How does ATOT deal with their own mortality?

[IronWing]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWEGZQyZcyI

 

[KeithTalent]

Don't give a shit.

This.

KT

 

[Pr0d1gy]

You truly die when your name and likeness are remembered for the last time.

No, you die when you stop breathing. Too many people put way too much importance on legacy. Legacy and a dime can buy you a stick of gum dude. You won't even know, because you're not breathing anymore.

Let me explain it in a way that will make sense. You probably have someone in your family tree over the thousands of years that did something truly amazing, and nobody even talks about them anymore or probably even knows about it. That legacy they created disappeared within a few generations, like they all will. I always hear people say oh as long as I am remembered I am immortal, a legend, and it's laughable at best.

Most people have no appreciation at how far removed from themselves just a few generations of their family will be. As for how to deal with mortality, I try to take the short amount of time I have on this rock and spend it how I want to spend it. That is all this life has to offer anyone and you should spend your time how you see fit, then you stop breathing.

 

[soulcougher73]

I dont think about it much if at all. To me when we die..that is it. Enjoy your life while you can is my motto.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Thanks to conservation of energy; I'll just change states. It is reassuring to know I will probably be more useful after I'm gone, than I am now.

 

[bignateyk]

I keep my mind off it by trolling internet forums. :ninja:

 

[Ruptga]

For the most part I am irrelevant, so it doesn't really matter that I will die.

 

[SillyOReilly]

You truly die when your name and likeness are remembered for the last time.

I just resurrected Cleopatra!

 

[mk]

Thanks to conservation of energy; I'll just change states. It is reassuring to know I will probably be more useful after I'm gone, than I am now.

Don't be so hard on yourself. You are a home and provider of food for billions and billions of bacteria.

For the most part I am irrelevant, so it doesn't really matter that I will die.

It matters to the people and possibly pets who know you. The rest of the Universe, probably not so much.

 

[Puppies04]

When I die all of you will cease to exist. You all exist only because I do.

Actually we all wish we didn't exist because of you .

 

[Platypus]

I don't fear it in the least, in fact I welcome it most days.

 

[MrMuppet]

Eternal life would be absolutely horrible. Whatever the possibilities and limitations are in the afterlife you can experience everything possible to experience a million times and still have an eternity to go.

Is your current life absolutely horrible?

You see, you don't remember any previous lives, right? So, if you wouldn't remember this life in your next one or your next one in the one after that (etc.), it wouldn't be so horrible.

Why do you assume this is your first life?

 

[SlitheryDee]

For the most part I am irrelevant, so it doesn't really matter that I will die.

If it doesn't matter to you then it doesn't matter, but fuck what the rest of the universe thinks. You shouldn't base whether your life matters to you on whether it matters to anyone else. The fact that my life really matters to very few people hasn't affected the fact that I'm not letting life go for anything. If you're irrelevant even to yourself, and I'm having trouble understanding how that's even possible, then you're probably right.

It seems natural to me to care much more about my own life than anyone else does. How the fuck else would it be amongst creatures that came about through the evolutionary process on this planet? If you're sad because a scenario that you dreamed up in your mind isn't a truth in real life (and never was), you need to readjust your expectations. Everyone cares first and foremost about themselves, except in instances where they have dependents that they have evolved to value more than themselves. This is natural and good and right. There is no reason to value yourself any less because of it.

 

[MrMuppet]

It seems natural to me to care much more about my own life than anyone else does. How the fuck else would it be amongst creatures that came about through the evolutionary process on this planet? If you're sad because a scenario that you dreamed up in your mind isn't a truth in real life (and never was), you need to readjust your expectations. Everyone cares first and foremost about themselves, except in instances where they have dependents that they have evolved to value more than themselves. This is natural and good and right. There is no reason to value yourself any less because of it.

Well, you hedged it pretty well, so I just want it to make it even clearer by interjecting that evolution is not about survival of the fittest individuals, but rather survival of the fittest genes. The selfish gene doesn't mind killing its organism if it (the gene) benefits (copies of it) from it.

As for your argument, it's the naturalistic fallacy. Something being natural doesn't necessarily imply it being right (in a moral sense). A lot of human behavior that we condemn as immoral may be natural. Rape could even be said to be an evolutionary reproductive strategy, yet, we tend to think it's wrong.

 

[SlitheryDee]

As for your argument, it's the naturalistic fallacy. Something being natural doesn't necessarily imply it being right (in a moral sense). A lot of human behavior that we condemn as immoral may be natural. Rape could even be said to be an evolutionary reproductive strategy, yet, we tend to think it's wrong.

I didn't mean that it was good and right because it was natural. It is good and right in addition to being natural. Although part of what makes things good and right to me is the fact that you can reliably expect them in most cases and formulate a workable reason for their existence. That's sort of what I mean by natural anyway.

 

[moonbogg]

In a way, our life is eternal to us only because its all we will know. Being dead is not an experience, so it can't serve as a backdrop from which life may contrast for the individual.
If you hold a string, you know there is a longer one somewhere because you can make the comparison. You cannot compare life to death because death does not exist for the individual. Death is not an experience.
You cannot experience your life as being long or short, because you do not have, and will not have anything to make a comparison to. You simply find yourself in this world, it feels like you've always been here, and all you ever know is the experience of life.
The universe is forgiving in this way and not cruel, so I am not afraid.

 

[MrMuppet]

I didn't mean that it was good and right because it was natural. It is good and right in addition to being natural. Although part of what makes things good and right to me is the fact that you can reliably expect them in most cases and formulate a workable reason for their existence. That's sort of what I mean by natural anyway.

While that indeed could be what you meant, I saw no other attempt at an argument so it was implicitly understood.

So, why then is it good and right? Or were you just trying to comfort a fellow ATer.

 

[JulesMaximus]

I whack off a lot.

 

[moonbogg]

I whack off a lot.

This is a life or death topic, keep it serious. Now, comment on my previous post please. I find myself very profound and everyone else should too.

 

[JulesMaximus]

This is a life or death topic, keep it serious. Now, comment on my previous post please. I find myself very profound and everyone else should too.

Okay, I think you smoke a lot of marijuana.

 

[MrMuppet]

I whack off a lot.

Ellen pities you.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

In a way, our life is eternal to us only because its all we will know. Being dead is not an experience, so it can't serve as a backdrop from which life may contrast for the individual.
If you hold a string, you know there is a longer one somewhere because you can make the comparison. You cannot compare life to death because death does not exist for the individual. Death is not an experience.
You cannot experience your life as being long or short, because you do not have, and will not have anything to make a comparison to. You simply find yourself in this world, it feels like you've always been here, and all you ever know is the experience of life.
The universe is forgiving in this way and not cruel, so I am not afraid.

That doesn't make our lives eternal.

 

[moonbogg]

That doesn't make our lives eternal.

In a way, it is to the individual. Its not objective. Eternal was the wrong way to put it for sure though, because its simply not eternal. I meant that we won't ever be outside of our lives to reflect on how long or short it was. We only experience our existence on the living side of the fence. If there was only one string in existence, would it be a long string or a short string?

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

In a way, it is to the individual. Its not objective. Eternal was the wrong way to put it for sure though, because its simply not eternal. I meant that we won't ever be outside of our lives to reflect on how long or short it was. We only experience our existence on the living side of the fence. If there was only one string in existence, would it be a long string or a short string?

We can compare our lives, while we are alive, to the people we know died younger than us.

 

[moonbogg]

We can compare our lives, while we are alive, to the people we know died younger than us.

Yes exactly, but all of that is contained within your own living experience. You, yourself, have no other experience to compare to. All we have is our own. Imagine yourself as a conscious light switch. If I flip you on, you can keep track of how long you are on. When i flip you off, you are not conscious and do not experience being off, so you have no idea that you are no longer shining. You, as far as you can tell, only exist as ON. Once you are off you cannot say, "that was a short time I just spent being on".
We make time comparisons between things that we can witness the start and finish of. We cannot witness our own finish, only the last minutes leading up to it if we are lucky enough to have that time to reflect.
If you observed a light bulb and every time you looked at it it shined, but every time you looked away it turned off, you would always think it was on. Life is like that for us. We only experience being on, so for our conscious mind our life is infinate. It doesn't stop. When it does stop, our ability to realize that also stops, so in that way we ramain existant in that time slot in which we lived.