We Cannot Extend Our Lives Forward, but We Can Backwards

The alchemists of past centuries tried hard to make the elixir of life: ... Those efforts were in vain; it is not in our power to obtain the experiences and the views of the future by prolonging our lives forward in this direction. However, it is well possible in a certain sense to prolong our lives backwards by acquiring the experiences of those who existed before us and by learning to know their views as well as if we were their contemporaries. The means for doing this is also an elixir of life.

Notes:

By reading the works of previous generations, absorbing their knowledge, we can age ourselves mentally.

Folksonomies: knowledge wisdom immortality

Taxonomies:
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/health and fitness (0.469301)
/science/medicine (0.439009)

Keywords:
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Concepts:
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Present (0.910871): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Life (0.849801): dbpedia | freebase
Knowledge (0.848682): dbpedia | freebase
Alchemy (0.831771): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Elixir of life (0.824812): dbpedia | freebase
Time (0.772656): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Past (0.764852): dbpedia | freebase

 Die Entwicklung der Chemie in der neueren Zeit
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Kopp , Hermann (1966), Die Entwicklung der Chemie in der neueren Zeit, Retrieved on 2012-06-08
  • Source Material [books.google.com]
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    Schemas

    04 JAN 2013

     Insight is the Greatest Virtue

    Knowledge is the most important moral.
    Folksonomies: virtue ethics
    Folksonomies: virtue ethics
     20