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At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

theguardian.com

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Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#251

Post by Smaug123 »

podgaj wrote: post #241
Smaug123 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You made the stronger claim that I am not my mind either, though. You do have to identify as something in order to come to that conclusion.

Ha! The identification is the delusion we are all afflicted with! If you were your body why can't you tell it to live forever?

… I don't know how to respond. Mu, I guess? As I see it, you are mixing several senses of the word "to be", and the resulting question is meaningless.

The pattern of my mind is physically instantiated (as all the ten thousand things are), and it happens to be so instantiated on a brain. That brain is housed in a body. The pattern can direct the shape and properties of the body only to a limited extent: there are heavy restrictions which happen to constrain the power that pattern (or rather, its particular instantiation on this particular brain) has over the body. (We call these restrictions "biology".) I could no more order my body to become immortal than I could order the ocean waves to stand still: they are both governed by the same laws of physics over which I have almost no control. I could probably make my body immortal by some sufficiently clever manipulation of the world (possibly involving waves hands wildly nanobots), but the brain did not come pre-packaged with high-fidelity fine-grained control over its environment; the pattern can interact with the world only by flapping around bits of meat, and these are a very blunt instrument, highly unsuitable for difficult tasks like "reverse entropy in this region of space".

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#252

Post by [deleted] »

emerged wrote: post #95
kyuudou wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some nearby introverts quietly disagree then dream of hiking in the mountains in nature. I guess that's a relationship of sorts.

I've never really liked platitudes like "family is everything" and "nothing matters without relationships" -- they don't seem to come from a good place. People who lack these things may enjoy their lives every bit as much, what's the point of denigrating their life?

[deleted]

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#253

Post by jcims »

profinger wrote: post #250
jcims wrote: post #149

My wife passed this year from cancer. Looking back we had no idea how close we were to the end, and in the last few weeks her beautiful mind was influenced by the disease. I’m sure someone on HN is going through this at least adjacently and my recommendation is to not wait to the end to have important conversations. For those that aren’t going through this now, maybe for a little while live life like you are...it mig…

I just want to say I'm really sorry for everything you're going through. Life sucks overall right now so I can't imagine adding what you and your family are going through. I assume you and your daughter have a good relationship based on the situation but, if not, I'd try to be as vulnerable with each other as you can manage. It'll really help turn you guys into support structures for each other which is really helpfu…

Thank you for the kind thoughts and words, and I totally agree with your recommendation. It’s going to take some time, but we’re moving in the right direction.

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#254

Post by auslegung »

ghoomketu wrote: post #234

My great fear is not dying but leaving the people behind who depend on me. I mean as the only earning member of my family the scariest post part about dying is what will happen to family. I don't have a big life insurance and not a lot of savings. So it gives me chills that my wife and daughter will have to fend for themselves or live a lesser life should I cease to exist suddenly one day.

I really hope you can get enough life insurance for cheap, it will set your mind at ease. https://www.zanderins.com. The rule I've heard is get 10-12 times your income. If you're making 60k/year, that's 600,000 - 720,000 in insurance, which for a young-ish healthy-ish person is cheaper than most people expect.

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#255

Post by dang »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #17
biolurker1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the argument is this: certain death vs a miniscule one in a quadrillion chance or lower. It will always tilt the other way no matter what the current scientific status quo is saying because it's possible in theory and it has happened to living organisms before just not humans. Whether it's good for environment, your siblings pocket etc is not part of the core argument.

Sound just like the argument for the worship of god.

Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents, especially generic flamewar tangents.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#256

Post by dang »

biolurker1 wrote: post #38
heavenlyblue wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sound just like the argument for the worship of god.

Organisms have survived thousands of years frozen. God doesn't exist scientifically.

No religious flamewar on HN, please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#257

Post by dang »

Talanes wrote: post #191
podgaj wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How do you conflate not existing before birth to not existing after death?" How can you not? Do you remember what it was like before you were born? Do you know of anyone who told you what it is like to be dead? If we do not know what death is how do we know what life is? We only know it by it's external appearance, which really tells us nothing. I am not an existentialist or a nihilist, I am a Daoist who is indeed o…

How can you escape the cycle of birth and death if you can't even escape high-school level philosophical debate?

Please don't perpetuate flamewars on HN and please don't do personal attacks.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#259

Post by dmerks »

jcims wrote: post #221
yodsanklai wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It took a little over a month for "Dad's acting funny again" to turn into "Dad died last night". I lost my mother from lung cancer so I can relate. My dad on the other hand died without notice. I got a message on my phone one day when I was at work. It was a cop from my father's town. They didn't tell me why they were calling, but I knew something happened to my father because he was living on the edge. I took the…

I agree. I got a similar call that my dad was killed at work when I was in my early 20s. Due to the circumstances I'm not convinced it wasn't intentional on his part, and in some odd ways I get a bit of relief from that. It was devastating to me, but watching my wife and the mother of my children go through a tortuous 26 months of treatments, unrelenting pain, cycles of hope and despair, various indignities and ultim…

Similarly, the despair and agony is really what hit me most. Last autumn, my father began experiencing occasional cramps in one leg after a regular 75k bike ride. During the following month, the pain gradually spread throughout his body and increased in frequency, seemingly for no apparent reason, based on medical tests and scans. He slowly stopped eating as his body was being consumed day and night: he lost healthy weight at a rate of one pound per day. As muscle weakness spread and as he lost his faculty to walk, he grew steadily delirious with pain and lack of sleep. By the 1st of December, he was in hospital full time undergoing a barrage of tests to no avail; a diagnosis of ALS was given mid-month. During the following week, he spoke his last words. In the throes of his body collapsing, he would tear out IV and catheter. At the rate at which his situation was deteriorating, feeding tube and intubation coupled with restraints appeared cruel. He passed before the end of the year.

Re: At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on

#260

Post by mbar84 »

apricot wrote: post #200
esemor wrote: post #109

”But everybody dies, and there will always be places and experiences missing from anyone’s life – the world has too much beauty and adventure for one person to see.” Damn gut punch...

I remember precisely when I had this particular epiphany. I was 12 years old, in love with books, and thanks to my parents who had signed a form, I had just gotten my first library card for the real (read: non-kiddie) section of the public library. Awed by the sheer number of tall bookshelves, intoxicated by the library smell and my newfound source of knowledge, I asked the librarian how many books they had, she said…

Opportunity cost.
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