Do you remember getting your butt smacked at 2-3 years old though? I think that reflection/introspection is a "valuable tool" and one worth passing along.

This is very thought provoking, thanks both of you. One of my central concerns ATM is the topic of children vs. adults, but that really wasn't where I was going with this. Thus far, I've only seen reason to make a distinction between "children", "adolescents", and "adults". I wonder what the use of the term "young adult" is, but I really don;t want to drive this topic off course.

Really this all came about because of the suicide guy's early part about Nietzsche and me feeling bad that he never found a use for doubt.

When I misbehaved as a child, 9 out of 10 times I knew they deserved it.

This is a very weird essay. Someone in the thread claimed that it read like the Sokal Hoax - this is not true.

This man is a Kurzweilian transhumanist hellbent on constructing a cybernetic narrative about Judaism, while struggling with crushing depression. Well, at least that's what he looks like after reading 1/19th of his insanely long "note."

This man reminds me of a biochemistry professor I had at UCLA.
Everytime we'd learn about an enzyme, he'd want us to sit back and figure out why it behaved the way it did, and to understand "the concepts" about the lecture material. He'd have us think about why enzymes were regulated a particular way and was frequently frustrated by students who were more interested in the specific details of the enzymes regulation / operation.

Being an electrical engineer, I was of course quite sympathetic to this professors style...but unfortunately, many of the enzymes didn't have logical regulation - or, their regulation operated in a fashion that was indiscernible to the human mind (or simply unresearched). Simply "simulating" the enzyme's operation in the cell in your mind would get you nowhere. Likewise, you would be unable to guess an unknown regulatory network based on what would be useful or elegant. Instead, we were stuck with the ugly IS of nature, when our professor desperately wanted an OUGHT in the form of clever design principles. In fact, the professor frequently spoke about some regulatory pathways as if they had been explicitly designed.

Not surprisingly, this professor eventually left biochemistry for law.

This "suicide note" reminds me of my poor professor, trying to find design in something that was clearly not designed. The difference is, the cell looks a hell of a lot more like it was designed than Judaism looks like a sociobiological technology with an end purpose of generating GodAI.

The author is a fully-converted Kurzweilian cybernetic-totalist (a term I stole from an essay linked by a 2+2er in the Singularity Thread). He has performed outrageous mental gymnastics to find some sort of cybernetic meaning in Judaism, and of the 100 pages of his "suicide note" that I read, almost all of it is a bizarre exegesis reconciling Judaism with the Singularity.

Although I have 1800 pages left to go, I can't see a reason in the text for why he killed himself. On the contrary, a great deal of this writing seems to be wonderful reasons NOT to commit suicide - his complete embrace of Kurzweil combined with his cybernetic Judaism seems to believe that the manifestation of God on Earth is imminent. It is hard to buy this man's claim that he's a nihilist...I can't believe that a nihilist would bother to reconcile Judaism and the Singularity through such nitty and silly arguments.

As an example of a silly / nitty argument, he claims that because God's arrival on Earth is inevitable (and, from what I can, imminent), we must reject Dawkins' conclusion that the God hypothesis is incorrect. Groan.

I am quite sad to see that this man killed himself. If he hadn't killed himself, I wouldn't known he had existed. What a d-bag move to pull! He probably wouldn't mind us joking about his death, because he included a bibliography in his suicide note (and acknowledged this by saying "what suicide note would be complete without a bibliography?")

I admire this guy's dedication. If I left a suicide note, it would simply say "Ha Ha".

plancer u make me want to believe in cybernetic judaism so i can one day be engineered to be half as smart as u, no lie

but re sokal hoax, you will agree that this can be published in the Social Text as is

^ (aside from how long it is)

Jesus Saves (Your Soul [on God's Hard Drive])

Lol at "outrage"

What "sparked" my "outrage" was the fact he committed suicide.

Let me ask you, how can you believe in nihilism? He even admitted to himself that is an irony in itself; yet continued to make up theories for the rest of the 1890 pages.

So no, it had nothing to do with Jesus. It had something to do with the fact that this person was in an abnormal depressive state in which his intelligence could not comprehend the illusion of the world around him.

All things considered, I think the desire for readers is a bloody fine reason to kill yourself.

However 1900 pages is too long for a single manuscript; even if you are a world-class writer and thinker. Better to explicitly divide the content into several works. (I.e. Suicide Note #1, Suicide Note #2,..., Suicide Note #N.)

Not to mention the inherent appeal of a suicide note with a sequel.

I'd ask the author for cliffs but oops... I read about 100 pages. It's interesting mostly bit rambling could use a ton of editing. I can't imagine the whole thing is worth reading as written.

Are you saying the world around us is an illusion? And if he had realized this he wouldn't have killed himself? Confused.

In a metaphorical sense, yes. Why do so many people perceive things differently? People have different beliefs, but live in the same world. Why are humans NEVER able to truly unite? Because we have differentiated from what is good.

In the end, whoever has control of money and power, has the power to set "standards" But they are neither enlightened nor wise enough to do such things. Greed allows us to look up to these types of people.

If Heisman had been able to drop his pride and just pick up something to hold on to... could have been anything (charity, being a chef, studying something SPECIFIC, etc) then there is some chance he could see past the dark clouds.

I can't imagine you got thru 100 pages of it without crying or falling asleep.