After preparing for the firelife, anyone focus on the afterlife?

Fred123 said:
I believe World Science U has a number of non-mathematical (as well as more technical) courses on various physics topics (cosmology, relativity, quantum mechanics) if you're interested. Haven't taken any of these myself, but they look intriguing.
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i am already enrolled in Andre Linde's master class.
 
One thing I always admired about my late Dad was his interest in advanced science and math until very late in life. While during his working life he did more pedestrian sorts of engineering he always fancied himself a great scientist and was taking extension classes in Astrophysics at the local university up until his mid 80s.

Sadly I fear I fall on the other side of the coin. Spent my whole career doing scientific research and now really have little interest in pursuing it into FIRE.
 
I've done some formal Zen practice over the past 10 years, and look forward to devoting more time to this when I retire. Specifically, structured meditation periods of at least a week. (Theoretically, you're supposed to be able to "do Zen" every moment, but it's really quite difficult to keep it up in the every-day world. The wonderful clarity you can get from a retreat tends to fade after a few days back in the "real" world.)

Science is fascinating, especially with all the new gadgets available these days to study every aspect of existence, from the structure of quantum particles to the structure of the brain. But I've always thought we should be able to comprehend greater meaning, including what happens after death (and before birth!), without such tools. Science as we know it uses reductionist methods that it seems to me can't yield the big answers, though they could possibly point to them. Seems like a holistic method, something opposite from reductionism, would be the way to go.
 
I'm actually considering going to law school. I've considered it on and off again for many years but now I'm free to attend without the incredible stress of having to get into a T1 school or be in the top 10% or do any of the extra curricular stuff folks do to try and make a name for themselves. I think it would be enjoyable and a good challenge for my brain. And I figure if I don't like it, I can stop going. ;)

Sent from my mobile device so please excuse grammatical errors. :)
 
O2Bfree said:
I've done some formal Zen practice over the past 10 years, and look forward to devoting more time to this when I retire. Specifically, structured meditation periods of at least a week. (Theoretically, you're supposed to be able to "do Zen" every moment, but it's really quite difficult to keep it up in the every-day world. The wonderful clarity you can get from a retreat tends to fade after a few days back in the "real" world.)
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I live near a Buddhist Monastery that has Zen meditation and Buddhism classes open to the public. I tried one once in the past and was pretty fidgety and bored so I dropped out. But some of the brain and aging shows I have been watching have mentioned the benefits of meditation on keeping your brain healthy as well as ongoing feelings of contentment, so I was thinking of trying it again.

Maybe I will end up like this man :) :

Is this the world's happiest man? Brain scans reveal French monk found to have 'abnormally large capacity' for joy, and it could be down to meditation | Daily Mail Online
 
shortstop14 said:
I'm pretty sure it will mostly just be entertainment for me, though - mental exercise. I doubt there's a real pathway to making an actual contribution to a field as an independent entity.
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Go for it - the Internet has changed all that. I wrote up a paper and submitted it to a scientific journal years ago, and the editors pretty much laughed at me because I didn't have a degree in the topic. I put the paper and related papers like it on the Internet instead and before too long the site they were on outranked many of the obscure scientific journals that rehashed the same old school group think. The site has made its way into the foot notes of a number of books, even quite a few college text books these days - some in languages I don't even know. Just for grins I check my name and the site name in Google books every few months to see where my stuff is popping up. I've always quite enjoyed that over the years. It is kind of a hoot how the Internet has eliminated the old school gate keepers of information distribution.
 
I'm a Great Courses addict--have been for years. Just finished a 2 week road trip and completed: The Life & Work of Mark Twain, Influence: Mastering Life's Most Powerful Skill, Foundations of Economic Prosperity and How Jesus Became God. These were all audio courses, but I've done a number of the video courses as well. I can honestly say I've never taken a bad course from them. I've tried a number of on-line sites such as Udemy. Some of these courses are worthwhile too, but the quality pretty uneven compared with TGC.
 
daylatedollarshort said:
I live near a Buddhist Monastery that has Zen meditation and Buddhism classes open to the public. I tried one once in the past and was pretty fidgety and bored so I dropped out.
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I'm wondering if you engaged in the sleep reduction that's part of many meditation regimens? It sounds awful and was something I feared before completing my first retreat, but it can really help you get past the fidgeting by reducing your desire to waste energy on unnecessary thinking. It can take two or three days of reduced sleep and 8-10 hours a day of focused effort before you start seeing the true potential of meditation.
 
daylatedollarshort said:
It is kind of a hoot how the Internet has eliminated the old school gate keepers of information distribution.
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Great point - not only distribution, but discussion as well. The internet provides some great forums where non-credentialed individuals can get real insight into what's going on in a field.

At this point, maybe it's my own 'retirement attention deficit' that would be the obstacle. So many areas of interest, it's hard to isolate on one.
 
O2Bfree said:
I'm wondering if you engaged in the sleep reduction that's part of many meditation regimens? It sounds awful and was something I feared before completing my first retreat, but it can really help you get past the fidgeting by reducing your desire to waste energy on unnecessary thinking. It can take two or three days of reduced sleep and 8-10 hours a day of focused effort before you start seeing the true potential of meditation.
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I didn't do any sleep reduction. I just went to one 2 hour class. During the meditation instruction portion there were maybe 30 people in the room and I estimate 90% of the fidgeting was coming from me. I am not sure if that means I need it the most or maybe it means that is one potential hobby type activity I can safely rule out as being not suited to.
 
shortstop14 said:
Great point - not only distribution, but discussion as well. The internet provides some great forums where non-credentialed individuals can get real insight into what's going on in a field.
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Look at Elon Musk. He doesn't have any engineering degrees. Google is hiring more and more people who never even went to college at all:

"After years of looking at the data, Google has found that things like college GPAs and transcripts are almost worthless in hiring. Following these revelations, the company is hiring more and more people who never even went to college.
 
Geeesh! All this math and science stuff. I am taking a course later this month on raising chickens! I will able to add that little gem to my CV when I compare notes with my high school chums in 2 years. It will prove that I did not grow up to be the flake they all predicted.
 
Thanks samclem and FatCyclist. I've always wondered about The Great Courses. Always looking for something to do on long drives - when everyone else seems to fall asleep. Many of the subjects look interesting.

In the meantime, I am lucky enough to be able to continue teaching and programme development at my local university. I love learning and the students usually keep me on my toes. It's mostly small group and I always tell them that I expect to learn as much from them as they do from me. Back when I was working for a living I also told the students that I was there to get an enthusiasm infusion as well! The two big bonuses are that I can go to any of the university lectures I want and they even pay me a small amount for doing something that I would definitely do for free.
 
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imoldernu said:
My previous avatar was Thomas Young... a measure of the arrogance I enjoy in my inner self.
Something about an excellent liberal arts background builds in a thirst to know more about everything and anything. The structured learning of a semester or two of art, religion, astronomy, psychology, physics, chemistry, literature, languages, history and the 12 other disciplines that were part of the process... establishes a frame for building on any new interest. Even ROTC provided a base for understanding strategy and tactics.

snip...

Much more on my plate than Thomas Young ever had. He had to build knowledge from scratch, to grow from seed. I, (we) have only to stroll through the garden and pick and choose the fruits of what has been provided by those who have gone before.

Retirement and age... the best of all times. Philosophy guided by John Milton in his sonnet-- "On His Blindness".
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Thomas Young is one of my favorite historical figures. My Masters Thesis focused on his theory of acoustics and how it shaped his more famous description of the interference of light. There is a pretty good popular biography of Young out there entitled "The Last Man Who Knew Everything." I don't recall right now if it describes his self-administered prostate surgery or the things that he stuck into his eyes in the name of science, but it does a great job of outlining ALL of the areas of knowledge to which Young made incredibly important contributions.

An incredibly great and overlooked man.
 
Fred123 said:
I believe World Science U has a number of non-mathematical (as well as more technical) courses on various physics topics (cosmology, relativity, quantum mechanics) if you're interested. Haven't taken any of these myself, but they look intriguing.
Click to expand...

This sounds really interesting, thank you for posting!
 
Meditation and additional education are both areas that I am hoping to explore once ER'd. Like a few others, I have even considered law school with no intention of a traditional practice.

But, at this point, it all sounds like too much w*rk; I am really just looking very forward to having absolutely nothing to do for a while.
 
Too much other stuff to do. Also, don't want to have to learn according to someone else's schedule. There is plenty of educational materials on line to suit me, and I have a wide variety of interests. I study religious history and texts, for one. As we travel excessively, going back to school wouldn't be an option.

It's time be active while we're able.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
 
FlyBoy5 said:
I'm actually considering going to law school. I've considered it on and off again for many years but now I'm free to attend without the incredible stress of having to get into a T1 school or be in the top 10% or do any of the extra curricular stuff folks do to try and make a name for themselves. I think it would be enjoyable and a good challenge for my brain. And I figure if I don't like it, I can stop going. ;)

Sent from my mobile device so please excuse grammatical errors. :)
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I guy I worked with retired at about 55 and worked part time in a book store for a couple of years. He then returned to school and got a PHD in Education and now teaches at the University of Colorado.

Edit: I do have to add, different strokes for different folks. I take a few online courses at here and there but that is pure curiosity and akin to reading books. I am not about to work. My former coworker has now been teaching for about 10 years and is into his 70s. No thanks.
 
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Funny...my two kids in college complain about the 'old' people auditing classes that ask 'dumb' questions and take up time the teacher should be spending teaching :)


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
 
CoolChange said:
But, at this point, it all sounds like too much w*rk; I am really just looking very forward to having absolutely nothing to do for a while.
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That can grow on you, trust me. Don't ask how I know. Heh, heh.:)
 
I've taken some coursera courses on astrophysics. Well, one course to be exact. Einstein and Special Relativity.

I tried another one on Cosmology and the Universe (offered by Caltech). Way over my head - too much math that I would have to review to understand it. I'm more of a dabbler, a dilettante, at this point.

I'm always up for navel-gazing and thinking about what all this means. I hope to have a few more decades at least to figure it out. Or die trying. :)
 
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