I wasn't aware that Adak passed away.. I now know that him and Dave Sinkula have passed on.
Are there any other eternal members that contributed greatly to this forum? What is the best way to deal with death?
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I wasn't aware that Adak passed away.. I now know that him and Dave Sinkula have passed on.
Are there any other eternal members that contributed greatly to this forum? What is the best way to deal with death?
Sad days.Quote:
Originally Posted by camel-man
Not that I am aware.Quote:
Originally Posted by camel-man
Grieve the loss, celebrate the memories, and let time heal the spirit.Quote:
Originally Posted by camel-man
I guess I did know he passed away but I didn't realized it had been so long ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by Matticus
Time goes faster and faster it seems.
OMG
Two great community members - will be sadly missed. I remember them both fondly. Dave had an Avatar of a cat and I think he might of been a mod at one point. Adak was quite a seasoned poster and gave lots of help to new coders. Rest in peace to you both :(
Ada xx
:( :sad:
I wasn't either. Sad news indeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by camel-man
Trying to stay alive helps. But not much.Quote:
What is the best way to deal with death?
You don't sound quite optimistic, do you? Here is a guy that does: Ray Kurzweil - WikipediaQuote:
Originally Posted by Mario F.
This makes me miss the forum's "like" feature.Quote:
Originally Posted by Epy
Great song, great movie.
The answer was tongue in cheek. But in any case I don't think it is beyond the possibility of science the ability to invent eternal life. Once our biology is fully understood, all we need is the tech to replicate and replace cells. I'm less optimistic on the more commonly talked about notion that we can stop ageing altogether, since as I see it that would be a contradiction of termodynamics' second law. I think we can achieve eternal life, only by continuously replacing our cells. It's no different really than what the process of being alive is all about. With the exception that we would be denying the natural process of cell degradation by simply being able to replicate same-state cells.Quote:
Originally Posted by stevesmithx
But what I find disappointing about all the yea sayers is how little they are willing to discuss the implications. And I'm not only talking about societal implications. Those are far wider than just simply discussing overpopulation. We could assume our civilization advanced enough to accommodate a super exponential growth in population eternally across the universe (even if that is mathematically impossible). But that will still live a whole other world of questions out there, like for instance, how does an eternal body give birth and how does an eternal body grows from foetus to adulthood and then... you know... stops.
I'm also talking about the self. How would we individually be able to cope with eternal life. How could our brains operate under an eternal flow of information. What information would we loose, how much could we accumulate before we succumbed to biologically driven insanity due to overload. Because, by denying death (and agreeing with me for the sake of argument that we can only achieve eternal life through a continues replication of same-state cells), we will also be denying biological evolution. And our brains aren't wired for eternal life. Our brain biology, our brain chemistry, everything about our brain is still a rough sketch in the evolutionary scale. We are quick to fall in to emotions, depression, anxiety, and all sorts of mental diseases without any physical agent, like a virus or bacteria that would be much easier to fight against.
Not agreeing with me and arguing that the termodynamics second law wouldn't be questioned by stopping the ageing process, how exactly could we achieve such a feat of living eternally while still being able to evolve our bodies through cell mutation? And how exactly could we speed up and control that evolutionary process that would allow our brains to cope with eternal life, such as it would be completed in maybe 200 or 300 years that would be, I guesstimate, the time until we would start to break into insanity?
You see, I'm not exactly a naysayer, because I believe science can eventually achieve tremendous intimate knowledge about the way our universe works. I however am a strong sceptic because I believe that not all knowledge can be applied. And as we progress our understanding of the universe the deeper we will go into the very bottom of it, were applied science simply can't reach. (It's why I don't believe we will be able to achieve a True AI, but that's for another discussion). From early inventors, we will progressively grow more and more into observers.
We are still on the birth of our own species scientific prowess and so every discover still opens up a realm of technological possibilities. But we are bound to hit that spot on which new knowledge does not necessarily mean we can do something with it. This whole idea of the possibility that we will achieve eternal life is too ill conceived to be discussed seriously. And seems to me well beyond that barrier to applied science. Every time I hear someone saying that one day we will achieve eternal life, I feel the same as someone casually saying that one day they will be rich. A whole lot of futurology and whishful thinking, with none of the thought going into how do we propose that and how will we be able to deal with that. With all due respect to Mr. Kurzweil and any one else who ever entertained the thought.