Hello, hard materialist camp representative :) That possibility makes sense, but I don't really know enough about the universe to be certain.
We don't know everything for sure. And we'll never know everything. But, we know enough up and down the physical stack through biology, chemistry and physics that there isn't some non-physical other going on in there. Here's where the idea of life after death really breaks down for me: If you have a degenerative disease when do you get to this afterlife? Some people have effectively died long before they die, in term…
Death is something people in my culture try not to think about much. It is considered that the dead are totally dead and gone, never to be spoken to again and spoken of with sadness and distance. People of other cultures think differently about death. Death is welcomed into the day to day life. Consciousness of death is invited, even celebrated. The dead are spoken to. This second group of people don't believe in the…
I find it really irritating when people imply that a lack of belief in spiritual nonsense demands that they must think of things, like death, in a particular way. You die, you’re gone, and that’s fine. It does not need to be spectacular. Implying otherwise is just about as inflammatory as calling the other camp’s beliefs nonsense imo.
I'm not sure what you're referring to.
I listed some things that people believe, and I listed some things to think about.
If you can point to where I made any inflammatory claims, that would help me communicate better in the future. Thanks.
Death is something people in my culture try not to think about much. It is considered that the dead are totally dead and gone, never to be spoken to again and spoken of with sadness and distance. People of other cultures think differently about death. Death is welcomed into the day to day life. Consciousness of death is invited, even celebrated. The dead are spoken to. This second group of people don't believe in the…
> So the patterns of the consciousness of any individual are actually distributed, holographically, through a community of brains. Beautifully said. Exactly matches my own perception. The width of this distribution is helped by conversations shared with people, books read together, movies watched, games played. "Common" memories. I think the momentum to write, to make art generally is driven by this instinctive intui…
Glad to have provoked a positive response. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk Hofstadter or anything else.
Almost exactly 18 months ago, my then 87 year old father, after feeling unwell and having some fluid problems with his lungs was diagnosed with stage-4 lung cancer. He turned down treatment and died at home a couple days before Christmas last year. I've come away from the experience very unhappy with the medical system. There's a long list, things that in any other industry would be prosecuted. The medical and hospic…
I miss my mother, and almost lost my dad to literally the same lung cancer. His was caused by welding. The thing is, we were poor and he was totally cured. Missing a portion of his lung, but cured. They even paid for him to change careers. From my perspective, the medical system saved my poor father.
Almost exactly 18 months ago, my then 87 year old father, after feeling unwell and having some fluid problems with his lungs was diagnosed with stage-4 lung cancer. He turned down treatment and died at home a couple days before Christmas last year. I've come away from the experience very unhappy with the medical system. There's a long list, things that in any other industry would be prosecuted. The medical and hospic…
I'd rather not go into personal detail but I share a similar experience. The thing that really drove it home for me was when I got back home and was telling my own doctor about my experience dealing with family in the medical system and she said I was mistaken or there was a misunderstanding because that kind of thing doesn't happen. I asked why she was siding with a doctor she'd never met before instead of listening…
The interesting thing I find is with COVID vaccines. How many people were lambasted for not listening to their DR?
> It may be that there was more for the medical system to do, there may not have been. I think you're mistaken if you think bane's complaint goes away if it turns out they couldn't have saved him. For one thing, bane said his father refused treatment, but still had a complaint with the hospice. The complaint with the hospice probably wouldn't be that they didn't save him from succumbing to his illness because that's…
Agreed. I am a person who would want millions spent to save my life, but despite that I take further issue with all this: people who refuse treatment are forced into a hospice because they are not allowed to choose euthanasia. You either suffer through a shit medical system, or have a needlessly painful/uncomfortable death.
> treatment are forced into a hospice because they are not allowed to choose euthanasia.
Killing babies is OK and now so is euthanasia? But suicide is used as ammunition to remove access to guns?
This is something that I see rather often in my career and I wanted to pass along one very important thing that I've learned over the years - please be sure that you have a will or an advanced directive in place. PLEASE do this. Have that difficult conversation about what steps you want taken to save your life. Do you want chest compressions? Do you want a tube inserted in your airway to assist you in breathing? Do y…
When it’s my time to go, I want to go. All of this trauma caused to family members isn’t worth it. This seems like a desperate attempt to save something that will end regardless of your actions. Property goes to the immediate next of kin in the absence of a will. A will is almost next to useless.
I'll share another story as an example. Late last year I started having trouble swallowing. It started as a discomfort, and eventually turned into trouble breathing and inability to eat solids. I went from perfectly healthy (literally ran a triathalon two months before this, and a marathon a few months before that) to unable to eat solids and bedridden within ~3 weeks. I visited the ER a total of 5 times during those…
Holy cow are you me? I haven't had as bad an experience as you either in terms of symptoms or medical care, but I'm hoping that right now I'm turning a corner, having started supplements of both of these and am feeling a lot better. The weirdest things I've been through were uncontrollable muscle spasms and numbness on half of my body, in various places. I had shingles a little while back and it seems like that side…
Not a doctor by did you try to also take magnesium? When I start to get cramps and muscle twitches a 2-4 weeks cures it completely
I'd rather not go into personal detail but I share a similar experience. The thing that really drove it home for me was when I got back home and was telling my own doctor about my experience dealing with family in the medical system and she said I was mistaken or there was a misunderstanding because that kind of thing doesn't happen. I asked why she was siding with a doctor she'd never met before instead of listening…
I'll share another story as an example. Late last year I started having trouble swallowing. It started as a discomfort, and eventually turned into trouble breathing and inability to eat solids. I went from perfectly healthy (literally ran a triathalon two months before this, and a marathon a few months before that) to unable to eat solids and bedridden within ~3 weeks. I visited the ER a total of 5 times during those…
"So this is the American medical system I am talking about. But I doubt it's really that much different elsewhere in the world " - from personal experience I would claim its a lot different in systems that aren't motivated by money. Its not just the lack of high cost, its the ability of medics to be 100% focused on clinical need rather than money. In my case, I got an issue looked at whilst in the USA. Got sent possibly to the wrong specialist who completely failed to diagnose the problem but was to my mind arrogant and unable to see where their knowledge ended. Eventually back in UK got it sorted on the NHS, the consultant was honest and humble, he started with, "I really don't know what this is yet but we can whittle it down by doing this check and that". In the end, after a few false starts doing the simplest checks first, he methodically found the problem and sorted it. Been fine since. Of course sadly the NHS is now on its knees due to deliberate under-funding by current UK government who would love to privatise the lot. But I'd argue , everyone needs to fight the so-called "American model" of healthcare which other countries are trying to copy. I don't believe profit motives and treating ill people, work well together, at least not in most cases.
We also have a lot of data on ways to reduce cancer before it happens. Reduce obesity. Reduce pollution. Etc. Yet we really aren't doing an awful lot about those things. Imagine for example if we had an obesity tax - everyone obese must pay 30% of their earnings into a Medicare fund. Sure it would be unpopular, but obesity would very quickly be solved, and cancer rates would plummet.
I know we want to believe it was somehow a blame or fault of someone who develops cancer. The reality is I've seen unhealthy people never get cancer and healthy people, children even, who get cancer. No one is to blame for getting cancer.
Well, possibly polluters are to blame? Amongst developed countries, seems like USA stands out as having had a pretty cavalier attitude for decades about polluting land and water with carcinogens, allowing all sorts of cr*p in food etc. The reactive attitude "we'll permit this chemical until we run into any problems with it". vs the EU's "this chemical is suspect , so banned until we find clear evidence that it isn't dangerous". Of course EU not perfect either, plenty of scare stories in other places too. But the attitude in the USA baffles me, why isn't there more public pressure to reduce exposure to dangerous chemicals. is it just people are uniformed, or they think lets just dump it in a poor area or something.... ?