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 RoosterCogburn
Fearless,one-eyed U.S.Marshall
 
Registered: 08/25/06
Posts: 3,915
Loc: Dirty South, NJ
Last seen: 6 hours, 17 minutes
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Quote:
WhiskeyClone said:
but there is no cure for aging.
Except death. 
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MEET BOB
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WhiskeyClone
Not here
Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 12,533
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Ca...
Last seen: 3 hours, 26 minutes
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Well there is a difference between a ten-minute old dead body and a three-month old dead body. I think it continues. 
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-oOo-
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. -- `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' -- Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
-oOo-
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RoosterCogburn
Fearless,one-eyed U.S.Marshall
Registered: 08/25/06
Posts: 3,915
Loc: Dirty South, NJ
Last seen: 6 hours, 17 minutes
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The body is "older" but the aging process stops... Well, after a few hours I suppose. Your hair and nails continue to grow for a bit. 
Quote:
Well there is a difference between a ten-minute old dead body and a three-month old dead body.
Yeah, the smell.
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MEET BOB
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 Veritas
Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 8,898
Loc: PNW
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Actually, the "aging" process is what continues after death. What ceases with death is the "rebirthing" process. On the cellular level, our body is constantly dying and being reborn. As we age, the rebirth rate slows down & becomes flawed. Our cells are damaged by oxidation, and our age begins to show in our appearance and our health.
It seems that we can reduce the effects of oxidation, but the cellular "rebirthing" process cannot continue indefinitely. Eventually, we are dying more than we are being born.
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Burbles
Stranger
Registered: 03/24/08
Posts: 77
Last seen: 1 month, 12 days
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 Re: I don't want to die. [Re: Veritas]
#8575903 - 06/28/08 11:03 PM (1 month, 22 days ago) |
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ummm... thanks for giving a biological reason... dorks haha
its been well thought out by many many scientists and people.. aging can be cured
there are only seven parts to aging
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SENS
I win 
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Hey guys! Check out Free Seed Ring!
http://www.freeseedsring.org/FSSR/smf/index.php
it is an amazing site, with all sorts of seeds!
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Ballarat_Bandit
Techno-Drugs
Registered: 03/28/08
Posts: 50
Last seen: 12 days, 20 hours
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Re: I don't want to die. [Re: Burbles]
#8576255 - 06/29/08 02:07 AM (1 month, 22 days ago) |
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To quote those wiser than myself...
The beauty of the human condition comes both from the Baconian concept of taking total control, and the humanity in accepting that you have none(willingly surrendering to your limits).
Instead of idealizing the accomplishments you can take into your own hands, realize there is a beauty in death and its release. I know words don't make it any easier. IMHO, god has nothing to do with it. Religion takes faith, and if you can only accept an argument by faith than you admit you cannot claim it true by its own merits. Learn to love what is, and learn to love the fact that one day you will honestly and truly sleep. Death is but an unknown, the ultimate unknown. You can approach it as reincarnation, as salvation, or as a scientific nothingness, but it is an unknown, pure and simple. In my mind that should not inspire fear, it should simply inspire.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 20,731
Loc: underbelly
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What the thinker thinks, the prover proves. R.A.W.
I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions. R.A.W.
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usg543
◕‿◕
Registered: 02/11/07
Posts: 4,067
Loc: on the lot, brah
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Re: I don't want to die. [Re: Anonymous]
#8578284 - 06/29/08 06:48 PM (1 month, 22 days ago) |
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when it's my time, i will welcome death with open arms
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The Cypher
a figment of your imagination
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 1,208
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Re: I don't want to die. [Re: Anonymous]
#8579184 - 06/29/08 11:10 PM (1 month, 21 days ago) |
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Quote:
Anonymous said:
I'm not ready and I can't handle it.
Every once in awhile (once a month or so) it hits me that i'm going to die and inevitably be alone.
In the words of Hubert Selby (the author of Requiem for a Dream): "One day I had an extraordinarily profound experience, one more "real" than I had ever had. I experienced the fact that some day I was going to die, And just before I died, two things would happen: One, I would regret my entire life; Two, I would want to live my life over again, and then I would die."
Now to look at the situation that presents itself. It's quite possible that someone will invent a way to cure aging within our lifetimes. However, merely curing aging will NOT make us immortal. Accidents, disease, cancer, heart attacks, etc. will continue to reign supreme in the near future, and the mere ability to halt the process of cellular degeneration does not make us invincible. (Not to mention that the process required to stop aging would most likely be prohibitively expensive and therefore restricted to the privileged few, and the fact that the invention of a practical immortality would usher in a new age of a run-away population, dwindling resources, and collapse of our social structure that is inherently built around the inevitability of death.) In addition, the longer that one lives, the more likely it is that war will break out, new viruses will mutate into a global pandemic, a freak accident will occur, or any combination of trivial coincidences will add up to summon the grim reaper. In short, death is by all probability pretty much inevitable.
So, this begs the question on what to do now that you know you're going to die. If you believe in an after-life, then you should by all rights have no fear--except as both a materialist and an atheist this does not satisfy. (This avoids the other interesting issue of if heaven truly exists, then why shouldn't everyone commit suicide to instantaneously enter into paradise?) But if death is truly and merely the cessation of consciousness--no more and no less, then why fear it? In the words of Epicurus: "Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved, is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us."
Although it's a tempting option to point out a baseless motivation in this fear, the problem instead lies in the terminology. If your fear is literally of death, then Epicurus is right--for if one cannot experience death, then there is no experience to be afraid of. However, I would venture that when a person says they're afraid of dying, what they really mean is that they're afraid of not living anymore. The absence of being able to feel the breeze, of being able to indulge in a torrid love-fest with the attractive mate of your choice, of feeling warm sun and sipping cold mexican beer, is what grips me with a brooding dark cloud at night. Couple this with the fear of aging itself--the fear of one's own body weakening and breaking down, of your attractiveness fading, of getting placed into a nursing home when you're too senile to take care of yourself, of getting diapers put on because your bodily systems have broken down sufficiently for you to piss your pants in times of stress--and you'll find a substantial motivation behind this fear of "death."
Telling yourself that it's pointless to worry about it if it's inevitable is another idealistic option. It makes perfect sense, but here I fear genetics runs counter to rationality. It's built into our basic genetic structure to survive and reproduce (although it's debatable as to whether aging is also built in), and there is certainly a hard-wired will to live that resides in our ego and very consciousness. Psychedelia such as the classic ego death experience might prove useful to dealing with this fear, but there is something fundamentally different between sitting with a few friends knowing that in eight hours you'll be back again, and staring into a firing squad about to terminate you from this mortal coil.
So what to do? In the end, we're all headed to the grave, so it makes no difference in the long run whether you peacefully jump in or are dragged into it kicking and screaming. Perhaps instead of cursing the heavens for dooming you to die, you should be thanking them for being alive in the first place.
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1. the truth will set you free.
2. men of adventure are made, not born.
3. only when you forget you are human will you remember that you are a god.
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learningtofly
Stranger
Registered: 05/21/07
Posts: 2,267
Last seen: 3 hours, 59 minutes
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Quote:
RoosterCogburn said:
Your hair and nails continue to grow for a bit.
No they don't, your body (well skin) just shrinks/tightens because due to dehydration so the skin pulls back making it appear like its growing.
EDIT: You're right, its not the act of dying, it's the ceasing to be, the ceasing to feel which scares me. For some reason I have this idea in my head that when i die I will know im dead and be in some black void for eternity.
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GnuBobo said:
You're a stupid hippie. That's my point.
Edited by learningtofly (06/29/08 11:27 PM)
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Toddo
Registered: 07/09/04
Posts: 4,018
Last seen: 6 hours, 12 minutes
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Everyone has those moments of troubling thoughts on death. With the passage of time....which seems to be almost instantaneous, we will all be dead in just a moment. I personally think the concept itself seems much more terrible than it really is.
Off the top of your head, tell me what you were doing 12 days ago. Anything at all? I know when I think about it, I can't remember what the fuck I was doing...or if I even did anything I would want to remember past that day.
That day is literally 'death' in action. Or at least the death of actual experience...of awareness. I think a great part of our lives are all ready dead (in the sense of already forgotten...or out of mind.) What we are concerned with is that small area of our brain that slaps a name on the voice in our head, and tells us we're the center of the universe. He's the thing that's frantically running back and forth in our mind, telling us it's going to end one day and we need to do something about it. I think a great weight will slip from us when that voice is silenced.
Honestly, you need to think of another bigger question. As much as others would have you believe...no one really knows what the hell (no pun intended) dieing is going to be like. But I highly doubt it's going to be unpleasant in the least bit. And if it is...well, just remember that your not alone, we're all in it together.
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Shroomery Composition Contest
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learningtofly
Stranger
Registered: 05/21/07
Posts: 2,267
Last seen: 3 hours, 59 minutes
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Re: I don't want to die. [Re: Toddo]
#8582862 - 07/01/08 02:14 AM (1 month, 20 days ago) |
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Fuck it just happened again, the whole "you're going to die some day." And it's not just "you're gonna die," its extremely detailed about like ceasing to feel and ceasing to have memories. and i've noticed that whenever i hear about someone like over 50 i think to myself "What am I gonna do when they die?"
Sometimes I have nights where I say "You know what, I can handle it, i'm ready, I could tomorrow and I wouldn't give a shit" but then it turns into "No way, no way, no way."
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GnuBobo said:
You're a stupid hippie. That's my point.
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Cameron
Registered: 10/31/07
Posts: 1,769
Loc: Canada
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Well, what do you remember of a dreamless sleep? I wake up feeling as if I never fell asleep at all; I was unconscious and my brain was devoted to rest and bodily functions.
If you believe that we humans are no different from other forms of life, (none of which have been prophesied as the 'chosen plants' or 'God's squirrels') then you might also believe that death is merely another organic being's failure to maintain itself forever.
It would seem that brain function is responsible for 100% of our conscious experience, including dreams, and it can be demonstrated that brain damage is directly correlated with loss of abilities, intelligence, memory, reasoning, etc. So, take away the brain function, take away the awareness.
No awareness is a dreamless sleep.
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The Cypher
a figment of your imagination
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 1,208
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Re: I don't want to die. [Re: Cameron]
#8583843 - 07/01/08 12:06 PM (1 month, 20 days ago) |
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Except true dreamless sleep is impossible--your brain will always undergo REM cycles even if you don't remember your dreams when you wake up.
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1. the truth will set you free.
2. men of adventure are made, not born.
3. only when you forget you are human will you remember that you are a god.
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Cameron
Registered: 10/31/07
Posts: 1,769
Loc: Canada
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Re: I don't want to die. [Re: The Cypher]
#8584055 - 07/01/08 01:18 PM (1 month, 20 days ago) |
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Yeah, but for the sake of this discussion... it may as well be dreamless because awareness jumps from night to day like that. *snaps fingers* 
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IllicitAlchemist
Becoming one.
Registered: 12/24/04
Posts: 185
Loc: The hara.
Last seen: 5 days, 4 hours
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Re: I don't want to die. [Re: Burbles]
#8590086 - 07/03/08 12:39 AM (1 month, 18 days ago) |
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Try to find that energy inside yourself which doesn't die. Don't become too attached to the temporal realm of desires or senses. Just be aware and don't worry- we will all die and you won't be alone. Think about it as a homecoming and try to live your life the best you can. In my view life is a lot scarrier than death- learn to fully accept your anxiety and it shall fall off like a leaf on a tree.
That was a cool infected mushroom song btw.
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Grav
Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 2,744
Loc: Plano, TX, USA
Last seen: 4 days, 2 hours
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thinking about death reminds me that I have to stop worrying about stupid shit and play more music before im out of time
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be your true mind
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toastandjam
Tastes Great, Less Filling
Registered: 05/07/06
Posts: 676
Last seen: 1 day, 51 minutes
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Quote:
learningtofly said:
Fuck it just happened again, the whole "you're going to die some day." And it's not just "you're gonna die," its extremely detailed about like ceasing to feel and ceasing to have memories.
Are you afraid of death, ie being dead, or are you afraid of dying?
If its the former, it'll be just like before you were born. Remember that?
Though the dissipation of your thought and experience from as you've known them to be it is kind of sad.
If its the latter, what are you afraid of?
Quote:
Grav said:
thinking about death reminds me that I have to stop worrying about stupid shit and play more music before im out of time
Thanks for that. I've got work to do.
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Q: We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons... and for one brief moment, you did.
PICARD: When I realized the paradox...
Q: Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you'd never considered. That's the exploration that awaits you...not mapping stars and studying nebulae... but charting the unknowable possibilities of existence.
To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. -Dogen Zenji
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 20,731
Loc: underbelly
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Re: I don't want to die. [Re: Anonymous]
#8627130 - 07/12/08 09:29 PM (1 month, 8 days ago) |
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Quote:
Anonymous said:
I'm not ready and I can't handle it.
Every once in awhile (once a month or so) it hits me that i'm going to die and inevitably be alone.
It doesn't matter if you're ready or if you can handle it. When your time is up that's it. Take some solace in the fact that everyone dies. Everyone has or will go through what you will have to go through.
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What the thinker thinks, the prover proves. R.A.W.
I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions. R.A.W.
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Chronic777
Awareness of "I Am"
Registered: 05/08/04
Posts: 2,902
Loc: Emptiness
Last seen: 1 day, 3 hours
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Re: I don't want to die. [Re: Icelander]
#8636631 - 07/15/08 06:56 AM (1 month, 6 days ago) |
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The idea that you have of yourself dies, why not face this now?
Its a gift to have these insights, we spend most of our lives running away from our own mortality.
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"Now I have become totally empty"
Bodhidharma slapped him immediately and said
"Now go and throw this emptiness also!"
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