Philosophers die too

[Consul]

This is touching:

A 97-Year-Old Philosopher Ponders Life and Death: 'What Is the Point?'

[Count Lucanor]

I had seen this posted somewhere else, but didn't pay attention to it. Definitely touching.

Last year I lost a friend. He died of old age, and just like the gentleman in the video, he was a university professor that had lived a fulfilling life, with many accomplishments and recognition. He also complained in his last years about the frustration of his body not being able to obey his commands. Other than that, his mind was sharp as a knife, and his insights about current affairs and the many anecdotes of his life gave one the feeling that he still had so much to give. And suddenly, he passed away. It felt as if a vault full of treasures had been closed down forever, unfairly. And that's life: the cold, heartless passing of events without any transcendental meaning, only the meaning that you put on it by living it.

[Wossname]

Consul » March 8th, 2020, 2:26 am

This is touching:

A touching and sad video I found.

An old man, facing, and haunted by the idea of, death, lonely, still mourning the loss of his wife, and confronted with the frustrations and indignities of a failing body.

He wonders “what is the point of it all”? He has no answer, believes it is a foolish question, and offers that there is probably no point.

Yet he also offers that he has not really appreciated the world properly until now that he faces leaving it. Perhaps there is, in that, a clue as to the answer to his question?

We each find our own answers here. I wonder Consul, what your answer would be?

[NukeBan]

Wow, this is great, thanks much for posting it. Still making my way through the video.

I'm 68, probably older than many of you, but when it comes to geezerhood I'm still a young punk just beginning to learn the ropes. Point being, the topics discussed in the video have increasing relevance and interest to me.

I'm now paused in the video at the point where he begins to say that we shouldn't fear death because when we're dead there will be nothing. I find it remarkable that someone who spent decades teaching philosophy would say such a thing. But to each their own of course, and while I'll argue with you about such things I'm not so foolish as to argue with someone who is 97.

I don't know if this works or not, but when I try to imagine being 30 years older it's natural to look back 30 years to see what's changed since then. Where was I at at 38, and will I experience the same degree of change over the next 30 years?

Honestly, I don't really wish to be 97, though it is an intriguing possibility. I watched my mom die a very long very slow death from Parkinson's over 15 years, and that experience has made me wary of being greedy, and also, um, quite the chickenshit regarding what can happen to the body.

And, to make matters worse, I find I'm getting ever more alienated from the health care system just as I enter the period when I'm more likely to need it. Did you know that the 3rd leading cause of death in America is preventable medical errors? There you go, equipped with this fact now you can be paranoid too.

Anyway, an interesting video, thanks. Will continue the viewing...

[Pattern-chaser]

I'm 68, probably older than many of you...

I'm 65, and there are quite a few here, I think, around the same age. I suspect we are the age group most attracted to online philosophy forums?

[NukeBan]

I'm 65, and there are quite a few here, I think, around the same age. I suspect we are the age group most attracted to online philosophy forums?

It seems mostly young men to me, but I don't have the data. I've been shocked to find actual women on this forum. Who knew that could happen???

At any rate, I'm still the ranking geezer until someone proves otherwise!

[Jklint]

Re the video asking "what is the point?" If there is no point to being born which is just an outcome of a biological function then the conclusion of that function from its very beginning becomes equally pointless. What the video expresses is mostly memory invoked nostalgia which consists of both pleasure and pain. The cold logic of simply no-longer existing and therefore nothing to fear makes perfect sense but that's not how most humans are conditioned to react the more one's past subtracts from the future. Becoming resigned in old age to their being no point - in comparison to what I have no idea - is what I find paradoxical especially from a philosopher.

[NukeBan]

The cold logic of simply no-longer existing and therefore nothing to fear makes perfect sense

It doesn't seem logical to propose a state of no longer existing based on no information at all about death. That's why I said I was surprised to hear a mature philosophy professor make such a proposal.

It makes sense emotionally to propose such a pain free state, especially when one may die at any moment. And I would grant there is a valid logic to attending to one's emotional needs.

To prove that I'm still a young and foolish punk one of the main things I got from the video is that advancing seniority offers the opportunity to have a hot young helper around the house. I was going to skip advanced old age, but after watching the video I may reconsider. Still 17, after all these years.

I ask you, how many infirm old geezer fellows who can no longer stand up on their own have died at age 97 still fantasizing about bending her over the kitchen table? You go through the tunnel and get to the pearly gates and were going to yell at St. Peter for interrupting your happy dream, but he's off somewhere having the same fantasy, cause 2,000 years in heaven doesn't cure it either.

Sorry, but sometimes philosophy gets so dry it stops being logical.

[Jklint]

The cold logic of simply no-longer existing and therefore nothing to fear makes perfect sense

It doesn't seem logical to propose a state of no longer existing based on no information at all about death.

I don't know what kind of information can be gleaned upon death since life only leaves a remnant of itself when over. Trillions of lives, human and animal throughout time yield no such information because there isn't any beyond it. The rules of logic no-longer apply to what never existed or ceased to exist both being equal to each other. Logic is defunct when time itself has ceased.

Humans have always wished to extend what appears to be an unfavorable fact into a mystery clinging to the hope that there is more in death than what it actually is...THE END. Death is the most mundane consequence of living being the most inevitable. I find no discomfort in this. The trepidation and fear has always been in getting there.

[NukeBan]

Trillions of lives, human and animal throughout time yield no such information because there isn't any beyond it.

How do we know that? Why do so many people assume they know that?

Humans have always wished to extend what appears to be an unfavorable fact into a mystery clinging to the hope that there is more in death than what it actually is...THE END.

Ok, that could be. I certainly don't know. But that's a faith based belief, perhaps not suitable for philosophy professors?

[Jklint]

How do we know that? Why do so many people assume they know that?

That assumption has the highest probability of being a fact since there were never any exceptions to refute it or observation contradicting it.

Ok, that could be. I certainly don't know. But that's a faith based belief, perhaps not suitable for philosophy professors?

Facts never contravened makes belief superfluous. Only superstitions and wishful thinking require beliefs...the path of least resistance employed by the mind as an offering, a bouquet beyond the bounds of the existential.

When something had died it's an obvious fact that it's dead. When a human dies it's no different than that same person having previously squashed a cockroach underfoot. Neither knows what it was to be human or a cockroach. There aren't any degrees of death based on who or what has died! Life may experience a vast range of mysteries but death per se, is the one thing completely devoid of any such sphinx-like encounters.

[NukeBan]

That assumption has the highest probability of being a fact since there were never any exceptions to refute it or observation contradicting it.

How does one calculate probability about something one has exactly no knowledge of? Out of the billions upon billions of human beings to die could you please introduce us to a single one who has returned to file a report?

There are the near death experiences of course, which are sometimes technically classified as a state of temporary real death. To the degree such reports are available, they don't tend to support the conclusion you are advocating.

What happens instead is that people want to believe various things about death, and so they believe them. That's fine with me, but it has nothing to do with "facts".

[Jklint]

That assumption has the highest probability of being a fact since there were never any exceptions to refute it or observation contradicting it.

How does one calculate probability about something one has exactly no knowledge of? Out of the billions upon billions of human beings to die could you please introduce us to a single one who has returned to file a report?

That's exactly the point! Not a single one that returned to file a report! As mentioned there are NO exceptions and nothing ever contradicted that. It's as certain as certain can be that the dead don't come back...or is it your contention that humans, among all living creatures, may be an exception to the rule?

[NukeBan]

That's exactly the point! Not a single one that returned to file a report! As mentioned there are NO exceptions and nothing ever contradicted that. It's as certain as certain can be that the dead don't come back...or is it your contention that humans, among all living creatures, may be an exception to the rule?

The point is that you prefer a particular theory about death, and so in the complete absence of any information at all from the realm of death, you choose that theory, as is your right.

What little information that does exist from the reports of near death experiences doesn't offer support for your theory. So for you, that being inconvenient information, it is ignored.

Yes, the dead don't come back. That does nothing at all to support your theory. All that tells us is that the transition from life to death is a one way street. It tells us nothing about what if anything is on the other side of the divide.

[Jklint]

What little information that does exist from the reports of near death experiences doesn't offer support for your theory. So for you, that being inconvenient information, it is ignored.

Yes, about that...

Near death is nowhere near actual death, a very fundamental difference. Also an NDE is not a prophecy of some future life as many interpret it to be but a very special experience prior to closing down. There is nothing unusual about this "format" in the process of ceasing to be. The true mystery of it lies in the brain itself and not that which is presumed to follow due to wishful thinking and jumping to conclusions deemed most favorable. Man is an animal and when animals die they're dead. With always more on the way what is the purpose of preserving it on the "other side"? No one could ever explain that without going theistic.

Not least, where would those on the "other side of the divide" go to or be at? Can you supply a single reason why the dead should in some manner still exist on the other side? If the body is dead, which is the sole reason you exist, what survives? Do you believe god is going to resurrect you because you're human while everything else defaults to dust? Good luck with that!