>>25475607
Why though? Believe in an afterlife or none at all?

>>25475607
bad idea, dude

as spinoza sez,
>A free person thinks of death least of all things, and their wisdom is a meditation on life, not on death

>>25475617
i don't believe in an afterlife. i wasn't raised religious and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me as an adult.
these books spend a lot of time talking about - to greatly, greatly simplify - how many of the things that give peoples lives 'meaning' - religion, giving yourself to superorganisms like the family, nation, political or intellectual movements, 'legacy', etc., are effective refusals of the fear of death by the investiture of the self in an 'immortality project' which will outlive you.
but now when I try to think of a purpose in life and consciously trying to choose an immortality project, I remember that it's an ineffective refusal of my death which is inevitable, final, and inescapable. i'm jealous of religious people who feel secure in the idea they will be meaningfully preserved in an afterlife, but I can't make myself be religious just to assuage my death-anxiety, it feels horribly contrived. I'm self-conscious that I don't really believe in these things and am just doing it to try and soothe myself, which makes it feel obviously fake and defeats the purpose.

>>25475630
knowing i would be happier to not think about it doesn't help me not to think about it. the wolf is still at the door. as freud sez,

>Is it not for us to confess that in our civilized attitude towards death we are once more living psychologically beyond our means, and must reform and give truth its due? Would it not be better to give death the place in actuality and in our thoughts which properly belongs to it, and to yield a little more prominence to that unconscious attitude towards death which we have hitherto so carefully suppressed? This hardly seems indeed a greater achievement, but rather a backward step ... but it has the merit of taking somewhat more into account the true state of affairs....

>>25475658
are you terminally ill bro

>>25475665
no im early twenties and healthy

>>25475607
https://nickbostrom.com/papers/the-fable-of-the-dragon-tyrant/
death is bad and we should end it
consider signing up for cryonics if you haven't already.

>>25475607
>reading a bunch of Jewish quasi-anthropology

>>25475769
i have no strong opinions on jews. i will not discredit writing on the basis of being written by a jew.

>>25475607
Get it over with: kill yourself.

>>25475829
i do not possess the mental fortitude to willingly take my own life. also, it doesn't seem like a good idea.

>>25475668
Not for long. Read the Stoics. Cultivate a life that prepares you for a good death. Then your anxiety will vanish.

>>25475654
All such descriptions of the religious things that soothe death anxiety are butchered models cut down to fit inside the worldviews of modernists. They don't work if you're trying to use them. You do have to actually believe in God, truly, to receive His grace.
>But that's absurd!
So is wanting to exist, and yet here you are fighting desperately to keep yourself going.

Good luck either way anon

>>25475607
People called me a huge pussy for this but my story is similar. Around 18 to 20 I started to lose my Christian faith and with that came the fear of death. I read The Denial of Death and soon after had my first panic attack, and this started my almost constant anxiety. I'm almost 40 now and it never went away, sometimes it was so bad that I would start vomiting. I don't know what exactly it was about that book that hit me so extremely hard, or if the anxiety would've increased anyway, but possibly that book ruined my life.

I went through similar thoughts throughout my 20s.

One of the things that made it particularly difficult for me was looking for answers online. I'd see people responding by talking about an afterlife, or saying that we'll probably solve ageing this century, or offering some other reason why death might not really be something we have to face. I understand why people reach for those answers, but when you don't believe them yourself, they can actually make you feel more alone. It's almost as though everyone else has found a way out of the problem and you're the only person still looking directly at it.

Eventually, I came to think that there are really two different things you can try to resolve: you can try to resolve the fact of death, or you can work on your relationship with the fact that you're going to die. I don't think the first one is available to us. But the second one is.

For me, accepting that we are temporary was incredibly difficult. There isn't really a comforting trick I can give you for that. At some point I had to acknowledge that the fear was real, and that death really is something we don't get to escape.

What helped me wasn't finding an argument that made death less frightening. It was "living" more - which is gay, but it did help.

I started trying to have more experiences. I read things from people and cultures very different from my own. I watched films from different countries. I listened to music I'd never heard before. I travelled, tried things, went places, and generally became more engaged with being alive.

I don't mean it dismissively "just go out and live". I mean that, for me, the more life I actually experienced, the less time I spent obsessing over the fact that it would eventually end.

I think there is something about filling your life with experiences that changes the proportion of your attention that death occupies. You don't stop knowing that you're temporary. But you can be content with how you've been spending it.

I don't have an answer that makes death okay. But I can tell you that it is possible to look directly at the fact that you're going to die and eventually feel much less consumed by it. I spent years thinking this fear would always dominate my life.

I know 4chan is pretty fucking ridiculous place for this, but seeing as its something I dealt with, thought I voice my thoughts.

If you're sitting around not doing much, and stressing. If you were like me, you won't find a solution. Get a hobby, develop interests. Or give up and find Jesus.

>>25475880
>Eventually, I came to think that there are really two different things you can try to resolve: you can try to resolve the fact of death, or you can work on your relationship with the fact that you're going to die.
>I don't think the first one is available to us.
trying most certainly is available to us. it's just that success is not guaranteed. everyone who seeks death eventually finds it, but many have sought to defeat death and failed. that doesn't mean it's not worth trying. many tried to fly and failed, but eventually people succeeded and now it's a routine mode of travel.

>>25475888

True, 'trying' is possible, maybe I shouldn't have put that word in. I (personally) don't think its possible to resolve death, but yes you can try. I make no claim that it's fact. Just my view.

But it was possible to try to resolve death for all the billions of humans before us too. If we could communicate to them it was possible to try, I'm not sure how much comfort they would get.

As a side note; I get your meaning of the flying metaphor, but we did know flying was possible (birds) it was trying to get Humans to fly.

Trying to stop death, isn't gjust about aging. Earth is temporary too, so is the sun/our solar system. Maybe we can extend it, I'll give you that. But to stop death, we would have to find or build energy sources more everlasting than suns. And be able to traverse at least between star systems with enough resources in between the stars so we can still eat/drink water for thousands of years (if at the speed of light).

If your objective is to stop the current human death timer of about 100 years, and just extend it to 200 or so on. I do think (opinion again, not fact), that's just denial, you'll be okay with that idea today as buying more time, but when your 175 I'd imagine, unless you resolved your relationship with dying, you'll want to extend it to 300.

>>25475920
Anecdotally, there are animals that do not die of age.

File: 1744058802131627.png (74 KB, 411x509)

74 KB PNG

I don't really have this problem, I've had too many /x/-tier experiences and it's made me very firmly not a materialist. So I'm pretty convicted that something happens to the soul after death, and it doesn't just go away.

>>25475920
yes. the price of immortality is eternal striving against each new barrier.
>I get your meaning of the flying metaphor, but we did know flying was possible (birds) it was trying to get Humans to fly.
there are several species that don't appear to biologically age. naked mole-rat mortality doesn't increase with chronological age. as you said, defeating death requires more than defeating aging, but flying across the atlantic required more than just emulating birds.

>>25475925
Tell us about your experiences. I'm genuinely curious

>>25475924
>>25475931

Both correct re the animals not ageing. Although this is about not dying, not stopping ageing. Although acknowledge ageing is a/the major factor.

Case in point, as the sun expands, the photosynthesis used by the plants on earth will end. The animals that rely on then will die. All the water will evaporate. And earth will eventually be swallowed by the sun. None of the ageless animals will survive.

Not the biggest fan of going down this route, as it is depressing, and I find it more fruitful to enjoy the decades you'll have, than freight about a future you won't experience.

I'm not against trying - I'm not. I won't oppose those who do it, and I do not argue against doing it (although I don't think it will go anywhere, I know my limits and acknowledge I am not omniscient). And I wish all the best to those who do.

I'm more in favour of being comfortable with being temporary, than I am actively opposed to trying. It isn't either or, chase both if it suits. I'll just promote living a sit you were temporary, even if that ends up not being the case.

>>25475607
"...to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished..."

>>25475607
Read the Epicureans, Stoics and Schopenhauer.
It would be more horrifying to be facing down an infinite future existence!

>>25475607
read preperation for death by alphonsus ligouri
https://alphonsianum.blogspot.com/2009/10/01-description-of-one-who-has-departed.html
https://alphonsianum.blogspot.com/2009/10/02-all-ends-with-death.html
a taste

What worked for me is spending a year doing magical rituals to commune with my ancestors. It worked and I have come to terms with death, ironically by developing a heart condition in the meantime

>>25475827
Neither do I just felt like being a dick

File: The Gods of Eden: William(...).jpg (33 KB, 252x498)

33 KB JPG

Whether you believe it or not, you will reincarnate after having your memories stripped. And that will continue forever.

>>25476756
i imagine that is a very comforting belief to possess.

>>25475654
Let's take Christianity specifically. Christianity as a immortality project does not deny the fear of death because the afterlife could either be spent in hell or heaven. A immortality project could multiply your fear of death because at the point of death your contribution to the project is final, for eternity you have to bear the consequences of your life. Perhaps not you as you see experience yourself now, but also perhaps enough of you to experience the suffering you've brought on others.

>>25476894
99% of Christians believe they are going to heaven.

>>25475607
I will give you the cure to this exact problem, but it is up to you to actually go ahead and muster the courage to do it.
Read the doors of perception and heaven & hell by Aldous Huxley.
After that get your hands on a tab of LSD from darkweb or whichever way is easiest for you. It will cost you like 20 bucks or smth.
Psychedelic experience is the most straightforward and logical way to prove it to yourself. You’re not going to simply read some philosophy and undo a lifetime of very belivable upbringing you’ve had to this cold and materialist world. It will never work. You will need something more, somehing radical. Somehing, that forces you to reorient your jaded thought patters and leave your comfort zone for good. Leap of faith of sorts. Only a real psychedelic experience can do this. And it will. You will find perspectives you refuse to believe could ever exist, ones that you will now dismiss as mere hallucination and delusion, before ever understanding what delusion even is or can be.

Just do it. If you’re afraid, read about psychedelic assisted therapy and its effects on ptsd veterans and terminally ill patients.
It will really work. It will really erase the fear of death once and for all.
It will not make you be any less afraid of a nigger charging at you with a knife or a plane catching flame as you ride it, but it will force you to understand how ridiculous our current view of death is.

I have the complete opposite of most people's fears concerning death, namely that oblivion is impossible for strictly physical reasons. Be glad if you believe in nothingness.

>>25475607
I had the same problem, back when I was five and realized everybody I loved, and myself, would die one day. But it is what it is. You can't change it, so why bother about it?

>>25475654
>i don't believe in an afterlife. i wasn't raised religious and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me as an adult.
Au contraire, materialism doesn't make any amount of sense unless you were brainwashed all of your life into believing it.

>>25476877
Lol to who, you retard?

shoulda read some poetry, try that next time

>>25477263
materialism is the obvious and naturalistic result of living in and witnessing a material reality

>>25477233
consciousness is propped up by an unbelievably fragile physical scaffold. it is very very easy for it to end

>>25477358
>material reality
Define material.

>>25477361
>consciousness is propped up by an unbelievably fragile physical scaffold.
It's just a receiver.

>>25477459
>>>/x/

>>25477460
lol

Fucking p-zombie.

>>25477476
guy who isn't mad:

>>25477481
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.3679117/scientists-research-man-missing-90-of-his-brain-who-leads-a-normal-life-1.3679125

How do you explain this with the "consciousness is just an emergent phenomenon formed by discrete locations in the brain" theory formed by neuroscience?

>>25477488
oh? is this the case study that kicks the leading theories on consciousness into the mud, making room for your schizobabble to lead the course of history?
the lancet study this article is based on does not describe the loss of 90% of neurons or brain tissue mass, only the massive enlargement of ventricles and a thin cortical mantle. volume != mass, or cell count. reads much more like an interesting display of the ability of brain tissue to stretch, deform and compress enormously while still retaining basic function than... whatever you're implying.

>>25477496
>its super easy to damage
>B-B-B-BUT NOT THAT WAY!!!
Okay so which is it, materialistroon?

>>25477513
a case study wherein unbearably gradually filling a water balloon in someone's skull over the course of 44 years through the most plastic stages of their development doesn't kill them is not a counterexample to the obvious fact that consciousness is housed in the brain.
i understand this is damaging to your worldview, and that's provoking a strong emotional reaction. you're okay. it's alright to step away from the computer for a few minutes, drink a glass of water, and take a few deep breaths before you continue.

>>25477522
>is not a counterexample to the obvious fact that consciousness is housed in the brain.
It's a great counterargument when the only materialist theory of consciousness that is able to acknowledge the self-evident conclusion of consciousness' tangible existence is via the theory of emergence.
>i understand this is damaging to your worldview, and that's provoking a strong emotional reaction. you're okay. it's alright to step away from the computer for a few minutes, drink a glass of water, and take a few deep breaths before you continue.
Dishonest tranny babbling.

>>25477513
well, the theory of emergence is a good theory. lots of unique emergent behaviors come from open complex systems.

>>25477536
>well, the theory of emergence is a good theory.
So what's the breakpoint for first person awareness? 10 neurons? 100? 10,000?

>>25477538
dunno. not sure there's a hard boundary where some number of neurons gets you something that's definitely 'consciousness' and (for example) one less gets you something that is definitely not, but i'm not an expert on the subject.

>>25477539
And how do you also prove your computer is not consciousness if complexity/information processing is the only quantifiable metric of consciousness, too?

>>25477543
i can't! i think there's some compelling evidence that some sufficiently complex computers can reproduce something which resembles human consciousness.

>>25477545
>i think there's some compelling evidence that some sufficiently complex computers can reproduce something which resembles human consciousness.
How would that even work, exactly? How do you experience a subjective self through silicon and wires?

>>25477598
presumably in a similar fashion to how you can experience a subjective self through the interactions of electrical impulses between cells. i know 'what is consciousness' is hard to define outside of the subjective experience of it, but it seems like a mediation between sensory input, information processing, and will. computers can do the first two things, and the third is a documented property which emerges from complex systems (t. hobbes) so it doesn't seem like a stretch to say that it can or could do that.

haha. that's my best guess, based on what i've read. i'm sure if I knew 'how it worked, exactly' I'd win some sort of prize.

>>25477610
Just because the brain uses biolectric pulses to power itself doesn't mean a circuit is doing the *same* thing. Of course, you can still use those electrical circuits built off of inorganic materials to perform algorithms and whatnot just like the human brain (except this is only a simulacrum of such and doesn't actually demonstrate true problem solving ability).

>>25477633
the brain *uses* biolectric pulses to relay information, they're not the source of its 'power'. the brain gets its 'power' from chemiosmosis like the rest of the body.
as far as 'problem solving ability' computers - especially recent ones - have demonstrated the ability to solve problems. I'm curious by what you mean by 'true' and how it differs from 'false' problem solving - if information enters two structurally different black boxes and they spit out comparable outputs, how can you certainly say that it's the result of meaningfully different patterns of causal relationships, one of which is 'consciousness' and the other which isn't?

>>25477642
>the brain *uses* biolectric pulses to relay information, they're not the source of its 'power'. the brain gets its 'power' from chemiosmosis like the rest of the body.
Pedant
>as far as 'problem solving ability' computers - especially recent ones - have demonstrated the ability to solve problems
The problem is that these are merely a set of constraints imposed on a substrate with rigidly defined algorithmic sorting processes instead of true evidence that the AI is acting on its own volition. The evidence that the AI is capable of comprehending *what* those 0s and 1s actually entail just because its makers happen to find them meaningful is begging the question.
> I'm curious by what you mean by 'true' and how it differs from 'false' problem solving - if information enters two structurally different black boxes and they spit out comparable outputs, how can you certainly say that it's the result of meaningfully different patterns of causal relationships, one of which is 'consciousness' and the other which isn't?
Because I don't define consciousness solely by "information processing", only whether that information is qualitatively experienced.

>>25477676
>pedant
admittedly
>the problem is that these are merely a set of constraints imposed on a substrate with rigidly defined algorithmic sorting processes
genuinely what evidence would be sufficient to prove to you that a machine is 'comprehending' rather than generating an output indistinguishable from comprehension according to rigidly defined algorithmic sorting processes? if it's not predicated on a physical structure of consciousness your argument sounds like 'a sufficiently advanced computer can't be conscious because it isn't a human being' without providing an explanation for why human beings can uniquely experience consciousness
>Because I don't define consciousness solely by "information processing", only whether that information is qualitatively experienced
If you define consciousness as 'the thing that i am qualitatively experiencing', you deny the existence of consciousness in anything but yourself. you (well, I presume) give the grace of assuming other human beings experience consciousness, even though you cannot independently verify their consciousness, based on their behavior. If something that isn't human-shaped displays that same behavior, how can you certainly say it isn't conscious, while saying that other humans are?

>>25477691
I'm not interested in talking past each other since I acknowledge both sides end up being circular if neither side can agree whether top-down or bottom-up causal efficacy is primary, but I never said non-human animals aren't conscious. In fact, its easier for humans to conceive microscopic organisms as "conscious" compared to machines.
>If you define consciousness as 'the thing that i am qualitatively experiencing', you deny the existence of consciousness in anything but yourself.
Asserting that AI scientists need hard proof that AI can experience consciousness before they claim they do isn't the same at all as claiming other minds don't exist, that's a strawman.

File: Spoiler Image (326 KB, 1666x2536)

326 KB JPG

>>25475607
yeah i was gonna say that reading denial of death and worm at the core would be an extremely bad idea if you have death anxiety. if you wanna speedrun feeling absolutely terrified then i can cognitohazard you with pic related. look at your own risk

File: 1787037434393625.jpg (287 KB, 1280x720)

287 KB JPG

you can't prove reliably that you're the same person you were 6 months ago, what makes you think that the one dying has anything to do with you?

>>25477929
i... i'm gonna die in six months...?

>>25477968
You are already dead

>>25477759
i've never heard that line of reasoning before (microbes); why is a simple biological system more plausibly conscious than a complex mechanical one?
>strawman
i'm claiming that under your standards, 'hard proof' of ai consciousness cannot exist
but sure, then: the evidential standard you use to attribute consciousness to humans and animals is not consistent. If behavioral/functional evidence counts for them but can never count for machines, explain why

>>25475607
LIVE

>>25475607
When I am really worried about having to do something, I just do it straight away to get it out the way
Have you tried that OP?

>>25478154
no. that sounds very scary

>>25475607
Read Camus and Sartre.

>>25478156
Thats the good part though
It happens if you want it to or not!
What if you made your own coffin or bought a plot or something and laid on it for a while? You are spending eternity there

>>25478156
Ignore him, he's a faggot, don't kill yourself

>>25475607
Worm at the core is new to me, seems right up my alley. May give it a go.
I don't really focus on better or worse these days, as the goal. I just want to understand shit and happiness or at least non-boredom/non-tedium follows from that.
I just attempt to make the world a more interesting place for me to be in.

>>25477361
I'm a reductive physicalist. You have to assume I understand that the brain's destruction ends conscious experience. That's not the issue. The issue is nothing stays destroyed.

The reason I can't believe in oblivion has nothing to do with "we're heckin' receivers!" or any of that nonsense.
My problem is, in a bounded space with an unbounded forward arrow of time, I don't see how we avoid recurring.

https://youtu.be/xULSj4hyYrY?si=CwS4-t2HHl1FICg3

>>25478025
>I've never heard that line of reasoning before (microbes)
>what is gut bacteria
>why is a simple biological system more plausibly conscious than a complex mechanical one?
Yes, I'm convinced that LIFEFORMS built on the same same fleshy, wet bits and pieces found inside of is humans, alongside every other animal to have ever existed are far more likely to be conscious than a fucking computer is lol.
>i'm claiming that under your standards, 'hard proof' of ai consciousness cannot exist
You're the one making the claim that AI can be conscious because we coded a machine to react to input-output in a highly predictable manner. If your definition of consciousness is so rigid to define computation alone as the sole providing evidence for consciousness, then the term lacks meaning.
>but sure, then: the evidential standard you use to attribute consciousness to humans and animals is not consistent. If behavioral/functional evidence counts for them but can never count for machines, explain why
We don't witness it in machines is the problem. Again, you think you do, but you have no way of knowing.

>>25478162
Ignore his advice and don't read edgelord atheist frogshit like those authors, they'll just make you suicidal.

>>25478328
>eternal recurrence
Heat death of the universe is fake but this is stupid af.

>>25478370
>edgelord
They're not edgy at all. Also, people with death anxiety need to learn it's not that serious.

>>25476877
I'm not comforted by it at all. The book makes a very strong case that Earth is somewhere between a prison and a farm for the ones in charge of it. I hate God's Creation and everything in it, and wish fervently for annihilation so I don't have to put up with any of you assholes anymore.

>>25478993
We don't like you either, pal.

>>25476899
Your recommendation is extremely irresponsible. Drug-induced ascension, without proper preparation, can snap a person's mind.
>>25477459
Consciousness is a sender, too. Are you admitting to being the universe's bitch?
>>25477522
>consciousness is housed in the brain
Not "obvious" at all. Did you know there's a mass of neurons in your belly, too? That's why your "gut feelings" seem to arise from there.
The simple truth is, consciousness is an inherent part of all parts of the universe. There is no division between conscious and unconscious... the entire universe is alive. The Eastern mystics have been saying this for millennia, and it's also a key part of the Western tradition known as panpsychism.

>>25479005
panpsychism is /x/-tier woo

>>25479322
I'd love to knock every single one of your teeth out with a single punch.