I never thought about death, until I was dying. Let me elaborate. Little less than a couple years ago, I was completely healthy (as far as I knew, no co-morbidities that old folk get and so forth) when I had a massive MI. Complete blockage to the left main aortic artery. Heart stoppage usually happens and then relatives make arrangements for the “departed”. I was not that lucky. While waiting for ambulance, then being worked on, then in the emergency room, I remained *completely* conscious. I simply thought, “When will I pass out and this will all be over?”—nothing very profound. Never happened (obviously). However, as I remember there was no fear of death—pain and discomfort—yes. Within an hour or so, I was in the OR and the blockage was removed. Two days later, I was discharged. Go and sin no more. 😇
As I think about the incident, I wonder if my MI event was of such a surprise that I had no time to think of the end of mortality or whether I had the blessing of not being very fearful of, or concerned with, death. I guess I’ll see if—no when, this occurs again.
Reading today’s missive, I can’t help thinking of the old refrain, “…a coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one…”. OK, coward is a bit of a pejorative, but the word “fearful” can be substituted without loss of meaning in this case.
I'm curious as to whether you had any thoughts of your impact (legacy) post-mortem? Perhaps family members (nieces and nephews, if not son/s and daughter/s) who might benefit from your wisdom and remember you fondly, or members of society, like children at school, on the sports field, maybe a music room?
It's a contrafactual, but I would expect that that would occur to me in such a moment. I like to think that made my mother's and father's passings better for them.
If you are responding to me, I must admit I had no such thoughts. Perhaps I should have added that I and wife have been blessed with a truly great life—nothing fancy or exciting, but comfortable and fruitful. We are those “damn Boomers” you hear about these days—admittedly given a life better than we deserve, which has produced a more spiritual reflection in our lives. How else, except Providence, explains our good fortune in a world where such is so rare?
That the world has need of me or will remember me is a thought I gave up a long time ago. Three generations is all most of us can count on to remember our short stay here, then I join the rest of humanity in forgetfulness.
Retirement has been easier on us (I and wife) than for most these days. There are no monetary issues. Children are well along in their careers and earn more money than wife and I ever did. My (infrequent) discussion with family has always been, ironically, along the line that the heart attack “is your friend”. This is not arrogance (I hope), simply an understanding derived from my experience with others dying and the process they went through.
Imagine people of general good health deteriorating through some disease. Even worse, a mental disease where the mind is lost, but the body soldiers on for some indeterminate time. I’ve witnessed all. Come to think of it, I’ve never had a close relation with anyone who died a sudden death, rather the opposite—prolonged illness and progressive incapacity/deterioration until the end. We are not talking about one or two people, but everyone. Yes, everyone I’ve been close to or directly acquainted with. All had deaths that I’d not choose for an enemy.
This is not so unusual, then, since your life is fulfilled. :)
Although many (most?) might change their definitions as reality approaches, the idea that medicine has progressed so far as to extend life without extending its quality, it is no wonder than Voluntary Assisted Dying has become a popular movement.
You seem to have had no thoughts on legacy since you have already put such thoughts to bed, long ago. ;-) All that was left, having successfully concluded this life, was to contemplate what, if anything, was next.
PS Boomers have been blessed because their parents gave up their indulgences and even some necessities in order to give their children a better life. It is only the ignorance of recent generations that can sanction any ill-will towards Boomers.
Such cool comments suggest that you can advise on what I should write next. Something on cultural indecision between highly hypothetical life extension tech and the proven life-shortening effects of AI-guided munitions? Or something on the idea that philosophy should always be free. How did we let Big Academic Publishing make disseminating philosophical ideas so expensive?
At a party, recently, some of my interlocutors were surprised at my conversation. I happily informed one that my topics were the same whether at the party, at lunch, or even in a queue for some other entertainment.
Everyone is a philosopher, since they all have to navigate this existence and develop strategies and heuristics to do so.
Beautiful article. I was thinking about the irony of his diagnosis and hoping that it helps him to perhaps take a spiritual route to immortality instead of a bio-hacking one. After all, we are 93% stardust.
Even a few more generations of being remembered after death is fleeting. We remember almost no one, there is a lot of luck and randomness in that, and we remember those inaccurately. It is very Norse and heroic-sounding to invest in great deeds that will be remembered, but it doesn't happen. Whoever the original model for Beowulf was, others who fought with him were more heroic but are long forgotten. Invest in something eternal - I think the Christian God is the best bet, myself - or in the moment. The other stations up the track are written on the schedule, but if the train lets you off there, you find there is no settlement nearby. "The Great Divorce" captures the spirit of this well.
I'm signed up for Cryonics - thus granting a *chance* (not a guarantee) at seeing where all of this mess we're in today ends up... And, maybe, getting a chance to visit those other planets one day.
I don't see why there needs to be a tradeoff between creating a legacy and continuing to live. Gates has already created a massive legacy and he's still very much alive. He can keep living, or he can not, his legacy will live on; that's how I'd like this experiment called 'life' to go.
I'm interested in the betting approach you take to the future. If you are choosing how to allocate resources isn't it better to go for digital immortality. Your digital future self can easily go to Mars. Not sure I'd want to spend much sending my decaying biological husk to the red planet. .
It's entirely possible that future humans don't develop the tech to reverse the damage done by the imperfect vitrification process that today's Cryonics procedures use. Maybe, even with nanotech, quantum computers, amazing AI, and all the rest, it's just not possible.
In that case, maybe digital uploading is all we can get.
If so, then I'd take the digital approach. But I still think of it as a fallback or a "nice to have on the side" if the wetware version doesn't work out.
"suggests that our lives improve when we stop treating mortality as a problem awaiting a solution, and recognise it as the condition that gives authenticity and meaning to our lives"
Heidegger, especially younger Heidegger, also lived in a time where radical life extension was at best some vague ultra fiction where we barely had proper medicine for anything. Even much of everyday normal surgery and medicine today was science fiction when he was young.
For almost all of human history, living in material poverty was a certainty, until capitalism. Anyone back then who suggested we would soon be able to barely work (yes, not just surviving, but thriving, while working 20-40 hours per week) while literally having every service thinkable available would call be seen as a lunatic.
Autoimmune gastritis is barely an issue and doesn't lower life expectancy (even untreated). The gloat from religious death cultists over him being diagnosed with it is weird.
Biological aging is a in process where your body becomes frailer: you’ll have less vitality, energy, liveliness and endurance every year. Your mental faculties gradually slow down and blunt. And then the risks of disease and injury rise, until you’re dead.
You’re putting on a pedestal a tired trope that this degrading process somehow gives meaning to life. Maybe this is understandable cultural adaptation and even mentally healthy on an individual level, but civilizationally it’s sad fatalistic groupthink, a kind of cultural learned helplessness. If finality of life is so great, why not get AIDS or cancer while you’re at it? If only half of people by a coin flip had this condition of iterative diminution, we would rightly treat it as not just the greatest medical priority, but likely the greatest goal for humanity to strive for.
Yeah, Johnson might have failed, and what does that teach us? Every year about a hundred billion is spent globally on cancer research alone, but a paltry few or so on anti-aging research. This is fucking insane. Cancer, like most causes of death, is mostly downstream from aging – and we’re collectively not even that curious why naked mole-rats don’t seem to age much at all, or why bowhead whales mog us with their vampire-like couple-hundred-year lifespans. We’re not all that interested whether science and medicine could at least slow down the actual thing that chips away at us.
Sorry if this rant comes too strong, but I pattern-match this to what anti-aging themes often elicit in articulate people: trite wisdom-signaling cautionary tales about how we must submit to increasing physical and mental frailty and not even try.
What could Johnson teach us? That we need millions more like him.
Seems to me that humanity would be better off if we stopped listening to and following people with Cluster B personality disorders. The man even harvested blood from his teen-age son.
I never thought about death, until I was dying. Let me elaborate. Little less than a couple years ago, I was completely healthy (as far as I knew, no co-morbidities that old folk get and so forth) when I had a massive MI. Complete blockage to the left main aortic artery. Heart stoppage usually happens and then relatives make arrangements for the “departed”. I was not that lucky. While waiting for ambulance, then being worked on, then in the emergency room, I remained *completely* conscious. I simply thought, “When will I pass out and this will all be over?”—nothing very profound. Never happened (obviously). However, as I remember there was no fear of death—pain and discomfort—yes. Within an hour or so, I was in the OR and the blockage was removed. Two days later, I was discharged. Go and sin no more. 😇
As I think about the incident, I wonder if my MI event was of such a surprise that I had no time to think of the end of mortality or whether I had the blessing of not being very fearful of, or concerned with, death. I guess I’ll see if—no when, this occurs again.
Reading today’s missive, I can’t help thinking of the old refrain, “…a coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one…”. OK, coward is a bit of a pejorative, but the word “fearful” can be substituted without loss of meaning in this case.
That is quite a remarkable experience.
—NC
I'm curious as to whether you had any thoughts of your impact (legacy) post-mortem? Perhaps family members (nieces and nephews, if not son/s and daughter/s) who might benefit from your wisdom and remember you fondly, or members of society, like children at school, on the sports field, maybe a music room?
It's a contrafactual, but I would expect that that would occur to me in such a moment. I like to think that made my mother's and father's passings better for them.
If you are responding to me, I must admit I had no such thoughts. Perhaps I should have added that I and wife have been blessed with a truly great life—nothing fancy or exciting, but comfortable and fruitful. We are those “damn Boomers” you hear about these days—admittedly given a life better than we deserve, which has produced a more spiritual reflection in our lives. How else, except Providence, explains our good fortune in a world where such is so rare?
That the world has need of me or will remember me is a thought I gave up a long time ago. Three generations is all most of us can count on to remember our short stay here, then I join the rest of humanity in forgetfulness.
Retirement has been easier on us (I and wife) than for most these days. There are no monetary issues. Children are well along in their careers and earn more money than wife and I ever did. My (infrequent) discussion with family has always been, ironically, along the line that the heart attack “is your friend”. This is not arrogance (I hope), simply an understanding derived from my experience with others dying and the process they went through.
Imagine people of general good health deteriorating through some disease. Even worse, a mental disease where the mind is lost, but the body soldiers on for some indeterminate time. I’ve witnessed all. Come to think of it, I’ve never had a close relation with anyone who died a sudden death, rather the opposite—prolonged illness and progressive incapacity/deterioration until the end. We are not talking about one or two people, but everyone. Yes, everyone I’ve been close to or directly acquainted with. All had deaths that I’d not choose for an enemy.
Hope this answers your inquiry sufficiently.
This is not so unusual, then, since your life is fulfilled. :)
Although many (most?) might change their definitions as reality approaches, the idea that medicine has progressed so far as to extend life without extending its quality, it is no wonder than Voluntary Assisted Dying has become a popular movement.
You seem to have had no thoughts on legacy since you have already put such thoughts to bed, long ago. ;-) All that was left, having successfully concluded this life, was to contemplate what, if anything, was next.
PS Boomers have been blessed because their parents gave up their indulgences and even some necessities in order to give their children a better life. It is only the ignorance of recent generations that can sanction any ill-will towards Boomers.
Such cool comments suggest that you can advise on what I should write next. Something on cultural indecision between highly hypothetical life extension tech and the proven life-shortening effects of AI-guided munitions? Or something on the idea that philosophy should always be free. How did we let Big Academic Publishing make disseminating philosophical ideas so expensive?
Think globally and act locally. :)
At a party, recently, some of my interlocutors were surprised at my conversation. I happily informed one that my topics were the same whether at the party, at lunch, or even in a queue for some other entertainment.
Everyone is a philosopher, since they all have to navigate this existence and develop strategies and heuristics to do so.
Beautiful article. I was thinking about the irony of his diagnosis and hoping that it helps him to perhaps take a spiritual route to immortality instead of a bio-hacking one. After all, we are 93% stardust.
Even a few more generations of being remembered after death is fleeting. We remember almost no one, there is a lot of luck and randomness in that, and we remember those inaccurately. It is very Norse and heroic-sounding to invest in great deeds that will be remembered, but it doesn't happen. Whoever the original model for Beowulf was, others who fought with him were more heroic but are long forgotten. Invest in something eternal - I think the Christian God is the best bet, myself - or in the moment. The other stations up the track are written on the schedule, but if the train lets you off there, you find there is no settlement nearby. "The Great Divorce" captures the spirit of this well.
I'm signed up for Cryonics - thus granting a *chance* (not a guarantee) at seeing where all of this mess we're in today ends up... And, maybe, getting a chance to visit those other planets one day.
I don't see why there needs to be a tradeoff between creating a legacy and continuing to live. Gates has already created a massive legacy and he's still very much alive. He can keep living, or he can not, his legacy will live on; that's how I'd like this experiment called 'life' to go.
I'm interested in the betting approach you take to the future. If you are choosing how to allocate resources isn't it better to go for digital immortality. Your digital future self can easily go to Mars. Not sure I'd want to spend much sending my decaying biological husk to the red planet. .
It's entirely possible that future humans don't develop the tech to reverse the damage done by the imperfect vitrification process that today's Cryonics procedures use. Maybe, even with nanotech, quantum computers, amazing AI, and all the rest, it's just not possible.
In that case, maybe digital uploading is all we can get.
If so, then I'd take the digital approach. But I still think of it as a fallback or a "nice to have on the side" if the wetware version doesn't work out.
This was worth reading.
"suggests that our lives improve when we stop treating mortality as a problem awaiting a solution, and recognise it as the condition that gives authenticity and meaning to our lives"
Heidegger, especially younger Heidegger, also lived in a time where radical life extension was at best some vague ultra fiction where we barely had proper medicine for anything. Even much of everyday normal surgery and medicine today was science fiction when he was young.
For almost all of human history, living in material poverty was a certainty, until capitalism. Anyone back then who suggested we would soon be able to barely work (yes, not just surviving, but thriving, while working 20-40 hours per week) while literally having every service thinkable available would call be seen as a lunatic.
Autoimmune gastritis is barely an issue and doesn't lower life expectancy (even untreated). The gloat from religious death cultists over him being diagnosed with it is weird.
Defeatist pro-death slop.
Biological aging is a in process where your body becomes frailer: you’ll have less vitality, energy, liveliness and endurance every year. Your mental faculties gradually slow down and blunt. And then the risks of disease and injury rise, until you’re dead.
You’re putting on a pedestal a tired trope that this degrading process somehow gives meaning to life. Maybe this is understandable cultural adaptation and even mentally healthy on an individual level, but civilizationally it’s sad fatalistic groupthink, a kind of cultural learned helplessness. If finality of life is so great, why not get AIDS or cancer while you’re at it? If only half of people by a coin flip had this condition of iterative diminution, we would rightly treat it as not just the greatest medical priority, but likely the greatest goal for humanity to strive for.
Yeah, Johnson might have failed, and what does that teach us? Every year about a hundred billion is spent globally on cancer research alone, but a paltry few or so on anti-aging research. This is fucking insane. Cancer, like most causes of death, is mostly downstream from aging – and we’re collectively not even that curious why naked mole-rats don’t seem to age much at all, or why bowhead whales mog us with their vampire-like couple-hundred-year lifespans. We’re not all that interested whether science and medicine could at least slow down the actual thing that chips away at us.
Sorry if this rant comes too strong, but I pattern-match this to what anti-aging themes often elicit in articulate people: trite wisdom-signaling cautionary tales about how we must submit to increasing physical and mental frailty and not even try.
What could Johnson teach us? That we need millions more like him.
In short, it's crab-bucket sour-grapes grave-dancing-in-advance. Not my favorite kind of article, for sure.
You didn't mention all the Carnegie libraries scattered across North America that he funded.
There are many people named Bryan Johnson. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Johnson_(disambiguation)
I figured out which person the post is referring to, but it may be worth including a link and/or clarifying which one you're talking about.
Seems to me that humanity would be better off if we stopped listening to and following people with Cluster B personality disorders. The man even harvested blood from his teen-age son.
That was an interesting experiment.
Not really. It was a display of the Dark Triad. The outcome was predictable, or so it seemed to me.
"travelling to Honduras to be genetically modified" is one of the most unexpected phrases I've ever seen written down.
I like that! Certainly different from the trend of Think local, act global.