Comments on: Killing Deathist Cliches: “Death Gives Meaning to Life” is Meaningless! https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/04/killing-deathist-cliches-death-gives-meaning-to-life-is-meaningless Safeguarding Humanity Tue, 25 Apr 2017 11:29:51 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.3 By: John Thompson https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/04/killing-deathist-cliches-death-gives-meaning-to-life-is-meaningless#comment-164201 Sun, 14 Apr 2013 03:04:01 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=7005#comment-164201 . Glad that academia and philosophy is dealing with these ideas. If academics don't counter the mis-use of logic, it spreads, as must have happened using Heidegger and making religions money? It's so ingrained in the thought process. It's just sad. Cool pics too Franco.]]> Always thought that this was a completely irrational idea as well.… Life vs. death. This notion pre-supposes that death is something. Which it isn’t. Death = electron free space dust. Death is nothing.

I like what Ralph Merkle said about death. The control group is worm food.

Regarding “Immortality”, a cool term someone here used (I think a Lifeboat member, though I forgot know who coined it, a lady from The Bay Area I think), was “lifespan”.… So I borrowed or stole from this idea and say youthspan™.

Glad that academia and philosophy is dealing with these ideas. If academics don’t counter the mis-use of logic, it spreads, as must have happened using Heidegger and making religions money? It’s so ingrained in the thought process. It’s just sad.

Cool pics too Franco.

]]> By: Franco Cortese https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/04/killing-deathist-cliches-death-gives-meaning-to-life-is-meaningless#comment-163691 Sat, 13 Apr 2013 16:48:59 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=7005#comment-163691 Thanks for the comment Edgar. I’ve been more and more attracted by the term “Limitless Life” lately, due to the common misconceptions caused by the terms “immortality” and “immortalism”. The term “indefinite” has its own pros and cons; while it deters people from thinking that we do in fact mean “eternal life” when we say “immortality”, I think it might err on the side of caution a bit too much. “Indefinite Longevity” won’t necessarily translate to “life extended for as long as is possible” to people who hear it the first time. We want a term that communicates its meaning in a intuitively obvious way. I personally don’t use the term immortality to signify eternal life, or in a way that precludes the possibility of a heat death, big-crunch, or other end-of-the-universe scenario. I think “eternal life” denotes such a circumstance better than the terms “immortalism” and “immortality” does. For me immortality IS indefinite longevity. While it can generate interpretations that presume that the universe goes on forever, it also grabs peoples attention and makes them want to see how people could make such an audacious claim (if that IS how they interpret it). It’s a word with heavy connotations, and this is useful in attracting attention — which is what the fight for longer life needs more than anything else right now. It also signifies the righteous pride of Immortalism — our adamant fervor in saying NO to death. These claims should be worn large and loud, with utmost pride and bravado. The field of indefinite longevity needs more attention: the bottleneck may be funding, but the bottleneck for funding is public awareness. So “Immortalism” and “Immortality” are useful in this regard — that is, drawing people in to look deeper. It may make it seem less credible to some people, but that’s why we need both terms to be actively used. Both terms serve different purposes, and appeal to different demographics. We shouldn’t choose one over the other. So I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think its a “meaningless term”, because it doesn’t necessarily presume that the universe goes on forever. And besides — I’m inclined to think that the Humanity around at the time of a universe-ending-scenario might have a good chance at using cosmic engineering to ameliorate the problem and keep the universe going, as speculated by Freeman Dyson and Frank Tipler, among others. So even if the term DID mean “eternal life”, it doesn’t necessarily presume that the universe goes on forever — it could instead presume that we could find a way to fix it, or at least make an attempt at doing so. That being said, I don’t use the term in such a sense, and I don’t think many people who label themselves “Immortalist” use it in that way either — as in the kind of eternal-life that denies the possibility of the “end of time”.

]]> By: Edgar Swank https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/04/killing-deathist-cliches-death-gives-meaning-to-life-is-meaningless#comment-163682 Sat, 13 Apr 2013 06:20:43 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=7005#comment-163682 “Immortality” is itself a meaningless term. “Indefinitely extended life” is better. “immortality” presumes the universe goes on “forever.” It probably doesn’t.

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