When we desire indefinite life we seem to be in denial of the essentially transient, impermanent nature of everything, especially of ourselves. To even imagine eternal life we have to assume that we are the kinds of creatures who could persist indefinitely. But contemporary philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists and the early Buddhists all agree that the self is in constant flux, lacking a permanent, unchanging essence. Put simply, there is no thing that could survive indefinitely.

Take this seriously and you can see how the idea of living for ever is incoherent. If your body could be kept going for a thousand years, in what sense would the you that exists now still be around then? It would be more like a descendant than it would a continuation of you. I sometimes find it hard to identify with my teenage self, and that was less than 40 years ago. If I change, I eventually become someone else. If I don’t, life becomes stagnant and loses its direction...

MORE: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/08/live-for-ever-eternal-life-deathly-dull-immortality



Sophia video: ontology, materialism, and all that jazz
https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2018/07/17/sophia-video-ontology-materialism-and-all-that-jazz/

EXCERPT: Dan Kaufman and I have done it again. We have produced another fun (well, to us!) video conversation, this time on the pretty tough philosophical issues surrounding that branch of metaphysics known as ontology, i.e., the study of what is. After a brief introduction to the general topic, we make a distinction between ontology and epistemology: it’s not just a question of what exists but, just as importantly, of how we know that something exists (or doesn’t). I make the suggestion that it is wise to always keep one’s ontology not too far from one’s epistemology…

But “know” here is yet another tricky word, as there are different theories of knowledge, and I suggest, in response to one of Dan’s excellent questions, that we deploy — sometimes without thinking — different conceptions of truth in different contexts. For instance, when we say that it is true that the Pythagorean theorem holds (yeah, yeah, in Euclidean geometry) we are not saying the same kind of thing as when we say that it is true that Saturn has rings. In the first case we deploy a coherence account of truth, in the second a correspondence account.

We then talk about materialism, and I admit to Dan that while I am a naturalist, I am not really a materialist, at least under certain conceptions of the term. I believe, for instance, that the Stoics virtues exist, but they are not made of matter, they are human concepts, necessary categories we use to talk to each other, tell each other what to do or not to do, and so forth. The same goes for a lot of other things, especially things that have to do with values.

Mind you, I’m not about to deny that every physical object is made of the same stuff (be it quarks, strings, or whatever physicists decide in the end). But I don’t think that an ontology based only on fundamental physics is sufficient to make sense of the world. Which, of course, brought Dan and I to discuss Wilfrid Sellars...

MORE: https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2018/07/17/sophia-video-ontology-materialism-and-all-that-jazz/

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/qfFW_D-QXqk


RE: Eternal life would be deathly dull + Ontology, materialism, & all that jazz (video) - Magical Realist - Jul 18, 2018

Quote:Eternal life would be deathly dull
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/08/live-for-ever-eternal-life-deathly-dull-immortality


I think we underestimate the modes of being in the world open to the post-mortem soul. The pure empathic merging of two spirits. The endlessly novel exploration of other realms and dimensions. Encounters with entirely new and strange entities. Escaping into higher planes of freedom and understanding and transcendence. Continued involvement with the evolution of consciousness. Even the nirvana of ontic selflessness. All in all, I'm sure it still beats not existing by a long shot.


RE: Eternal life would be deathly dull + Ontology, materialism, & all that jazz (video) - RainbowUnicorn - Jul 18, 2018

(Jul 18, 2018 03:13 AM)C C Wrote: Eternal life would be deathly dull
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/08/live-for-ever-eternal-life-deathly-dull-immortality

EXCERPT: . . . Maverick scientists such as Aubrey de Grey are trying to find a “cure” for senescence, while transhumanists are looking to avoid the problem of your body packing up by packing you up and sending it to something more durable, like a virtual reality.

[...] When we desire indefinite life we seem to be in denial of the essentially transient, impermanent nature of everything, especially of ourselves. To even imagine eternal life we have to assume that we are the kinds of creatures who could persist indefinitely. But contemporary philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists and the early Buddhists all agree that the self is in constant flux, lacking a permanent, unchanging essence. Put simply, there is no thing that could survive indefinitely.

Take this seriously and you can see how the idea of living for ever is incoherent. If your body could be kept going for a thousand years, in what sense would the you that exists now still be around then? It would be more like a descendant than it would a continuation of you. I sometimes find it hard to identify with my teenage self, and that was less than 40 years ago. If I change, I eventually become someone else. If I don’t, life becomes stagnant and loses its direction...

MORE: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/08/live-for-ever-eternal-life-deathly-dull-immortality



Quote:When we desire indefinite life we seem to be in denial of the essentially transient, impermanent nature of everything,
like gender ?
living a 100 year life as the opposite gender ?
lol such an ignorant insular shallow minded statement.
to live a life without being a parent ?
to live a life expereincing great loss and hardship ?
to live a life of being a Rich elitist ?
to live a life of being a narcissist ?
etc etc...

posting opinions of idiots again ?