"What if ..?"

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I curious how someone can be certain that there is nothing after physical death. I can understand being uncertain whether there is anything beyond but being certain requires as much "faith" as believing there is something.
Indeed I'm not certain,I can't be,but I hope so.Point of views.
As for being an atheist:as long as I can't see and experience something that something doesn't exist for me.Again point of views:)
 
The person who is willing to die is accepting a situation that is long on hope and short on practicality.

Trace I think I know what your saying, but in the mind of the diver, he may size up the situation and come up with the most rational conclusion that he could at the time. You may remember an OOA emergency that I described in the lessons learned area. At 190' Diver 1 goes OOA (gave octo), Diver 2 (his Buddy who's narced) goes OOA (gave primary, prepared for free-ascent to stage). No hero stuff, just logic. I couldn't let him die. I felt there was an option. Some risk, but I had a fair chance.

Since this time I've had a lot of stuff go bump in the night, when I've been deep. Willing to die has never been an issue. You refuse to die, put it in-gear and do it (do or do not; there is no try). ;)

Perhaps this is what you call hope; I suppose I can accept that. But sometimes hope is all you have. You take your chances and roll the dice, but you're never "willing to die" unless there is no other alternative in your mind (whether that be to save a loved one or another). At such a time, hope is not a factor.
 
And I do agree with mdb that I believe that most people saying "I would definitely...." do not know that for sure. When I say it, I mean to say I, from the comfort and safety of my desk, believe I would...."

As I have already quoted De Montaigne,let's quote another philosopher proper:

"So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains."
LUCRETIUS
 
Perhaps this is what you call hope; I suppose I can accept that. But sometimes hope is all you have. You take your chances and roll the dice, but you're never "willing to die" unless there is no other alternative in your mind (whether that be to save a loved one or another). At such a time, hope is not a factor.


Perhaps some confusion is stemming from what some might interperet as "willing to die". Right now, sitting here safely I plan on doing everything I can to get both me and my buddy out (i.e. I am not planning to willingly let them die while I swim up safely). This does not mean that I am "willing to die". It means I am willing to go against the odds to save two lives. I do not personally see that as being "willing to die". If someone is willing to die it does sound like they have given up hope. Air in a tank is HOPE in my books. It is hopes that we can get to another source of air before it disappears.
 
No one would want to let a buddy die. But, people have done just that on several mountain climbs.

Teams of climbers have passed sick, injured or dying climbers in places like Everest because they knew, rationally, that they couldn't help.
I think that's a totally different scenario. Climbers have the time to think, assess the situation, re-assess the situation, do what they can, talk, etc. OOA divers don't have this luxury.
 
Well Trace at least we know where you stand.

No one knows "if they couldn't help."--There is always hope. Yesterday a woman was pulled from
the rubble in Haiti after 14 days. The government had called off search efforts days ago.

Some people will help, others, like yourself would not. A personal choice indeed.

I believe that Trace is playing "Devils Advocate" here (unless I've missed something) in order to stimulate the discussion of a topic most of us would rather not have to think about.

I did not read where he said that he would not help personally; I do think he's trying to provoke thought; hopefully to head-off complacency and completely avoid the scenario in the first place.

Best wishes.
 
My fears peaked at about age 35, roughly the same age at which Shakespeare penned his magnificent examination of the certainty of death, Hamlet. After that, like Walter and Lamont, those fears subsided to the point that they don't matter to me at all any more. I think that pattern is close to universal.

I've been wondering if we're not hard wired up to do that.

There are definite phases all throughout life where there are very typical psychological changes that occur across a broad spectrum of the population.

Some of it may be subtle, and may be common psychological adaptations that tend to occur with waning mental sharpness, or due to the adaptation to the daily 40hour week grind for years on end...
 
I curious how someone can be certain that there is nothing after physical death. I can understand being uncertain whether there is anything beyond but being certain requires as much "faith" as believing there is something.

It's like being atheist. The absence of humanly conceivable evidence does not neccisarily mean something greater does not exist. It just means we possibly cannot perceive of it in our present state. To me the most fact based position one can have currently is that of agnostic (I cannot say definatively either way).

When I was younger I may have considered myself atheist but that was because I had a preconceived notion of what "god" was supposed to be and when that failed to materialize I thought "god" did not exist. Later, I realised it was my notion that had be erroneous. YMMV.

Not trying to convert anyone btw, my faith does not have an evangelical component. Just some thoughts to ponder or not at ones own discretion.

I can only answer for myself, but when you get into metaphysical angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin kinds of discussions, I can't be 100% certain. Which, I guess makes me an agnostic. However, usually agnostics are identified practically with all kinds of wishy-washy beliefs about prime movers and interest in Unitarian churches and dabble in the more vaguely defined kinds of spirituality. In practice, I act like an atheist and I have absolutely no internal concept of what 'God' would be. I understand dictionary and philosophical definitions (going well beyond the Angry Old Testament God and into concepts like the Prime Mover, etc) and the social religious aspects, but when I really sit down and ponder God or the afterlife I just throw an internal Segmentation Violation. I really don't understand Heaven at *all* since I don't understand how you get life without death, how you get happiness without sadness so this idea of never-end life in a paradise doesn't work for me -- reincarnation makes some sense, but I just don't believe in it. Spirituality also doesn't really do it for me, except in some vaguely defined ways (yes, i think caves are very pretty and fascinating -- is that 'spiritual' -- dunno, what do you mean by it?). So, I can't prove anything, which makes me technically an agnostic, but I can't hold the concepts in my head around God and Heaven that you do -- doesn't work for me at all -- and i've tried for 38 years and it still hasn't ever worked...

And I actually grew up not in a Christian family but as a 2nd generation atheist/agnostic -- so, I never had to 'reject' anything like my father did, and there's no residual traces of Christianity/religion in my makeup because it was never really there... I've been exposed to the same social religious conditioning as everyone else from society at large, but that seems to be much less powerful than the conditioning that young kids get from their parents...
 
Well Trace at least we know where you stand.

No one knows "if they couldn't help."--There is always hope. Yesterday a woman was pulled from
the rubble in Haiti after 14 days. The government had called off search efforts days ago.

Some people will help, others, like yourself would not. A personal choice indeed.

Mdb,

Everyday people try to rescue others. Everyday people make decisions about who they can help and who they can't. In great disasters like in Haiti, rescue workers, doctors and nurses cannot save all. Patients who will otherwise die without immediate surgery, but who may live, are given precedence over others who are strongly believed to be beyond help. We hear stories of miracles every day, but when resources are scarce and over-burdened, prudence often dictates that you lose one miracle survivor, to help several live.

People can still search through the rubble despite the official termination of a search. They are not in immediate danger. They may take risks, but they are breathing and do not expect to die. Their deaths aren't certain. Certain death changes things.

You mentioned medics in Vietnam. Yes, I grew up admiring Vietnam vets and war heroes. I still do. But, dead medics can't save live soldiers. As a platoon leader, I would greatly admire a medic for shielding a wounded soldier, for going to help anyone in danger. But, I also would have to look out for all my men, our purpose in a mission, and
how the decisions that affect the men in each squad will effect the lives of the other platoons and the company. There would be situations in which I would have to hold the medic back if it were possible to get him to stay put. For example, when dealing with a sniper who is using a wounded man as bait. The medic may want to go, but someone needs to think about the entire situation.

If BabyDuck made the decision to shut off gas on her partner for the benefit of their shared child, is she a hero or a villain? Is she a hero because she is a woman and we men can be chivalrous? Is she a hero because she is a woman with a child and we would admire the courage it would take for her to kill the man she loves to live and be a mother and raise that child? I would bet she would receive a great show of support because men are expected to die, women are expected to live, and men will often be willing to die for the mothers of their children and their children.

We grow up in a society in which we watch movies that glorify violence while reviling it. We grow up watching The Lone Ranger, John Wayne, and movies about heroes. Some of us experience heroism first hand. In the film, The Guardian, about USCG rescue swimmers which glorifies the heroics of the men and women who serve our nation in that occupation, Kevin Costner as a rescue swimmer instructor tells Ashton Kutcher's character, "Save the ones you can, Jake. The rest you have to let go."

As an instructor who teaches lifeguarding, sport rescue, advanced rescue for the professional rescuer, and technical rescue courses, I am saying, "Save the ones you can."

That's where I stand in this thread.

As someone who has made a lot of rescues on the surface and under the water, for real, I have gone 100% of the time and never let go yet. But, I also know that I should let go if I need to let go.

I don't know if I ever would let go of a victim, but as a pro rescuer, I like knowing my options and how to achieve them.

I'd rather dive with someone who tells me, "I may shut off your gas if we don't have enough to make it out," Not only will I be more careful about not getting into a situation where my buddy may sacrifice my life for his, but it will give the the opportunity to say, "I may let you," and believe one of us will make it out. My death is unfortunate (although I'm sure some here would be thrilled!), but my buddy dying for me to no good end would really anger me at the complete waste of it all.

At the end of The Guardian, Ashton Kutcher says, "I won't let go." Costner replies, "I know."
 
I've been "mugged" by a buddy in an OOG situation @ about 70-80 feet off Pt. Loma in San Diego.

We were hunting for Abalone. It was in the "old days". I had a SPG my buddy had a J Valve tank.
No octo units on either rig.

His valve had been tripped somehow prior to the dive and he was OOG while I was looking under a rock and finding a nice Ab family. I felt the tug on my reg hose and looked around. My buddy grabbed my regulator and with wide eyes began deep inhales. As we had been taught, I took the hose in my right hand and waited for him to return the reg so I could take 2 breaths and we could begin our ascent. There was no way he was giving the reg back. He clamped down on the mouthpiece and kept breathing. I bailed out of my tank-we were wearing front mount BC's-and made a free ascent. A bit later my friend emerged in a sea of bubbles with my tank under his arm

My friend had a nice small boat. We were diving almost every weekend. We practiced buddy breathing many times. We had at least a hundred shared dives.

Those who say "This is what I will do", really should say; "This is what I think I would do." They will never really know until an actual event occurs.

Fear and panic can change things quite a bit.

The opposite situation ...

I had an experienced instructor with several tech and cave cards in a class. During class, we had done several quality practice S-drills during critical skills dives that morning. Later, I put him in an OOG situation and donated my primary. I asked if he was okay and I got the okay, then deployed the rest of the hose. As I was about to ask, "Okay?" again, he bolted. He didn't even wait or let me know so we could solve that problem. He just took off. Absolutely no warning and it was the only time in my career anyone bolted so fast that I couldn't grab him. As I saw him exhaling, I let him go. At the surface, I asked him what happened? He said he didn't know, but he wasn't getting gas.

The donor is more likely to be rational. Both of us were donors. You had time to figure out a way to make it to the surface by taking off your tank. I was able to ascertain that he was performing an emergency ascent while exhaling. The panicked divers were incapable of rational thinking. In our scenario, the question is posed to a rational donor with time to decide on the exit.

I think that's a totally different scenario. Climbers have the time to think, assess the situation, re-assess the situation, do what they can, talk, etc. OOA divers don't have this luxury.

You could be thinking about not making it out for hundreds of feet watching your SPG dwindle. A diver could have just as much time as a climber.

Let me change the question ...

Your buddy is panicking and fighting you because he is confused as to which way to swim during the OOG and thinks you are going the wrong way, you push him toward the exit, you scream "THAT WAY OUT!" into your regulator, you gesture, frantically, That way up!, but your buddy is battling you to swim into the cave ... what do you do?
 

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