93 thoughts on “Seth”

  1. My condolences. I’m stunned; I’ve been reading his blog for awhile and never suspected his health was failing.
    I know this is a rough time, but I’d like to ask: if you don’t already know for certain, please preserve any evidence, digital and physical, that might indicate why he died. If it was the result of one of his self-experiments, then I think he would want us to know.
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  3. Amy, I’m devastated to hear this news. Seth has been an incredible inspiration for improving my family’s lives. Please accept my condolences.
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  4. I am deeply sadden to learn of his death.
    Amy, I would like to know if he died of a brain hemorrhage (or other sort of hemorrhage) and what his level of omega 3 intake was. Please fill us in on the medical details.
    In October, I emailed him this: “I left a comment because you underestimated your omega 3 consumption by a factor of 10. The denominator is 10 g for flaxseeds, not 100 g.
    [That is, his omega 3 intake was about 13 grams/day]
    And he responded with the next day with “thank you for your comment (and the additional info in your email), I took your comment VERY seriously. I have already gone down from 60 g/day to 30 g/day.
    But it is not so obvious what to do because if I remember correctly I found that 60 g/day produced better results than 30 g/day. I’m not sure about that however. Maybe I am misremembering. Maybe I will stay at 30 g/day for a while and then see if there is any difference when I go to 15 g/day.
    Seth”
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  5. Wow. Unbelievably tragic. I’ve always been intriguied by Seth and his ideas. I admired him. I wish you and your family the best in this difficult time.
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  6. As others have already written, and I stunned and devastated by this news. I am so sorry for your loss. My condolences to you and your family.
    I never got the chance to meet Seth in person, but I learned so much from his writing. What an inspiring person. I am at a loss for words. RIP Seth.
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  7. Seth’s creativity, courage, kindness, and integrity have inspired and helped me more than I can say. We’ve lost a very fine man.
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  8. I’m absolutely shocked that this happened to Seth. I’ve never met him, just interacted via a few comments on his blog and an email conversation, but I feel like I just lost someone I know. Seth had such a curious, bright mind and was never afraid to challenge the status quo. A great loss…
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  10. I’m very sorry to hear of Seth’s death– he found and pursued a non-standard and useful way of making people’s lives better. I admire his gusto and optimism about how much could be discovered.
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  11. I am shocked. I am in shock. I can’t bring myself to believe Seth is gone, and feel like this is some elaborate hoax. Seth has been a dear friend for a long time. My collaboration with him, and my conversations with him, have made a profound impact on my life. His warm companionship, unique intellect, insatiable curiosity, and infinite creativity will be missed. A bit of Seth will live on in me for the rest of my life.
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  13. I am stunned and saddened too. I found his ideas refreshing and stimulating. I will be missing him and this blog that he kept posting to so often.
    Condolences to his family and friends.
    RIP Seth.
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  14. I’m very sad to hear of this. Seth and I never met in person but we communicated over email regularly and became friends. RIP Seth I will miss our friendship.
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  16. Thanks for letting us all know, Amy. I’m so sorry for your loss. I am absolutely devastated. Seth made such a huge difference in my life and the lives of so many others, he was an incredibly visionary and forward-thinking researcher. I will truly miss reading his insights & research.
    So sad to have lost such a brilliant mind. RIP.
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  17. Thank you, Seth, for always listening to us and for helping us. Our thoughts and prayers are with your family and loved ones.
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  18. Wow. Just wow. So sorry for your and your family’s loss. I hope you can find some solace that his legacy, heterodox questioning and self-awareness through self-experimentation, touched many tens of thousands of people and made their lives better for it.
    RIP Seth.
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  20. It’s hard to think about right now, but I agree: if his passing was related to his heavy omega 3 intake, I think he’d want his friends, acquaintances, and readers to know. I am so sorry for all our loss.
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  21. This is very sad to hear. A part of me always hoped he’d find a way to hack himself to immortality! Rest in peace Seth.
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  22. I have been following this blog for a long time. The news is a shock. I thought it was some kind of a joke.
    He was always self experimenting to figure out how to fix whatever he didn’t like about himself. I guess whatever this problem was sneaked up on him. It would be useful for all his followers to know what went wrong. I think he would like it as well.
    He was a true researcher. We need more people like him.
    RIP Seth.
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  24. My sincerest condolences to you and the rest of your family. Seth’s writing was very important and influenced me deeply. He was an original and deeply original thinker and even though I never met him I will miss him deeply.
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  25. Amy, I am so very sad to hear about your loss. Seth was such a bright light, a unique voice for personal science and also just a lovely person.
    I emailed him ‘out of the blue’ one day, never expecting a reply, with a request that I never thought he’d be interested in (to publicise my health issue on his blog, so that anyone with info could contact me).
    Not only did I get an answer almost immediately, but he was enthusiastic about my idea, did it that day, and asked me to keep him updated on my progress. And when I did, he always replied with encouragement and ideas. People just aren’t like that, especially busy, quite famous professors.
    Sad day.:(
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  27. Ouch. I was not expecting that and am very sad to hear it – thank you for letting us know! (Seth and I had corresponded over the years due some overlapping interests, but hadn’t met in person.)
    How old was Seth? Wikipedia doesn’t list his birth date but seems like it ought to.
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  29. Amy, my deepest sympathies to you and your family. I never met Seth in person, but we corresponded for several years, and I spoke with him over Skype a few times. Recently, we started the “Brain Tracking” group for people who were interested in self-experimentation. Seth was a unique individual, and I’m greatly saddened by his death. The loss is profound.
    I’m co-moderator of the Google+ Group for people who are interested in tracking their reaction time. Although Seth was the main driving force behind the project, I do think that we should continue his work. If anyone is interested in joining the group, you can do so here (you have to have a Google+ account before you can request membership in the group):
    @Glen: ANew York Timesarticle listed his age as 52 in September, 2005.
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  31. Seth was unique as both an innovator and educator, and generous in how he shared his knowledge and findings in ways that improved the lives of people he’d never meet or who could never thank him. What a tragic loss. RIP Seth and my condolences to his family and friends.
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  32. Amy, please know that you have a couple of SLD successful people in Mexico that are thinking of you, your family and in deep and infinite gratitude for Seth’s work and kindness.
    He changed my life, made think, laugh and realize there is a vast world of knowledge to discover right in front of me.
    This is a huge loss for humanity.
    Thank you, thank you, thank you Seth.
    You left this world a better place and changed the life of thousands.
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  34. Amy: I just posted about the sad news on the SLD forums.
    Sorry to bother you with this, but please let me know if you need help running the forums or maintaining them. I own a small web hosting service and I could host the forums for you.
    Even if they are not so active, a lot of people benefit from those forums. I don’t want all that knowledge to disappear.
    Thank you.
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  37. Seth’s work improved my sleep (and life) immensely and I’ll forever be grateful for his particular brand of personal science.
    He was an original thinker and not willing to accept something just because someone said it was so.
    We’ve lost a great mind but the people he inspired will continue to self-experiment and step-by-step improve the world.
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  39. Seth, rest in peace my friend. We’ll miss you.
    Amy, our condolences. Seth made a difference in our lives by making us think and question.
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  40. Condolences to all his family. I knew Seth only from his blog and some e-mailing but I’ll badly miss our online “conversations”. He has added to the sum of human knowledge, and done so with spirit and pluck. RIP.
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  41. My deepest condolences to you and your family, Amy. Seth made a lasting impact with his initial research discoveries about timing and animals. This work has been, and will continue to be, textbook material that generations of professors will teach and generations of students will learn. He continued to make an impact in his more recent work with self-experimentation, as can be seen by the number of posts before this one. His critical thinking and spirit of inquisitiveness and discovery will be missed by all.
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  42. Very sad to hear this news today. I have always appreciated Seth and his willingness to express views which ran counter to conventional wisdom and political correctness if he thought they were backed up by sound evidence and reasoning. Most of all I appreciated his ideas about the meaning and importance of personal science.
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  44. Wow. Seth touched a lot of people including me. He was never afraid to say what he believed was right. He’ll certainly be missed.
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  46. Really stunned and sad to see this news.:(Deepest sympathies to Seth’s family and friends. His passing is such a loss, for all of the reasons mentioned above. I hope we can celebrate and continue his spirit of profound inquiry.
    It feels especially startling given the care Seth obviously gave to his own health (though perhaps this extra attention grew out of a condition we, or he, didn’t know about.)
    Someone mentioned his dosage of ground flaxseed. By my calculations, it would take 22 (large, Nordic Naturals pro-omega) fish oil capsules to match the 13g of flax-derived Omega 3s he took daily. That’s a lot. Unrelated to Seth’s experiment, I took around the same amount of 4 tbs ground flaxseed for a few weeks but developed spontaneous bleeding in my eye and stopped. (until seeing these calculations today, I had no idea 4 tbs had that much omega 3)
    Checking this blog had become a treasured nightly ritual for me. Seth’s wisdom will be greatly missed.
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  47. What utterly wretched news. Seth was an inspiration, he had a lot of work left to do, and now we will all miss both the man and his work. From my contact with him, only through email and this blog, he made me aware that being a good man and a true scientist were one. My condolences to all of those who will miss him.
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  50. Just truly shocking news. What a great loss to the world. His memory will live on in the hearts of all the people he has touched with his knowledge and will to make the world a better place. Rest in Peace.
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  51. I think for the rest of my life I will continue to wonder what Seth would think about things.
    I can’t believe he’s gone.
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  52. Seth changed my life in many ways and I know he’s changed the lives of others with his book. The fact that he was so enthusiastic about sharing his thoughts and his experiments was a reality I took great satisfaction from.
    I feel like all of his blog posts and work are way ahead of their time. Fifty years from now science and public understanding will catch up and those of us here now will point back to this blog.
    “I think for the rest of my life I will continue to wonder what Seth would think about things.”
    Me too Gina
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  53. I am deeply sorry and it is hard for me to believe that seth has gone. He very much influenced me with his scientific thinking and he opened a new door to me through this blog. I will miss his posts and i think the world has lost an important critical thinker.
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  58. I’m sad to hear the news. I didn’t know Seth personally. I visited the blog often. Seth’s ideas have had a great effect on my life. Especially the morning faces.
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  63. Seth Roberts.
    A man I often had a question for and was always honored and surprised that he had questions for me. A truly insatiably curious man, the very definition of a man in my eyes.
    When I did my AHS11 presentation, he was the first person to the microphone for the Q&A. Every now and then, I’d get an email asking if and when I was going to blog about some thing or the other that I had said (and forgotten) I would blog about.
    He probably had 3×5 cards or something to keep track.:)
    What a tragedy. What a loss.
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  65. My deepest condolences to you and your family. I am one of the many who did not know Seth personally but avidly followed his blog and occasionally entered the fray of the comments section. There are a zillion blogs out there, but Seth’s so enriched my life that, from the time I discovered it, I made it a daily ritual to check in– and was almost always astonished by whatever he had posted, and astonished at his continuing generosity. Seth’s creativity, courage, generosity, and quest for excellence were truly an inspiration to me–and so many others. His passing is a great loss.
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  67. Amy and family, I am so sorry for your loss. I had many an interesting conversation with Seth, and have enjoyed his blog very much. I will be thinking of your family and wishing you peace.
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  68. This is so sad. I will miss his writings very much. Every day that I fired up my RSS reader, I would check for his posts first and many in my family have seen an email from me with a link to his postings. He was a seeker of truth. I wish the best to his family and close friends.
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  69. My condolences to the family. Seth’s ideas, curiosity, and compassion helped and inspired me and so many others. I’d hoped to meet him in Beijing some day. This is quite a loss to the world, that Seth left us so soon.
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  71. To Amy and all other family members, I am so sorry to hear of Seth’s passing.
    What a bold and imaginative thinker he was. I always looked forward to his postings.
    He cared very deeply about finding the truth about things, about what are the causes of illnesses, and truly about evidence-based treatments. I learned so much from his references and observations and speculations. Who can fill such shoes? We need more people like Seth.
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  72. Amy, Please accept my very deepest condolences. I spoke with your brother a few times and carried on several email “conversations” with him – the last just a few days ago. I thought he was a brilliant man ahead of his time. I hope you and the rest of your family and Seth’s close friends can find some solace in the fact he discovered so much, helped so many people in his far too short life. You are in my prayers.
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  73. My condolences to you and the rest of the family, Amy. I checked the blog every day or two because Seth’s posts were always stimulating.
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  78. I wish Seth’s loved ones the best. He provided such a valuable platform for new ideas to be explored and information to be shared. His thirst for understanding was contagious, I always looked forward to his posts. I hope he was at peace in the end.
    Condolences,
    BRW
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  79. I followed Seth’s blog for years and, like so many others, benefited from his approach to science and knowledge. Not just from his personal experiments, but from the ideas he was open to. His blog led me to Nikoley’s and to Dr Sarno (Healing Back Pain) and a complete cure of 20 years of back pain. Free. No drugs no surgery — just thinking. Truly life changing.
    We became friends here in Beijing, where I teach at the university just down the road from his Tsinghua. Amy, if there is anything that needs to be done in Beijing I am happy to do it (steve.hansen@gmail.com). My condolences.
    Steve
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  80. I have never met Seth in person but corresponded with him, spoke with him a couple of times on the phone, and read several of his academic research papers. I encountered a smart, gracious gentleman, who was willing to entertain novel ideas. I am very grateful for having encountered him and deeply regret hearing about his passing away.
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  82. Seth,
    You were a great thinker and blogger. I read your blog everyday, for insight, outrage and sometimes a laugh. Thank for helping us all look past conventional wisdom, question all the bad answers out there and actually supply some good ones of your own. You helped me certainly and I know many others. Thanks for the quick responses to emails. I found myself thinking “Seth would like this” when I found a gem on the internet. I’ll still think that.
    I’m really sad about your passing.
    All the best to your family and friends.
    Goodbye,
    Jim
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  85. My condolences to the family. I discovered Seth’s blog and writings early this year. I loved his theories and his experimental approach. It’s sad that such a brilliant scientist and self-experimenter is gone. This kind of tragic loss really forces you to put things into perspective. We still have a lot to learn and we need to approach the quest for the ultimate health truth-if such thing exists–with humility, positivity and patience. For, even the best of us aren’t infallible.
    Seth, thank you for your work and experiments, for making it available to others and for improving the lives of many. You will be missed. May you rest in peace.
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  86. I never met Seth, but his work changed my life for the better. His spirit lives on in each of us who is healthier, happier, and more curious because of him.
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  87. My ongoing life is diminished because I will never again get to click with anticipation because ‘Seth has a new post!’.
    Although I am not religious, i hope against hope that Seth is somewhere now happily observing his new situation, already trying to figure everything out.
    Miss you already, Seth.
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  89. What a terrible, horrible loss!
    I had just emailed with Seth on Friday night putting the finishing pieces on a piece I was writing on how self experimentation had improved me in sleep.
    Not only had Seth’s ideas been the original impetus for my sleep improvement, but he had also mentored me in the design and data analysis in R of my self experimentation, and also been a fabulous corespondent and entertaining writer.
    I’ll miss Seth in all these ways:
    – As a generator of novel ideas
    – As perhaps the most rigorous thinker in QS around design & data analysis
    – As an entertaining blogger
    – As a friendly, approachable corespondent
    What a gigantic loss. Thanks, Seth, for all you did.
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  91. Amy,
    I am sorry for your loss. Seth was a truly gifted person and we collectively won’t be the same without him. Tonight, we will have a heavier heart, I know I will.
    Godspeed Seth.
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  93. Hi All,
    I am so stunned and saddened by Seth Roberts’ death. We’d been friends since 1997 and had many fascinating conversations. He helped me in so many ways.
    Specifically, his Pavlovian analysis of weight control and his crucial insight that consuming calories with little or no flavor would reduce hunger, enabled me to lose, on average, about 20% of my weight and keep it off over the past 15 years. Shortly after I first met him I described my problems with over-eating and pigging out on sweets and fats. He stunned me when he said, “Interesting that no one ever pigs out on fruits and vegetables.” Interesting indeed!
    And his insistence that if I stopped being a night person and went to bed earlier, and tried to get morning sunlight, my baseline mood would improve, turned out to be true, and did far more than anything else to help me come out of depression.
    I learned so much from Seth — about how to think and how to listen. He was the most intellectually fearless and tenacious person that I’ve known. He used his brilliance to attack very core problems that caused a great deal of human suffering — obesity, sleep problems, depression — and came up with concrete solutions that truly helped people. His blog was also a site through which many interesting ideas were funneled. He delighted in being able to help people. He was scientific in the best sense — science is simply a method of being rigorously and flexibly sensible and intelligent and open; it was a joy to watch Seth become intellectually excited and pounce upon an idea, a finding, a realization. He became possessed and fascinated at such times. He was unafraid to ask questions or appear dumb.
    He had such a freshness of mind that at times he appeared to start all over from scratch in approaching a problem and re-think it. I once told him of research about how to improve one’s memory; he said that he did not want a better memory. His ability to forget and see things freshly was part of his creativity.
    I knew him mostly in Berkeley, but more recently in China where we both taught at Tsinghua. In November of last year, I had dinner with Seth and three of his Tsinghua students — it was apparent how much they liked and admired him, and how much he appreciated them. One student said to me, “His students love him.” He frequently spoke and blogged about the brilliance and decency of his students at Tsinghua.
    Ten days before his death we had dinner in Berkeley. He said he wanted to write 8 hours a day until September when he returned to China; he was excited about starting a column on personal science for the New York Observer. The world is worse off without him in so many ways.
    He had a sweetness that was both personal and intellectual. He had so much more to give to the world, so much more to teach us — it is so sad that we will be deprived of Seth. He was a truly original thinker; such people are rare.
    A certain original sweetness and a certain original brilliance has left us.
    My condolences go out to everyone who knew him.
    Timothy Beneke
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