Immortality, why we can't have it yet kinda do

[Graeme]

I wonder if there's a scientific explanation for why Dies gets searched every time he goes to fly.

[Dazey]

16 minutes ago, Graeme said:

I wonder if there's a scientific explanation for why Dies gets searched every time he goes to fly.

I think he secretly enjoys being fingered by a burly man in uniform wearing rubber gloves.

It's probably something to do with Ancient Greece, Rome or some other such bollocks.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Dazey

[DieselDaisy]

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

There is absolutely no reason to say that one education (hard or soft science) gives you more happiness than another (unless you become a dentist that is). As long as you do something you like, chances are you will enjoy yourself throughout the studies.

And regardless of what you actually study, you can still enjoy other things as hobbies and get that "richer cultural palette" you bemoan. Jeez, you make it sound like people who have studied something technical are bores with no interesting hobbies and dull, plebian lives. They enjoy "high culture", classical literature, the arts, etc, just like anyone else. Again, that ignorance and arrogance.

So I don't buy the notion that studying something, especially something scientific or technical, akes your life dull and you a bore. That is subject-centrism at its ugliest. Or maybe even some kind of defense for oneself having chosen something pointless to study. "Well, I won't get a relevant job, I will never be able to buy my own home, but at least it made me a refined human being!". Fuck off with that nonsense Whatever you study doesn't define you in that way, it's the combination of all your hobbies and interests that do, and your education typically only lasts for a few years of your life.

So study what you want and fill up with interesting extracurricular hobbies and your life will be good. And if you want economic security and a relevant job, stay clear of most humanities studies, and instead get an education in something technical. But whatever you do, and this is important, don't be a fucking philosopher.

The irony of course being the earliest scientists were actually philosophers haha. You owe everything to them. At least show a bit of gratitude.

[DieselDaisy]

1 hour ago, Dazey said:

I'll take science and engineering over poncing around in coffee shops in elbow patches any day of the week. 

If you knew a bit about history you and your fellow atheists would not make so many hysterical historical gaffes. A particular favourite of mine, when attacking Christianity, is when people describe it as 'bronze age'. For being so called scientists you lot have certainly all had your brains removed.

[SoulMonster]

59 minutes ago, Graeme said:

I wonder if there's a scientific explanation for why Dies gets searched every time he goes to fly.

"No sir, you also have to send your backpack through the scanner. I am sorry, sir. I understand. I fear some of your books dropped out there. No sir, your books will not be radioactive. No need for that laguage sir, we are just doing our best to ensure safety for our customers. No, sir, your shoes, too. And your hat, if you may. No need for that language.

Is this your baggage, sir? May I have a look? I am sorry sir, but you can not have your backpack back unless you allow us an inspection. We detected an irregularity in the bag. It's regulation, you see. I understand your history books are valuable. We are careful. No need for that language, sir. Yes, I understand you need them for your vacation in Greece. We will put them all back when we are finished. Don't you worry.

Ah I see. Inside this sheet...Toga? Inside this toga there's a bottle with liquid. You cannot bring liquid into the boarding area, you see. No need for that language sir. I understand it is just water. We can throw it away here or... Yes, of course you may drink it now. The whole bottle, yes. No, sir, we cannot refund the costs of your bottled water. There is no need for that language.

Sir, don't harrass the other passengers.

Sir, you have been randomly selected for a full body cavity search. If you may follow this gentleman to the office over there this should be over well in time for your flight."

Edited August 25, 2017 by SoulMonster

[Dazey]

19 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

If you knew a bit about history you and your fellow atheists would not make so many hysterical historical gaffes. A particular favourite of mine, when attacking Christianity, is when people describe it as 'bronze age'. For being so called scientists you lot have certainly all had your brains removed.

I tend to describe it as bollocks.

24 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

The irony of course being the earliest scientists were actually philosophers haha. 

Yeah but the earliest scientists by definition didn't know as much as the newer ones who aren't.

[Gracii Guns]

Just want to hand it to @SoulMonster for starting a marginally intelligent thread here. Thank you Soulie. *claps*

[SoulMonster]

Thinking more about how our genes live on and all that when we die. So we are the interplay of our particular combination of about 20,000 genes - which come in numerous variants (alleles). No one else have that combination (unless we are twins), we are entirely unique. We then donate half of them to our children, the other half they naturally get from the other parent, and our children thus become the result of that intricate interplay between their new and unique combinations of genes. Since it is the combined effect of multiple genes that tend to form our features, and usually not single genes (eye color, as an example is the result of the interplau between 10 genes, maybe more), some of these features will be inherited from one parent only (when all genes that caused that effect in a parent is inherented together to the child), while other features will be a combination of their parents' (when the genes encoding the feature are coming from both parents in an entirely new combination). That's what we see when we look at our kids - a fascinating combination of features that are obviously ours, and others that are obvious blends between the parents, and some that are completely new. Look at siblings and try to find shared traits, both between them and with their parents. It is fascinating.

In the next generation the 10,000 genes you initially gave to your children will be down to about 5,000. A quarter of you. Maybe more, maybe less. But the chance of them being inherited in complete functional sets (like all the 10 genes for eye color being inherited together), so that your features are intact, is more remote. They now combine with genes from three other grandparents - further diluting your features, yet usually still recognizable here and there, usually as new blends of you and others. The genes themselves don't disappear, but the interplays that result in distinct features and traits are the result of gene combinations that are continously rearranged as genes are shuffled and combined in ever new arrangements in each individual. About 20,000 genes with all their allelic variation combine in numerous ways to create about 6 billion unique individuals. Like the 26 letters of the alphabet forming an endless amount of words.

Whatever I am will not live on, because my unique combination of genes will never miraculously come together again. I suppose. But the individual building blocks that made me unique, will still hang around for a while, maybe thousannd of years, just in new companies. But then there is natural selection: those alleles that tend to give their "hosts" an advantage, those that somehow make their "carrier" more successful, tend to increase in frequency over time. While those that really aren't helping the body they inhabit, or maybe even give them a huge disadvantage, tend to decrease in frequency over time. Who knows how many of my alleles will be around 10 generations down the line? What is then left om me? Nothing resembling me at all and the building blocks may be gone, too. Then I am truly dead.

So maybe I exist as myself now, fully, and then as some diluted version that gradually disappears for each passing generation. Still there, just sort of less solid. And if we look at it this way, if my children are sort of me, then my parents are too, because just like any of my children, each of my parents will have just as much of my genetic makeup as my kids do. And my grandparents will have as much as my grandchildren. Imagine something coming into vision, something that is diffuse and blurry at first. It's you, in your distant ancestors, Then as we move forward in time, you will become more and more recognizable, you will start to take shape, you will slowly emerge froom the haze of others, and then, for one generation only, you become completely solid, entirely you with hard, sharp edges. Then the opposite happens, as we move into the future you start to evaporate, become blurry again, before you are all vanished. That is each of us. A train rushing past at speed. A quasar exploding. A cat that jumps out from a bush and quickly vanishes again. A sparkle is what we are.

[SoulMonster]

11 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

If you knew a bit about history you and your fellow atheists would not make so many hysterical historical gaffes. A particular favourite of mine, when attacking Christianity, is when people describe it as 'bronze age'. For being so called scientists you lot have certainly all had your brains removed.

Are there any scientists here? Besides VolcanoBoy? 

[Len Cnut]

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Are there any scientists here? Besides VolcanoBoy? 

You're actually a scientist then?  

[SoulMonster]

15 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

You're actually a scientist then?  

No?

[Len Cnut]

10 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

No?

Oh right, i thought you were saying you were!  

[SoulMonster]

4 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

Oh right, i thought you were saying you were!  

No, I am not. I was just wondering who all these guys are, who are scientists and refer to Christiniaty as the "bronze age".

[Len Cnut]

1 minute ago, SoulMonster said:

No, I am not. I was just wondering who all these guys are, who are scientists and refer to Christiniaty as the "bronze age".

I dont think he was being literal.

[soon]

20 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Thinking more about how our genes live on and all that when we die. So we are the interplay of our particular combination of about 20,000 genes - which come in numerous variants (alleles). No one else have that combination (unless we are twins), we are entirely unique. We then donate half of them to our children, the other half they naturally get from the other parent, and our children thus become the result of that intricate interplay between their new and unique combinations of genes. Since it is the combined effect of multiple genes that tend to form our features, and usually not single genes (eye color, as an example is the result of the interplau between 10 genes, maybe more), some of these features will be inherited from one parent only (when all genes that caused that effect in a parent is inherented together to the child), while other features will be a combination of their parents' (when the genes encoding the feature are coming from both parents in an entirely new combination). That's what we see when we look at our kids - a fascinating combination of features that are obviously ours, and others that are obvious blends between the parents, and some that are completely new. Look at siblings and try to find shared traits, both between them and with their parents. It is fascinating.

In the next generation the 10,000 genes you initially gave to your children will be down to about 5,000. A quarter of you. Maybe more, maybe less. But the chance of them being inherited in complete functional sets (like all the 10 genes for eye color being inherited together), so that your features are intact, is more remote. They now combine with genes from three other grandparents - further diluting your features, yet usually still recognizable here and there, usually as new blends of you and others. The genes themselves don't disappear, but the interplays that result in distinct features and traits are the result of gene combinations that are continously rearranged as genes are shuffled and combined in ever new arrangements in each individual. About 20,000 genes with all their allelic variation combine in numerous ways to create about 6 billion unique individuals. Like the 26 letters of the alphabet forming an endless amount of words.

Whatever I am will not live on, because my unique combination of genes will never miraculously come together again. I suppose. But the individual building blocks that made me unique, will still hang around for a while, maybe thousannd of years, just in new companies. But then there is natural selection: those alleles that tend to give their "hosts" an advantage, those that somehow make their "carrier" more successful, tend to increase in frequency over time. While those that really aren't helping the body they inhabit, or maybe even give them a huge disadvantage, tend to decrease in frequency over time. Who knows how many of my alleles will be around 10 generations down the line? What is then left om me? Nothing resembling me at all and the building blocks may be gone, too. Then I am truly dead.

So maybe I exist as myself now, fully, and then as some diluted version that gradually disappears for each passing generation. Still there, just sort of less solid. And if we look at it this way, if my children are sort of me, then my parents are too, because just like any of my children, each of my parents will have just as much of my genetic makeup as my kids do. And my grandparents will have as much as my grandchildren. Imagine something coming into vision, something that is diffuse and blurry at first. It's you, in your distant ancestors, Then as we move forward in time, you will become more and more recognizable, you will start to take shape, you will slowly emerge froom the haze of others, and then, for one generation only, you become completely solid, entirely you with hard, sharp edges. Then the opposite happens, as we move into the future you start to evaporate, become blurry again, before you are all vanished. That is each of us. A train rushing past at speed. A quasar exploding. A cat that jumps out from a bush and quickly vanishes again. A sparkle is what we are.

I dont say this as a challenge or to contend with this.  This is some good stuff.  To expand though; situations of infertility and adoption can be integrated to see the nonbiological ways that intergenerational bonds of love can still cause an essence of a deceased person to live on in their nonbiological children.  Perhaps even the essence can live on out side of family bonds.

And I hesitate with profound dread to say that the humanities would provide lenses for exploring this.

 

[Graeme]

17 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Are there any scientists here? Besides VolcanoBoy? 

Is that my nickname here now?

 

Cause I'm totally okay with that...

[EvanG]

22 hours ago, Oldest Goat said:

 

Ha! I used this same clip in another thread today, hadn't even seen your post... great minds think alike, huh? Or not really...

Edited August 26, 2017 by EvanG

[DieselDaisy]

On 8/25/2017 at 7:04 PM, Dazey said:

I tend to describe it as bollocks.

Yeah but the earliest scientists by definition didn't know as much as the newer ones who aren't.

Well, if it is bollocks it is a bollocks which established some of the greatest architecture, music and arts, as well as creating institutes of learning in which academia could flourish, instigating textual scrutiny, propagating a European langua franca (Latin) and still being immensely important today,

Impressive cajones.

[DieselDaisy]

16 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

No, I am not. I was just wondering who all these guys are, who are scientists and refer to Christiniaty as the "bronze age".

One of you insulting atheist people called Christianity a 'bronze-age religion' when Soul was last here, proliferating his smuggery. Confess? A rudimentary reading of the humanities would correct some of these huge gaffes. Heck, the designation Stone, Bronze, Iron Age are scientific in nature and terms used more by archeologists so you should be getting this stuff correct, shouldn't you? There is really no excuses. Another one is the affiliation of Christianity with Nazi Germany (obviously to make a rhetorical point) - an argument so thoroughly in error, and usually only supported by the superficiality of baptismal records and a Concordat written on bog roll, it is thoroughly antithetical. Pastors and priests were in fact some of the earliest occupants of Concentration Camps; yes, before the National Socialists began punitive violence against Jews, they were persecuting Christians. (One of the reasons the T4 programme was kept secret, a programme which I imagine is admired by Soul Monster as it consisted of euthanasia and sterilization, was a christian back clash incidentally, not just among churchman but ordinary Catholic Germans).

But regardless, you lot degenerate humanities so allow your ignorance to flourish...

 

[SoulMonster]

12 hours ago, soon said:

I dont say this as a challenge or to contend with this.  This is some good stuff.  To expand though; situations of infertility and adoption can be integrated to see the nonbiological ways that intergenerational bonds of love can still cause an essence of a deceased person to live on in their nonbiological children.  Perhaps even the essence can live on out side of family bonds.

And I hesitate with profound dread to say that the humanities would provide lenses for exploring this.

The bond of love develops regardless of shared genetics. Our capacity for love is remarkable and one of our redeeeming qualities.

I gave some more thought to that "sparkle" I mentioned earlier. If we define us as not just the bodies we live in, but as a specific combination of genes (alleles) that starts to come together much earlier than when "we" are born, and then starts to gradually become diluted in later generations, and this can be pictured as a light that starts growing until it becomes a blinding flash when all the 20,000 genes are finally arranged in the right combination that is "you", and then starts fading out again, then that has implications for the concept of individuality. Our light starts shining many generations before we are born, and continues for a while until our genes have been diluted out. And so those everyone elses. When I shine sthe brightest, when my 20,000 genes have finally come together in the body I have now, thousands of other lights shine, too. My parents shine with about half my intensity, because they have about half of their genes in me, and my grandparents with half of that again, and so on. So I am not only me, I am also all my ancestors whose genes I carry. And my children also shine in me, because I have half of the gene sets they will carry. Their light started shining just a generation before me, way back in time, and will shine at its most intense when they are born. The light of my grandchildren also shine in me. And so on. So we are never really alone, we always carry our relatives with us. We are never truly individuals, even when we shine the strongest. I like that thought.

And even if we never have children, the lights of all our theoretical potential children will shine in us, regardless of whether they will ever be born. When I look into a mirror I can see traits and features of thousands of children I will never have. They are there, in me. And no one can manage to realize this enormous theoretical potential for creating offspring, not even Ghengis Khan, although he made a good effort. But they are there, in the mirror, smiling back at me. Small lights that shine together with mine, and together with my foreparents.

On a more cynical side. This way of conceptualizing heritage can also be used to explain kin altruism - why we love of relatives. We love them because they are, to smaller og larger extent - us. We love our kids because they are half-us. We love or parents because they, too, are half-us. This is nothing different from standard genetic explanations of kin altruism which relies of gene selection, it is just a slightly different way of conceptualizing it. And our enormous capacity for kin altruism --  for loving our family because they are genetically related to us -- could explain why we will also love adopted family and inlaws, its kin altruism gone haywire.

Okay, all this was a bit gay. But I like this way of thinking because it challenges our standard views on individuality and self, it suggests we are more strongly tied in with those that came before and after us. It creates a continuum of "selves" that crosses generations, just like we conventially think of genes. But genes often become too impersonal for people to relate to. Looking at "us" as distributed beings that live over many generations and simultaneously overlap with hundreds of our relatives, so that "I" am a collective of poeple living at the same time inhabiting the same body, to more or less extent, makes "us" into something completely new. I for one like thinking about these things, at the very least it allows me to see modern genetic theories in a different perspective, but more importantly this way of thinking can possibly, to some, also be comforting.

[SoulMonster]

6 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

One of you insulting atheist people called Christianity a 'bronze-age religion' when Soul was last here, proliferating his smuggery. Confess? A rudimentary reading of the humanities would correct some of these huge gaffes. Heck, the designation Stone, Bronze, Iron Age are scientific in nature and terms used more by archeologists so you should be getting this stuff correct, shouldn't you? There is really no excuses. Another one is the affiliation of Christianity with Nazi Germany (obviously to make a rhetorical point) - an argument so thoroughly in error, and usually only supported by the superficiality of baptismal records and a Concordat written on bog roll, it is thoroughly antithetical. Pastors and priests were in fact some of the earliest occupants of Concentration Camps; yes, before the National Socialists began punitive violence against Jews, they were persecuting Christians. (One of the reasons the T4 programme was kept secret, a programme which I imagine is admired by Soul Monster as it consisted of euthanasia and sterilization, was a christian back clash incidentally, not just among churchman but ordinary Catholic Germans).

But regardless, you lot degenerate humanities so allow your ignorance to flourish...

But who are all those scientists you refer to?

I don't describe Christianity as a bronze-age religion. I say that of Judaism, occasionally, since large parts of the Torah originates back in those days. To some extent, the Bible also use myths and stories that predates the iron age, and since it is a deviant form of Judaism, you could argue that Christianity has its origins in the bronze age, but that doesn't mean that Christinaity is a broze-age religion, and with that kind of argument you could continuously push the origins further back since the earliest Abrahamic myths and legends probably is based on even earlier stories. And so on.

Could this has been what you didn't understood? You often misunderstand what other write and get hung up on straw men. I am pretty certain that no one here believes that Jesus lived in the bronze age

You imagine I admire the Nazi programs of euthanasia and sterilization? You really are a weird one.

[SoulMonster]

6 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

Well, if it is bollocks it is a bollocks which established some of the greatest architecture, music and arts, as well as creating institutes of learning in which academia could flourish, instigating textual scrutiny, propagating a European langua franca (Latin) and still being immensely important today

Christianity is still bollocks. You are arguing as if we hadn't had Christianity then we wouldn't have had anything in its place, nothing would have filled that vaccuum and created other marvellous things. As if Europe would have been a desolate badlands with just small huts and stupid people. You are arguing as if ONLY Christianity could have created this world and that every other realistic alternative would have created something less valuable.

And by doing this you instantly reject what other civilizations have created of wonder, innovations, architecture, arts, etc. The Roman, The Greeks, The Persians, The Chinese Dynasties, etc.

Fact is that whenever you have some kind of state stability where people are allowed peace and resources, then arts and culture and learning will flourish. Because this is what has happened again and again. We know this from history and as a hobby historian you should know this, too -- or maybe you just need to stsrat focusing on other areas of the world? It has happened in myriads of societies across history and from AD 1000 and forward it happened in Christian Europe. And coincidentally this glorious period for Europe overlapped with an intellectual revolution which came as a result of learned men over millenia having expanded our understanding of the world. It didn't start in Christian Europe, and it certainly hasn't stopped there. The Church tried to brake the developments by persecuting any ideas and findings that contradicted scripture, but progress could not be stopped.

Anyway, to argue that only Christianity could have created music, arts, institutes of learning, own languages, etc, which you mention, is absurdly ignorant of history and as such fits well with your euro-centric perspective and unexplainable servile attitude to the Church.

When we say Christianity is bollocks it is not because it was the religion that happened to be in vogue as Europe progressed, but because it is an ridiculously irrational religion. You might be too infatuated with its history and trappings, and not mentally equipped to reject its antiintellectual foundation, to see it for what it is, but to the rest of us it is bollocks.

[DieselDaisy]

46 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

And by doing this you instantly reject what other civilizations have created of wonder, innovations, architecture, arts, etc. The Roman, The Greeks, The Persians, The Chinese Dynasties, etc.

Yes, and how many of them are attributable to religion and religious practice? Parthenon dedicated to Athena; Terracotta Army to aid the Qin Shi Huang in the afterlife; Pantheon - self-evident; Forum Romanum, awash with ruined templa, Castor and Pollux, Saturn, Vestal Virgins. Even Rome's civic/military buildings tended to have a religious dimension.

The rest of your post puts us back into Marty McFly territory again. ''If my auntie had a pair of bollocks...''. All we have is the tangible world which has actually occurred, and at no point since the bronze age has man been ill-religious so how can we possibly fabricate an alternative? We only have Bach's masses, Handel's Messiah and Mozart's Requiem as tangible extent things infused with religiosity and with musicological roots embedded in the monophonic music of Western Christendom. We do not have Handel's ''Science Suite in D Minor'' or Mozart's ''Euthanasia'' as replacements (thank god)!

We do have some clunky Stalinist buildings which I'm sure you'd prefer over our most glorious churches. 

[DieselDaisy]

PS

I take attacks on religion here as a basic given that the religion in question is certainly Judaeo-Christian, often Christian and if Christian, usually Catholic (if Dazey is on the loose). There is nothing I would prefer more than to discuss the wonderful works of art attributable to Buddhism, Shintoism, Graeco-Romano paganism, etc.

[SoulMonster]

1 minute ago, DieselDaisy said:

Yes, and how many of them are attributable to religion and religious practice? Parthenon dedicated to Athena; Terracotta Army to aid the Qin Shi Huang in the afterlife; Pantheon - self-evident; Forum Romanum, awash with ruined templa, Castor and Pollux, Saturn, Vestal Virgins. Even Rome's civic/military buildings tended to have a religious dimension.

The rest of your post puts us back into Marty McFly territory again. ''If my auntie had a pair of bollocks...''. All we have is the tangible world which has actually occurred, and at no point since the bronze age has man been ill-religious so how can we possibly fabricate an alternative? We only have Bach's masses, Handel's Messiah and Mozart's Requiem as tangible extent things infused with religiosity and with musicological roots embedded in the monophonic music of Western Christendom. We do not have Handel's ''Science Suite in D Minor'' or Mozart's ''Euthanasia'' as replacements (thank god)!

We do have some clunky Stalinist buildings which I'm sure you'd prefer over our most glorious churches. 

Is your argument that without religion we wouldn't have had great art and architecture?

No one is denying that religion hasn't been important to people through ages, and naturally it has inspired many great works of art. But we also know great art and arhcitecure can be inspired by other things than religion. You argument that if it werern't for Christianity we wouldn't have had anything beautiful in Europe is ridiculous. We would. Maybe fantastic mosques, maybe impressive synagogues. Maybe music dedicated to Mohammed. Maybe buildings to another religion that is now extant. Maybe buildings dedicated to royality. Who knows? But there certainly wouldn't be vaccuum, it would just be different beautiful things.