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Thread: Why are people afraid of death?
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2018-03-07, 05:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
I think a large part of the fear that most of humans evince is the possibility that there could be a divine being; a God; that we could be judged for the wrong we've done and found wanting, and guilty of deserving punishment eternally. Not speaking about any particular religion or it's beliefs here, just throwing out ideas.
And your example is just a teeny bit logically fallacious; fear isn't the want to change something because you fear it (at least not by definition)... it is, put extremely literally, the fear of it.
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2018-03-07, 07:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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2018-03-07, 10:56 AM (ISO 8601)
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2018-03-07, 11:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
You clearly have a different definition of “fallacy” and “morality” than I do, because those two words don’t apply at all.
As for morale... it doesn’t threaten my morale, and it doesn’t seem to dampen the morale of other people posting on this thread. It doesn’t bother or upset me at all.
I want to feel needed and relevant in my work, family, and social life. But I don’t care that I am utterly trivial and not even vaguely needed or relevant in the big picture.
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2018-03-07, 11:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Well, in the oriental traditions they say that everything is important in the big picture, from a quark to a supermassive black hole. Because we are all it. I like that vision (at least in that non-dual concept) and perhaps it can reconcile your apparent antagonistic points of view.
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2018-03-07, 12:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
In social animals, it helps the group prepare for the death of any one individual. As an individual, it helps cement a fear of the lethal, in order to avoid situations that may get you killed. It may also be a mere consequence of how the mind is wired, as everything in the head is extremely interconnected, and attempting to draw a neat little check in a box will instead do something more akin to spraying half the area with a multi-coloured spray can. The mind is made from compromises and lucky side effects, not everything in there actually serves a purpose in and on itself.
Oh, that I'm certain they fathom, what with all the elaborate rituals formed around mating. That said, I get you have a more complicated view of the conception of new life than just two half-cells fusing together, but even if animals are spiritual or religious, there's no reason they necessarily would feel the need to start practicing abstinence; after all it's not very conductive to the survival of the flock/species. It's not in human society either, but making sure that any one person only forms a strong intimate bond with one other person does help avoid a lot of drama in closely knit groups (and a lot of animals form strong pairs during the mating season or for life too).
I'm absolutely certain that the main driving force behind scientific discovery hasn't been the scientists looking at themselves in third person. Nor fearing death, for that matter.
I don't know, but I'm not ruling it out per definition. We're still learning new things about what animals are communicating between one another.
Because talking to them is likely to get you killed before you manage to pierce the language barrier? Why don't sheep farmers go out in the forest to form a treaty with the wolves. Why do we back away from a mother bear; surely we could just communicate that we're merely passing through and don't mean her cubs any harm? We have, even within our species, developed quite elaborate schemes just to ensure the safety of our diplomats in peace negotiations...
Also, I'm not the one reaching unwarranted conclusions, I'm explicitly trying to avoid reaching unwarranted conclusions (a fear of death necessarily implying human-identical cognitive capacity) by trying to show that we don't know enough to draw them.
The second sentence excluding the last two words is probably true, as knowledge of your own mortality most likely requires a lot more capacity to reason and predict than what the ant mind is capable of. The last two words are an assumption which may be true or not. However, you should stop insisting on using these extreme examples, as it isn't conductive to the discussion and only reflects poorly on you.
I find it fascinating that you consider embracing our insignificance "suicidal", and it does tempt me to dive into some pseudo-psychological analysis. Now, in the ever-expanding cosmic soup of universes falling out of the big bang, there's no human achievement possible which is big enough that there won't be a scope so big that it won't just be insignificant, but also absolutely indistinguishable from the cosmic background noise. Despite saying this, I'm one of the least suicidal and most curious people around, and not depending on our significance to provide meaning to my life does benefit me in that I can make my own meaning instead, whether that is perfecting gaming strategies, organising elaborate parties, arguing online or designing the perfect tools for developing cutting edge military technology.Clouddreamer Teddy by me, high above the world, far beyond its matters...
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2018-03-08, 06:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Since Donnadogsoth keeps making obtuse remarks about ants, let's talk about ants:
Ants build.
Ants war.
Ants practice agriculture.
Ants change entire ecosystems by their presence and landshape engineering.
Largest ant colonies measure thousands of kilometers in square area, being larger than some human cities - in fact, larger than some human countries.
Ants, both in number of individuals and biomass, outnumber humans.
Does this prove ants fear death? Not at all. But if you presume they don't fear death, then none of the above things can be attributed to fear of death either.
There is also a rather more tidbit I know, about ants: their eggs are a good source of protein. Unfortunately, the eggs are quite deep in the nest.
So how to get at the eggs with minimum hassle:
1) Spread a sheet under the sun.
2) Roll up the corners so there's shade at the edges
3) Knock the top off of an ant hill.
4) Plunge your hands deep into the hill, grab as much matter you can, and throw it on the sheet.
5) wait for the living ants to grab the eggs and take them into the shade at the edges of the sheet.
6) eat the eggs.
I underlined the part that's of interest to this discussion. Ants act to protect their offspring; on some level, they know the eggs will dehydrate under the Sun, and hence take their eggs into the shade. Does this prove ants fear death? Haha, no. But it does show that even animals as distant from humans as ants, act towards preservation of their species. If ants did fear death, we would be forced to conclude that their fear is just the conscious mind reflecting on a far simpler biological impulse. And this has an implication for humans as well: our fear of death may be by-product of our conscious mind, but it's not the reason why we act to avert death. On the contrary, we were acting to avert death long before we had conscious minds, and this instinctive aversion is what was turned to fear when reflected upon and generalized by a conscious mind."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2018-03-08, 10:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
I might take this a step further and really challenge people's preconceptions about intelligence etc.
Plants
There are plants that can talk to each other
Spoilerplants on one side of a field being attacked by aphids, will warn plants on the other side of the field. The warned plants will start proactively producing anti-aphid chemicals. It has been shown that this communication goes through a "mycorrhizal network" in the dirt (plants separated with a barrier in the dirt didn't get the message)
There are plants that can solve mazes like a lab rat
There are plants that learn
Spoilerscientists took a plant that was sensitive to touch (the leaves fold up protectively when touched). They dropped the plant 6" and it freaked out and folded up all its leaves. Then the scientists did that over and over until after about 5 times the plant realized there was no risk, and stopped folding up. Even months later it remembered that being dropped 6" isn't a big deal
There are plants that can recognize and help family
SpoilerThey will grow their leaves away from family to make sure it gets light, and will grow over other plants to cover them with shade
There are plants that can count
SpoilerThe Venus’ flytrap counts the number of times prey comes in contact with its sensory hairs to determine the size of the insect, when to shut its leaves to trap the creature, and even how much digestive juice to produce for its mealLast edited by Aliquid; 2018-03-08 at 10:49 AM.
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2018-03-08, 12:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
In social animals, it helps the group prepare for the death of any one individual. As an individual, it helps cement a fear of the lethal, in order to avoid situations that may get you killed. It may also be a mere consequence of how the mind is wired, as everything in the head is extremely interconnected, and attempting to draw a neat little check in a box will instead do something more akin to spraying half the area with a multi-coloured spray can. The mind is made from compromises and lucky side effects, not everything in there actually serves a purpose in and on itself.
Oh, that I'm certain they fathom, what with all the elaborate rituals formed around mating. That said, I get you have a more complicated view of the conception of new life than just two half-cells fusing together, but even if animals are spiritual or religious, there's no reason they necessarily would feel the need to start practicing abstinence; after all it's not very conductive to the survival of the flock/species. It's not in human society either, but making sure that any one person only forms a strong intimate bond with one other person does help avoid a lot of drama in closely knit groups (and a lot of animals form strong pairs during the mating season or for life too).
I'm absolutely certain that the main driving force behind scientific discovery hasn't been the scientists looking at themselves in third person. Nor fearing death, for that matter.
I don't know, but I'm not ruling it out per definition. We're still learning new things about what animals are communicating between one another.
Because talking to them is likely to get you killed before you manage to pierce the language barrier? Why don't sheep farmers go out in the forest to form a treaty with the wolves. Why do we back away from a mother bear; surely we could just communicate that we're merely passing through and don't mean her cubs any harm? We have, even within our species, developed quite elaborate schemes just to ensure the safety of our diplomats in peace negotiations...
The second sentence excluding the last two words is probably true, as knowledge of your own mortality most likely requires a lot more capacity to reason and predict than what the ant mind is capable of. The last two words are an assumption which may be true or not. However, you should stop insisting on using these extreme examples, as it isn't conductive to the discussion and only reflects poorly on you.
I find it fascinating that you consider embracing our insignificance "suicidal", and it does tempt me to dive into some pseudo-psychological analysis. Now, in the ever-expanding cosmic soup of universes falling out of the big bang, there's no human achievement possible which is big enough that there won't be a scope so big that it won't just be insignificant, but also absolutely indistinguishable from the cosmic background noise. Despite saying this, I'm one of the least suicidal and most curious people around, and not depending on our significance to provide meaning to my life does benefit me in that I can make my own meaning instead, whether that is perfecting gaming strategies, organising elaborate parties, arguing online or designing the perfect tools for developing cutting edge military technology.
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2018-03-08, 01:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
If we accept presentism, and reject both the many-worlds hypothesis and eternal return, death makes it questionable whether one can be meaningfully said to exist at all, for one's own purposes at any rate.
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2018-03-08, 04:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Originally Posted by Donnadogsoth
1) humans themselves do not have some species-level truce with other humans, we do not act coherently as a species-level unit, so expecting that from other species is dumb.
2) humans don't even demonstrate universal ability to understand or negotiate with themselves, and historically have been happy to consider other humans as "dumb animals".
3) once you abandon the ridiculous expectation of species-wide co-operation and look at the question on the level of individuals, you will in fact find examples of animals communicating with and forming lasting relationships with humans. Wolves, especially, were fairly good at this, that is why the mutualism between dogs and humans exist at all. Ditto for mutualism between humans and cats, humans and horses etc. Even wild animals have done this at times, including, yes, wolves (see: Romeo the Wolf) and bears, and dolphins and even crocodiles. (See: Pocho the Crocodile)
4) once again, communication is a two-way street. Humans who do not live in close proximity with animals, suck at comprehending those animals just as bad as those animals suck at comprehending humans. Expecting a bear in the wild to learn to communicate with humans is as realistic as expecting a Finnish child to spontaneously learn Japanese.
5) once you grok the above point and actually look at humans who make a life mission of the study and understanding of some other species, you'll find some who have formed bonds with wild animals, even large and carnivorous ones.
6) You will also find examples of non-tamed, non-domesticated animals living peacefully alongside humans, starting with examples no less common and no less fantastic than seagulls and pigeons. Unsurprisingly, animals don't cower from humans if their experience is that we don't immediately try to kill them. Those animals which do cower from humans have intergenerational experience of humans preying on them - we humans send a very clear message that we don't want to negotiate.
7) treating the whole "natural world" as "the Enemy" is nothing more than a poetic expression, it has next to nill to do with empirical reality. Your idea that animals would immediately wage war upon humans if they had sapience, is simply another anthropocentric false expectation. We know other species which war, namely, ants, and they do not war with us because we are not their relevant enemy, because we do not compete for the same resources. Other ants and thermites are, because they do. Humans, by contrast, have proven highly usefull to many species of ants. Ants, hence, do not have a motive to war against humans. You can do the same calculus for each species. If you do, you'll find the life of many animals do not revolve around humans, nor are humans so universally antagonistic as to warrant an universally hostile response."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2018-03-08, 06:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Yes, but you insist on some very specific spillover effects, whereas I insist that we don't know nearly enough about the brain to know what spillover effects come from what and what can evolve independently.
Human culture change seems to be pretty closely tied to new inventions and mass communication. In groups where everyone knows everyone and life doesn't change very much, culture seems to evolve much more slowly as well (compare pre-industrial Europe, where fashion changes could take centuries). Since pretty much all animals live lives which don't change very much from generation to generation and seldom get to meet any kin from a wildly different environment than they themselves know, expecting cultural changes visible to us common people over the course of a single human lifespan is a bit optimistic.
You can, however, notice differences in groups which have stayed separate for very long. The bonobo and chimpanzee species are believed to have split from a common ancestor when the Congo river changed direction some 1.5-2 million years ago, cutting straight through the habitat of their common (and not very swimming proficient) ancestor. As far as I've understood, the southern habitat of the bonobo was quite bountiful, while resources in the northern habitat of the chimpanzee were scarce, and the difference couldn't be more striking. Where chimpanzees are extraordinarily violent compared to animals as a whole, bonobos are extraordinarily peaceful, extremely social and extremely sexual. 1.5 million years is not a fast cultural change, but it is a cultural change nevertheless (an one which has had time to cement in their DNA, so it probably happened much earlier than that).
First of all, you know not all scientists are theoretical physicists, right? Most scientists work with already known questions, questions which most likely were recorded already at the formulation of the currently most complete theories.
Second, what you're describing is a very flowery periphrase of "How can I think about this in some other way?". That's basic problem solving, animals can do that too. Science is just basic problem solving involving huge amounts of parameters.
Third, you didn't meantion a fear of death even once in that paragraph.
A reasonable assumption, although I don't share your belief in it. However, what I don't consider a reasonable assumption is that knowledge of your own mortality means you must be able to form a coherent theory about any perceived spirit world.
Frozen Feet wrote a very good response to this, and I'll just add that while we can make peace with them, it takes several years of time and a lot of resources invested into befriending them and gaining their trust. Now, why would we do that when just shooting the wolves does a just as good job at keeping your sheep safe, with the added benefit that you get some nice pelts out of it and don't have to run the risk of injury while the animals still consider you a threat?
You can't just redefine common words and then call us suicidal misanthropic nihilists when what we say doesn't make any sense under your definition, an epithet which I might add makes absolutely no sense to us either, as you've redefined the meaning of "suicidal" and probably "misanthopic" and "nihilist" as well.Last edited by Teddy; 2018-03-08 at 06:57 PM.
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2018-03-08, 07:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
I'd take this a step further. We routinely do things that are outright harmful at the species-level to gain an advantage against other humans. This starts with resource usage patterns that look completely insane at the species-level, from tragedy of the commons situations like dramatic overfishing, to technological developments that are very much a threat to the species like nuclear weapons, and to any number of problems coming from unfettered overall growth that we know cause issues, but stick to because local economies are build to depend on perpetual exponential growth (several forms of resource depletion, global warming).
Species level suicide has been thrown around a lot in this thread, and if there's anything that embodies it it's the tendency for humans acting for individual interests or those of localized groups to do things deleterious to the species as a whole.
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2018-03-08, 07:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Hilariously, if we want to look at what actual species-wide co-operation would look like, ants once more rise to the occasion.
Specifically, invasive ants.
In their original ecosystems, as notes before, ants war against ants. More specifically, they war against ants of similar size and ecological niche, even if they're of the same species.
But how do ants distinquish between friend and foe? As fas as we know, pheromones based on familial ties. All ants in a colony are descendants of a single line of queens, and leave their relatives alone, while fighting the rest.
But invasive ants seem to loose this instinct for some reason. They treat all ants of their own species as members of their own colony. It is this strange (for ants) behaviour which allows for national level colonies (human national level).
Doubly hilariously, this also has implications for the argument about volume and signifigance. Ants as individuals are small and unimpressive and hence insignificant. Ants as a collective are massive force, changing whole ecosystems. Much the same can be said of humans. Individually, we aren't all that different from other animals, and when we lived in small groups, we did not have the impact we have and could not achieve the things we can now. It's only in great numbers that we became able of taking on the projects and achieving the feats that some hold as the essential divide between us and animals.
So volume is, in fact, a factor of signfigance."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2018-03-08, 09:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Chemical signaling following injury isn't intelligent communication, it's a rash.
Furthermore were any of these studies by any chance done by either Terrence McKenna or Cleve Backster? Because McKenna's work on plants went way downhill after he decided he was going to smoke all of them and Backster not only was not a botanist by education but also harbored fundamental misunderstandings even of stuff he was educated in."If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins
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2018-03-08, 09:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
... not even sure how to respond to a comment like that.
Entity "A" sends a signal, entity "B" receives that signal and changes its behavior as a result of the content of the signal... that's communication at a basic level.
Furthermore were any of these studies by any chance done by either Terrence McKenna or Cleve Backster? Because McKenna's work on plants went way downhill after he decided he was going to smoke all of them and Backster not only was not a botanist by education but also harbored fundamental misunderstandings even of stuff he was educated in.
Also, the test was basic, easily reproduced, and peer reviewed. It has been done by multiple scientists in multiple Universities... so your Ad hominem attack isn't relevant at all.Last edited by Aliquid; 2018-03-08 at 09:39 PM.
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2018-03-09, 12:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Ok, I'll admit maybe that metaphor was a little inscrutable. I'm saying that functionally it's little different from a patch of skin becoming inflamed after some irritant affects some of the cells in the area. The cells send out chemical signals and the whole area becomes inflamed.
"If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins
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2018-03-09, 01:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Bohandas, you are not entirely wrong. The joke here is that unconscious communication, such as chemical communication between cells, precedes and underlies conscious communication.
So if (presumed) unconscious things such as plants prove capable of a behaviour, it puts into question how much of said behaviour can be attributed to conscious thought. It's similar to the point I made about ants: if we presume ants are unconscious, then war, construction, agriculture etc. can't be assumed to be products of consciousness, as ants are capable of such things."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2018-03-09, 03:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Words like "conscious" get bandied around a lot in these discussions, but how many of us could actually define "consciousness" in a form that would hold water for five minutes under scrutiny? I'm pretty sure I couldn't, for one.
Which leads me to think that the distinction you're making between conscious and unconscious communication is, really, pretty arbitrary. An ant detects the presence of a certain pheromone, and it knows that there is food in this direction; how different is that from you or me seeing a sign that says "café"?
Sure, our minds are a lot more complex than an ant's. But that's just a function of size. Is there really any qualitative difference there?"None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain
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2018-03-09, 04:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Consciousness is the process by which a creature becomes aware of itself and its actions. The difficulty is not in defining it, it's in explaining and demonstrating its exact mechanism.
Ditto for difference between conscious and unconscious communication. The difference is clear in theory, demonstrating the difference is not. It's not an arbitrary distinction, but it might not be meaningfull in the ways we, or especially Donna, think it is. The jury is still out on, for example, if the conscious mind actually makes decisions, or if it just spins after-the-fact narratives to explain decisions made by unconscious processes.
As for qualitative versus quantitative, I'm on the side of emergence based on quantitative differences. Pretty much all traits we've found in humans have been found in other animals, just not in the same quantity and same combination. There is no individual, essential part that makes us different from animals. All our pieces are factory standard. It is the precise combination, the sum total which is particular."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2018-03-10, 05:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Because we are our only point of view for the whole universe.
There is no functional difference between us dying, and the universe ending - our whole experience of it goes 'puff'
Also, we're hardwired to try to survive, and smart enough to know it's ultimately futile - a paradox of the human condition that few can truly face.
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2018-03-10, 06:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Meh. That just pushes the burden of definition onto "aware".
I agree with you about emergence, but it seems to me that if the difference is only quantitative, we can't rule out the possibility that some smart animals - pigs, say - are every bit as aware as we are. The reason we don't observe it in domestic pigs is that they're seldom allowed to live long enough, and never get the opportunity to get together with other pigs and discuss their lot at any length.
And again, if it's an "emergent" property, it may be that - not precisely what we call awareness, whatever that is, but other, analogous properties might belong to quite different organisms that we don't even recognise as intelligent. Fungi, for instance - amazing things, their clonal colonies can live for centuries and grow way larger than any other living thing - we really know very little about what determines or limits that growth.
Or consider a forest. Just as neurons in our brains interact with one another in ways that form and strengthen connections between them, so too do the plants in a forest. They interact via water, wind, sunlight and insects and other wildlife. Those interactions are, of course, a hell of a lot slower than those between the neurons in our heads - but there could be a process going on there that's analogous to "thinking". I'm not sure how to frame that as a testable hypothesis, but by the same token, I'm not comfortable with dismissing it as impossible.
Or the internet. Now there's something that can exchange information at comparable speeds to a brain, and in very much larger volumes. If it doesn't at least have the potential to become aware, I'd very much like to know why not. And if it does have that potential, then how would we know if it had happened?"None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain
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2018-03-10, 11:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
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2018-03-11, 02:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
@Veti: as I remarked earlier to Donnadogsoth, we already have tests meant for demonstrating consciousness, and through them, we already have reasons to think several kinds of animals are conscious. That is one of the prime reasons for me to criticize Donna. I don't wonder about the possibility of these things becauseI already know they are possible.
For example, we already have lots of studies on cognition of pigs, a domestic pig is about as intelligent and as conscious as 3 to 4 year old human child."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2018-03-11, 03:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
You think that the Internet would primarily be interested in gaining views on YouTube? It's not impossible, but I don't think we can assume it.
Plenty of strange videos already get made. Many of them, by software that is specifically optimised to gain YouTube views. They can be made and posted without ever being viewed by a human. Does that meet your condition?"None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain
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2018-03-11, 12:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Yes, but you insist on some*very specific*spillover effects, whereas I insist that we don't know nearly enough about the brain to know what spillover effects come from what and what can evolve independently.
Human culture change seems to be pretty closely tied to new inventions and mass communication. In groups where everyone knows everyone and life doesn't change very much, culture seems to evolve much more slowly as well (compare pre-industrial Europe, where fashion changes could take centuries). Since pretty much all animals live lives which don't change very much from generation to generation and seldom get to meet any kin from a wildly different environment than they themselves know, expecting cultural changes visible to us common people over the course of a single human lifespan is a bit optimistic.
You can, however, notice differences in groups which have stayed separate for very long. The bonobo and chimpanzee species are believed to have split from a common ancestor when the Congo river changed direction some 1.5-2 million years ago, cutting straight through the habitat of their common (and not very swimming proficient) ancestor. As far as I've understood, the southern habitat of the bonobo was quite bountiful, while resources in the northern habitat of the chimpanzee were scarce, and the difference couldn't be more striking. Where chimpanzees are extraordinarily violent compared to animals as a whole, bonobos are extraordinarily peaceful, extremely social and*extremely*sexual. 1.5 million years is not a fast cultural change, but it is a cultural change nevertheless (an one which has had time to cement in their DNA, so it probably happened much earlier than that).
First of all, you know not all scientists are theoretical physicists, right? Most scientists work with already known questions, questions which most likely were recorded already at the formulation of the currently most complete theories.
Second, what you're describing is a*very*flowery periphrase of "How can I think about this in some other way?". That's basic problem solving, animals can do that too. Science is just basic problem solving involving huge amounts of parameters.
Third, you didn't meantion a fear of death even once in that paragraph.
A reasonable assumption, although I don't share your belief in it. However, what I don't consider a reasonable assumption is that knowledge of your own mortality means you must be able to form a coherent theory about any perceived spirit world.
Frozen Feet wrote a very good response to this, and I'll just add that while we can make peace with them, it takes several years of time and a lot of resources invested into befriending them and gaining their trust. Now, why would we do that when just shooting the wolves does a just as good job at keeping your sheep safe, with the added benefit that you get some nice pelts out of it and don't have to run the risk of injury while the animals still consider you a threat?
You can't just redefine common words and then call us suicidal misanthropic nihilists when what we say doesn't make any sense under your definition, an epithet which I might add makes absolutely no sense to us either, as you've redefined the meaning of "suicidal" and probably "misanthopic" and "nihilist" as well.
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2018-03-11, 12:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-03-11, 01:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
you keep throwing in these measures that are irrelevant. Who cares if an animal can double a square. How does that matter at all? How is math skills equal to consciousness?
Animals can handle basic math. We can handle complex math. We can do the same thing as animals but we are way better at it.
Just like animals can communicate at a basic level and we can communicate at a far more complex level.
We aren’t doing anything unique or new. We are just really good at certain things.
At the same time though, we suck at some other things that animals do well.
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2018-03-11, 01:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet
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2018-03-11, 01:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why are people afraid of death?
You can't lead an animal through a Platonic dialogue. Creativity is beyond them. After a million years a chimpanzee tribe might figure out ant fishing, but that's as far as it goes. It's like a horse scratching its belly with a stick. Humans are on Luna, by comparison. This isn't just "more complex" this is a species-level difference. Doubling the square is absolutely beyond the minds of animals, because it demands a Platonic creative jump, based on a hypothesis of how to achieve the needed change. This is absolutely not the hypothesis of a "what happens when I stick a stick down an anthill?" which is trial and error leading to a lucky prize. No amount of luck will double the square, only the firm conception of the nature of squareness. That hypothesis is the difference between man and beast, as absolute a difference as between a square and a cube. Denying this is denying Apollo.