What would your perfect death be like?

If I was terminal I'd like to go out on a high side at laguna seca on a repsol honda.

A glorious albeit painful way to go.

Great, and leave someone to pick up the pieces and wash the blood stains off the pavement...

Typical.

Tonton is displaying his ignorance again aka posting a reply.

To die in my sleep with no pain in my own bed at home.

There is some gurgling going on but there are worse ways to go.


I'd always try to choose something with a backup plan. Drowning wouldn't be a nice way to go out and you might frighten a diver one day.


Plus you can survive a parachute drop:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-survived.html

I'd probably like to go out taking part in an experiment like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR0f8n10DR4

Just feel the intense rush of speed and then nothing. In the event that a multi-million dollar jet aircraft experiment isn't at hand, I'd probably go the tried and tested route of a bullet to the head so that I could donate organs at least. That's not completely assured either though - google for "failed shotgun suicide" or "connie culp" - it's quite impressive how the human body can survive so much trauma. I guess that's what a couple of billion years of evolution buys you.

As for the meaning of it all, I doubt there's something beyond the life that we have here. Everything that you know and understand is a result of your sensory input and interpretation of it (which stems from genetic and external influence). Everything we have grown to accept can be wiped out by a single instantaneous event. In the video above, you can see how such a long life can be extinguished within seconds - does that make life worthless or invaluable?

When you see things like the genocide in Rwanda that wiped out hundreds of thousands of people (some estimates border on a million) in a matter of months, it seems like a life has no worth. When you bury a friend or relative, you treat them just like you would a pet. You drop them in a hole and walk away.

This is a fate common to all of us. It's hard to accept such an empty existence so people like to guess at alternatives but it doesn't matter. We're all part of the same game regardless. No matter the hand you are dealt, whether you fold too soon or hold out until the natural end, your hand is accounted for - an infant might die of starvation in poverty and be forgotten and someone else might influence millions of people over decades. Their lives are equally insignificant in the big picture because they are all just dots of volatile information. We keep information alive with repetition but it's only there to maintain survival and the enjoyment thereof - it's a zero-sum game with no winners.

The best you can do is to live a life that makes you happy. It's the only assured positive outcome we have. The way you achieve it is irrelevant - you might dream of a life beyond, you might adapt to love the life you have, you can work to earn the life you want - the effect is the same. If you live a discontented life, then checking out early is a likely outcome and there's nothing wrong with it IMO if you are dealt a bad hand. I wish more people were open-minded enough to accept this and prevent suffering that can easily be avoided.

After all, it's just a ride.

As for ignorance, a wise man once said that we all display a certain amount of it each time we speak, but those who choose not to speak, generally have much more of it to hide.

Well, all the evidence says you just die. Period.
The electrons quit flowing through you brain and it's just over. There IS nothing else. There are plenty of people who argue that point, but there's no evidence to support their claims and nothing can be proven without actually dieing... So....


As for me? ... I'd like to die an old man... Killed by the jealous husband/boyfriend/father of a young woman!

Jet Li has a similar theory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiFZM4huHi0

I suspect you mean infinite possibilities are played out but they can't really because it would require creating an entire universe for every choice, which would suggest the entire sequence of all events would have to mapped out in full. I'd hate to be the guy who had that job, there would be about 50 more universes every time your girlfriend finally decides on which dress and shoes to put on.


This assumes (sub)consciousness exists independently from the body but it relies on the neuron patterns formed in your brain tissue - it has to otherwise it can't generate imagery from your own sensory input.

If you think of everything in 3 categories: information storage, information exchange and information processing it puts them on a very common level. Most things you interact with are in the category of information storage - configurations of molecules/energy. The interaction you make is information exchange - light from the sun hits objects and parts of the light spectrum are absorbed and the rest is exchanged into your sensory input. Your interpretation is information processing which combines the exchanged information with the information storage in your brain tissue - it matches the received light you observe to an association you had previously defined by repeated information exchange and determines shape and colour - children don't instinctively have this stored association.

This process defines our emotions, our thoughts, our beliefs and ideas so if everything metaphysical has a physical dependence then it must also be physical and subject to the existence of the physical processes that sustain it, or to put it succinctly, I am therefore I think.

The only way to ensure continued existence outside of your own physical being is to create a store of information that people want to repeat. That's why we remember Newton, Einstein, Edison, The Beatles, Elvis, JFK, RFK, MLK etc - they formed/strengthened information people still want to repeat. The people who didn't, have their voices silenced by the dampening effects of time.


There is an assurance with a physical dependence that only the physical can influence what we know.

There are numerous accounts of ghosts and other "spiritual," paranormal occurrences. So the evidence would seem to say that one does not "just die." You may choose to ignore ghost stories because they don't fit-in to your science, but to me this is basically the same as the Vatican ignoring Heliocentricism. There is probably something out there.

Is this a Chinese saying?

Nope.

It's not that they don't fit, there's just no verifiable evidence - 'numerous accounts' aren't good enough. If they were, then we'd also accept accounts from 20 or so eyewitnesses and several doctors that JFK was shot from the front instead of ballistics and video evidence that says he was not.

This is probably why we invent so many theories about there being something else out there. If we can't trust what we see, then what we describe as 'real' has no more importance than what we describe as fantasy. A real friend has no more importance than a virtual one on Facebook.

Some see that as a dangerous way of thinking as it is clearly a route to diminish responsibility for your actions such as shooting your parents in the head:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,87414,00.html

However, when these things happen as part of everyday life such as the story of the doctor who was beaten beyond recognition, his wife and youngest daughter raped and all three burned alive:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...h-Winfrey.html

such as the story of the mother stabbed in the neck by a drug addict who later hung himself and she ended up paralysed from the neck down:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ye-poetry.html

such as the model/TV presenter who had acid thrown in her face after being raped:

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw...tie-Piper.html

and countless other stories, you question what is the point of it all anyway. It seems chaotic.

You have anti-social louts who get rich while contributing nothing to society:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-millions.html

thieves living in luxury for decades:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/...less-criminal-

people who are paid to protect the public endanger them:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/no...convicted-rape

people who control and ruin the financial services we all depend on are unaccountable:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/po...6908-22911144/

No one can look at all this and see a meaningful, purposeful system in which the only order is the one we choose to follow. Some people will then dismiss it and dream of fairer alternatives, others will accept it as all there is and either drop out or try to find happiness in what they can but we will all keep asking the same question: Why?

Why is there something rather than nothing? No one will ever find the answer because in a zero-sum game, the answer is zero. You can't know happiness without knowing suffering, success without failure, love without rejection, comfort without fear, calm without anger, wealth without poverty, life without death. A system under these rules has no meaning, it's just a balanced displacement from nothing.

All we can do is try to reach the positive states but when we reach them, we would be pretending if we thought there was something profound in it. We are merely overcoming adversity that has no reason to be there.

No evidence ... (hearsay and anecdotes are not evidence.)

But we DO have evidence ... controlled studies... that find that the human brain can create such stuff on it's own... and these internal creations can be greatly enhanced through the use of certain chemicals...

So there's still no EVIDENCE to support anything other than "you just die."

What is evidence to you?

Something that has a reproducible element for an enquirer. If you tell me you can talk, your evidence if I question it is to talk to me. If you tell me you can talk to God, your evidence has to be to be to allow me to perform the same or be able to observe you talking in a way that backs up your assertion, otherwise, there's an event taking place that requires a different definition.

There are different categories of evidence of course and eyewitness testimony is admissible in court but it can't be verified by a 3rd party directly as the examination doesn't produce the same result.

When it comes to ghosts, the assertion is that someone has seen one or photographed one suggesting they interact with the visible spectrum of light, which should be reproducible. They also take on a recognisable form, almost always the characteristics at the point of death. Yet there is no physical material to replicate the bodily movements of the muscles or bone structure. There is no reason why the material they are formed from only occasionally interacts with visible light and the vast majority of the time doesn't. There's no reason why such occurrences happen so infrequently and so many times to people who need to sell a magazine or want their 15 minutes of fame.

Yeah, there are photographs that are circulated around such as the ones here:

http://paranormal.about.com/od/ghost...-Ghost-Photos/

and some have been verified by 'experts' just like the leaked Mac photos that come out every now and again are examined by 'Photoshop experts'. In none of the cases is there a way to reproduce what has been seen so they have to be fabrications or technical defects e.g fog on camera lenses, distortions caused by temperature, defects in the processing of old photographic film and so on.

There is of course footage of ghostly activity, which is hard to pass up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo8CP9Hhb58

but almost all of it has no substance. The scientific community will overturn everything the second that reproducible, verifiable evidence is presented but it never has been. The legions of believers will go away muttering 'well, I still believe it anyway' and 'I know what I saw' but it won't persuade a lowering of evidentiary standards.

"Strangely enough his last wish is for water, which is refused. His last wish (and words) were denied"

I wanted to comment on this. The "escort" who sits with the person while they are dying has probably done it dozens if not hundreds of times, and probably though experience has worked out things not to do... Giving a glass of water to a man who is about to slip into a deep drug induced coma might not be such a great idea. Literally seconds after requesting the water, he fell into unconsciousness. He would have dropped the glass, or the water would have gone down his windpipe, leading to fits of coughing etc. which could have been horrifying for his wife. Alternatively, he might have vomited up the water, which would have also meant vomiting up the drugs, and then he would be back where he started from. Therefore I think she probably did the right thing refusing the request for water.

As for my death, If I needed to kill myself due to e.g., terminal illness or merely being sick of life, I'd prefer to use a handgun, unfortunately I live in a country where such devices are impossible to obtain by law-abiding citizens, so I guess I'd have to try and obtain appropriate drugs of some kind.

I've heard it said this way:

"It is better to keep one's mouth closed and be thought a fool, or open it and remove all doubt."

I believe that is a very sensible answer.