> >Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 20:09:30 -0800
> >From: Nicq MacDonald <namacdonald@stthomas.edu>
> >Subject: Re: Reason +/-Faith
>
> >What is the creation impulse without the destructive urge? What is life
> >without death? What is a beginning without an ending?
>
> I see that the Great Myth is being propogated again: the lie that because
we
> see these dichotomies that they are necessary -- and not merely necessary
> but also good.
>
> What is the creative impulse with the destructive urge? It is the
creative
> impulse. What is life without death? It is life. What is a beginning
> without an ending. It is a beginning.
>
> To demand that every thesis must meet its antithesis is the sort of
> statement that sounds philosophically deep but which, really, is nothing
> more than a profound failure of the imagination.
>
>
Moreover, I think it's a predilection shaped by the current & historical
inevitability of death; the feeling that a beginning must pair with an
ending. All our drama, our art, is shaped by it. Culturally, the life/death
dicotomy shapes everything we do. I wonder if this explains a lot of the
opposition that is put up against Transhumanist ideas, from people with an
arts-based academic background?
This is possibly the number one reason for the resistance to the explicit
transhumanism that we peddle, particularly with life-extension. It doesn't
seem "right"; where's the dramatic truth in a life without death?
I find that people who have a problem with the general idea, that people
don't need to die, have no problem accepting it in their own specific
cases - no one particularly wants to die, themselves. Many people will tell
you that death is necessary for life, that it is part of the grand plan or
some such rot. Funnily enough, they don't say the same thing at the funeral
of someone close to them. And, with death staring them in the face, the tune
changes dramatically.
On public attitudes to life extension, I think there isn't really any issue.
No one really wants to die, or if they do, they make it happen. The group
may resist life extension, but individuals will embrace any hope of longer
life, especially as "their time" draws near.
Emlyn
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