I counter with the Flashdance Philosophy:
"Don't you understand?
When you give up your dream, you die."
jm
On 28 Apr 2001, at 8:06, J. R. Molloy wrote:
> > But J. R., does it not require a significant amount of "HOPE" for one
> > to put forth the effort required to sign up for cryonics? Or even to
> > try find a cure for aging....?
> >
> > What is it you are trying to say here?
> >
> > Brent Allsop
>
> Not "trying" to say, Brent. Let me put it this way:
>
> Hope is indeed a common human error.
>
> "Hope is the most treacherous of human fancies." --J. F. Cooper
> "Hope is merely disappointment deferred." --W. B. Baldry
>
> Hope is something we will have to climb above. We have no real use for hope.
> Hope is for children. He that lives upon hope will die fasting, said Ben
> Franklin. And then he added, "Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad
> supper." Ralph G. Ingersoll summed it up thus: "Hope is the universal liar."
> And before him, Diogenes Laertius wrote, "Hope is a waking dream."
>
> "It is natural for humans to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to
> shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren
> till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of the wise, engaged in a
> great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be the number of
> those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not," asked Patrick
> Henry.
>
> "Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a
> futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself --
> that comes too late -- a crop of inexhaustible regrets." --Joseph Conrad
>
> Hope is for children. Determination marks the adult.
>
> "Hope tries to explain to the ignorant the nature of the unknowable." --A.
> Bierce
>
> "The comfortable estate of widowhood is the only hope that keeps up a wife's
> spirits."
> --John Gay (1685-1732)
>
> Hope is what people do when they want to postpone direct action.
>
> Stay hungry,
>
> --J. R.
>
> Useless hypotheses:
> consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
> analog computing, cultural relativism
>
> Everything that can happen has already happened, not just once,
> but an infinite number of times, and will continue to do so forever.
> (Everything that can happen = more than anyone can imagine.)
>
John Marlow
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