While we’re alive, we want to keep on living. I recall moments—locked away for the moment, unreachable—when the idea of death caused feelings of intense terror. But one can also recognize an immutable biological component to this (immutable unless one is depressed or in pain, etc). To circumnavigate this immediate biological feeling about death, it is better to try and perceive, counter-factually, if you were already dead, would you care? I think it is interesting that the answers are different if we’re discussing tomorrow, or 100 years from now, or 100 years ago. (Tut recently shared this quote from Mark Twain.)
Sure, I recognize that there are all kinds of feelings one can have about immortality and death that are not captured, or even necessarily relevant, to one’s choices about living and dying.
I’m interested in the choices, and the factors that contribute to those choices, so I asked about them.
Others are of course welcome to investigate other things however they consider best.
I’m interested in the choices, and the factors that contribute to those choices, so I asked about them.
If you are specifically interested in the contexts of a person deciding that they do wish, or do not wish, to continue living in the current moment, then my comment wasn’t relevant.
However, I interpreted your question as a Socratic challenge to realize that one values immortality because they do not wish to die in the present moment. (I think these are separate systems in some sense, perhaps far versus near).
I understood (and my perspective changed quite a bit) as soon as I read about Miller’s Law in the exchange you linked. I really like having a handle for the concept (for my own sake, its usefulness is curbed by not being well-known).
I believe the default interpretation of the question you asked is the interpretation that I had (that you were using the Socratic method). The reason for this being the default interpretation is that there is an obvious, intuitive answer. (This question was a good counter-argument, which is why I think it was up-voted.)
… to deflect this interpretation, your question could be worded to be less obvious, and allow more nuance. Perhaps, “If you could remain healthy indefinitely, do you expect you would ever choose to die?”, or, “If you could remain healthy indefinitely, for which conditions would you ever choose to die?”
(nods) Yeah, that last one would have been a good alternative, in retrospect. I got there eventually but could have gotten there sooner. (The other one is a fine question, but I already had the answer.)
Though I suspect that it, too, would have been understood as Socratic in the closed-ended sense.
I don’t think this question is a good way to investigate feelings about immortality and death.
This is somewhat related to Yvain’s post post about liking versus wanting / The Neuroscience of Pleasure.
While we’re alive, we want to keep on living. I recall moments—locked away for the moment, unreachable—when the idea of death caused feelings of intense terror. But one can also recognize an immutable biological component to this (immutable unless one is depressed or in pain, etc). To circumnavigate this immediate biological feeling about death, it is better to try and perceive, counter-factually, if you were already dead, would you care? I think it is interesting that the answers are different if we’re discussing tomorrow, or 100 years from now, or 100 years ago. (Tut recently shared this quote from Mark Twain.)
Sure, I recognize that there are all kinds of feelings one can have about immortality and death that are not captured, or even necessarily relevant, to one’s choices about living and dying.
I’m interested in the choices, and the factors that contribute to those choices, so I asked about them.
Others are of course welcome to investigate other things however they consider best.
If you are specifically interested in the contexts of a person deciding that they do wish, or do not wish, to continue living in the current moment, then my comment wasn’t relevant.
However, I interpreted your question as a Socratic challenge to realize that one values immortality because they do not wish to die in the present moment. (I think these are separate systems in some sense, perhaps far versus near).
Yeah, I often get misinterpreted that way.
Relevant earlier exchange here.
Any suggestions you have about how I could have worded my question to make it clearer that I was actually interested in the answer are welcome.
I understood (and my perspective changed quite a bit) as soon as I read about Miller’s Law in the exchange you linked. I really like having a handle for the concept (for my own sake, its usefulness is curbed by not being well-known).
I believe the default interpretation of the question you asked is the interpretation that I had (that you were using the Socratic method). The reason for this being the default interpretation is that there is an obvious, intuitive answer. (This question was a good counter-argument, which is why I think it was up-voted.)
… to deflect this interpretation, your question could be worded to be less obvious, and allow more nuance. Perhaps, “If you could remain healthy indefinitely, do you expect you would ever choose to die?”, or, “If you could remain healthy indefinitely, for which conditions would you ever choose to die?”
(nods) Yeah, that last one would have been a good alternative, in retrospect. I got there eventually but could have gotten there sooner. (The other one is a fine question, but I already had the answer.)
Though I suspect that it, too, would have been understood as Socratic in the closed-ended sense.