Actually, Kant had a decent refutation for Descartes. He (K) asserted that Descartes' leap from cogito to sum was invalid -- and that rather than "I think, therefore I am", it should be "I think, therefore thinking is occurring". The act of being is not necessarily entailed in thinking.
Living forever isn't all it's cracked up to be. I've had the conversation with a couple of people (so my results are purely anecdotal and should be interpreted as such), and it's my experience that people don't really think about just how long *forever* is. Imagine living for just 150 years. Pretty much everyone you've known is going to be dead. You'll have the opportunity to meet new people, sure, but if you know that all the people you'll ever meet will be lost to you at some point (when they die), what's the incentive to live forever?
Even assuming that you could do some good in the world, which isn't given at all, eventually the Sun will expand and all life on Earth will die. Then the planet might get struck by some huge meteor and you'd be floating out in the vastness of space until *time itself* came to an end. Doesn't sound that great to me.
I'd much rather take the limited amount of time that I have to try to improve my life and the lives of those people that I love. I know that every atom in my body was once a part of a star, and I like the idea that eventually I'll be returned to that state. Just makes everyday life much more enjoyable, and meaningful, to embrace your finitude.
I definitely agree. I'm not so sure that you'd be able to reason properly without fear, though. I can't remember the specifics, but I read a case a couple years ago about test subjects who through some kind of brain injury had lost the ability to feel emotion. They were not only emotionally numbed, but also logically and rationally impaired.
Here's a site devoted to more-or-less the same thing.
"'In Animals in Translation, Grandin and Johnson write: "We humans tend to think of emotions as dangerous forces that need to be strictly controlled by reason and logic. But that's not how the brain works. In the brain logic and reason are never separate from emotion. Even nonsense syllables have an emotional charge, either positive or negative. Nothing is neutral.'"
Granted, this is based on the assumption that fear is a functionally similar psychological/physiochemical response to say, grief and joy, but I could definitely see how you might begin to argue that without the ability to feel fear, you'd lose some of that rational cognitive ability as well.
Slashdot Mirror
"I took the time to say you are wrong but I'm far too busy to look up factual evidence."
FTFY.
Cue "I took the time to correct the grammar of an AC but I'm far too chicken to void my mods."
Actually, Kant had a decent refutation for Descartes. He (K) asserted that Descartes' leap from cogito to sum was invalid -- and that rather than "I think, therefore I am", it should be "I think, therefore thinking is occurring". The act of being is not necessarily entailed in thinking.
See the case against the cogito here .
Living forever isn't all it's cracked up to be. I've had the conversation with a couple of people (so my results are purely anecdotal and should be interpreted as such), and it's my experience that people don't really think about just how long *forever* is. Imagine living for just 150 years. Pretty much everyone you've known is going to be dead. You'll have the opportunity to meet new people, sure, but if you know that all the people you'll ever meet will be lost to you at some point (when they die), what's the incentive to live forever?
Even assuming that you could do some good in the world, which isn't given at all, eventually the Sun will expand and all life on Earth will die. Then the planet might get struck by some huge meteor and you'd be floating out in the vastness of space until *time itself* came to an end. Doesn't sound that great to me.
I'd much rather take the limited amount of time that I have to try to improve my life and the lives of those people that I love. I know that every atom in my body was once a part of a star, and I like the idea that eventually I'll be returned to that state. Just makes everyday life much more enjoyable, and meaningful, to embrace your finitude.
removing mods, sorry!
I definitely agree. I'm not so sure that you'd be able to reason properly without fear, though. I can't remember the specifics, but I read a case a couple years ago about test subjects who through some kind of brain injury had lost the ability to feel emotion. They were not only emotionally numbed, but also logically and rationally impaired.
Here's a site devoted to more-or-less the same thing.
"'In Animals in Translation, Grandin and Johnson write: "We humans tend to think of emotions as dangerous forces that need to be strictly controlled by reason and logic. But that's not how the brain works. In the brain logic and reason are never separate from emotion. Even nonsense syllables have an emotional charge, either positive or negative. Nothing is neutral.'"
Granted, this is based on the assumption that fear is a functionally similar psychological/physiochemical response to say, grief and joy, but I could definitely see how you might begin to argue that without the ability to feel fear, you'd lose some of that rational cognitive ability as well.
Maybe eventually we can make language a complete impediment to understanding.
If there's nothing wrong with me, maybe there's something wrong with the universe!
Quality summary. Mod up +1 Interesting +1 Informative!