In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011 • Hacker News Board

Re: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

#211

Post by xpaulbettsx » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 7:35 PM UTC

bostonpete wrote: post #133

brudgers wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vonnegut on wishing a person was in heaven: "I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that functionless capacity. We Humanists try to behave well without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. We serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community. We h…

In case anyone cares... I was curious about the source of this quote and did a quick search. Although I found this exact quote many places on the web, the only source I could find in an KV book was in God Bless You, Dr Kevorkian, which (according to Amazon's "search inside", looks something like this): I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great, spectacularly prolif…

FWIW, I heard him speak at Ohio State and he told this joke as well.

Re: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

#212

Post by anamax » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 11:32 PM UTC

itmag wrote: post #208

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe it's the other way 'round. Perhaps they chose a sensible system because they are rational, compassionate and civilized people. Come to think of it, that seems more likely now.

This is not really true. Only 100-70 years ago Sweden was a very classist society with quite severe internal conflicts (workers were gunned down by the military in an incident in the 30s for instance). In the 17th century Sweden was an imperialist country dedicated to the bloody wars of several ambitious kings (Gustav II, Karl XII, etc). Supposedly some people in Germany still warn their kids of the Swedes... So my p…

And during that time, were Swedes productive and so on?

If so, that's evidence for the "Swedes can make any system work" theory.

Re: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

#213

Post by prodigal_erik » Sun, Dec 18, 2011, 6:15 AM UTC

chalst wrote: post #194

staunch wrote: post #11

Too short, but he won at life.

62 years is OK for someone who burned the candle of his life at both ends the way he did.

"... and found it gave a lovely light", in his words.

Re: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

#214

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sun, Dec 18, 2011, 1:57 PM UTC

ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #177

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comeback? As an honest question, maybe it deserves an answer. I mean, sure tongue in cheek, but any cookie-cutter idea of heaven is bound to leave some cold. So if you dislike your family, then Mormonism isn't for you?

> So if you dislike your family, then Mormonism isn't for you? Yeah, pretty much. Edit: OK, that was unnecessarily flippant. I personally never heard that statement as an honest question, only as a ha-ha-only-serious comeback. It turns out that all the people I met who didn't like their families felt bad about it, and realized it wasn't the way things should be.

WOw, that's a good answer. It even feels right. I'm not kidding, and thanks for your response on such a touchy issue.

Re: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

#215

Post by nske » Sun, Dec 18, 2011, 3:36 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #207

Tloewald wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a lot of assumptions there. The idea that there are finite number of possible thoughts is highly improbable given the number of things there aren't finite numbers of. If you argue from a base mechanics point of view (e.g. Your brain is basically a hard drive with n bits of storage an thus can only enter 2^n states) then you're assuming that in this hypothetical afterlife your physical limitations are ma…

What do you call someone who is closed to the possibility that a plausible religion might exist? I consider myself an atheist and I find the term "plausible religion" to be inherently contradictory. If it's plausible then it's no longer religion. Much like how "alternative medicine" that works becomes simply "medicine", religion that is plausible (as in, there's actually some reason to think it might be true) simply…

hm, what if, let's say, someone came and started doing so-called miracles -raising people from the dead and such. If you witnessed first-hand those miracles in a way that left no room to doubt their validity (i.e., they were done in a controlled environment) and you were completely certain they could not be justified by current scientific understanding, wouldn't it be likely to take the leap and consider his claims plausible (provided, at least, they had internal consistency)?

If so, then one would only need to demonstrate a sufficiently impressive failure of current scientific understanding to account for some events that would appear to be caused by his actions, in order to push what would be considered a plausible religion.

Re: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

#216

Post by maxharris » Sun, Dec 18, 2011, 3:55 PM UTC

aaronmorey wrote: post #127

super_mario wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who knew Hitchens knows that "heaven" as depicted by cristianity is a "celestial North Korea, where the sole purpose is to praise the dear leader incessantly, compelled to love someone you fear (essence of sadomasochism). You'd think the Lord himself would get bored of this after a couple of billion years"... So, wishing him in heaven from another atheist as you say you are is really saying you don't know much…

Hitchens never seemed to understand that "North Korea" isn't the Christian conception of heaven. To wish for him to be surrounded for all eternity by those he loves most, in the presence of the source of all love, truth and beauty... I think that's something we'd all like to experience along with him. Edit: Unclear phrasing

The source of all love, truth and beauty is the human mind's interaction with the actual world around it. Conciousness arises from the particular way matter is arranged in the brain, and it ceases to exist when the brain does.

I agree that love, truth and beauty are not simply reducible to matter alone. But that does not mean they have a mystical or otherworldly basis either: invoking supernatural explanations to explain software is obviously foolish, but trying to explain software in terms of atoms gets you nowhere.

This is why I reject both supernatural/mystical/religious and materialist positions. The earlier is conceptually flawed because it rejects or denigrates the physical world (at least in part), and the latter is just as flawed because it rejects the conceptual framework necessary to fully understand phenomena outside of the special sciences. Both camps claim that love, morality, etc. do not have much (if anything) to do with reason and reality.

Re: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

#217

Post by mikeash » Sun, Dec 18, 2011, 5:43 PM UTC

nske wrote: post #215

mikeash wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you call someone who is closed to the possibility that a plausible religion might exist? I consider myself an atheist and I find the term "plausible religion" to be inherently contradictory. If it's plausible then it's no longer religion. Much like how "alternative medicine" that works becomes simply "medicine", religion that is plausible (as in, there's actually some reason to think it might be true) simply…

hm, what if, let's say, someone came and started doing so-called miracles -raising people from the dead and such. If you witnessed first-hand those miracles in a way that left no room to doubt their validity (i.e., they were done in a controlled environment) and you were completely certain they could not be justified by current scientific understanding, wouldn't it be likely to take the leap and consider his claims p…

If those miracles occurred and were scientifically verifiable as you say, then they become part of science, not religion. Certainly it may throw a lot of existing science into doubt, but that's what science is all about. If we can test and verify those miracles then they aren't religion anymore, and the people who are going to provide the explanations for how the miracles work and what they can do won't be priests, they'll be scientists.

Re: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

#218

Post by lsparrish » Sun, Dec 18, 2011, 6:19 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #175

VMG wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He went in for cancer treatment, so he clearly wanted to avoid death, which is what the essay is about.

Going in for cancer treatment does not imply a philosophical commitment to human immortality. You people are the new Randroids.

Um. Why doesn't it?

Because when you think about it, that's a surprising thing about humans in general. Why do people who do not believe in immortality (as an ideal, I'm saying) still go in for cancer treatment?

Re: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

#219

Post by lsparrish » Sun, Dec 18, 2011, 6:31 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #40

robertk wrote: post #8

We shall have to work faster. http://yudkowsky.net/other/yehuda

You know, I think it's really distasteful that you people use the deaths of people who probably wouldn't have even agreed with the message of that essay to promote the ideas in that essay.

How are you assigning the probability here? Some of his arguments (which are actually standard pro-atheism arguments) seem to be based on life extension, i.e. science leads to longer lifespans therefore it is superior to religion.

His dismissal of cryonics is well known (and deeply tragic in my opinion), but he has not to my knowledge taken the position that everyone should, morally or philosophically, have a duty to die by the time they hit age 120 or so, or that there is such a thing as a "natural lifespan" towards which we are obliged.

Re: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

#220

Post by lsparrish » Sun, Dec 18, 2011, 7:22 PM UTC

Confusion wrote: post #101

VMG wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that even mean?

That would mean the goal is not escaping death per se. The goal could be escaping a painful death or particular kind of death. There was a hint of a false dilemma.

I doubt it was specifically the painfulness of the particular death that he was trying to escape (by that particular action), as cancer treatment itself is painful. It seems to me more likely he was trying to escape preventable death, which is a broad category that could (but in Hitchens' mind probably did not) include aging itself.

I think the supposition that he saw death from aging as unpreventable is supported by his lack of explicit advocacy for anti-aging research and by his public dismissal of cryonics. But that's probably because the current evidence is too fuzzy. We don't have the ability to bring back a cryonics patient, and we do know the damage involved in preserving them is non-negligible.

If he actually saw reversible human cryopreservation in action, with negligible damage, I doubt he would have abstained from taking a ten or twenty year jaunt to the future to see if they have a better treatment available for his cancer, or any other disease of aging.