Tell the bus driver for me that as you get older you see the world in prospective as a movie if you will instead of as a static picture. Those who refuse to make an accommodation to this fact are going to be children no matter how long they live and the sooner they come to terms with looking at the world as a changing instead of static place the sooner they become adults.... This is the primary difference between conservatives and progressives and no matter what people tell you there is no real in between... People who delight in calling themselves "moderates" or "centerists" are just fooling themselves...

I am one integrated biological creature, not a duality. When we are young, our physical development exceeds our mental development, as we have yet to experience and learn that gives us understanding. When we are old, our mental abilities exceed our declining bodies, unless we so unfortunate as to face dementia.

My body reminds me every damn day that I'm an old man.

We have different levels of thinking ability. We have the reptilian brain that regulates things instinctually but then we have two more levels of intelligence above that. I would say that is why we feel like there is something sperate from our physical body.

We all "take mind altering substances." Coffee, meds, you name it, there are tens of thousands of "mind altering substances." Many are good for you.

I agree with the concept of duality -- that the mind and body are two separate entities that aren't necessarily in agreement with one another. That's why our brains still feel 25 while our bodies react to actually being 50.

Life is ever shifting and that is scary but amazing as well. Horses have an older evolutionary history than we do as do chickens. Millions of years ago the time we couldn't breathe in but giant plants (that's our biggest gap is plants not mammals, foul, moving creatures) and giant creatures like dinosaurs existed (which actually took thousands of years to die out much to do with loss of plant and other species to eat as well as many other factors). We are now, with more knowledge than we know what to do with and more always coming.

a few days ago i had to go to a clinic for a hip x-ray. there are little cubicles with curtains in which patients remove clothing, depending on what's being x-rayed & put on a gown. i had my gown on & was sitting on a chair waiting to be called when a gentleman made his entrance into a cubicle. i heard his age (1931) when the clerk was taking down info. so he is in this cubicle & removed his shirt & had this huge belly sticking out. he never closed his curtain. nurses, clerks & ppl in the waiting room could see right in there. i went over & said there's a curtain here you can close. he said "it's OK this is a far as i go". as he left his cubicle, without closing his gown he muttered "this getting old is the shits". i answered "you know, that thought has crossed my mind".
as the old cliche goes: old age isn't for sissies.

my cousin told me that - he's like 92 now. that's right... but i think maybe we tend to believe less bullshit as we age... never lose curiosity but become more cautious.

It will get to you... you don't know when or the age but one day you will realize what Old Age means... and you will Smile and call Yourself a Winner in the Game of Life.

We might be passengers within our bodies. It’s true that cognitive functioning depends on the state of our brains, but cognitive functioning is not the whole story. I think you have to differentiate between bodily sentience and deep awareness—two unrelated phenomena.

It comes down to what we are. I have thought for a long time that our sense of self as a separate, unique body is an illusion but that something associated with us has awareness. It seems totally impossible that the firing of neurons, no matter how complex the pattern, could produce deep conscious awareness. It’s not called the “hard problem” for nothing—no one can explain it. Neuroscientists might study mind-brain correlations until doomsday but using that model they’ll not be one bit closer to an explanation.

So far as an afterlife, I don’t think afterlife is a meaningful concept. We try hard to frame ultimate reality in our limited human terms, but it can’t be done. There’s just the continuum of life—it doesn’t need an “after”.

This 2018 article by neuroscientist Christof Koch moves things on a bit

[scientificamerican.com]

Interesting observations.