Having read the posts in this thread one thing that strikes me regarding the discussion re aging and death, is that it has centred around biological factors. No one has considered PSYCHOLOGICAL factors.
There is a well known saying – the skin is the mirror of the mind. What this is saying is that what is going on in the mind shows up in the skin. For example, the effects of prolonged stress often have physical symptoms which show up on the skin. I suggest that ‘the skin is the mirror of the mind’ is a simplification and that it is the BODY that is the mirror of the mind. In other words, physical ill-health has psychological roots and, frankly, relating diseases to genetic disorders is, despite what scientists claim, actually a load of bunkum.
This brings me now to aging and disease and reproduction.
Aging, disease and reproduction are actually SYMPTOMS of diseased minds. Humans, at the moment, are not immortal beings (but they may have been in the past, before the rot set in, so to speak). They age and get diseases. They die. Therefore to keep the species alive, they must reproduce. REPRODUCTION IS NOT NORMAL. It happens BECAUSE humans are dysfunctional (and therefore mortal).
There is also the misconception that aging is natural and normal. I don’t think it is. Nor do I think disease is accidental. Aging happens, as I said, because our minds are dysfunctional. The dysfunction shows up physically in, for example, the aging process and death. A person with a mind that is dysfunctional cannot even hope to entertain the possibility of immortality! Dementia and related diseases of the elderly are also seen as normal but again, they are far from normal and are products of dysfunctional minds.
In what way are our minds dysfunctional? The answer is simple. The mind is a learning organism. An organism that learns through ‘doing’ i.e. through experience. Humans, however, treat the mind as a memory bank like the hard disc of a computer or a library of books. (I’ll not go into the reasons why they misuse the mind here.). That is fatal. It leads to dysfunction and disease – physical and mental diseases and , ultimately, death. Dysfunctional animals have to die, they cannot survive. Another way in which we abuse our minds and make them dysfunctional is that the entire population of the planet is hooked on drugs of one sort or another. I don’t mean alcohol or herion, although those have an effect on imbibers. No, we are drugged up on power and emotions. If our minds were not dysfunctional we would reject these drugs but we are far too far down the road to perdition, I think, to sort ourselves out now!
If, as I say, we had healthy minds, we would reject this addiction to emotions and power. We would recognise good ‘food’ for the mind and bad ‘food’ for the mind and ‘eat’ accordingly. But we don’t, as a species. Death is inevitable.
As to immortality, how do our physical bodies survive? A healthy body, like a healthy mind, is self-healing and self-sustaining. It doesn’t need doctors. It can sort itself out. Also, a healthy mind will not fear immortality because a healthy mind doesn’t get bored. A healthy mind is self-sufficient. (A world in which people are not drug addicts would be much more stimulating than this sorry little planet we exist on currently, by the way.)
The consequences of the above are very important. The main being that we are not victims of disease. We can actually take control over our health and well-being.
If you want a longer, healthier life, and to make yourself less susceptible to mental diseases and physical, wean yourself off your drugs – principally emotional attachment (I have had a lot to say on emotional attachment in a different thread).
Finally, I’m not sure whether we can revert, as a species, to immortality in the near future. I think we may be too far down the dysfunctional road for that to happen. I, for one, am working on it, though!
