John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

Post by beams » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 3:45 AM UTC

tasty_freeze wrote: post #38

koboll wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bitterly true but also profoundly, maddeningly, horrifically sad. Death is monstrous. We can do better. We have to do better. And it's tragic that we probably will but everyone alive today will probably miss that chance by a sliver. We happened to be born 99% of the way from the beginning of humankind to the end of death, but we just barely missed it.

I love ice cream. But if I had to eat a billion gallons of it, it would lose its appeal. Life is like that too: if we had it in infinite supply, it wouldn't have much value. If I could extend my life by 50 years of good health I might take that offer. If I had to extend it by 500 years, I'm pretty sure I'd decline. If I had to extend it 5000 years I'd certainly say no. 5M years of existence would be torture. When peo…

Post by Razengan » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 3:59 AM UTC

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #3

Live life for its own sake. The gift of life is life itself. What's the alternative? Twice in my life I've grasped the concept of death, and it made my heart race with an exhilarating feeling of suffocating claustrophobic for two reasons: 1. It's coming for me one day 2. Not just the lack of agency in the universe, but the lack of even the realisation of the lack of agency. All of this (wide sweeping hand gesture ack…

Post by llamaz » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:08 AM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #36

> Don't live in an imagined future. Congratulations, dear philosopher. "Living in imagined future" is called motivation. You just told people that they shouldn't have any motivation beyond primitive impulses (hunger, fear, lust) such as those found in a cat. I'm not sure this is good advice for humans, however.

Post by m0zg » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:30 AM UTC

llamaz wrote: post #45

m0zg wrote: post #36

> Don't live in an imagined future. Congratulations, dear philosopher. "Living in imagined future" is called motivation. You just told people that they shouldn't have any motivation beyond primitive impulses (hunger, fear, lust) such as those found in a cat. I'm not sure this is good advice for humans, however.

You certainly seem to have a good understanding of how provocative his philosophy is. He doesn't believe that history is leading anywhere, that there's moral progress. He believes that in the future slavery might return because history is cyclical and a result of a corrupt human nature that has not changed for thousands of years. That means genocides, racism, etc are here to stay and whatever progress we've made is a…

Post by IggleSniggle » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:52 AM UTC

lccarrasco wrote: post #15

polishdude20 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think death is at the heart of what makes life worth it and enjoyable. Imagine, at the extreme, we find a cure for death. What happens then? Overpopulation at the simplest. I can see how this can quickly lead to life being worse than death if played out to the extreme.

I believe that the cure for death would not be distributed evenly at first, and by the time everyone has access to it, there are two options: 1.- We haven't solved the problems caused by overpopulation, and in that case standards of living will drop and people will either have less children or choose to end their lives voluntarily. 2.- We have solved them and there is no longer any issue.