<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 49px; text-indent: -49px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="5" color="#000000" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>From: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica">Damien Broderick <<a href="mailto:thespike@satx.rr.com">thespike@satx.rr.com</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 44px; text-indent: -44px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="5" color="#000000" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Date: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica">June 9, 2008 11:20:50 PM MST</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 29px; text-indent: -29px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="5" color="#000000" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>To: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica">ExI chat list <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 67px; text-indent: -67px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="5" color="#000000" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Subject: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica"><b>Re: [ExI] "death gives meaning to life"</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 78px; text-indent: -78px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="5" color="#000000" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Reply-To: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica">ExI chat list <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">At 10:51 PM 6/9/2008 -0700, Lee wrote:</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> <blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I also agree with you strongly that we really cannot</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">charge the author of this wicked phrase with claiming</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">that death gives the only meaning to life, or even</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">that death gives the primary meaning to life.</div> </blockquote><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">No, in my experience the way the phrase is trotted out usually means exactly that--as one can see from the ancillary claptrap. "If there were no death, people would lose interest in everything, grow terminally [!!] bored, drift into idle pleasure-seeking, stop caring about each other, lose their righteous fear of God's punishment," blah blah. It might be true, but we have no basis for asserting it, except by analogy with brainless leeches who inherit great wealth and ruin themselves; that has some force, but fails to take account of other experiences with great wealth, such as Bill Gates's, say.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">But it's also true that a suppressed premise generally goes along the lines of "interfering with the divine plan for humans," something which is intrinsically, deontologically naughty but also prudentially wrong since the true deep meaning of life is an afterlife that can only be attained by dying. The meaning of a pupa's existence is the butterfly imago. If that were true, and demonstrably so, my attitude would be very different (as it was when I was young and more gullible, poor pupa). But note: the status of the saved supernatural imago is then purportedly *immortal* (in the major faiths, anyway) and hence, one must suppose, ex hypothesi eternally *meaningless*. Oh woe! Wouldn't it rot your boots!</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Damien Broderick</div></blockquote><br></div><div>Yes, metamorphosis serves as a poor analogy for death since it involves self generated change, a quality of life, not death. I think the death anti-value gets used by predators to survive. If one survives as a killer, then the meaning of life becomes linked to death. It occurs to me that replication began as a device for accommodating death where the individual's indefinite survival seemed untenable. Then, when cells began sticking together it became a device for growth and increased individual organism survival. </div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>It seems to me that an extropian organism, interested in personal survival might do well to learn to fuel itself without resorting to death (predation). <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/04/980416081539.htm">Years ago ASU developed cell-like machines to photosynthesize ATP.</a> Then one could distance oneself from the society of predators who rely on death genes and death memes (sacrifice). Humans seem to pose the biggest threat to humans and transhumans. </div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>A clean, predator free environment might permit one to forego reproduction (the need for an "after life") and focus effort on auto evolution and life extension. As I see it, the probability of death would fall. The value of life would soar and its meaning would expand as one achieved ever greater beauty and happiness. The increasingly remote possibility of death might remain providing the zero reference point for the immense value and deep meaning of life. </div><div> </div><div>-- Thomas Oliver</div></body></html>