Reminds me of the Catch 22 theory that the secred to longevity is constant boredom.

Oh come now. Fear of death and longing to perpetuate life was the aim of the Philosopher's Stone, back when nobody even imagined a secular society.

Harry, don't you know that everything that is bad with society is the fault of secularization? It is amazimg how much influence our mere 10% of the poulation has over the vast God-fearing majority. Of course, that is because we are elites, and hold all the levers of power.

BTW, where is the next meeting of the Secular Elites being held? I'm bringing the refreshments, how does Yoohoo and Krispy Kremes sound?

You don't live to 140, it just feels like 140.

Oh, this is super and proves once again the wisdom of modern thinking. We can raise kids till we are 90, work until 120 and live to 140. All we have to do is accept lifelong hunger. I'm sure we will all have sunny dispositions and great senses of humour. Harry, this is exactly what the ancient philosophers yearned for, isn't it?

Robert: I think stuffing secular elites with Yoohoo and Krispy Kremes is an excellent idea. Big Macs, too. Can I contribute?

Right.

Completely unlike vaccinations, clean water, antibiotics, and seat belts.

What people hating inventions they were.

I'd settle for working one day a week, like Goodman promised my generation in "Growing Up Absurd," except that I like my job.

Among the bifurcations in our highly divided society, besides Red/Blue, gay/straight, Major Leagues/NFL, there is the division between those who have too much to do and those who have nothing to do.

Harry:

Yes, and closely related is the division between those who have others to care for and those who live for themselves.

Jeff -- You must see a difference between benefiting from technology to live better and longer -- something with which I have no quarrel -- and being monomaniacally committed to longevity.

You know, we talked about this the other day when we were discussing Tolkien's views on mortality. I suggested at the time that in our attitudes toward death, we were beginning to resemble the Numenoreans, and this only reinforces my point.Even as the ancestors of the Dunedain had the longest life spans and the most advanced culture in Middle-earth, so we have among the longest life spans and most advanced medical technology in the world. Yet neither of us is satisfied with what we have, and neither of us gets the point that death is part of the natural order.

David:
A difference? I guess it depends on whether you are concerned about overlong lifespan, or the means to get it.

Yes, they are monomaniacal. Given the drift of the American waistline, somehow I don't see this becoming widespread, even if it does work.

Presume some techical means were devised to slow the aging rate so that we died of old age at 140 instead of 80, and those technical means required no more self-involvement than does a vaccination.

Good, or bad? No one here--especially no one over 40--seems to be griping about nearly doubling the average American lifespan over the last 100 or so years.

So as long as one welcomes an increase in healthy lifespan if it doesn't involve intense self-absorption, then there is a difference.

Otherwise, I detect a whiff of hypocrisy.

Jeff:

There is no hypocrisy at all. The problem is your straightline rationalism and denial of human nature. No one wants to to die, and most of us would like to avoid it. No one likes to be sick and we do our best to prevent and cure it To save someone's life or cure them is universally recognized as a good and noble thing because of the profoundly human drama and sorrow that are involved.

But just because we fear death and dislike sickness doeasn't mean the world would be a better place if we were always healthy and lived forever. Never mind the spiritual dimension, which interests you little, there are already serious practical problems increased longevity is bringing us. The costs of medicare and social secuirty are one. Another is the postponement of inheritances and the implications for families with children. But the main one is, what duties would such general longevity bring? Do you think the elderly should be allowed to retire at 65 if the average is shooting for 140? Most on this site have little patience for 40 year olds who don't want to work. How about lazy centenarians who won't pull their weight? How many years of child-raising and child care do you think the average life should have? 20-30 out of fifty adult years seems like a good contribution to me, but out of 120?

Jeff, what the heck are those people going to do for all those years? Who will support them? More importantly, what will we insist they do? And then, of course there is the issue of pulling the plug on those comotose 123 year olds. (However, given the theme of this story, the irony of arguing about force-feeding is leaving me tongue-tied).

Just because one is not in favour of endless efforts to extend natural life does not mean one must therefore hope for the death of parents or loved ones to be consistent and avoid hypocrisy.

You remind me of my father who used to tell me that I could only criticize the modern world if I was in favour of sending children to work in the mines again. The problem is not our hypocrisy. It is that you are locked into logical syllogisms you cannot escape.

If people really, really wanted to live a long time, they would take better care of themselves, take their modern medicines as prescribed (only 1 in 3 do that).

And, they would do the same for their loved ones. Herb Caen once wrote that the way a wife proves she really loves her husband is that she puts an aspirin on his breakfast plate each morning.

I was at a party over the weekend and I asked all the wives if they did that. None did. Do yours?

(No, mine doesn't, but I like to think it's because I have another medical problem that aspirin is bad for.)

Peter:

OJ made the assertion that ".. fear of, and attempt to deny, death ... is an almost pathological hatred of what makes us human."

Okay, fine. Vaccines, clean water, and antibiotics have all had that same effect. Yet I don't hear anyone accusing, say, Dr. Jonas Salk of having said hatred.

David thinks there is a difference between these measures and prolonged semi-starvation, which really would require monomoniacal, self centered, commitment. He is right.

The hypocrisy lies in criticizing future instances of life-lengthening technology as evidencing pathological hatred of what makes us human, while happily partaking of past instances.

You pose a lot of good questions that need answering if our life spans continue lengthening.

But simply asserting that such a search had no counterpart until secularism, or that pursuing a longer, healthier life, evinces a pathological hatred of what makes us human seems to combine selective recall (Fountain of Youth, anyone?) with a non-sequitor.

Jeff:

Those things all prevent death. They don't prolong the human life span.

Harry:

You are a real gas at parties, aren't you. Do you also give no-nonsense advice about breast and prostate examinations as you are passing the canapes? All kidding aside, I now see that you securalists can teach us faithful a good lesson. We have grown far too reticent. At the Christmas cocktail party coming up, I'm bringing my Bible and will treat everyone to a spirited reading from the book of Jeremiah.

Jeff:

As I understand Orrin, he is making a religious point. He is talking about people who do not understand the natural flow of life and do not understand that we should define ourselves, our purpose and our rights and duties by the reality of our age and circumstance. The swinging octogenarian is guilty as much as the middle-aged lounge lizard. The issue is why are we here and where are we going, You might check out Muggeridge's "The Great Liberal Death Wish", although I doubt you will like it. In any event, Orrin's point may be that, by denying the timeless reality of life and railing continuously against its inevitable contigencies, one demonstrates a hopeless, existential fear and hatred of life as it really is, always was and always will be.

Peter:

As I understand OJ, he is saying that people who don't see things his way hate themselves.

If there is a difference between preventing death and prolonging the human lifespan, it isn't clear to me what it is, since one inevitably leads to the other. Additionally, there is an implied assumption as to just what that lifespan is. However, if a mere change in dietary habits suffices to greatly add to years here on Earth, then maybe our lifespan is different than OJ presumes it to be.

And the conclusion is also odd. If I truly have a hopeless, existential fear and hatred of life as it irrevocably is, than for what possible reason would I want to lengthen it?

On the other hand, I can think of two reasons one might want to. Fear of death, which is scarcely a monopoly of secularists, or sufficient love of this life to not want to have it end any sooner than it has to. Again, not a monopoly of secularists.

And motivations that are just as readily satisfied by getting an angioplasty as by this prolonged semi-starvation (presuming it works).

Jeff:

"If I truly have a hopeless, existential fear and hatred of life as it irrevocably is, than for what possible reason would I want to lengthen it?"

Because life irrevocably leads to death and a life lived in frantic selfish denial of this is akin to hating it. You are confusing life with simply being alive, and hating life with hating oneself. If we are going to extend the lifespan significantly but can't think of anything better for these people to do than organize walkathons in shopping malls, why celebrate? What kind of Waiting for Godot hell is that? You said above that I had posed interesting questions that "need answering". Let's start now.

My grandmother used to refer to pnemonia as the old person's friend, and she wasn't so old as to pre-date antibiotics. We all certainly had the impression she was a lady who loved life very much. What would you make of that?

Peter:

You make far too many implicit (and occasionally condescending) assumptions, and what appears to be a complete non-sequitor.

How one lives does one live life in frantic, selfish, denial of death? It is impossible for me to tell whether this includes avoiding all risk, or embracing all risk, or whether this refers to the fitness fanatic or the couch potato.

Further, no matter how long we all live, we all die. Once. There is no logical connection between hating--or fearing--death and hating the life preceding it.

You also condescend, probably unintentionally, by viewing some people as being unable to distinguish life from being alive. That may be, but this sort of conclusion, no matter the subject, seems unusually prone to labelling those whose outlook disagrees from the speaker's.

There are two reasons I didn't answer your questions. First: time. Second: complete lack of parameters. You implicitly assume that extending the human lifespan involves nothing more than stretching senescence. No wonder you view it as, at best, a pyrrhic victory.

But presume a cheap, widely available, plot device that takes the normal aging process occurring between 20 and 60, and slows it so those same changes take, instead, 80 years, while leaving the post-60 aging rate unchanged.

I don't know about you, but I can think of plenty of things to do with those extra 40 years, and not one of them includes mall walkathons.

Your implied scenario is so different from mine that the sets issues aren't even remotely the same.

What do I make of your aunt's saying? That, for the elderly, life can become so painful as to be scarcely preferable to the alternative, and dying of pnuemonia is much preferable to suicide. Please don't think I'm accusing her of not loving life; rather, she appears to be someone who didn't love life at all costs.

Jeff:

The secularist fear is of death, which makes them hate life, since it is Nature they abhor.

Jeff:

Condescending? Thus does the Master turn upon the poor student!

You make a fair point that I was assuming that increased longevity meant an increased seniority, not extending each and every stage of life in equal percentage. If that means my kids'teen years would double, I'm opposed on principle. :-). If that is all you are saying, (24 years of school, 80 year careers, etc.), well, I suppose so, but that all seems science fiction to me. And I don't think that is what the health cultists are talking about. But if it means that AARP's qualifying age goes to 85, I agree there would be definite advantages.

Jeff:

On second thought, why? Only a society that views pleasure as the purpose of life would be attracted to this.

Peter:
Your conclusion carries an implicit assumption: that society can't view living as the purpose of life, and that it is entirely possible for more, given certain conditions, to be better.

And I do think extending vital years is precisely what the health cultists are talking about (I make no conclusions about whether they are correct).

If a plot device such as I mentioned were to come about, would you stand in line for it? If not, why not?

OJ:
I'm a secularist. I love life, and find Nature fascinating. I don't fear death, although I'd prefer not to be around when it happens. In short, your assertion, like all the others you make for others about what they feel, is fallacious.

Jeff:

But if you say the purpose of life is to live, you have prejudged the issue. Yes, the longer the better follows from that assumption. It is also a statement of faith. If I answer that the purpose of life is to deny self and care for others, it doesn't follow any more. Some devout curmudgeons might vote to shorten it. (Jeff, once again you are talking about purpose all of a sudden. I thought you held existence had no purpose.)

Some lives are happier and more enjoyable than others. You can make the argument that modern life is generally safer, easier and more pleasurable in many ways than in the bad 'ole days, but happier, more purposeful and more fulfilling? Much tougher call. Many thoughtful people suspect the opposite and I don't think you can just dismiss them as suffering from terminal nostalgia.

From the perspective of, say, 1800, do you think they would have, or should have, yearned for double lifespans? What about modern Nigerians? Or are the benefits only obvious to contemporary Americans?

Asking me whether I would favour doubling, tripling or halving the average lifespan and every stage along the way doesn't, in the end, strike me as being very meaningful. It is like asking whether I would trade Earth for Mars if we could figure out all the practical problems and make everything the same. What strikes me, though, is your inclination to view the vision of substantially longer lives with favour and excitement before you have even addressed the phenomenally complex issues it raises. Are you just assuming we would work it all out?

To answer your question directly, I would celebrate many developments that incidentally extended the average life, but, no, I would not back a full frontal assault on three score years and ten. Back door eugenics.

Jeff:

You secularists love your own lives--you have no interest in the life of anyone who might inconvenience you--be they old and infirm or unborn.

Peter:
You make it sound as if all of society gets to decide for each individual what the purpose of life is. In Iran, maybe, but note here. That means many thoughtful people, no matter how superior their thoughtfulness might be, don't get a vote, or at least one that matters, in how meaningful others find their lives.

In the last century we have absorbed a near doubling of the average human lifespan while scarcely noticing it. Within certain contraints, we could do the same over the next hundred years. Under others, say, mkaing the last 5 years of the average life take 30, then it is a whole different ball of wax.

OJ:
I could just as accurately say you religionists have no interest in the lives of anyone who believes differently than you, other than in how much bother is involved in killing those parasites.

Jeff:

Oh boy. In just a couple of posts you go from a collective "plot device", (which sounds a tad sinister), to extolling individual choice. Are we talking about a conscious societal effort or just encouraging individuals to stay healthy? Obviously I have no problem with the latter.

Your comment about doubling lifespan over the last century is more than a little disingenuous. That occurred almost entirely as a result of the collapse of infant and child mortality rates. The average seventy year old today may be somewhat healthier or more youthful than the average 70 year old in 1900, but not by that much. I assumed we were talking about something very different, i.e. consciously turning 90 year olds into 60 year olds and maybe putting them to work.

Jeff:

We love you so much we seek to convert you.

Peter:

It also resulted from an overall increase in longevity. One reason the Social Security ponzi scheme is in trouble is because people are living much longer after retirement than they were in 1940. In other words, there are a heck of a lot more people who survive to 60 still alive at 80, compared to then.

I would love nothing more than to continue working productively until reaching 100. Or, having the alternative of taking the advantage of time and compounding interest to spend the years from 80-100 doing all manner of things impossible otherwise.

The only problem is that I can't, despite being instructed, find a way to work hatred of life and Nature into this rosy scenario.

Jeff:

That is because you are envisaging all those additional years reserved to you to do what you will in good health, financial security and with no responsibilities. How would you like to spend them all in a back room in your grandaughter's house and wile away your days minding her children in between your shifts at Walmart?

Jeff, you don't want to extend life. You want to go on a very long, first class vacation and spend your descendants' inheritances.

I read the article. it struck me as sick. A long life sentence on short rations. Amnesty International will start writing the President to get them paroled.

P.S. I love Jerimiah read Chapter 32.

Peter:

Well, which would you rather do, take care of your great-grandkids, or take a dirt nap?

The choice would be yours.

Jeff:

Some days when life's demands overwhelm me and I start to despair, I log on to this site and find another of your joyful, inspirational thoughts. They make me soar and give me the strength to go on. Thanks.

It could have something to do with my background. I spent a lot of time in a profession where sudden, volent death was never very far away, and sufficiently common to be unsurprising when it happened.

If you were to pose this issue to any of the guys I knew, the answer would be a variant of: "Heck, I don't care. I just want to die relaxed."

There, now. Did that help?

Jeff:

Yes, that's precisely the vacuousness that is consuming Europe too--the belief that a peaceful personal death is more important than an enduring and worthwhile society. It is extraordinarily selfish.

Enlist then. You're not too old yet.

Darwinians realize that senescence is a requirement of sexual reproduction. Protists are immortal.

Sexually reproducing organisms have to have definite lifespans, although there is no particular formula for what they have to be. There's a rhododendron in Pennsylvania that appears to be 10,000 years old.

My great-great grandparents lost 12 out of 13 children in a yellow fever epidemic in Tennessee in 1851. I have no direct evidence, but I don't think that brought any joy into their lives.

I'm for medicine and health and against the deathwish of Christian religion.

OJ:
Spoken like a man who has scarcely faced a moment of personal risk in his entire life.

And is also far too blithely willing to denigrate the experiences behind the gallows humor. Especially considering most of the guys voicing that sentiment were at least as Christian and conservative as you. Or hadn't you known that about military officers? What is even more astonishing is you seem to have completely failed to take on board these men routinely risked sudden, violent death to protect this society. It seems that doesn't count for much.

Never mind that statement has to be the indisputed holder of the World Indoor Freestyle record for false dichotomy.

Blanket generalizations like that just make you sound, well, vacuous.

Jeff:

I bet the Christians care about what kind of society they were defending.

Jeff:

Calm down. You talk fairly openly about your wife, your brother and now your former comrades in arms. Honour to them all, but I doubt you have any idea what the rest of us have faced or not faced in life, and you really shouldn't guess. This site is about ideas, not who has lived the nobler or more difficult life.

Peter:

For the Jeffs of the world it's always about themselves.

Peter:
That wasn't my intent--but your tongue-in-cheek take on my stark portrayal of the equally stark alternatives on offer prompted me to make the response I did, to give a little personal background as a reason for my choice of words. The same reason I have brought up my wife and brother--first hand experiences might count for something if they are germane to the point at hand.

You are right, this site is most interesting when it is about the exchange of ideas.

It is far less so when, in place of ideas there is a gratuitous, illogical, insulting response to a completely innocuous comment.

If you can find valuable ideas where I see ad hominem attacks, please enlighten me.

My retort was directed at the gloomy angst and futility your secularist thinking leads to, and was not in any way an ad hominem attack. Jeff, you have been personally complimented and admired many times by all, including Orrin. But on this site, we had better be prepared to take responsibility for the implications of our beliefs. You are no slouch at firing away and aren't too shy about being accusing or patronizing, so toughen up when the arrows head your way. After all, goose, gander.

I'm a Christian, and I don't wanna die. I seem to recall Jesus being a tad circumspect about it hisself.

Yet He died, thereby fulfilling his humanity.

Peter:
It wasn't you to whom I was referring.

Read the last half dozen posts in this thread, and see if you can find anything I said that even remotely speaks of belief, as compared to hope.

Then take this simple test.

Tell me how you would rather die:

a. in your sleep of old age
b. terrified and far younger

Before answering, keep in mind that if you pick a, then you vacuously and selfishly prefer a peaceful death to a worthwhile society. Also, as an extra bonus, you don't care about the society you are defending. No sorry, that last isn't quite true. You would still be vacuous and selfish, but as long as you are Christian, than you do care about the society you are defending, if rather vacuously and selfishly.

That makes sense, doesn't it?

Jeff:

None. The question is: would you rather die young and terrified while defending freedom or old and terrified in a culture with no values? You'd prefer old because you care most about you and don't see any basis for making value judgments, right?

OJ:
Uhhh, wrong.

Beside the fact that my track record conclusively contradicts your conclusion, the the gallows humor preference was to die relaxed, regardless of when.

Beyond that, just because you can't imagine a basis for value judgments absent God does not mean others find that a problem.

You would probably be better served putting more importance on the value judgments people make, and less on how much their particular theological framework coincides with yours.

Otherwise, you are prone to making assertions such as selfish/old/valueless despite obvious evidence to the contrary. Additionally, you are also prone to judging precisely the same action completely differently: Christians care about the society they are defending, yet areligionists doing precisely the same thing care only about themselves.

BTW, the complete answer to the question: ceteris paribus, I'd rather die as healthy, old, and relaxed as I can possibly manage.

..and everyone else be damned.

OJ:
In case you aren't familiar with the Latin, ceteris paribus means "everything else being equal," which is not at all the same as "everyone else be damned."

Unless, of course, you can point out a connection between dying old, healthy and relaxed on the one hand, and damning everyone else on the other.

And if you can't, why say it?

Jeff:

The difference between France and America.

French want to die healthy, old, and relaxed.

Americans want to die sick, young and terrified.

If that is the difference of which you speak, than you make sense.

Otherwise, it is just a non-sequitor.

Jeff:

Everyone dies terrified--even God did--that's what it is to be human. Heck, you're so terrified you want us to kill you at the slightest hint of death or pain's approach.

The question is what kind of lives we want to lead. Do we try to live forever ourselves, at the cost of the culture? Or do we live on through the kind of world we leave behind. You care only for yourself, so you choose your own life. We choose differently.

That wasn't the question that started this thing. Nor, for example, did the matter under discussion ever pose the dichotomy between a longer life and culture. It makes about as much sense as asking my kids whether they walked to school or packed a lunch.

My grandmother didn't die terrified. My wife wouldn't have. I know some guys who didn't know they were dying until they were dead.

That's the problem with dishing out absolutes--they just sit there, begging for contradiction.

As I have mentioned before, you are by far at your best when you aren't deciding for other people what they are feeling.

For example: "Heck, you're so terrified you want us to kill you at the slightest hint of death or pain's approach" is completely correct except for all the stuff between the capital H and the period.

BTW, "You care only for yourself..." is pure, similarly valid, insult.

If you like being offensive, you are succeeding admirably. Rather less so, however, if you are trying to convey ideas.

Oops, forgot, if you don't believe in the soul then death is just some kind of electrochemical outage or something?

OJ:
What you seem to have forgotten is that your knowledge of what comes after death is precisely the same as mine:

Zilch.

To the contrary, and it's precisely the point, I know that what comes after is whatever kind of society we leave behind us. That's what matters, not how long you live or how you die.

Sorry, my mistake.

I thought in the previous post you were talking about the soul.

No, your mistake. You were.

It would be nice if you stayed on point.

Jeff:

That is the point--not you, but us. If you have a soul it's a nice bonus.