[palish]

He died at 85. He had a long full life and accomplished far, far more than you or I ever will, combined, multiplied by 256. (I'd like to think that's an exaggeration; alas.)

I don't get why humans mourn the death of people who die at >80, and especially people who have lead such illustrious, incredible lives. It should be a time for celebration, of the incredible way in which Mandelbrot has contributed to the sum of Humanity's Greatness. We should literally throw a party in His honor.

Humans die around age 80, with a variance of about 55-105. It's just a fact. For all our claims of progress, we are still hopelessly emotional animals who are influenced by whatever-happens-to-influence-us rather than solely by logic and reason.

[losvedir]

> It should be a time for celebration, of the incredible way in which Mandelbrot has contributed to the sum of Humanity's Greatness.

What's the point of celebrating now that he's dead?

My great grandmother used to tell all of us -- if you're planning to come to my funeral: don't. Use the money and time you'd spend then and come visit me now.

I think now is a reasonable time to mourn. A great mathematician is no longer around to give talks (I went to one a few years ago and thought it was very neat), and if you know him personally then you won't get to see him and converse with him anymore. That's very sad. Sure, he may have done abstractly great things, but there's no denying there are sad aspects to it.

But as for celebrations and parties, those should be done while the guy is still around to enjoy, I think.

[hugh3]

Celebrating the life of the dead is a coping mechanism for the living, not as a feel-good benefit for the corpse.

There's no value in pointing out that most of the things we do when somebody dies make no sense. We all know that they make no sense, but we do them anyway, because we feel the need to do something, and aside from the bare mechanical fact of getting the corpse out of the way before it starts to smell there's really not much to do that does make sense.

[ugh]

Coping makes sense and celebration can be a wonderful way to cope.

My grandma’s brothers and sisters, kids and grandkids came spontaneously together in her living room shortly after she died at the age of 85. We told each other stories about her life, how she fought her illness late in life, about pranks her kids played on her, how she, as the oldest, had to take care of her brothers and sisters after her parents died early. It was absolutely wonderful and we laughed a lot. Not for her benefit but for us. Much better than the phony consolation and rigid structure of the funeral that followed.

My grandma should never have died. Nobody should ever have to die. But I have become convinced that if someone does celebration is the right way to say goodbye. The mourning will come anyway, be sure to celebrate a little.

[hugh3]

Nobody should ever have to die.

I don't think that's a particularly useful or healthy attitude to have towards death, actually.

[ugh]

Why? And what could be healthy about something as destructive as embracing death?

I like to be pragmatic. I know very well that I will most likely die in a few decades. That’s just how it looks to be at the moment. I do however strongly believe we and the generations that follow us should fight death and that we can win.

[bad_user]

Well, since you are a pragmatic ...

If we could live forever, than we couldn't have any children (our reproduction rate is exponential, but there's only one planet that can hold us all and it doesn't grow any larger).

Stretching this, there would be no real notion of parents or grandparents. And it would get pretty boring too.

As most of us here, you're probably too young. Do you have children? Wait until you see your first toddler walking towards you while laughing.

It's a sentiment worth dying for ;)

[whatusername]

So I'm not sure if I agree with this argument.. And I'm going to link to the ultra-layman's version here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/39/Harry_Potter_and_the_... but why celebrate at someone dying at 85 when we can/should be able to make them live till 170. Or longer.

On a related note -- for anyone who hasn't read "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" -- It's brilliant.

[palish]

Oh, certainly. And people living until 85/100 has become common only recently (relatively speaking).

I'm merely mourning the emotional complex of otherwise-logical humans. I happened to have a frustrating week due to coworkers being unwilling to think about logical benefits of proposed solutions, letting their emotions overwhelm their judgement. "Schedule feature requests? Schedules cause pain, anguish, and suffering; also monsters will materialize and devour your soul. Your whole soul. Scheduling is out of the question. P.S. I assigned you a bug to get done before tomorrow evening (seriously). Drop your multi-week project and work on that, now. Don't worry, I cleared it with the lead programmer."

So when I read the top comment of the top article on HN, and realized it was negatively charged with emotion, I suppose I got a little cynical. :)

[natep]

I'm catching up on my HN 100 feed, and want to thank you for recommending that work...it's amazing!

In case anyone else is as skeptical as I am ("another Harry Potter fan fic? Why is it special?), I want to point out that this work is by Eliezer Yudkowsky, a major contributor to Less Wrong (lesswrong.com).

He has a remarkable ability to define and express rational ideas. He takes concepts and terms that I've only encountered in a classroom, and puts them in the middle of a sentence like they're ordinary ideas, and it makes sense. I know I'm not doing a very good job of expressing why I like his writing so much, but I do.

[shrikant]

Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind;

-- John Donne

[Tichy]

I don't get why people think it is "OK" if somebody dies at age 80 or older. Yes, it is the course of life. But nobody likes to die - no matter how old (except maybe when suffering from terrible painful illnesses).

[sesqu]

I saw a documentary on people over 100. Just about all of them felt their time had come some 20 years earlier, and some were very bitter about it.

Now, you could make the argument that they wouldn't want to die if they were in good health. But then you'd have to start thinking about how good your health needs to be - good enough not to need help? Good enough to be able to do anything you want? Good enough not to worry about doing stupid things? Good enough to keep up with the world as it races ahead, knowing you will eventually be required to understand all the new things?

[Tichy]

I admit I don't know many people over 100. My grandma is 90, but I never asked her if she wants to die. From what I've read, I would have expected a positive outlook on life to be a character trait shared by many old people.

I guess nature has also made it so that it becomes easier to die. As I said, if your physical health is dwindling day by day, perhaps there is a point when it doesn't seem so much fun to be alive anymore. Also if all friends have already died, perhaps it becomes lonely.

All these are just more reasons to feel sad, though. What if we could become 80 and still feel fit?

[GFischer]

My grandparents are also close to 90, and they do feel very lonely, I can see it in them whenever I visit.

My grandfather in particular was an agricultural scientist, he loves plants and outdoors and working with tools, and used to be very energetic.

Now he has to sit on a wheelchair, and grows bored of watching TV and reading (it doesn't help that his eyesight is very bad).

Their current enjoyment are their grandchildren, and we've grown old. I just hope they can get to see their grand-grandchildren (my girlfriend and I expect to have children in 2 to 3 years' time), that might get them some enjoyment again.

[Tichy]

I keep wondering if I should introduce my grandma (90 years old) to World Of Warcraft. A couple of years I gave her her first computer (against the advice of the rest of the family), and she does a lot of stuff with it (for example email, online banking, what I know).

Hm, maybe I'll just give her a WoW account + better graphics card for christmass. Who knows :-)

In theory the internet should be great for lonely people stuck at home. My problem is that apart from Hacker News, I don't really know where to turn on the internet when I feel lonely, either.

Any pointers? Most chat rooms seem really tacky, but I didn't do that much research.

Is there a MMORPG for the iPad yet?

[jacquesm]

I don't think this thread is the right spot to give you a suitable reply, but let's just leave it at that I disagree strongly with you.

[srbloom]

Isn't this thread exactly the right spot to reply?

[wynand]

"accomplished far, far more than you or I ever will"

This is a common snowclone (X is <far superior in some dimension - often intelligence> than you or I) that really bothers me. It's a kind of hero worship that attributes too much to the hero in question and makes unfounded assertions about "you or I".

I can understand that people become enthuisiastic about their heroes and that exaggeration is even a form of showing respect. But too much is no good for anyone.

[hugh3]

Can't we all just accept that the whole "I am so sad that X is gone" combined with the "Oh well, he was 85 and lived a good life" thing is just a natural part of the human dealing-with-death process? Do we have to take it all so literally and deconstruct every part of it?

I'll be the first to admit that the reason I'm sad about the not-particularly-untimely death of some dude I've never met has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the reminder that I, and everybody I care about, will also die at some point. Mouthing the meaningless platitudes which we associate with death helps to take the sting away.

[rbanffy]

> I don't get why humans mourn the death of people who die at >80

Because we wanted a little more time with him? Because we don't have enough geniuses?

[MikeCapone]

And because getting frail, sick, and dying is no fun at all for all parties involved.

[rbanffy]

Fine. Because we would like him to have a couple more decades of a healthy and productive life.

Better now? ;-)