And.... how do you know that?
Actually, I take that back. I totally agree. Since there is no experience of nonexistence, there can be only consciousness and there is no death. But as far as I am concerned there is, because I would assume all memory is lost upon worldly death. It certainly is upon taking a big hit of salvia. I would rather stay alive on this planet and retain my memory than roll the dice.
Life is rolling dice. There is no point in safe betting. It would be boring and would have no point. There would be no personal development, not pleasure or pain. You know all that Zen Man.
Memory is not lost. There are options.
1: Indigo Girls:
I never should have read my horoscope
Or the fortune on the bubble gum strip
Saying what you think won't happen will
Great thing to read before a trip
On an airplane
If you truly enter death believing that there is nothing after it, that your memories will be lost, that will happen.
2: Your memories are non-local. Ask Rupert Sheldrake about this. Modern scientists will insist that memories are stored in the brain because we see neurons flickering in fMRI scanners. But if the brain is a receiver, we only see the result of what happens when memories are accessed. I've seen a thread here where people speak about how DNA can emit signals. How...funny... eh?
3: Our memories are stored in some collective (un)-consciousness.
4: The you remains in some form in another dimension retaining all memory. It is funny when you read about people who had a NDE. Some of them describe having a flashback of their lives, remembering everything. I wonder at that moment supreme how all these patterns that are said to contain the memory can be accessed so rapidly, bang, bang, one experiential moment after another, in succession upon the moment of death.
5: Your memories become part of a sort of database equivalent in the core of who I am. That is right. Me. You become part of me. I am a solipsist. Therefore your memories are mine. In this way some people can have memories of places they have never been to. That happens you know, quite well documented.
They access me. The real me. I am god, I exist in a non-local, non-existing 'space' and reality is a projection by me to have a canvas on which I created reality. I am a constant flow out to this canvas, think of it as a light within a sphere and the inside of this sphere is part of me. That is what solipsism is. And I stream myself onto the canvas and am reality. And then it bounces back and every 'foton' that bounces back is the experience of a lifetime that someone lived. But it is all me!
In that way you will live forever. Nothing that you experienced is ever lost.
You know the beauty of this is...we are all solipsist beings. What I just claimed? You can claim it too. It makes no difference. I am you, you are me.
Who am I but you and the sun?
A sad reflection of everyone
Was it me who let you walk away?
Were you the one or is it we're the same?
What are we in time going by?
The simple story of a younger life
Happy dreams and somehow through the day
We haven't come so far to lose our way
Look at me
I believe it's true
You're a part of me
I'm a part of you
Love is only what we come to knew
The waking, breathing and all with you
A crystal passing reflected in our eyes
Eclipsing all the jealousy and lies
Look at me
Can't you see it's true
You're a part of me
I'm a part of you
Quiet as the voices in a dream
Without two shadows the things I've seen
Remember the evening I let you walk away
Were you the one or is it we're the same?
Look at me
I believe it's true
You're a part of me
I'm a part of you
Mountain - For Yasgur's Farm
However, there are tons of reasons why immortality will pose no problem whatsoever to the world, the first of which is that population growth slows to barely above replacement rate in developed countries.
That is the problem. Our birthrate is low. In poor nations it is very high. For every western child using resources, you can get a complete village of children in Bangladesh.
Beyond that, the technological increase we will soon see will usher in an age not just of total abundance, but also total resilience. Nanotechnology will clean up pollution, reverse global warming, and make sea water drinkable. No longer will we need to harvest animals to eat meat, we will grow it in vitro. Solar power is doubling in efficiency every 2 years, meaning that within 15 years the current energy use of the whole globe will be achieved by solar alone, easily. I don't even think we will need fusion.
No! I do NOT believe in techno-optimism. Too many believe wrongly that 'they' will fix it for us'. 'They' being engineers, technologists, scientists...INTP's? Technology is not a solution to problems, rather, it creates problems that then require fixing with a new technology.
I prefer technorealism. The gap between immortality and finding technological answers will be too great. Before a man can solve fundamental problems in a society that is getting out of control real quick, he needs time to study for many decades, possibly hundreds of years. Longevity holds no guarantee for problem solving.
So that is a sort of temporal optimism. The idea that it just takes time to solve an issue.
Technology and science do not solve problems at all. What is the major problem mankind faces? As mortal beings we have no answer to the question 'how to be in the world'. When I take a pill now and become immortal, I will not have an answer. I will still need to base my actions on ethics, values and norms. People would still have their biological urge to reproduce.
Recent research shows that when a man has kids after the age of about 40, the chances of certain conditions rises rapidly. Errors in DNA cause the sperm to become of bad quality over time.
People would infect the world with many sorts of mental health problems. They don't care. I saw a man on tv who had a 1 year old. He would not have changed his mind, knowing his kid had a higher chance of ADHD, suicide, bipolar disorder etc. His need for a kid meant more than the happiness of said kid.
Mind you! Solar energy is the result of the fact we used another, older technology to screw things up. All of society is based on cheap and abundant energy. We used coal, then oil. Our climate changes because of our conduct, which is based on ourselves not asking the right questions about what we are and supposed to be doing with self-awareness.
And as people become aware of these issues, they buy LED lighting. They save energy. And then think that because they are saving energy, they can get away with buying that extra energy consuming toy for their home.
That is what people do. They 'fill themselves out'. Any saving achieved will be an excuse to consumer more of something else. Even with energy saving measures and awareness of climate issues, we use more and more energy.
Now we introduce immortality and we will forever be using energy. More and more.
Now think! Since we live forever, we have ample time to destroy our world. We can install laws that regulate how and when people can have children, trampling that human right away under the pressure of a rising population, because, we have infinite time, so even if you increase the population with one child a month, the exponential function, in a timeframe of infinity, will be exponential just the same.
Immortality should not be attempted in a world that is a sphere, that is finite. And certainly not while mankind is still in a state of not understanding wtf we are.
I think as a solipsist I arranged it reasonably neat. I allow people a lifetime in a finite environment. Their lives are finite too. When they die, they come to me, the Source. In me they will be eternal. Not in my projection. See? As a solipsist you understand what god is. It is no wonder that these religions came up wit such phrases. 'Through me thou shalt find eternity'.
That's only the beginning. The world is becoming an easier place for tons of people to live, not harder. For half the pop. to die off would be an epic tragedy and would do great harm.
No it would not. Immediately nature will grow back over villages and cities. Animal populations will rise, wobble because of the niches being refilled but after some time there will be a new more natural equilibrium.
Our climate will repair itself.
Human lives will be harder, because production of material goods wills eize and since we live our lives by working to produce goods and services, we are out of work. But behold! Less people, less cities, people clint together, leaving vast swaths of land ready for farming.
We will go back to nature. We will plow our fields and not be an IT specialist anymore. And you know? It will be great. It will be harder, with less needless luxuries. But it will be purer and with more respect for each other, because more than before we will need each other. Help me plow the fields, I help you grow your corn.
I don't have any feeling for people dying. And I am not so selfish as to think it matters if I am one of them. I am a solipsist. When I die, reality seizes to exist. I too will flow back to the central universal core of being, that I am myself. I will make room.
Not all life that potentially can exist, necessarily has to exist. This is religious thinking: a person against abortion insists that all potential life must be born because it has the right to. But there is no life yet , so it has no right. Religious idiots extend the right to live as a human right projecting it so deep into a woman's womb, that it passes the border between life and non-existence. A bit of sperm has no rights.
Did I mention space colonies? With nanotech, megascale engineering will become possible. O'Neil colonies made with material from the asteroid belt could hold literally quadrillions of people.
To what purpose do we need so many people?
Assume technological change. By the 2030s we will have advanced nanotechnology. It's gonna be beyond what you could ever imagine. And then the 2040s will come.
No, nanotech will be another asbestos in society. We are introducing it as the big next thing and afrter a few decades we will all have auto-immune diseases ebcause these stray nano-particles and buckyballs are bouncing around in our bodies causing havoc. And then we need another technology or refinement to combat this.
And so we repeat the same mistake over and over again.
We need less tech in the world, not more. More tech means not a better world, or easier lives or happier lives. Happiness comes from an understanding of how to be in the world. Not because you can hold a job, earn a wage and buy junk for eternity.
Do you also hope the black death returns? And small pox? Do you think that none of those things should have been cured? Not cholera, the disease people got because there was human shit in their water? Not dengue "bone crushing" fever? Not malaria?
There is no relationship between these diseases and happy living or having a meaningful life. Happiness will flow from the understanding of yourself in nature. It is a surrender, whereas we inwq estern society will fight to the death for an extra second. If you know who you are, what you are, why you are and live among your family and friends, die of a disease, it will be okay. Too bad I got only to 40. But those 40 years were blessed and that is all I can ask for, 'now hold me once more my love before I go and I will see you in the next phase.'
We are too afraid of death. All of our society is a reaction to our fear of death, so we are afraid to live. Because to live is to be dying. We die all the time, all of our lives death approaches. We deny it with all our spiritual strength.
And I say this as a man who turns in bed many nights thinking about dying. Realizing it is going to come. It scares me still. But I refuse to let myself be prone to thoughts about what to consume next , to still my fear. See?
I will realize it, then type usless lengthy posts here and muddle along like the rest of us. I can never let myselg go as you did, into a model, to avoid realization. I seek only tuth and understanding and damn myself if something in the void stares back at me. I will look at it and it will flee. Or I will die trying and live unhappily. I cannot deny what I am. I am a mortal man of Earth, knowing fuck all. But I will watch. I will think. I will be aware. And live a life only I could. Laugh at your own death and you will not be ready to immerse yourself so fully that you need patchwork consumerism to uphold the house of cards that is your psyche.
If you don't care about life or death, why care if the world is overpopulated? What's the difference between starvation and cancer? There really isn't one, especially if you view them as population control. From your standpoint, I don't think it is possible to believe the world is overpopulated. But like I said, it's not. It just seems that way.
I made this canvas as a place for people to have experience. That is the answer to All Things. To be sitting there in my non-existing space, overthinking infinite possibilities makes no sense.
McKenna understood.
It is about how things must 'undergo the formality of occurring.' In my god-like Source-form I can overview all possibilities, but they haven't happened yet. So I created a spacetime continuum, created dimensions, created the universe. Then I let it evolve. And I knew worlds would arise and on those worlds there would be life and it would evolve and it would develop consciousness. And then all these myriad people started living lives. Each living one as only they could. And they went the underwent the formality of occurring.
It is a perfect system. Every experience will come back to me. I will remember it all. And then you read the book of Dzyan.
Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here?
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The Gods themselves came later into being --
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
That, whence all this great creation came,
Whether Its will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it -- or perchance even He knows not."
I tell you, these Buddhists talked about me, a solipsist. A solipsist is something you are but also a role you adopt. Anyone may claim it and there will be room for it in reality. They joke that only one solipsist can exist. But it is folly. We are all solipsists.
We are all part of the whole and each of us that single Source that existed before the 'gods'.
Slow progress is not the same as no progress. Living 60 healthy years is twice as good as living 30 healthy years. In a few decades, there will be no withering 90 year olds, but ones who have the healthy bodies of mood-enhanced 25 year olds.
I hope not. It will be the end of the bittersweet decay that gives meaning to life. There will be no 25 year old perect body or beaty of there is no old bat with hanging tits and drooping face. It is our elderly that make you validate and appreciate the beauty of youth. You live in a sad marketing industry world, I bet you buy Axe deodorant too, because you believe it will help you have more sex.
Plus, you underestimate the brutal realities of the past. Yes, a man in a primitive society can live a happy life, but it sure isn't as easy. Especially if he, you know, had to have his leg amputated because it got infected or something. Would you rather live in the past, when such a procedure would have been done fully conscious? And you probably still would have died after? This is barely the beginning, though, of all the ridiculous physical hardship people used to face. I gotta believe that's why everyone was so damn religious. Because life sucked so much they couldn't not believe that garbage..
No one said life should be easy. That is a marketing trick. Buy this! More sex and your life will be easier using this spcial ear-hair trimmer!
Yes, sounds good. I will die. No matter what I buy. And it is nonsense. We cannot judge how happy people were in hindsight. In medieval times we think that people were dragging themselves through the mud of existence, plagued by disease and what not. But they didn't have to worry about traffic jams. They didn't have a lot of meaningless junk. You cant miss what you don;'t know you miss.
That is marketing and advertising. Which is the message that you need something you were unaware of that you missed it.
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