>From: CampMars@aol.com
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>To: extropians@extropy.com
>Subject: Re: Truman Show and Immortality
>Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 23:59:35 EST
>
>In a message dated 02/01/2000 12:21:17 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>randysmith101@hotmail.com writes:
>
><< I recently rented (and subsequently bought) a videotape of the Truman
>Sow.
> Incredible movie. >>
>
> You mean you haven't got a DVD player yet? Oh Randy get with the
>times
>video is sooooo 2nd Millennium.
> I forget who came up with that line but I thought it was priceless.
> That is a great movie though isn't it. As far as acting, Carrey blew
>Truman away when he played Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon.
>
><<When Truman came up against the wall at
>the end of his world, it reminded me of my own revelation that death,
>although accepted as inevitable by all those around me, may not be so
>inescapable as it appeared to everyone else.>>
>
> I can relate to that too. Very often when people bring up the >topic
>of death, I will inevitably mention that death "may" not be >inevitable.
>When I
>try to explain that it is really just a problem with biology and it >can be
>corrected, I usually get a look as if I just tore off my face and >revealed
>some terrifying Sci Fi creature.
I hear you. We are quite different from the ordinary run of people. That's
all there is to it. Somehow we took another path to being people.
>I never understood why this should come as
>a shock to people these days. As a species human kind has been >searching
>for the answer to immortality from the moment we realized >that we are
>alive.
Somehow when we (as opposed to all those others) read something, or come
across some knowledge, we understand it in a different way.
>We
>have been searching for answers and now we are coming up with answers that
>don't involve having to die to get there. Seems to me that there should be
>less "faith" involved in physical immortality than the leap of faith or
>gamble that there may be a spiritual after life involving a transference
>into
>another dimension, an alternate reality or even an unseen UFO in the tail
>of
>a comet. To me these are no longer valid options.
> Then there is the old why would anyone want to live forever refrain.
>If
>someone truly does not care if they die than they are not really living to
>begin with. Ask the same person if they would be willing to die tomorrow
>and
>the answer is almost always "no". It should be obvious... That is the
>whole
>point! Perhaps it's just another step in evolution or natures way of
>choosing it's Immortals.
>
I read a fascinating article today in Science News about how different modes
of reasoning are used by people of different cultures/continents. The
researchers tested reasoning skills of some people in Bumfuck Mongolia (East
Uzbeck). They posed a situation where they said that all bears in the
northern part of the world were white. They said that a man from the
northern part of the world had seen a bear. The researchers then asked the
tribesmen what color the bear must have been. Without exception, to the
growing frustration of the researhers. all the men replied, "Well, how
would I know?! Ask your friend who saw the bear!"
The study concluded, citing numerous other examples of typical cultural
reasoning, that analytical reasoning is a learned skill, and not something
innate, or something to that effect....
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