aphie, a scientific person like you should not be religious. you should work on getting that bs out of your system. only trying to help... p.s. death = nothingness. it's the same as before birth. we all already know what death is like. just think about what your life was like a million years ago and you know what death is like.
good post daniel_m i think it's interesting to think about the consequences of the sun's red giant stage. as many of you know, stars go through stages. when our sun is in the red giant stage, it will be so large that it will engulf our planet. so, next time you look up at the sun...just think, someday we're all probably gonna be in it. who knows what the future holds, though.
how far off is that gekko? is there a certain point in a star's life that it begins to undergo this stage? or is it "growing" (however minutely) even as we speak? since i posted that i just can't stop thinking of what life will be like in times to come. especially since "modern" mankind is still in his infancy! we only started to band together and form small farming communities about 10,000 years ago. that's pretty quick progress from there to where we are now. try imaging life in the year 342,948 CE ? lol. i simply have no freakin idea. but, barring any cosmic catastrophe or life destroying diseases we WILL get there (most likely). that's the bit i find titillating - it's GONNA HAPPEN. damn i wish i could see it!
hey hey, interesting thread. i could never understand those who would not want to live forever or at least several hundred years. i believe that science will soon extend our lives dramatically. i looked into "cryogenics" and was not impressed with what i found. the theory is cool ( lol ), but the people who are in charge of ALCOR--- the cryo company--- are seriously lacking imho. it was disapointing viewing their website, don't think i would trust my eternity to the folks at ALCOR. all the best, surf
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010510/010510-7.html http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=48
GG, daniel_m would you consider this....... when you snuff it, get yourself sent off in a communal (keeps the cost down) coffin spaceship , probably called USA Mortuary Explorer. As your demise is a long way off yet, genetics will at least develop a drug which will stop tissue degeneration. Your body would be contained in a hermetically sealed unit (with a little camping stove to keep your feet warm). That would be better than cryogenics. At least there's a sperm's chance in heaven you would be recalled by earth to be regenerated. Imagine waking up in the year 3050 with the greeting "Welcome Back. At this point we would like to advise you owe $200billion in insurance fees". Just don't get sent with Aphie though. Playing boring mind games for 1000 odd years would just be so not fun.
when i think about being buried or cremated, i always think this would be the coolest: when you die, your body is put in a coffin spaceship, and you are just blasted somewhere into space. they could make some calculations to make sure you don't land on mars, etc. i'd want to be sent completely out of our solar system. who knows where i'd end up. that would be cool. maybe i'd land on another inhabited planet and be verification for them that aliens exist.