Are We Overidealizing Life?

[bhsmte]

But I don't think it's just a question of priorities. It seems like the longer life you have, the more fragile it becomes in a mortality sense, knowing that one significant scrape could lead to cancer and being robbed of long life. Compare that to a thousand years ago when life expectancy was at least half. People may have had a basic background fear of death, but because life was so much shorter and more fraught with mortality, there wasn't this sense of clinging to life like today. Maybe the best recipe for hypochondria is the promise of long life.

How do you know, when life expectancy was only half what it is today, people still didn't cling to life?

 

[Received]

I find that a pretty wild hypothesis. People have always feared death, it seems.

Of course, but there are varying degrees of death anxiety, and there are things that determine these varying degrees.

Well, a "realized project of immortality on earth" would actually do away with all those fears, wouldn´t it?

The immortality I'm talking about means potentially living forever so long as you don't get killed. In this case, life would gain much more value, if not dying is your priority, and the more of a value it has the more fragile it becomes with the possibility of losing it -- such as through a car accident.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

People fear 'leaving the party' today. In years past life was no party.

 

[Gottservant]

I find this thread enticing. I have for so long I would say feared really, having no answer to Revelation. But actually, the more you see it as a throw of the dice - who could say which way the final plan would roll?

I could be a dead man in 38 years, or a dead man in 38 years.

 

[quatona]

Of course, but there are varying degrees of death anxiety, and there are things that determine these varying degrees.

Possibly. I think, though, that these degrees (these are feelings, after all) are hard to determine (and that "in earlier times it was less, now it´s more" is a pretty unsubstantiated gerenalization), and - assuming this were indeed an observable trend) I also think that your analysis of the causalities is way too sloppy.

The immortality I'm talking about means potentially living forever so long as you don't get killed. In this case, life would gain much more value,

This needs to be explained to me. Typically, we are assuming that that which is there in abundance has less value than limited resources. I´m not saying you are wrong, I just don´t understand how you arrive at this statement (and possibly I don´t even understand how you use the term "value").

if not dying is your priority, and the more of a value it has the more fragile it becomes with the possibility of losing it -- such as through a car accident.

I´m trying to make sense of this. Is it something like "people will live with the idea that they deserve to live forever"?

It seems to me people only dream of immortality (or a long life, to be realistic) under the premise that there will be a certain quality of life (and for whatever reason, this is what they assume to be the case). I don´t think they see long-during existence as a value per se.

I also see the possibility that with "realization of the immortality project" more and more people will get tired of their lives.

Plus, they might realize that it´s now their decision when and how to end life. Similar to a lot of other achievements that we are celebrating because they give us more freedom - yet, my impression is that people are feeling increasingly overasked by the responsibility to make these decisions.

I think in the scenario of realized immortality a lot will change.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

There an old Islamic saying along the lines of why trust in the world when is is transient and temporary? Instead trust in the eternal and everlasting which will not betray you.

I think the closest people may get is meditation on an "internal object" like the breathing mindfulness meditation. Or externally on a flickering candle or something similar.

This may just be a brain hack, but I dont mind...

The world is super chaotic and nonlinear. Unpredictable and changing etc. What goings on does the brain have to track on a daily basis? Sooo many...

Faith has huge potential for adding stability to the brain, and therefore health. Maybe we see the consequences of secularism not only in good stuff like science etc, but also "finding ones identity" in trends, fads, fashions, movements etc which are always changing. Things which are not time tested, and focus of the baubles and shallow things of life, compared to finding peace in faith and time tested traditions..

 

[bhsmte]

It seems like the longer human beings live, and the more power they have over preventing death, that the more they fear death and idealize life. I think the contemporary person with a 70+ year life span is a vastly different human being than the one who lived 30+ years, in that the latter seems more connected with the idea that death (whether or not there's anything after) is a part of life and therefore nothing to be feared. There's a real saving helplessness and acceptance with our ancestors that's foreign to most people today, when the idea of welcoming death and accepting one's limits (at least well before the deathbed is a reality) seems almost crazy.

I think one of the worst things that could happen with a realized project of immortality on earth would be that this sort of anxiety about death and overidealization and attachment to life would only grow infinitely more, maybe to the point to where really living in a qualitative sense is dampened because of the extreme anxiety about the possibility of having an experience that results in death. Everyone would develop a sort of neurotic mothering instinct, hypervigilant to every scraped knee and bruised arm, and so a real appreciation for life not as a collection of years but as a type of quality would be lost. Nietzsche said the great secret to life is to live dangerously and to "build your cities on the slope of Vesuvius!". He's not promoting recklessness, but seems to have that old vein in mind of accepting death rather than dreading it by fearlessly living as a first priority.

Because that's what it seems to be about: a question of priorities. When we start focusing too much on not dying, we're not focusing on how to live.

Why else did we start dreading death with such an existential sense?

How would you then explain, the fairly recent trend, of the general population being more open to allowing one to terminate their own life, in certain medical conditions?

 

[Received]

How would you then explain, the fairly recent trend, of the general population being more open to allowing one to terminate their own life, in certain medical conditions?

That when suffering reaches a point life isn't feared but welcomed. I don't think this negates the reasoning above. Just because people generally fear death doesn't mean all people do in all circumstances.

 

[quatona]

That when suffering reaches a point life isn't feared but welcomed.

You meant "death", no?

I don't think this negates the reasoning above. Just because people generally fear death doesn't mean all people do in all circumstances.

But it may give a more parsimonous (or at least alternative) explanation for the claimed trend that people today fear death more than back then: The different circumstances of life.

 

[Received]

You meant "death", no?

But it may give a simpler explanation for the claimed trend that people today fear death more than back then: The different circumstances of life.

I don't think appealing to different circumstances really refutes any theory that is claimed to work in general. There are almost always particular circumstances that refute psychological rules.

 

[quatona]

I don't think appealing to different circumstances really refutes any theory that is claimed to work in general.

OTOH just because a hypothesis is claimed I am under no pressure to refute it. And calling a hypothesis a "theory" is not really adding to the pressure.

There are almost always particular circumstances that refute psychological rules.

"Psychological rules" - such as?

 

[Gottservant]

The problem with assumptions about Euthanasia, is that when granted someone considered no longer able to be friend - it is assumed nothing more can be learned (but might expediently so).

Yet when Euthanasia is granted someone considered evil (as by death penalty), it is presumed that what is learned from then on is never to be considered to be at all associated with them - despite how ever much more can be plundered.

By example, as Christ entered Jerusalem, cloaks and palm leaves were thrown down; but as Christ left - even the owner of the tomb regretted his decision.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I think that the shaman was a focal point for the the evolution of compassion, maybe? A "tribal doctor" would be a role model for the tribe, having status and power etc. In a milatarist tribe the corporal would win, but in a mediccine based system, the doctor and his allies would lead the play.

 

[David Colin Gould]

Hello Received - this is David Gould. Good to see you again.

It seems like the longer human beings live, and the more power they have over preventing death, that the more they fear death and idealize life. I think the contemporary person with a 70+ year life span is a vastly different human being than the one who lived 30+ years, in that the latter seems more connected with the idea that death (whether or not there's anything after) is a part of life and therefore nothing to be feared. There's a real saving helplessness and acceptance with our ancestors that's foreign to most people today, when the idea of welcoming death and accepting one's limits (at least well before the deathbed is a reality) seems almost crazy.

I think one of the worst things that could happen with a realized project of immortality on earth would be that this sort of anxiety about death and overidealization and attachment to life would only grow infinitely more, maybe to the point to where really living in a qualitative sense is dampened because of the extreme anxiety about the possibility of having an experience that results in death. Everyone would develop a sort of neurotic mothering instinct, hypervigilant to every scraped knee and bruised arm, and so a real appreciation for life not as a collection of years but as a type of quality would be lost. Nietzsche said the great secret to life is to live dangerously and to "build your cities on the slope of Vesuvius!". He's not promoting recklessness, but seems to have that old vein in mind of accepting death rather than dreading it by fearlessly living as a first priority.

Because that's what it seems to be about: a question of priorities. When we start focusing too much on not dying, we're not focusing on how to live.

Why else did we start dreading death with such an existential sense?

Very interesting. I recently read this article: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-...-to-1000-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/6860396

The part that I found interesting, and which I discussed with my students just yesterday, was the whole notion of the loss of self. What, exactly, is surviving to 1,000 if the entity has little or no memory of its first century or so? Now, you know that I do not think that the self exists in the way that we commonly think it does, and that the 'me' who started this post is the same as the 'me' who finished it. But how different does one have to be before there is no connection with the entity at the early stage of the process?

For you to live forever, the you that is now must die. And then the next you must die. And the next. But, of course, we do not want to be the one in the continuum of 'many me's to end. In any case, it is something that I think about from time to time. I want to be here to see the story of how humanity progresses 10, 100, 1,000 years into the future. But I can't ever be ...

 

[bhsmte]

That when suffering reaches a point life isn't feared but welcomed. I don't think this negates the reasoning above. Just because people generally fear death doesn't mean all people do in all circumstances.

Bumping this question for you:

How do you know, when life expectancy was only half what it is today, people still didn't cling to life?

 

[Received]

Bumping this question for you:

How do you know, when life expectancy was only half what it is today, people still didn't cling to life?

I don't have any hard sources to support that. I still think people clung to life, though.

 

[Received]

David, good to see you. I sure with quatona would be this happy to see me.

Hello Received - this is David Gould. Good to see you again.



Very interesting. I recently read this article: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-...-to-1000-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/6860396

The part that I found interesting, and which I discussed with my students just yesterday, was the whole notion of the loss of self. What, exactly, is surviving to 1,000 if the entity has little or no memory of its first century or so? Now, you know that I do not think that the self exists in the way that we commonly think it does, and that the 'me' who started this post is the same as the 'me' who finished it. But how different does one have to be before there is no connection with the entity at the early stage of the process?

For you to live forever, the you that is now must die. And then the next you must die. And the next. But, of course, we do not want to be the one in the continuum of 'many me's to end. In any case, it is something that I think about from time to time. I want to be here to see the story of how humanity progresses 10, 100, 1,000 years into the future. But I can't ever be ...

Chomsky said (in the just ridiculously good animated documentary by Michel Gondry, "Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?") something about identity with other objects is a matter of what he called "psychic continuity", and he asks us to notice the wisdom of children when they hear fairy tales: the man who becomes a frog and then a man was always a man despite having the physical characteristics of being a frog. That is, we don't identify things in terms of their physical properties, but according to a sense of continuity we project onto objects. That, to me, is the only way we get around the whole discontinuous self problem, as you and people like David Hume point out. Interestingly, this psychic continuity doesn't at all presuppose a soul, just a sort of projected soul. Of course, if you do believe in souls, you could easily say that any person continues to be a self simply by being a soul attached to a body, without which his body is a process that's continually being reborn and therefore not a continuous entity (self) at all.