A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #9There's nothing scarier than death. Nobody really knows what happens to our consciousness when we die, and all of human civilization has been built around groups of people who claim to hold that answer. Every fear has roots in death, and everybody will die, from the famous to the obscure, sinners to saints, barbershop quartets to professional fluffers. One good thing about death is that without it, human progress would stagnate, because what motivation would anybody have to create knowing that the self is its own eternal legacy? Well, I guess that's a pretty good thing, actually.
RATING: 100%
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8 comments:
Wow, Glenn. This is quite a searching review. Now I'm scared.
One weird thing about death by aging is that it's unique to sexually reproducing species. The telomeres on the ends of our chromosomes (the thingies that protect them from wear 'n' tear that those people got the nobel prize this year for discovering) appear designed to degrade over time, thus "clearing the way" for the next generation of organisms.
I met a guy last week who had died twice from a heart condition and he said he never had a near death experience or anything--it was like he was there, then he wasn't there, then he was again. He said it inspired him to get a divorce.
("designed"=adapted)
wowscienc eis just as borring as i remember from school and beakmens world
glenn was just wondering aloud why animals' fur doesn't turn gray. i said i didn't know. :/
It does sometimes. Dark-coloured dogs often get white on their muzzle and bellies when they reach a certain age. That's probably what humans were like 150,000 years ago, too--right around the time we started getting gray hair (30-ish) was also right around the end of the average human lifespan. However, neotenic sexual selection, agriculture and medicine have enabled us to prolong our decrepitude for another 20-50 years.
those words u said made me think thoughts about science because i read all of them and internalized their message
I can hardly keep up with you "Reader Response" theorists.
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