Ever hear someone say, "Well, no one is going to live forever?"

[NNN0LHI]

Hell, you may have have said it yourself? I know I have.

But when someone says that, including me, no one is thinking about themselves when they say it.

When someone says that they are thinking about everyone but themselves. Me too. Whenever I have said it I knew damn well I wasn't talking about myself. I was talking about everyone else.

I always knew it was someone else who I was talking about not living forever. Not me though. I think I am living forever. I think everyone does.

Anyone else ever say that line in the subject line before and actually think about themselves when they said it?

My late father pointed that phenomena out to me about 20 years ago. I think he was right too.

Don

[trumad]

1. I just died reading your post.

My head exploded.

[NNN0LHI]

2. It is true isn't it?

[Fumesucker]

3. What do you think many religions are all about? n/t

[SmileyRose]

4. I must be an exception

I say it and include myself in it. A reminder to myself not to waste it while I have it.

[notadmblnd]

5. I don't think I'm going to live forever, nor do I want to.

[peace frog]

8. Agreed

I'm not ready to go this very minute, but am getting my affairs in order so if it should happen suddenly all will be taken care of for my family's sake.

[sofa king]

6. If I read the actuarial tables correctly.....

...I have about the same chance of living another five years as someone with pancreatic cancer does.

As far as I know, I'm in perfect health, but I live in poverty without health care, and as a result of that I'm at the age where insurance adjustors believe I have only a 50-50 chance of living past the age of 46.

[LuvNewcastle]

7. I say something similar.

I usually say, "we've all got to go sometime," and that certainly includes me. I used to think I'd be dead by the time I was 30, however I'm sure it will still be a bit of a surprise when I go, whenever that will be.

[Uben]

9. I say, "Everyone has an expiration date"....

....we just don't know when that date is....including myself. I'm not afraid of dying, that's the easy part. I'm more afraid of living. Therein lies the struggle! When you pass, it's all over. The battle has been fought. I know I'm going to die. From the day I was born, I have been racing towards that day...we all have. What happens in between is this little thing we call life.

We all get a turn to occupy space on this planet, some longer than others, but ultimately we all end up in the same place. How we chose to use that time makes us individual. When it's over, it's someone else's turn. That's how I see it.

500 years from now, very few of us will be remembered. 500 yrs is a speck in time, and our lives are even smaller. So, enjoy what you have while you have it, and pray those who will be replacing us can manage to make this planet a better place to occupy.

[sam11111]

10. worldwide, universities do serious research on cure for aging - forum

Bowhead whales - some, 300 year lives in nature.

Nematodes lives extended in lab, sevenfold. In human years, s-fold would be 500 or so years.

Nematode extension via two genes suppressed (can be done for larger animals via a pill) and some gonadic tissue removed. ( Dr Kenyon U. of san francisco IIRC. They changed the name of UC at SF IIRC)

No reason more research can't cure aging. View it as just a disease. Look at what science has done in its first 300 years.

Forum

www.imminst.org

Academics (one at Oxford) discuss data..

www.grg.org

[sam11111]

13. Oxford England - serious aging cure research -

Snip

integration of DNA transfected into cells and detecting RNA expression levels.  Her efforts contributed ...those results in a poster at our recent SENS5 conference in Cambridge.

From AGE to SENS5: Building Momentum For Human Rejuvenation
Snip..........
Snip
The fifth biannual Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence ..., and also to the recent 40th meeting of the American Aging Association (AGE).
End of snip--------

Their star researcher is dr. Aubrey de Grey of Oxford U.
Another I see at the site is----
Pedro Alvarez

PhD, George R. Brown Professor of Engineering, Rice University
-------------------
----------------------
PS my favorite idea is putting fresh DNA into every cell of an adult with a viral "truck". Which carries the DNA in then releases it.
From site

www.sens.org

[deutsey]

11. As Woody Allen said: "I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

Seriously, though, maybe because I've taken more than my share of philosophy classes, have an interest in Eastern philosophy, and have read Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Illyach (sp?) a few times, I'm very much aware of my own mortality and I contemplate it often.

Not in a morbid way, but just acknowledging the truth of my limited time here as this consciousness. Just like I love learning about what the Hubble telescope and other things are revealing about the vastness of the universe and about our rather miniscule place in it. Some people are bummed by that, but it's energizing and liberating to me. Read Sagan's "The Pale Blue Dot" or look it up on YouTube.

[piratefish08]

12. we started dying the second we were born. i think the human mind needs to obscure that fact

to make living 'livable'.


i've been pretty unaffected emotionally from my first 14 billion years of non-existence. i expect to find the next 14 billion just as peaceful.

[malaise]

14. Put another way - the one philosphical truth is that everything

that lives dies. If you accept that truth then you can enjoy life.

[H2O Man]

15. I think that

when you hit a certain age, and recognize the effects that the aging process has on you, many people are aware that it includes them.

[sam11111]

16. "we can invent our way past any unplesantness in human existence"

IMO that is part of the core attitude of LW thought.

The "positivism" of Logical Positivism.

[NNN0LHI]

17. I absolutely changed my tune on this as I got older

But not when I was younger when I was sure nothing could ever kill me.

You make a good point.

Don

[H2O Man]

18. When I was a

young man, I saw a friend die in a boxing ring; I clearly remember thinking, "Wow! Poor Frank!" -- but NOT connecting his death to any risk I faced in the ring.

Also, on 7-3-75, I spent the afternoon riding around drinking beer etc with a friend. In the evening, I got out of his car, and into another. A couple miles later, we saw my friend lose control, and hit another vehicle head on. Three dead. The lesson I believed that I learned was not to drink and drive. So I rode with friends who were as drunk as I was. Absolute stupidity.

[Odin2005]

19. I'm a Transhumanist, I plan on living forever.

:evilgrin:

[Edweird]

20. I am comfortable with the idea of my own death - I'm not suicidal, but I don't fear it.

I certainly DO state that "everybody's gotta die sometime so I might as well die doing something I enjoy" and I am clearly referring to myself. I have quite the collection of broken bones and scar tissue.

[GreenPartyVoter]

21. Actually, I phrase it more like, "Someday this will all be over. Finally." Obviously those are my

bad days.