Is death a friend or an enemy?

Yeah, thanks - I take mine with some fufu creamer, if you don't mind.

I may linger a bit. But, I've already gotten on the dim side of the ones I come closest to agreeing with. Well . . .

I guess a coff of cuppie could be in order. Black and strong.

OK, well, Take the 220th St exit off I-5 in Snohomish County and go west to Hwy 99. Starbucks on the NW corner. I'm buying

Thanks. Slurp. Not bad.

Re: Is death a friend or an enemy?
I would say this is the most absurd question posted on a2k and I've seen a few.

Re: Is death a friend or an enemy?
Why do you say that?

Or, is that question too absurd?

Re: Is death a friend or an enemy?
I ask it because the question is death a friend or an enemy has no meaning. Like is the moon January. Absurd.

well ok neo I dont want to be too hard on you

so I will accept that for some people this question of death is quite important


especially if you have been brainwashed into believing that eternal hellfire awaits.


but surely no intelligent person believes that


on the other hand no intelligent person believes it is only Gods inevitanble punishment that keeps us from being bad


"Without religion, good men would still do good, and bad men would still do bad. But it takes religion to make a good person do bad".

Without death:

Population would outstrip resources. To insure sustainability, there could be no children, and without children much of our reason to exist would vanish. Without children, the very idea of family would cease to exist after a few centuries, and the Immortals would likely become even more self-centered than our history has shown our race to be.

Even without adding new persons, natural resources would eventually be exhausted and the quality of life would become terrible. Famine might reduce the entire race to skeletons unable to function, but always conscious and aware of their misery.

Even if an Immortal was exempt from the physical effects of aging, the mind and character would still be affected by the passage of centuries.
Immortals would probably lose their interest in living after awhile. They will have seen and experienced "everything" repeatedly. Even the thirst for new knowledge can become stale, as those Immortals with the desire and capacity for that sort of life come to question "what's the point of it all".

Conflict would take on entirely different meaning. How would one carry out their struggle for resources? Exploitation of resources would be one of the few items that might still engage an Immortal's self-interest, but how would conflict be handled in a society where no one ever died?

Its possible that some of the earth's Immortals might embark on voyages to distant stars. Imagine how much fun it would be to live within the confines of a space ship for 100,000 years with nothing much to engage your interest after a measly half century. Those who went into space would be even more prisoners of their Immortality than those left behind.

Suffering would be eternal.

As a Buddhist, I regard the Phenomenal World we exist in as illusory and without substance. Our attachment to the illusion is the source of much of the suffering that exists in our world. In listing the symptomatic "causes" of suffering, Death is inevitably included, i.e. we grow old, we become sick, and we die. Death, however, is just as illusory as the Perceptual World where it is both natural and dreaded. It is the attachment, the frantic self that despairs of aging, illness, and death, that is the real source of suffering. Death means the cessation of suffering for the individual ego, and provides the opportunity of rejoining the Great Ineffable outside of time and space. Only the sentient even perceive time, space and death. The non-sentient don't suffer, nor do they ponder the terrors of ceasing to exist.

amoebae are normally immortal

In that case, death would be one hell of an enemy.
Sadly, many do.

Sounds like the story of Tithonus. But is the analogy necessarily correct?

Why wouldn't it be?

Immortality is ultimately a notion tied to infinity, yet all resources are finite. What would happen when resources failed to keep up with demand, or were totally exhausted. Without Death and without the resources to feed the community of Immortals, all that is left would be permanent suffering with no relief EVER. No wound, or illness would result in Death ... and after a while even the concept of Death might fade from human memory crushed under infinite suffering.

All theoretical, of course.

I see perfectly reasonable posts about how death is, under the present scheme of things, a necessity. None of it convinces me it ought to be embraced.

Death is only "perfectly reasonable" if we are tied to high birth rates and/or bound to this planet. Both of which are short sighted precepts.

Eddy you just got unlucky, you were born into a time in which human life is very short-lived.

I would argue there is a clear inverse relationship between life extention and traditional religiosity.

(nodding sagely) True.

This deserves further exposition

Death is the enemy against which I strive, without which there would be no need. It gives life purpose and urgency. Nothing motivates like a deadline.

OK I'll start the ball rolling by saying that as a long term reader of hard SF (and other styles too) some of the future-tense stories have as part of the background theme considerably longer live spans. This combined with increased materialism often translates into a more independent and autonomous mindset not as worried about short term mortality considerations.

I would argue that it's this short term mortality consideration which drive us to seek answers in the supernatural, and if we were to live say 10,000 years, we would, after a few 1000 years, be more likely to satisfy ourselves with the increase in knowledge and abilities and power that would come from such long life, and perhaps reach a sate of partial godliness ourselves. Godliness at least in practical power terms.

What need of traditional religiosity when we ourselves could then do so much?

This life extension argument can to some smaller degree, be looked backwards from today as well.

There is a novel called "The Long Habit of Living" (by Joe Haldeman ). Read it, Chumly?