Eternal Life? You Might Want To Rethink That...

Started by Solomon Zorn, July 05, 2017, 06:12:57 AM

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Baruch

Quote from: trdsf on July 06, 2017, 12:49:14 PM
Any eternal afterlife that doesn't involve cruising the multiverse unfettered by the laws of physics so I can see everything there is to see is not an afterlife I have any interest in.  There's no point in being a disembodied spirit if I can't poke my ghostly head inside an event horizon and see what's going on in there, and then move on to watching Betelgeuse or η Carinæ go supernova from one of their outer planets (if they have any) and then off to observe other sentient life forms elsewhere in the galaxy/universe.

If I can't do that, then I'll take oblivion, thanks.

Clearly you are an astronomer ;-)  But I suspect, any life is like this one ... mostly stuff you get no choice in, some stuff you do, and confusion as to if you had any real free will or not!
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: SGOS on July 06, 2017, 11:56:23 AM
In my early 20s, I had a similar experience with my dad.  We paddled his canoe into Ontario's Quetico Canoe Area starting from the northeast tip of Minnesota.  I drove back to Chicago from Montana to make the trip with him.  It was in early may a week after the ice left the lakes.  We paddled 100 miles and made 20 portages and had the place to ourselves.  Only saw a couple of other canoes at the very beginning and the very end.  We encountered similar blows.  On the first one, which wasn't as bad as the second, we got caught out on one of the bigger lakes of the journey and with the wind at our backs, we rigged a small sail out of a tarp and canoe paddles.  We made extraordinarily good time, but finally threw in the towel when we made it to a small peninsula early in the day and decided it was safer to make camp for the night.  I wouldn't say it wasn't dangerous.  I was pretty nervous during the ride.

The second blow was much worse.  Again we were caught out in the middle of the lake, and knew right away we were in a bad place.  We managed to make it to an island gravel bar still quite away from shore, and held up until the sun went down and the winds subsided.  My dad always wanted to try paddling at night.  He had read somewhere that the French Voyageurs often traveled that way guiding themselves by the north star.  So on a glassy calm, we started out in the dark.  I don't think the stars were necessary, but we kind of pretended that they were.  While we didn't have a time when we needed to get back to Chicago, it was nearing the end of our trip and we had made arrangements for a launch on the next day that was to save us an extra 20 miles of paddling across American waters and take us the final distance to our car.

We paddled until about 4:00 in the morning and found shelter at an unused cabin in a quiet bay.  My dad was in the bow, and told me he couldn't stay awake so he stopped paddling and fell asleep.  So much for the voyageurs fantasy.   I didn't mind.  I was having a good time and paddled us for the last 4 or 5 miles.

As it turned out the next day, the launch wasn't there at the appointed time when we arrived.  So we paddled the rest of the way, thinking we might meet the launch along our route.  I can't remember.  It might have been another 10 or 20 miles.  When we got to the takeout point, the outfitter that ran the thing told us he had simply forgot to get us.  I didn't care, nor did my dad.

On that trip we did the freeze dried food thing like you did.  We also supplemented it with some items from the grocery store that lent themselves to light weight.  One of them was powdered omelets, made by the Borden Dairy Company.  They were quite tasty and we ate a lot of those, but I don't think they make them anymore as most cooks at home just use regular eggs, but on the trip, they were delicious.  We also paid out for one special freeze dry meal; It was pork chops, peas, and some kind of potato serving a bit more glamorous than hash browns.  The meal was not the standard freeze dry goulash, but actual pork chops without the bone.  Out of the package, they were a good size but resembled something made out of cork.  They could be reconstituted with hot water and a small package of something labeled "pork enzyme."  Once that was done, they could be fried like a regular pork chop.  The meal also came with peas.  It was all delicious, but the potatoes were really something special.  I can't remember potatoes that good since.  The rest of the trip, we ate the usual freeze dry goulash like chicken and rice and beef stroganoff.

We also brought with us a reflector oven made out of aluminum, and it worked surprisingly well.  We baked corn bread, and biscuits, and I even made a coffee cake out of plain old Bisquick topped with a crusty brown sugar glaze.  We also had one of those plastic squeeze bottles of honey that my dad turned up his nose at when I bought it.  He thought it wasn't appropriate enough for light weight, but he admitted later that it was a welcomed luxury on the biscuits and cornbread.

That trip was one that stands out in memory, and it was the last such experience I shared with my father.

Outstanding!  You had better freeze-dried food than we did.  Chicken Tetrazinni was more like a smootie, the spaghetti and meatballs were mush, and there never was anything we could actually call meat.  In fact, if we had sampled the stuff before we went, we probably would have just brought 6 cases of beer and bags of pretzels?.

Astronauts wouldn't have made it to the moon on that stuff.  And we had these weak little "white gas" tubes that could heat water enough to melt the freeze-dry stuff in as little as 15 minutes! 

The most profound memory though, was the huge mosquitoes that blanketed the net front of the tent.  They looked like wasps.  We peed in a pot at night rather than leave the tent.   

Your canoe journey sounds more perilous than mine.  I was good at the stern and could control the canoe.  My friend might as well have been paddling with a flyswatter for all the good he was.  But at least he didn't tip us over again.  He didn't even have decent rain gear. 

A typical case of mismatched skills.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Unbeliever

Quote from: Solomon Zorn on July 05, 2017, 11:35:50 PM
I am an American, schizophrenic, atheist, high-school dropout, with an alcohol dependency, and...well...name your preconceived bias.

Jeez, where have you been all my life? You're the man of my dreams/nightmares!

QuoteAll praise to...?
The Glorious Quantum Foam!
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Unbeliever on July 06, 2017, 05:04:39 PM
Jeez, where have you been all my life? You're the man of my dreams/nightmares!
The Glorious Quantum Foam!

But does quantum foam clean the grout in your shower?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh0OdgjOdDk
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

fencerider

Quote from: Baruch on July 06, 2017, 01:23:44 AM
Zen is quite clear ... if you can think it, write it or say it ... then it is an impediment to real enlightenment.
that leaves only eatin and poopin
"Do you believe in god?", is not a proper English sentence. Unless you believe that, "Do you believe in apple?", is a proper English sentence.

Baruch

Quote from: fencerider on July 07, 2017, 01:29:29 AM
that leaves only eatin and poopin

Said like a Zen master.  If you need to eat, eat ... and do it with complete self awareness and situational awareness.  Similarly with poopin.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Cavebear on July 06, 2017, 08:02:06 AM
Time does not pass for me.  I still feel 35 and it seems I retired "last year".  I think I could live forever (if in decent health) and not notice.  Just call me "Cavebear Lazarus Long Somelastname"...
Lazarus Long--had not thought about him in awhile. Woodrow Wilson Smith did have an interesting life.  And he may still be alive--I don't remember reading of his death.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Solomon Zorn

#52
"We have no past we won't reach back
Keep with me forward all through the night
And once we start the meter clicks
And it goes running all through the night
Until it ends there is no end..."

-Jules Shear


That stanza, to me, is pretty much "life in a nutshell." Possibly the most beautiful song of all time - sung by Cyndi Lauper.


If God Exists, Why Does He Pretend Not to Exist?
Poetry and Proverbs of the Uneducated Hick

http://www.solomonzorn.com

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: Mike Cl on July 07, 2017, 01:10:40 PM
Lazarus Long--had not thought about him in awhile. Woodrow Wilson Smith did have an interesting life.  And he may still be alive--I don't remember reading of his death.
Nathan Brazil out did him.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Cavebear

Oh man, would I love to see Lazarus Long and Nathan Brazil meet each other!  It would either be sad Bros or who shot first...

I don't often mix my sci-fi universes, but that would be SOMETHING!
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!