She did take a 8 day break from the cave (which she spent on a tent above the cave without human contact but breaking the no-sunlight rule) because her wifi network which was in use for the security cameras/footage broke and the IT guys have to come and fix it around day 298.
This will probably make it not a record previously held by an Ucranian on 465 day mark but still very impressive
Also there will be a documentary coming out from her team
"Eligible" doesn't mean he'll actually be paroled, presumably some committee will have to decide if he can be released. It seems like a fine policy to allow the potential for parole while still keeping some convicts in jail if necessary.
I don’t understand why. My great grandfather was still strong and breaking horses in his late 80s. I have no doubt that if he was so inclined he could have easily engaged in violent crimes at that age. He was well into his 100s and completely healthy until he suddenly just died without warning. Maybe this person in jail is similar.
Fred Beckey[1] was still climbing mountains, and still going to the extent of traveling to other countries to try to be the first to ascend certain summits via certain routes, well into his late 80's and early 90's. Folk can surprise you, and the type of clemency suggested by the person you're responding to should, IMO, be entirely circumstantial rather than just limited to an age cutoff.
Uhhh from what I saw in dirtbag, he was not doing FAs in his 80s and while he marginally top roped at least once in his 90s, he was definitely struggling and practically had to have the documentary makers carry him to the crag so he could do it
Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not in a position to easily skip through the film on YouTube right now), but wasn't that the whole purpose of the international trip he made in Dirtbag? The peak had been summited before, but not via the route he intended to take.
I don't remember the film well enough to say whether he attempted a first ascent in his 80s (I don't think he did), but his last accomplished first ascent was Bomber Lake Arete in 1997 (at the still impressive age of 74). While a first ascent at any age is impressive, and in your 70s even moreso, it would still be an inaccurate claim to say he was making first ascents into his late 70s, let alone late 80s.
>... it would still be an inaccurate claim to say he was making first ascents into his late 70s, let alone late 80s.
Right, which is why I said, "to TRY to be the first to ascend certain summits via certain routes, well into his late 80's and early 90's". I never said he succeeded, just that he was an older gentleman still putting forth as much as he could to accomplish a hefty goal, which happened to be a lot more than most at that age could do.
Edit: https://youtu.be/mc1sqxXSMZ4 at about 9 minutes 20 seconds in, they show him traveling to China at 83 to try to be the first to ascend Haizi Shan.
Interesting. From the video, it looks like he was coaxed into a FA expedition, and bailed somewhere around the base instead of doing any climbing.
Look, I realize he has a bit of a name brand that resulted in lots of people trying to do things with him in his old age that he really didn't have the ability to do at that point. It's also unclear if anyone ever tried to bring him on a FA after that expedition.
I realize that stoke for climbing never died for him, but the limitations of his body caught up with him, as they will with all of us. I don't think there were any serious FA attempts of his in his 80s, even if people liked to advertise an expedition with him as such.
Even getting to base camp of an alpine expedition is a remarkable accomplishment at his age.
This comment feels like the same. I wholeheartedly agree with your original point about people of any age being capable of impressive physical feats, and have no interest in refuting it or "sidestepping it".
But since you brought up Fred Beckey, I thought it was worthwhile to correct an inaccuracy about him. People on this forum tend to value accuracy of claims after all, and the man has accomplished enough that we don't need to go making up additional things.
This thread could have ended 6 comments ago with "my bad, he was maybe attempting first ascents into his early 80s, though probably not seriously past his 70s. I remembered wrong". Claiming it's an "ackshually" about your original point just seems like a mischaracterization of the whole thread, and honestly, we should be OK just taking ownership of mistakes instead of getting defensive.
I'm wholly okay with owning mistakes and encourage comfortability with that among people around me every day, it's part of my job both professionally and as a parent.
I don't see what is inaccurate about what I said. Coaxed or not, he still got out there and tried for that first ascent, even getting to base at 83 which, to your point, "is a remarkable feat at almost any age". I never claimed anything inaccurate - he tried, and that's the truth.
But alright. I'll sit with this for a bit and maybe I'll end up understanding my inaccuracies.
Thanks for being willing to reflect on that. The original claim I was responding to was that he was still traveling for FA attempts in his late 80s and 90s. I also recognize my initial understanding that he was no longer making FA attempts in his 80s at all was likely inaccurate.
And aside from that, my response about him not making any FAs in his 80s was based on initially misunderstanding your comment to be claiming otherwise, adding to a bit of miscommunication here.
I hope you’re not really being as absolutist and handwavy of people’s concerns as you appear. There isn’t some age cut off (going up) where you are suddenly incapable of harming others. An 88 year old can commit all sorts of heinous acts.
(1) To physically prevent them from harming the public again.
(2) To discourage them from committing crimes again in the future.
(3) To punish them because punishing criminals is morally just.
Reasons (1) and (2) are what you are thinking of when you say it’s useless to keep an 88-year-old in prison. (3) is your “appeal to morality”. However, there is also:
(4) To discourage others from committing similar crimes.
That last reason is just as important as the others, if not more so.
That's not how psychos like this work in general, you're making it sound like he's a lot more normal than he actually is. This is a good case for the death penalty, because this is the type of person who can't be safely contained and there's no doubt whatsoever about his guilt, given that the kids can be DNA tested and the abnormal levels of relatedness are going to stand out.
I don't know anything about this particular case, I'm just saying that "eligible" shouldn't be disturbing in any situation because it doesn't mean very much.
I agree. I also feel the same way about putting 100 year old Nazis on trial. At this point, it's a total waste of resources that could be used much more productively.
It's not. We don't need to make that statement anymore; it's been made sufficiently. It's putting centenarians in custody for no actual gain to society, just to score political points, and it's disgusting. If it's a statement, it's a statement that "we're willing to waste time and public money to virtue signal, when the problem will take care of itself in a very short amount of time."
What we call justice has generally always involved a mix of deterrence, prevention and punishment for its own sake, ie to be seen as some sort of balancing of the wrong that’s been done. One might not like that idea but judges certainly think about all three aspects when sentencing.
I don't see "throwing 100 year old men who are not currently dangerous to anybody and going to die in a couple of years anyway" anywhere under the definition of "justice" in my dictionary. If anything, I'd expect to see a cross reference to "See: stupid wastes of time and money."
I, for one, would see it as a massive failure of our justice system if we had good evidence that an individual had committed heinous crimes, but then was still allowed to live out the remainder of his life in peace, freedom, and enjoying the company of his family etc. - something he had denied to so many others.
I, for one, would see it as a massive failure of government if the money necessary to put on one of these dog and pony shows was spent on prosecuting someone who's almost certain to die in the next 2 years, anyway, rather than real problems affecting people today and the next generation, such as climate change.
Had you been a victim of a concentration camp or served I the war you might feel differently. I think it’s a bit arrogant of us to decide a crime isn’t appropriate to punish when many of our parents weren’t even alive when the atrocities were committed.
I might. But, you know what? Most of those people are dead already, as are most of the potential witnesses in any such trial. Many of the surviving witnesses have dementia and are not credible witnesses. The Netflix documentary The Devil Next Door is a really good look into how difficult it is to conduct even one of these prosecutions, mostly for these reasons. And that trial took place 12 years ago. It would be exponentially harder today.
These trials are a fools errand anymore. The youngest any possible defendant could be is about 95, and the youngest any potential witness could be is probably somewhere in their mid 80s. It is literally not worth the time and effort anymore to put one of these show trials together -- and that's what they are, is show trials. The sentence a 95 year old man receives does not matter. It's not even a meaningful punishment, and he most likely will not serve a day of it. Meanwhile, we have real problems affecting people today, and the next generation, such as climate change, that are much more urgent.
You are not going to talk me out of this position, even using ad hominem like "arrogant."
I honestly did not mean it as an ad hominem, it was more of a statement about those of us with strong opinions about this - which I do have and they largely agree with yours - taking a step back and remembering 1) we aren’t a part of this process 2) many people involved are victims/were there and 3) we just have no reference for what happened in any real sense. It’s academic to us.
Based on the excerpts in the article it doesn't seem like he's denying much. Rather it seems more like he's trying to retroactively justify it/look for sympathy that I doubt he'll find.
> the imprisonment and degradation of his own daughter — is described thus: ‘At first it was just a mind game I played. But I got used to it. The idea, which had previously seemed so absurd, so monstrous to me, took shape.
> ‘One day I knew what I had to do. All that remained was to wait for the right opportunity. On that rainy Saturday morning the time had come. The thought had become action.’
> ‘It wasn’t easy, because the thoughts of what I had done were constantly circling within me,’ he says. ‘I was constantly energised. There was no one I could confide in. I had to look ahead and continue on the path I had chosen.’
> In 1967, Fritzl broke into the Linz home of a 24-year-old nurse while her husband was away and raped her while holding a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her if she screamed. According to an annual report for 1967 and a press release of the same year, he was also named as a suspect in a case of attempted rape of a 21-year-old woman, and was known for indecent exposure. Fritzl was arrested and served 12 months of an 18-month prison sentence. In accordance with Austrian law, his criminal record was expunged after 15 years. As a result, more than 25 years later, when he applied to adopt and/or foster Elisabeth's children, the local social service authorities did not discover his criminal history.
Similarly, I generally believe in giving people the opportunity to rehabilitate themselves and get on with their lives and don’t think that people should have to permanently live with the stigma of crimes they committed in the past. However, I don’t think that records of violent or similar criminal behaviour should be completely expunged; they should still be available in certain situations.
Seems the "Captivity" sections goes into more depth about why she probably doesn't hold the record:
> For the first six months of her captivity, Kampusch was not allowed to leave the chamber at any time, [...] Afterward, she spent increasing amounts of time upstairs in the rest of the house,
> In later years, she was seen outside in the garden alone
Seems she wasn't underground for the entire duration.
The sibling comment, linking to the Fritzl case was even more horrifying, heart-breaking and depressing. I read one of the “See Also” links but I had to stop there. I don’t know how police, jurors, therapists, health care workers and anyone else who has to deal with these kinds of issues as part of their job deal with the vicarious trauma.
> Evidence recovery was complicated, as Přiklopil's only computer was a 1980s Commodore 64, which is incompatible with modern-day data-recovery programs.[37]
I was reading about a Buddhist ritual for self mummification. The final phase involved being voluntarily lowered into the ground in a lotus position until they die.
It’s quite amazing what the human mind can do. Especially when you’re crazy.
My understanding is that, after some realizations of impermanence, fundamental suffering, and no-self, something like this isn't insane. If anything, the way people treat themselves and others in ordinary life, the kind of mental gymnastics and self-inflicted anguish in "normal" society is the insanity.
The most important philosophical lesson I've learned in life, is that it is important to take a step back once in a while (regularly!) and assess whether what you are doing in life genuinely appears to be good or bad at a very surface, kindergarten level, as a reality check.
There are just too many times you read through people doing horrific things throughout history, and if you read enough you can understand the viewpoints and the cultures that drove those people do to those things, but at the end of the day, I can't help but feel like: "why can't people just, from time to time, take a step back and think: really though, do I think this is right?" and then truly be willing to make the changes necessary to their life's choices if the answer is: "No".
It doesn't matter if it is something as obvious as being a member of the einsatzgruppen, or just realizing that you're spending too much time at work when you need to be home with your family (or vice versa).
People don't seem to do this nearly enough, and I've found that generally, its a more important moral signifier than the deep and complicated ideologies we mentally build for ourselves that gets us into these situations.
So no. Even if the moral ideology of these monks is crystal clear, perfectly logical, and rationally perfect, at the end of the day, they've chosen suicide over finding a way to enjoy life. They've failed the kindergarten morality test.
That's interesting you bring up this point, because it opens up a whole can of worms:
- Why is suicide bad?
- Why is there a presumption that this is your one and only life?
- Why is there a presumption that life is made to be enjoyed?
- Why is there a presumption that consciousness ends after life ends?
- If death is inevitable, then couldn't suicide be broadly construed to pretty much ... just living?
Believe it or not, these are thoroughly explored by monks and philosophers. Ironically, I think perhaps, you should take a step back and examine some of your own frame in looking at this.
I'll start with this: there are more than one kind of motivation for ending one's own life. The most common one, which we call suicide, is usually done after giving up on life because there is overwhelming pain. There is a lively debate about this going on with regards to assisted suicide, including certain countries having passed legislation with state-funded assisted suicide. It's not that I agree with this kind of suicide, but rather, I think you are construing suicide far too broadly, conflating what the monks are doing with suicidal people overwhelmed with pain.
What these monks are doing are not an attempt to kill themselves, because things are more difficult. If that were so, there would be no tradition of self-immolation.
To give you a contrast, look at say, a modern -- still living -- teacher named Adyashanti. In the past year or so, he took a sabbatical from teaching due to his health condition, where he silently attends and lets his partner lead the teaching. And it may not seem like it when you hear him speak over the years, but he has been experiencing significant pain for years due to his ongoing health condition.
It's the same realizations he has that allows him to carry on with his teaching despite experiencing that pain, as it does with the monks going through mummification or self-immolation.
I think you've missed the point. GP is saying to close the can of worms of reasoning and rationalizing in favor of gut-checking things against childlike simple thinking. Don't kill yourself because ~everybody who isn't clinically depressed or "galaxy-brained" agrees that it's a bad thing to do. Simple.
If the self-mummifying monks took this approach, they would probably take a vacation from monking after their trains of monkish thought arrived at suicide, instead of going through with it.
I am aware of the point the commentor was trying to make, and I disagreed with it.
While there is wisdom in that kind of innocence, in this case, the best we can say is that this gut check points to a course or action is right for you. However, it is inadequate for assessing whether it is right for anyone else, much less in an universal sense.
If we are going to make this about listening to intuition, then sometimes, that gut check — or in the case of those monks, it would be a heart check — the answer for them, in that moment, is “yes”.
I hear you, but I'm sticking to this: Anybody reading this, monk or not, I want to go on record saying that you should not kill yourself, or let yourself die of starvation. Yes, I am presumptuous enough to make the claim that--at least in this one instance--I know what is best for somebody else. As long as you are healthy, you should stay alive. If your monk-reasoning disagrees, then there is a flaw in your monk-reasoning. I'm not learned enough to find it for you, but I'll still tell you that it's there somewhere.
I disagree, but I also respect your position and where you are coming from with this.
As a note, the Meiji-era government thought the practice was anachronistic and depraved. They criminalized self-mummification. The last successful practitioner of that particular sect in Japan accomplished it illegally. https://allthatsinteresting.com/sokushinbutsu
> I think you've missed the point. GP is saying to close the can of worms of reasoning and rationalizing in favor of gut-checking things against childlike simple thinking.
GP is merely pushing their own belief that suicide is not OK. Their line of logic belongs to a self-righteous person that uses cheap rhetoric to claim moral superiority.
> ~everybody
Debatable...
> who isn't clinically depressed or "galaxy-brained"
Isn't attainment of nirvana and ending the cycle of death and rebirth the whole point of Buddhism? To avoid the suffering of another incarnation? So maybe for the monks the ritual suicide is something their gut feeling tells them is right?
I mean, I don't know a whole lot about Buddhist, but I suspect that you don't either (please correct me if I'm wrong). And really, is dying in peace during a religious ritual really so much worse than desperately clinging to life in hospital for the final before death, maybe ruining and exhausting your closest family in the process? Don't get me wrong, I prefer our way of life, but I believe you think your (our) culture is the only correct one, and for example refer to it as "gut-checking" or "childlike simple thinking". I don't think it's as universal and obvious as you think.
This reminds me of this beautiful story I heard. I don't remember from where (probably a memoir of a shamanistic practitioner). This story took place somewhere in Africa, among a people whose custom and practice was that when someone knows in their heart their time is done, they'd walk out into the wasteland to die alone, with the blessing of their community.
An NGO volunteer working with that community found out about an elder doing that walk. She went off looking for the elder, and found her. Sobbed and begged her to not do this.
The beauty I see in this story isn't one where it ends with the NGO volunteer somehow convincing the elder to live longer. But rather, that of an elder, knowing that the time has come, and all those loose ends have been tied, the words have been spoken, resolving all the regrets and longings, at that last moment of stillness as profound as witnessing a birth, the elder took the time to comfort and guide a stranger to their ways. A child born in a culture who have lost the wisdom of death. And this elder, passes one more wisdom as a gift. The NGO volunteer thought she was saving the elder, but it was the elder saving the NGO volunteer.
As a contrast there is this story that took place here in America, something I'll never forget. My wife and I visited my wife's grandmother when my son was about 6 months old. My grandmother-in-law was in bad health, having survived some major medical interventions where she is now on a highly restricted kidney diet and constant pain. We took the trip so that my grandmother-in-law has a chance to hold her great-grandson, and my son has a chance to connect with his great-grandmother, even if he will probably never remember it.
I remember when my grandmother-in-law, spoke in a voice on the verge of breaking, that she didn't know how long she could keep going. And I remember my wife telling her, to hang on for a few more years, because we were planning on raising another one. And my grandmother-in-law then said to herself, "ok, there will be another one ..." She continued living to see another two great-grandchildren from the extended family, and if things work out, another one this summer.
You just never know, just poking at the surface. It's easy to try to fit things in our comfortable narrative frames. Dealing with and surviving the death of another is no easy thing, and yet, there's great wisdom within those experiences.
I just wanted to jump in and reply that you’re making a lot of sense and I can grasp your wisdom. It’s difficult to talk about spirituality on HN because a lot of people here are very attached to their rationality.
It’s a beautiful story you shared. Westerners often have this idea that they know what’s right and need to awaken everybody else (isn’t that the whole point of missionaries? ;-)).
I do not understand this mummification thing, but I do understand the concept that death is a transition to other worlds. A common goal of most spiritual traditions is to purify the person so that when they die they can ascend to the best possible next thing in their evolution. The Toltecs talk about cultivating “fire” inside one’s system such that they can use it to propulse themselves straight up into what’s next - and not get lost wandering into their attachments. The Buddhists talk about letting go of karma so we can stop reincarnating due to our attachments. It’s all very similar. My sense is these monks aren’t trying to escape life, but rather maybe felt ready to propulse their souls back into the cosmos with intentionality. I don’t understand it, but I can’t have the audacity of judging people who I know nothing of and who, if I met, would likely read me like an open book.
I do believe that Harry Potter is accurate when it separates magicians from moguls, and that as one reaches much higher levels of consciousness - their perceptions and abilities become unfathomable to the uninitiated. It doesn’t mean they can’t be wrong, or become twisted in their perceptions. But it means I’m not going to pretend I know better than them.
There's no Buddhism in the gut, though; at least not full-on nirvana Buddhism. Nor is their any orthodox Judaism, hardcore utilitarianism, or pauline Christianity. I'm talking about our ancient, shared core of self-preservation and empathy. The things you feel before you get taught to feel anything. The things that make us feel kinship with dogs and gorillas.
So no, to answer your question, I don't know much about Buddhism. I don't know much about mathematics, either, at least not when compared to how much there is to be known. And yet, if I heard about a subset of mathematicians who believed in a proof that one was equal to zero, I'd still dismiss it (and them, to some extent). The same is true of a subset of philosophers (these particular Buddhist monks) who arrive at the conclusion that they should let their own functioning bodies die. I'm sure they've thought a lot about it; certainly a lot more than I have! But there's a thing that sometimes happens when you think about a problem too much, to the point of obsession: You can end up even further from the truth than you started.
Just look at the hardcore utilitarians. Look at Ayn Rand. All of them know more about ethics and philosphy in general than I do. Doesn't mean I can't dismiss them with a heuristic, which I do. Why is there reverence for suicidal Buddhist monks in this arena, but not the equally-kooky Western utilitarians?
> And yet, if I heard about a subset of mathematicians who believed in a proof that one was equal to zero, I'd still dismiss it (and them, to some extent).
I don't want to derail the conversation, but there are many pretty weird and diverse ideas in mathematics, including finitism and ultrafinitism (where people just don't believe in some very large numbers), various subsets of peano axioms (where 1 != 0 may not be provable), or modular arithmetics (where 0 = 2 may be true).
> The things you feel before you get taught to feel anything. The things that make us feel kinship with dogs and gorillas.
I'm not convinced I should listen the Things absolutely. The Things often tell me to hit someone annoying in the face, eat exclusively very caloric and fat food, and seek sexual gratification with every female of age around me. I don't think the Things are as smart as you give them the credit for.
> (...) who arrive at the conclusion that they should let their own functioning bodies die.
What about:
- Medieval old people, who just left for the woods when they felt they're getting old and are a burden on the family.
- Mothers sacrificing their life for their children
- Strong and healthy males on Titanic who, despite their physical superiority, decided to let women and children first
- People fighting in war/guerilla for their country or their beliefs
> I don't want to derail the conversation, but there are many pretty weird and diverse ideas in mathematics, including finitism and ultrafinitism (where people just don't believe in some very large numbers), various subsets of peano axioms (where 1 != 0 may not be provable), or modular arithmetics (where 0 = 2 may be true).
That's not really what I'm talking about. I'm imagining somebody who is so sure of their own mathematical reasoning skills that upon proving to themselves that the number one, in its simplest sense, was equal to the number zero, they started behaving as though this were the case. Perhaps going mad and (in good service of the analogy I'm making) killing themselves.
> I'm not convinced I should listen the Things absolutely. The Things often tell me to hit someone annoying in the face, eat exclusively very caloric and fat food, and seek sexual gratification with every female of age around me. I don't think the Things are as smart as you give them the credit for.
FWIW I think everything you're listing has some amount of instinctive conflict. Violence requires you to disable empathy. Chronic gluttony eventually requires you to turn off your ego and hate yourself. These are conflicts that (apologies for leaning heavily on this point, but it's kind of central) pretty much everybody, from a very young age, learns about and has to work through.
The red flag is when you arrive through cold reasoning alone at a conclusion that makes no sense to any of your instincts, as evidenced by the fact that the average person off the street is completely bewildered by your conclusion. Like the idea that you should starve yourself for no other reason than that you have freed your spirit of all desire.
> What about... [four moral case studies]
Moral conflicts are still moral conflicts. Killing to avoid killing, violence to avoid violence. In the more difficult cases, perhaps even killing to avoid non-lethal violence (e.g. slavery), or even suicide to avoid extreme pain or the moral paralysis of your family members. Yet again, the sorts of decisions that people actually have to make with some regularity. The sorts of things we feel we need to teach children about, as they become adults.
Suicide for purely ascetic reasons is not a moral conflict. From an unlearned perspective, it's just wasteful and bizarre. It seems to be the ethical equivalent of the mathematician going mad after incorrectly proving to himself that one apple was equivalent to zero apples.
> Why is there a presumption that this is your one and only life?
> Why is there a presumption that consciousness ends after life ends?
Because there’s no evidence to the contrary and Occam’s Razor as applied the plain observations of life and death suggests this is a reasonable base assumption. “The simplest explanation is usually best.”
I mean we are on HackerNews, site filled mostly with rational, down to earth people. But there are billions people that believe in, for example, saints that can intervene in the earthly affairs. They also believe in multiple stories about miracles involving that saints after their death. I don't, but your razor doesn't work when one believes there is evidence to the contray. In fact, despite our bubble, way, way more people worldwide are religious than atheists.
(and by the way, you only picked two out of many questions to answer)
That seems to imply those billions of people religious are not rational, down to earth.
Theism in itself is a simpler explanation for existence than atheism, and yet many rational people are atheists. Is it because they weighted all the possibilities or because they discarded the option a priori?
We are all way less rational than we would like to believe.
I would argue that theism is not just a simpler explanation but a more naive one.
We could also explain computers as magic and it would be simpler than explaining it with electricity and math.
No religions are based in any observable facts* and thus being naive explanations, indistinguishable from magic.
* More like they are based on deprecated observable facts, at first the sun and nature, later man and it's dramas.
Now we now the sun is just a big ball of gas and man is just a big brained mammal.
That being said religion is just one area of many and you could be very rational in lots of them but be religious for whatever reason.
The simplest explanation, by far, would be a deistic view of some sort or another from which questions of the meaning of life cycles immediately emerge.
A belief in natural emergence relies not only on endless untestable hypotheses, but even still results in the exact same sort of frustrating unanswerables. For instance if one believes that the initial matter, which would culminate in the Big Bang, whisked into existence through a quantum fluctuation, then it immediately leads to the question of what created this void, rich in quantum interactions, or the nature of quantum interactions themselves? And for that there's not even a hypothesis, untestable or not.
Maybe there will be one day, but also maybe not. To me the simplest answer is to simply acknowledge of our own inability to offer any compelling answer to this question. That's not to say an acceptance of such inability, but assuming the nature of a destination (one way or the other), in a journey we've yet to even scratch the surface of, seems neither simple nor wise.
The scenario of a created universe doesn't itself give you any kind of reincarnation or afterlife. It's added complication, especially since every aspect of it is apparently hidden from us in elaborate ways.
It inflicts massive suffering to everyone around you and is frequently driven by incorrect perceptions of how bad things are which can be treated.
> - Why is there a presumption that this is your one and only life?
It might not be, depending on how you see loss of consciousness every night. Are you even the same person you were before sleeping last, other than that you believe you are?
> - Why is there a presumption that life is made to be enjoyed?
We seem to have some instinct to enjoy ourselves, though it can go wrong in many ways. Also, we like it.
> - Why is there a presumption that consciousness ends after life ends?
It really looks a lot like sleep, except that there are relatively few people who say they've ever observed anyone waking up from it.
> - If death is inevitable, then couldn't suicide be broadly construed to pretty much ... just living?
I mean, if we're going the kindergarten route, you'd tend to look at it as "just dying" ... except that many people have experienced it and it's generally horribly painful for everyone who was near you.
I like this. At the same time, it can be challenging to apply in practice because you have to be mindful of the scope you are analyzing.
Let's say you travel for work for a week. If you analyze just that week, it appears you are living your life completely out of balance. Don't get to see your family at all. No time spent with close friends. No opportunity to deepen ties to your local community.
But if you only travel for a week and are otherwise home, and the career affords you the ability to take care of your family and community, then this is a reasonable trade-off. So you have to look at a larger timespan. But how large? A month? A year? What chronological scope is the right one to evaluate one's actions?
Now consider the much harder scope: number of people. Humans are social creatures and almost nothing that we do can be evaluated in isolation. Willingly dying in a knife fight certainly fails the kindergarten test. But not necessarily if doing so protects your family from the attacker.
But what kinds of sacfrifices do you consider reasonable and for which groups? Many jobs have some level of physical danger. Is it reasonable to take those risks for the benefit of the company? What harm would you accept to yourself to benefit your community?
What about your country? Flying a thousand miles to a foreign country to shoot someone in the face who did you no harm certain fails the kindergarten test. But what if your country is at war with that person's country? How does the kindergarten test handle this scenario when it's a member of the SS during WWII versus someone in some other conflict?
We're on a forum that is largely composed of engineers, business strategists, and other types of work that encourage and reward thinking deeply about their respective topics.
So I wanted to point out that human cognition is faulty. It is an important skill to be able to think 10 steps ahead in a chess game, but you have to remember that as much as we desire to be rational, we are imperfect rational creatures, and there's a percentage error on every one of those steps, as a result of our being human. To continue the example, its part of why chess is fun: you try to think X moves ahead, and realize that you miscalculated at step 3 when your opponent does something you didn't expect.
The same thing applies to life in general. We build up ways of thinking about things over lifetimes of thinking deeply on subjects. But each layer of learning is built on a previous layer, and each layer has a percentage error.
So it is important, from time to time, to stop and reassess. Is your current view of the world faulty? How might I be wrong? What if I am wrong? What would be the repercussions? Is my current way of thinking leading me to live the type of life I want to live? Is my way of viewing the world a positive or negative, for myself and for the people around me?
If the answer to any of those answers is no, that's a good indicator that the compounded errors in your way of thinking have lead you down a bad path, and you should stop and reassess.
And the thing is, that's not something that you can notice, unless you really take the effort to take a step back and re-assess, in part by asking such questions. We get so used to our current mode of thinking, whatever it is, that even if it has led us down dark and dangerous and self-destructive paths, it will feel normal at the time, unless one makes a conscious effort to re-asses from time to time, and really, genuinely, consider that our world outlook might really be deleterious or even outright wrong. Its what David Foster Wallace was talking about when he talked about his 'default human viewpoint', or 'this is water'.
And one last thing, if you do do these re-assessments, then you have two options. You can stop and reassess your way of thinking, and look for the mistakes in your thinking and evolve (which is always a good thing to do, always, regardless of whether or not you are wrong to begin with, this is how we grow as people).
Or you can choose to radically change your life outlook and philosophy, _even if you still believe your initial one was correct_, just because you think a different viewpoint might be beneficial. Because there are a wealth of different life philosophies that have been developed over the years, many of which have been deeply developed by myriads of intelligent people and refined throughout the ages. It turns out life is complicated, and the human brain isn't really capable of 100% understanding all of it, the best we can do is choose which lens we want to view it through. Learning how to view life through a different lens, if carefully chosen, is never a bad thing.
So I don't know much about the self-sacrificing monks in the original post. Maybe such self-sacrifice was the right thing for them to do. And I am not trying to come out against suicide, there are plenty of times in life where such self-sacrifice is warranted or a downright honorable thing to do. But I sure hope that each of those monks, before they did it, took some time to really consider that even if this was the right move for them to take, they could still choose not to do so. My suspicion of the average person, is that once they get in that deep, they tend not to do so, even when they are facing their own death, or the taking of another's life. And I think that's a tragic flaw in humanity.
You seem to promote self awareness yet are judging people and a tradition you know nothing about. I'm not pro or against what was just shared - mostly just like you slightly perplexed. And I think I understand where you're trying to get to with this - but I've noticed that when I think "people don't do enough of this," I'm often projecting what I'm actually not doing enough. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Please don't "gotcha". This type of critique is lazy and flattens the interesting points raised in the parent. And: sometimes people are projecting, other times they're not.
> If anything, the way people treat themselves and others in ordinary life, the kind of mental gymnastics and self-inflicted anguish in "normal" society is the insanity.
This is just "What if the people in mental hospitals are the sane ones, and we're all crazy?" with fancier words.
Realizing that other people have tethered their sense of self and sanity to a poorly chosen tether is a dangerous moment.
It's well documented that this can end in severe depression (existential dread) or even suicide.
If you don't have a firm grip on yourself to begin with, I could see how it could end in insanity just as easily. Probably a little different cause and effect model though.
Or, is it mental illness to think death or suicide must be avoided at any and all cost?
Death is inevitable and a natural part of the cycle of reality. Why should we care if someone's happy believing they ascend somewhere by suiciding?
Someone could just as well believe that typing letters into a machine and waiting for more to appear from someone else you've never met on the other side of the world is a form of mental illness, or a type of spiritual suicide.
Some people may believe the entirety of modern life and many of its trappings are a form of mass insanity. And who's to say they're wrong?
While I agree this borders on the literally insane, that line of thinking starts down a slippery slope. At what point do we consider any religious beliefs that have deleterious effects on oneself to be mental illness? I still believe in self-determination, even if that determination leads to killing oneself.
The trouble with arbitrary societal consensus is that it’s arbitrary. And not necessarily any wiser than an individual’s personal desires.
These monks aren’t impulsively killing themselves, they seem to be towards the end of their lives anyway and are choosing how they want to go out. I don’t see what’s wrong with that. I might prefer to be in hospice hopped up on drugs when I pass, but I won’t claim to be morally superior for it.
> At what point do we consider any religious beliefs that have deleterious effects on oneself to be mental illness?
Religion is basically always a socially acceptable mental illness that we not only tolerated but encouraged because it has been a part of civilization since before we formed the basic premises for what constitutes a civilization.
For any society to exist, we have to pick something to believe in. And anything we pick, will have contrary evidence or not make sense at least some of the time.
That doesn’t make it an illness, unless it produces massively negative outcomes.
Again, while I agree with this sentiment, I think self-determination should still win the day. It is far too easy to be labeled as mentally ill and be committed to unwanted treatment. That has been tried in the past, and it never ends well. If someone is mentally ill and refuses treatment, that needs to be respected, up to the point that their beliefs begin to cause harm to others.
Of course, that conclusion begs further questions. Should unwelcome proselytizing be considered an attempt to do harm? Should it be permissible to indoctrinate children into religion? These are not easy questions to answer without grossly infringing some individuals' rights to free speech and religion.
Yeah. That indicates "mental illness" is not about the mental well-being of the person, but how much negative societal impact that person has with the people around them.
The old line about crazy people not worrying if they're crazy is not entirely accurate but a lack of self-reflection on your mental state is a pretty big givaway.
It’s an interesting question. Personally I think the line is whether you’re harming anyone else.
If someone wants to amputate their own hand, for example, it seems hard to argue that they shouldn’t be allowed to. But it does depend whether they’re mentally sound; you wouldn’t want to let someone who’s clearly suffering an illness do that.
It’s… tricky. I try to err on the side of personal freedoms though.
> But it does depend whether they’re mentally sound
Where we draw the line on "mentally sound" is a social construct, right? I can't really wrap my head around somebody wanting to amputate their own hand and at the same time being considered "mentally sound" by the people around them.
> If someone wants to amputate their own hand, for example, it seems hard to argue that they shouldn’t be allowed to
I just don't get this. I suppose it hinges on what you mean by "allowed to". Maybe there's an argument to be made around personal bodily autonomy, that as a society we decide we don't want the government to compel us not to do things like this? But if someone I loved expressed to me that they wanted to harm themself I would do whatever I could to convince them not to. If one of my kids tried to chop off their hand for no good reason I would do everything I could to prevent it.
Not saying this is a "good" reason,
but there are indeed people who have decided this is what they want. There's a man who wanted his hand/wrist cut off so that his arm could be grafted in a way that turns his arm into crab-like claws.
I have to admit that to me, this actually sounds quite nice. She had books, fresh food and clean clothes were sent down to her. I would totally do this.
I used to be irate when I would read these kinds of off the cuff comments about mars missions / colonization but I've come to realize that in 20 years I'll be able to look back and read these with amusement as I watch live streams of people on Mars doing crazy shit.
I know that Von Braun expected humans to set foot on Mars by the late 1970s. If Von Braun thought that was possible it certainly was, if not for the pivot in budget that occured under Nixon.
For better or worse we're seeing a resurgence in privately funded space exploration which may be the key to making it happen this time.
How could Space X even afford fund a mission to Mars? There is no way that can be profitable .
What they are doing now is cool but they are still a business which offers a launch services at a competitive price and a satellite internet provider themselves. How does an exceptionally expensive (especially in this financial environment) Mars mission fit into that.
I highly doubt Space X could ever realistically get to Mars before NASA. Artemis seems way more promising than SpaceX as far as manned space flight is concerned.
When banks fail do they broadcast the fact beforehand? It's always a "shock" when a company fails.
Just recently Virgin space (or whatever it was called) closed its doors. There wasn't a public debate beforehand, it was just announced. Sure insiders knew about it but not the broader public.
I'm not implying that spaceX is going shut its doors but it even less incentive to be transparent than a governmental organisation.
It isn't always a shock when a company fails, and Virgin Space is a prime example of that.
They flew something like a handful of missions in 20 years with an unscalable platform and to my knowledge they never once received money to put a payload into orbit.
They are totally incomparable to SpaceX, the company that is putting more tonnage into orbit than any other entity, corporate or governmental.
Radiation on Mars can be resolved in the same way, by living in a cave. I expect the first permanent settlements on Mars will either be in sealed sections of lava tubes or in underground artificial structures.
Some go early. They're not suitably skilled to get food of they quickly figure out this isn't for them (one guy quit once before the first night.) In later seasons this group is very small.
Around the 30-50 day mark the emotional part comes into play. Quite a few quit for emotional reasons.
Once the hard-cores are left, then it comes down to food. At that point it becomes a race to see who can out-starve the others, without getting pulled for medical reasons.
Some parts of the world can go without sunlight for months on end (and constant daylight at the opposite time of year).
Personally I’ve gone a week without sunlight and rather enjoyed it.
Not taking anything away from yourself or others. Just making a point that’s it’s not that unusual for people to live without the sun for extended periods.
I don’t really understand why people have taken such an objection to my comment. It’s factually accurate.
I’m not suggesting that SAD isn’t a real thing either. Clearly there’s even a lot of research into it. In fact I have a few friends who suffer from it. But SAD was never my point.
the point behind my post was just stating that plenty of people do live without the sun for extended periods and thus this article isn’t an isolated incident.
And literally the only reason I made such a point was because the GP seemed surprised that someone might live that way.
Edit:
By the way, I’d love to see some statistics to back up your “blight” statement. Because there’s plenty of stats that rank Nordic counties highly in happiness and good mental health despite them having longer and darker winter months.
I don’t dispute cases of SAD would be higher in such countries (I haven’t personally run the figures) but equally I suspect your actual statement isn’t a fair reflection of the real situation either.
I'm not insignificantly of Scandi descent on both sides of my family, so I dare say that accounts for something in terms of feelings towards light. There's Cypriot, Sudanese and Ashkenazi Jewish too, but heavily Scandi.
I do enjoy sunlight, but a lack of it isn't the end of the world for me. The world keeps on spinning, I don't become dysfunctional from a lack of light, though my mood is elevated by it like anybody.
Thinking about it for a few hours, yes, I would happily go and live in a cave for a few years. Wouldn't want to spend my entire life there as I feel I'd miss out, but yes, wouldn't bother me much. I'm very comfortable with being on my own.
It's probably because I associate it with being outside. Specially in the summer it feels so good, also the odors of the woods and fields, the green and yellow colors. To me the winter is super depressing, even though I go out every day for at least an hour. The colors are dead, the sun rarely shines, so for me the sun is what gives all my senses so much to enjoy, also because of what it does to the environment.
But regarding those communities which do have extended periods of missing sunlight, they do have bars and other places where they meet and feel some warmth, and will always have the thought of this state being over in a couple of months. I guess they mostly do it because the nature imposes it on them.
A Russian fled to Siberia, or they had no contact with anyone for decades. The father’s brother was executed in front of him due to Stalins religious persecution.
So they were motivated to stay hidden.
They could see satellites, overtime, and figured what those were. Understanding that rocket tech had continue to advance. Plastic wrap, however blew their minds.
Similar previous research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefania_Follini
spent 130 days underground, isolated from external clues about time and circadian rhythms. Her sleep cycle lengthened a lot.
Super interesting, thanks for sharing! The 20/10 wake/sleep cycle sounds close to how I might function if it wasn’t for daylight cycles and social obligations. Actually, mostly the latter.
I did 21/9 during college. It was great! When bedtime came, I was actually tired, and thus fell asleep quickly. I was in sync with the world every four days. My work and school schedules were such that once per week I'd have to skip sleep, but I seemed to suffer no apparent deficit.
When on a standard cycle, I'd lie awake in bed bored out of my mind for _hours_ upon hours, fall asleep with only time for 0.3 to 2.5 sleep cycles, wake up in sleep-deprived pain and misery. (X_X)
In recent years, I deal with the standard cycle with the various in-vogue things like scheduled bluelight blocking, zero-lux bedroom (cities at night are so fekking bright compared to when I was a child), and sometimes morning-only caffeine sources.
I can’t, there’s some short people living in my house that depend on me waking up before them to wake them up and bring to places. But I’ve always been curious about people doing non-standard sleep things, have you tried it? Can you share some experiences?
I've been on a 28h day for about a decade now. It's completely changed my life. I used to be tired all the time and end up napping during the day, sleeping through lectures, etc. Only to get home and be unable to sleep until the early hours of the morning. Now I can get a good night's sleep every "night" (I aim for 8 hours every 28, in practice I get to bed a little early and sleep in, so it's more like 9 on average) and don't get tired until the last 4 hours or so before bedtime.
Besides the big one, some other positives:
- Lack of a single time zone means I can participate in international work/online communities regardless of location
- Jet lag is mostly not a thing, since my schedule is independent of where the sun is
- Plenty of quiet time while everyone else is asleep. I live in a very safe area and love going on 2am walks in the park with the entire thing all to myself.
And some negatives:
- My social life suffers a lot. I can only attend events if they happen to fall on a day of the week where I'm awake at that time. Right now this is mitigated somewhat because I'm living in Australia but working at US working hours, which means my weekend schedule lines up with "local time". So I tend to see local friends mostly on weekends.
- Requires flexible working hours, as it's not possible to be awake from 9-5 for 5 days in a row no matter what start point you pick for your schedule. From my coworkers perspective, I come in early on mondays (ending around their midday) and late on fridays (starting around their midday).
- At larger companies where they may want to do a "follow the sun" on call rotation (so you're only on call during your waking hours), I don't fit in anywhere because my waking hours aren't always the same.
- During winter, the lack of sunlight (since you're sleeping through it half the time) can get to you after a while.
- Anything that you're meant to do "daily" you either need to stretch to doing every 28hr instead, or have some complex accounting to do to ensure you do it once per 24h period (I mostly opt for the former).
I'm a night howl. Having a work schedule helps this, but when I was a student doing my thesis I had awful sleeping schedules (6 am - 2 pm) which affected my social life a lot.
I wanted to improve this, but going to bed earlier would make me restless, and have even worse sleep. Forcing myself to wake up earlier was torture - be exhausted during the day, only to feel energetic at evening again, and not being able to sleep earlier.
So I "rotated the day". Each day, I went to bed 3 (or 4?) hours later, slept 8h, and woke up. This was a bit tiring, but not more than the other alternatives! It worked for a few weeks but later I went back to my old habits.
After 2 rotations, I went to the doctor and got calming medications and the the recommendation to go to sleep 1h earlier each day. This was much easier and I didn't get dependent on the medication.
Later, having a job with a schedule (not that rigid but also not super flexible) helped me get on track, and things haven't gotten so bad.
I tried that once over Christmas break in high school. I like the idea of it, but the mouse-over text seems like a fairly accurate representation of my actual experience.
Thanks for sharing, I had not heard of that - that has fascinating implications for humans inhabiting planets with different rotation periods! (I'm surprised I haven't seen that explored in more sci-fi)
Everyone is built different, I think I would have done good in a similar situation. I'm already an introvert, but having kids, a wife and bills to pay sometimes just gets overwhelming. I have a friend that has been in and out of jail for the last 10 years or so. We talk a few times a year (at my expense) and I hate to admit I sometimes get jealous. Every time he gets out, he goes right back to his old self: smoking, drugging, and missing parole meetings until finally a warrant is issued. I would think I would emerge from a jail cell full of newly gained wisdom. I'd reenter the world a master plumber, HVAC tech, CPA, and maybe even psychologist. Heck might even have some wonderful startup ideas. But in the current grind of things, I feel I have no room for self improvement or learning.
> I'm already an introvert, but having kids, a wife and bills to pay sometimes just gets overwhelming.
It took me years to become self-aware enough to understand who and what I am.
I love my daughters to death, now grown up, but I wish I could have been older and wiser when we had them so I could have done a much better job raising them.
Living in a small house with 3 other people, two of them noise-making children, on top of working from home (I was self-employed for 15 years) was very difficult for all of us and nearly killed me (literally). Had I understood why noise bothered me so much, why I needed time and space to myself, and why my anger issues were likely autistic meltdowns I think we could have made things work so much better and found a way to give our daughters a much happier and less stressful childhood.
This is one of the great things about the Internet. I was able to discover what introversion is, what high-functioning autism/aspergers is (no, I've never been diagnosed but even my mother tells me that it would explain my entire childhood), that other people go through this too and how to have these types of conversations with the people closest to you.
I'm very lucky to have a wife as patient and understanding as I do. We were high-school sweethearts and she went through the learning and discovery process with me.
I can't help you with how to make the time for self improvement and learning, but do know that it's not just you.
I cannot believe this is a record. Throughout history there have been countless religiously-motivated persons who have lived isolated existences, many in caves. Surely some monk somewhere lived below ground for more than two years at a go.
In Guinness context, "record" is no doubt defined in terms of some trademark registrations. Any rising competitor "recording" world records would probably be defending themselves in court rather quickly.
Nor the credit cards necessary to put deposits down prior to the record attempt.
"To enable us to continue to be a part of thousands of personal achievement journeys, we can only provide access to use services such as an official adjudicator through our fee-based Consultancy service."
The article doesn't say they never left the cave during this time. It does mention them surviving by eating dates and the fruit of the carob tree which likely means they left their hiding place in the cave upon occasion to gather them.
Good call. Ajanta caves in India had isolated rooms where monks supposedly spent long long times. I believe Mahavira (Jain saint) was supposed to have isolated for 12 years at one point..
The Ajanta caves were monasteries, but they still had contact with each other. The monks would also have responsibilities and chores to do around the site, plus interaction with the lay public who bought offerings, and presumably with visiting aristocrats and officials who paid for their upkeep.
I tried in both Firefox and Chrome on my Android phone. I didn't get prompted to install an app, Play Store didn't come up, I could read the article and play the videos fine in the browser.
I wonder if maybe I disabled something that caused the behavior you saw.
I'm using Chrome. And it didn't prompt me for anything.
I clicked on the link, the page was open in Chrome for a split second before a new screen labelled Play Store took over.
Of course I could've just cancelled it during the 10 seconds or so it took install this "instant app" but I was curious about this new thing. I genuinely expected and wanted to test what I assumed would be an improved experience.
I've never used them. Are these apps ever actually a notably better experience? I always just assume it makes them more money so I've always backed out of those pages.
Most of my submarine buddies described living on a submarine underwater for months at a time as a nightmare or, at best, a terrible inconvenience, but my experience was exactly like this Spanish cave dweller's. Of course, it's helps that I'm a reader like them.
The cave was infested by flies at one point. That'd be my cue to leave — imagine just being swarmed by flies in the dark, with nowhere to go, nothing else to think about — but good on her I guess.
I haven't watched any of her videos but it might not have been quite that bad. She would have had a camp set up, if not multiple. It really depends how deep the cave is. If it's too deep for one person to carry all the supplies needed then multiple base camps are set up along the way to serve, among other things, as supply stations. The article didn't speak to this but I assume she was provided with food at the adjacent base camp because how else did she get food if she had no human contact and never left the cave?
So it's safe to assume that at her personal camp she had a tent and other provisions. Flies can get into the tent, of course, but it would keep most of them out. I think the worst part would be feeling "trapped" inside of the tent while waiting out the infestation.
She said she almost left when flies put larvae on her hair and she woke up basically surrounded to flys.
Honestly the lady is a professional sports woman, and she did seem a bit off when coming out and talking to the reporters, like nobody spends 2y solo and be like yeah im fine
Chironomids probably. They swarm and have short lives of days or hours, don't eat and are tiny and harmless, so probably more a welcomed change to the numbing routine than real nuissance.
I think the Kogi got this beat or yogic practice of Gupta Sadhana.
"The Kogi people are an indigenous tribe living in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains in northern Colombia. The Kogi have a strong spiritual connection with their environment and practice a number of rituals and ceremonies.
One such ceremony is the initiation of young boys into adulthood, which involves a period of seclusion in a cave. The initiation process varies in length, but it can last anywhere from several months to around nine years, depending on the specific role the boy is being prepared for in the community. During this time, the boys receive spiritual teachings and learn about the history, traditions, and values of the Kogi people. The initiation process is an important aspect of the Kogi culture, as it helps maintain the tribe's connection to their ancestral beliefs and practices."
Some of the previous recordholders were at least 38 Ukrainian Jews, including three families (Stermer, Dodyk, and Wexler) and some very young children, who survived the Holocaust by hiding in the Ozerna caves ("Priest's Grotto") in Ternopil oblast, western Ukraine, for 344 days.
Most of the survivors moved to the US after the war. The story was only fairly recently recorded and turned into a documentary film, "No Place on Earth".
I am REALLY curious about any shift in her view of reality, specifically any potential emergence of spiritual views, or the likes. Many ancient traditions have forms of "vision questing" involving usually a few days fasting in solitude. And those tend to provide the "questers" with profound insights (without any substance, only the interruption of day-to-day patterns). Similar with 10-day meditation retreats. Sadly the article doesn't touch on this - but that'd be my first interest knowing she's spent 500 days down there.
Lots of mentions of studies by various groups, but the first one that came to mind to me was NASA or other space agencies. If we want to travel to Mars, and beyond, how will isolation affect us? Granted, you may have crewmates on a space flight, but it's still good knowledge to know the capabilities of a single individual.
I almost think having crew mates in a small confined space for years on end would be worse than the isolation of being alone. Maybe the first mission to Mars should just be one astronaut and their dogs.
What's going on with this website? When I click the link I end up in an app but I have no such app installed on my phone (Android). I've never seen this before. It's not AMP and there's no URL bar. It also transitions in a way that normally only happens when you go from the browser to an app.
Pitty that there are no scientific resuts presented in article only random personal details and no insights. i had hoped for more substantian information after 500 days.
I've looked through a couple of articles, and none mention any samples collected while she was in the cave. She'd have to draw the samples herself, and at regular intervals at that. It seems she had no means of orienting herself with time, or know how many days had passed since the last sample draw, if any. In theory the support staff could just add the sample kits once a month, for example, but I suppose the presence of the kit would be a time cue as well.
> Beatriz Flamini... said by her support team to have broken a world record for the longest time spent in a cave in an experiment closely monitored by scientists seeking to learn more about the capacities of the human mind and circadian rhythms.
I wonder what the previous record for longest time spent in a cave in an experiment closely monitored by scientists seeking to learn more about the capacities of the human mind and circadian rhythms was?
> Flamini was monitored by a group of psychologists, researchers, speleologists — specialists in the study of caves — and physical trainers who watched her every move and monitored her physical and mental well-being.
The knowledge that somebody is out there watching you changes the whole thing completely. What exactly was this study supposed to find?
On mobile (android, chrome) the linked news site forces "full screen" and somehow prevents the native browser address bar and options menu and native share icon etc from appearing. Even scrolling up or down doesn't show browser controls like it does on other sites.
Surprised this behaviour is possible and allowed by a website (full screen take over)
Great commitment shown by the Athelete, (especially around the no communication whatsoever rule , even when death in family , wow) the article however never goes into the details on the motivations for taking on this challenge in the first place, but good to know science can lean on the experience and learn more about the human mind and the circadian rhythm. It was also surprising to me that the previous record for being trapped underground was those children from Chile and Bolivia stuck after the mine collapse in Chile in 2010.
A sublime experience extracted from [0] by a monk, living for 100 days in complete solitude doing sadhana (meditative practice) in a makeshift hut on icy Himalayan mountain/forest (2011), attaining realization during this final phase of his sadhana:
> I had to learn how to absorb the powerful energies flowing through me. Thus, I decided to enter strict solitude for a hundred days. I needed this time to absorb the vision.
> I informed Pradeep about my plan and his meticulous management made it possible. I changed my routine and began meditating from 7 p.m. until 4 a.m. If, once or twice a month, the villagers passed this way for hay, Pradeep would tell them to keep absolutely quiet. They maintained both distance and silence. During this period, I neither met nor saw anyone. Pradeep would wake up at 1 a.m., take a bath, say his prayers and prepare my meal before 4 a.m. He would come to the little temple near my hut, ring a bell and hide behind the temple wall so that we did not see each other.
I would then step out and go to his hut for my meal. Eating would take me nearly an hour because it was nothing short of a ritual for me. It was an opportunity to express my gratitude to Mother Nature, to the farmers who produced the grain and to Pradeep who cooked it. The digestive fire in the stomach is called vaishvanara. I would offer every bite to this fire, akin to the fire offering in a yajna. I still do, for that matter.
> While I was gone, Pradeep would wait for me quietly or refill the water bucket in my hut. He’d also fix the tarpaulin on the roof in case a storm had blown it about at night. If I needed to communicate something, I wrote a note and left it in his hut.
> Towards the end of March, I felt a shooting pain near my kidney. I was startled because I had already perfected my posture and wasn’t expecting any more pains. I’d already been through excruciating knee pains, severe backaches, a tired body and aching arms and shoulders. What was this new pain? The middle plank of my bed had completely sunk, making it an uneven and unsuitable surface to sit on; perhaps my posture was the cause of the pain. I placed my pillow on the plank but this didn’t help. I took an hour out of my sleep time and did some yoga asanas to stretch my body; this alleviated the pain just a little. It was becoming impossible for me to sit still for hours at a time, which is what I needed to do. I wasn’t going to give up on my 150-day meditation though; I had to get rid of this pain.
Reflecting on the pain, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the sun for nearly two-and- a-half months. I took my morning meals when it was still dark. I used to step out occasionally during the day, but I hadn’t been out at all in the sunlight for nearly ten weeks now. I had been living in an extremely cold hut and didn’t use a fire to warm myself. The next day, instead of yoga, I spread a mat and sat outside with my back towards the sun. That night the pain subsided to a large extent. I repeated the process for the next few days and the pain disappeared. I would never know what really caused it, but sitting in the sun relieved it.
> Enjoying the sweetness of solitude, diving deep into the ocean of a still mind, I passed my days in deep meditation and crystal-clear awareness. I was acutely aware of everything around me: the sounds of hornets and wasps, a spider crawling on the wall, every drop of rain that fell. Any thought that emerged in my mind would not go unnoticed. This was truly an extraordinary level of awareness.
My intuitive faculties entered a new dimension. No matter what question I thought of, an inner voice gave me the answer. One day, during meditation, the same inner voice instructed me to visit Kamakhya temple. I would get sarvoch tantric diksha, the highest tantric initiation there, it said.
I was reminded of Bhairavi Ma who had foretold this in Badrinath. I decided to visit Kamakhya after the completion of my sadhana. But, right now, I simply lived in the present moment. I was the a boat sailing in an ocean of bliss; actually, I was the ocean of bliss itself.
> The silence within me was beyond description. Just as you churn milk and it turns into butter, and that butter can never become milk again, my mind had reached an irreversible state of peace and joy. I felt that to remain unaffected, no matter what the circumstances, to be unmoved by someone’s birth, death, acceptance, rejection, praise or criticism—this sense of dispassion and detachment was arising from within me, without any effort.
I opened my notepad and scribbled in it: ‘Self-realization is not an instantaneous act. We may have an aha moment but it is mindfulness that allows us to navigate the world with the utmost awareness of our verbal, mental and physical actions. It is one thing to grasp that we are not just the body, but it is another thing altogether not to react when someone hurts us. We may recognize that anger destroys our peace of mind, but to remain calm, no matter how strong the provocation—that is real realization.
Why did it take the Buddha six years to achieve liberation? If it was an instantaneous thing, he could have had it in the first month. It took Mahavira ten years and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa twelve years. The experiences, lessons, insights add up, finally bringing one to the point of realization. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius but it takes a little while to get to that temperature. The flame that heats the water already holds the potential to burn as powerfully as the sun, but it is the water that needs to come to a boil. The soul or consciousness is ever pure; it is the conscious mind that needs to reach boiling point, while the subconscious has to imbibe the insights and the learning.
Not at all. Few prehistoric people lived in caves, and those that did, most likely temporarily, left frequently to get food and other supplies. Caves preserve things for later people (now archaeologists and palaeontologists) to find, so long ago ignorant people jumped to conclusions. Same with "cave bears", "cave lions", etc.
It looks impressive at first glance, but it's really not that impressive.
It sounds like everything had been taken care of for her, which simply means the person was "crazy" enough to commit herself to an experience that a lot of people either wouldn't want to do, or didn't have the time to do. The article does not mention it, but I am sure this person has her life structured in a way where she was able to (financial and responsibility wise) do this without a second thought because "being quiet" is also part of her personality.
Not to discount her record or anything, but it's nothing more than a record.
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I don't mind the downvotes btw, but let me just point out that Yogis live in caves for 30 years at a time, and good luck earning their trust to let some scientists monitor real changes in the mind.
And these Yogis do so without any assistance from the external world. That sounds a bit more impressive to me.
Your statement was what it was and it's fine. It's just strange to read all that and then have your next line state what it states, which is the opposite of everything it is referencing.
That's nothing. I've lived in a cave for 125 years and without contact with the world. Unfortunately, I came out on April Fools' Day a couple of years ago so no one believed me. Next day I made a Hacker News account. Now that's impressive. Not this puny yogi shit.
But was it really to be a research subject? My guess is that no, it was not. And I am confident in that guess because I understand people and people's behavior.
And if you read the article, there is no mention of any conclusive research or any insight at all. But I guess it must have been _exactly_ 500 days for her to be in that cave for the scientists to finally start drawing some conclusions.
You're not supposed to respond to it I guess. If you'd like me to talk about introversion in the context of this article I would be more than happy to do it.
I really don't understand why you felt the need to respond at all considering that I have my argument well under control.
This will probably make it not a record previously held by an Ucranian on 465 day mark but still very impressive
Also there will be a documentary coming out from her team