any views on life?

[sublimed69]

death,what is it.are you afraid or are you excited.well to tell the truth i cant wait to die i guess my wonder takes over and i want to see.i really dont care much for life you live and then you die all you really live for is you good feelings.i see some people in search of somthing there whole life that is not there. i am really just ready for god to take me away.i just hate pain and i bet all you do but has anyone ever thought that we may be stuck in time that we cant ever get out except for death and the people who live long are just the people who canh stand it.i am so sick of life.it is so sick to me i have found the major point in life for human beings that is happeness.i think everyone is on a search for happeness and some never find it.some people think that ..............you know just on a enless search of nothing.i think that the sadf part of your life is the best becase you dont have anything to keep you going.and that is all you really have.the happy may just be entertanment.so many people so much chaos just glad to have a chance to live at the time you are living talking about a important issue that maybve doesnt matter know untill you see the real view or i mean my view,any views on life?

[David]

Why are u tired of life? why do u long for the emptyness that is death? The meaning of ur life is simply the meaning u give it as u engage with the world each day through ur lived experience of it. As human beings we need to feel valued by others and it is through our interaction with others that we discover ourselves. All I can say to u is become all u can be. stop looking inward and face the future with all its uncertainces. including the knowledge of our eventual demise. death is the end of our possibilities. it grounds us temporally and motivates us to expereince the world and each other for only in relationships with others as a being-for-others do we discover our true worth on this earth. does this make sense ? I hope so.

David.

[Magius]

David,
I really like what you had to say. Some really good words of wisdom that many people need to hear at least a few times in their lives. But I do wish to ask you to explain further your points...

death is the end of our possibilities. it grounds us temporally

The conclusion I draw from it is that there are no possibilities once a person is dead, yet you say that it grounds us temporally, what is this grounding - maybe it's the bringing down from earth to the other side which means we switched temporals. Why aren't there any possibilities once we are dead? Moreover, how do you know - I'm not asking for fact since you can't give it to me - I'm asking not just for your opinion but your rationale as well.

What's your take?

[David]

u are correct when u say that death is the end of all possibilities. for during life we cannot talk about the essence of a life for we live our lives in a constant flux of becoming. only death marks its end and only then we can uncover the essence of an individual's life.

When as human beings we stare death in the face when we lose the one's we love. We hide from it, we contruct elaborate defences to protect ourselves from its full reality. ie the realisation that after death there is complete and utter nothingness. Faith has become man's most powerful shield against this bleak existential reality. For though faith we can transend death itself, cheat death in a way for a life everlasting. I personally follow no faith no religion. For me only life can hold the wonder of wonders. For me the cosmos is meaningless.what are important to me are themes of existence itself. what does it mean to be a human being?.

DS

[martini]

hello everyone,

i think most people don't stop and think about what life is. it is really very complex and simple at the same time. i've been thinking about it a lot recently........

the world around us seems full of different life forms, but we all seem to be here for one reason only. we are all here because there is an enviroment for life to exist, so it does. where ever life can occour it appears. it just seems to be the way that the universe is set up.
you could spend an eternity looking for significance in society or love or death, but they are all part of the same thing, and that thing is life.

as for the death thing, it probably is the end of us as individuals. i sleep well at night because i know that life will continue whether i'm here or not. comets will still be flying about on their course, grass will still grow, people will still be being born. you as an individual are here because you are part of life and you can be here, so you are.
we just happen to have eveloved into life intelligent enough to look at ourselves. (though that ability seems to confuse more people than it helps)

it's all about looking at the Biggest picture. and the picture is everywhere.

hope this of some help.

(i can go into more detail if anyone is interested.)

[David]

The argument that the world exists independently of our consciousness of it. Taken at face value appears to be highly plausible. But in reality consciousness is prior the the world. Consciousness is our interface, our portal if u will allowing us all to access the world in the first place. Without consciousness there is no world to contemplate or to speculate upon. Contemplation is a form of reflective awareness which is yet another facet of consciousness again. For each of us are unique islands of consciousness, beings-in-the-world. Striving for meaning and order in a chaotic universe.

Its just my take of course.

DS

[Polemarchus]

I recently read a nice little book titled, Being Good, by Simon Blackburn, Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University.

As it happens, Blackburn and I share a common disbelief in an afterlife, though he writes far more eloquently on the subject than could I. Here, given as a single paragraph are some quotes I recorded in my journal from the chapter of this book dealing with death:

“Death is the same for one who died yesterday as for those who died a thousand years ago. Death has no duration at all, for the subject. Actually, ‘the state of being dead’ is a misnomer. Death is not a state of a person. It is not any kind of life: peaceful, reposed, reconciled, content, cold, lonely, dark, or anything else. It is often felt that death is an enigma. Why? Life is mysterious. Death can only be thought mysterious when we try to imagine it. We try to imagine ‘what it will be like for me’. But death is nothing for me, not because it is mysteriously unlike the things I have so far known, but because there is no me left.”

Perhaps Seneca best explained the “two eternities argument” of which I am so fond:

“Would you not think him an utter fool who wept because he was not alive a thousand years ago? And is he not just as much a fool who weeps because he will not be alive a thousand years from now? It is the same, you will not be, and you were not, neither of these times belongs to you.”

And Epicurus' argument, while not identical to that made by Seneca above, certainly is succinct:

“While we exist, death is not present, and when death is present, we no longer exist.”

My personal view is that death (though not my dying) will be nothing new to me. I’ve spent half an eternity before March 31, 1957 “being dead.” It wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’t sad. It wasn’t anything. Of course as Blackburn wrote above, the confusion occurs when we attempt to think of death in terms of “being dead.” As Epicurus suggests, death has no being, and being has no death. They are mutually exclusive.

Another half eternity of nothingness lies ahead, but it doesn’t lie ahead of me. I will never be part of this nothingness, because I am a living being. I hope you understand this important distinction. I shall not sally forth into the great void, because I am necessarily confined to this life. Without life, my body is nothing more than a nondescript pile of organic and inorganic chemicals. As the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius was fond of saying, “Thou art but a little soul bearing about a corpse.” Vladimir Nabokov wrote, “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”

You might then suppose that this life of ours is all we have any assurance of having. Unfortunately, it’s worse than that. We aren’t even assured of a long life. Alright then, this day is all we are assured of. No, not even that. In fact, it is only this very moment we are assured of having.

We are not unlike the soldier waiting in his trench at Verdun. At any moment the whistle will blow and we shall have to stand up and run against a hail of bullets. To remain in the trench means death, to run forward means death, to run away means death. All we have is this very moment. Life is the art of finding happiness within the span of a moment.

Michael

[Magius]

David stated:

"u are correct when u say that death is the end of all possibilities. for during life we cannot talk about the essence of a life for we live our lives in a constant flux of becoming. only death marks its end and only then we can uncover the essence of an individual's life."

I don't say that death is the end of all possibilites, I said that is what I concluded your words to mean in your previous post. I was checking with you whether I understood your stand point or not, I wasn't telling you what I thought in the sentence you are referring too. Moreover, I disagree that we cannot talk about the essence of a life, primarily because we can talk about patterns and general points of knowledge attained from experience and history. Hence, our memories and knowledge of language and everything else comes from experience and history, if you were correct and we couldn't talk about the essence of life because we are in a constant flux than we wouldn't know anything, nor would you and I be able to write these posts.
You bring up an interesting point about death being the only thing to mark the end of life. I don't disagree, but I am interested in your rationale behind that idea, could you explain? Furthermore, I do disagree with the notion that only after life, death is the only way to uncover the essence of an individual's life - but why? Again, I keep noticing a trend here, more and more people on the board are posting about death as if they knew exactly what happens when a person dies. Obviously we are all sharing our opinions, but on a topic as ambiguous as death I think it should be explained why one thinks the things they do about death.
By the way, you still haven't addressed my questions from my previous post. If you don't wish to answer then don't, it's okay. But if you forgot about them or haven't had a chance to answer yet, please respond when you are ready.

Martini,
you say that the universe seems to be set up that if life can exist somewhere, than it will exist there. This very idea is an intriguing idea presently being festered over by many astronomers who believe we (humans) can change a planets chemical compounds to rival ours at the time of life formation on earth. Just curious to know what your rationale is behind your statement

"the universe seems to be set up that if life can exist somewhere, than it will..."

, can you explain?
You make yet another intriguing comment " i sleep well at night because i know that life will continue whether i'm here or not." that sprung up ideas in my head and memories of previous conversations of the very same topic. I wish to pose a common question to you in response to this statement, that being, how are you so sure that life goes on if you are dead? This also ties into my previous comment to David about the epistemology of death.
Please go into as much detail as you can, I have many of my own opinions on this matter and would like to share them with you too.

Back to David who stated,

"Consciousness is our interface, our portal if u will allowing us all to access the world in the first place."

I really like this idea of yours. I most sincerely agree.
I wish to ask you to explain why you believe that consciousness is prior to the world in reality. Why?
How are you so sure that without consciousness there is no world to contemplate or to speculate upon? Since there may be other methods of contemplating and speculating about the world. Ie. Sub-conscious, or what if there are other life forms that can use other forms of thinking to contemplate or speculate about the world, maybe even our world. You also stated that the universe is chaotic...again why? Not disagreeing with you, atleast not yet, just wondering what your rationale is.

Polemarchus,
your quote from Simon Blackburn was refreshing and I quite like it, I agree with it on a majority scale, but I have to say that I don't think leaving death as simple and close ended as that is a good idea. I personally have taken effort in thinking about the possibilites of time after death and like to think that we do not seize to exist but transform from one energy to another. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust - sooner or later each one of us becomes a part of all, when we break down to atoms floating around space. My detailed explanation isn't as materialistic as this sounds. Maybe I condenced this idea a little too much. Let me know.
Your personal view of death leads to some problems, or so I hypothesis, since the assumption is that you were in the state of being dead prior to life and will return to it once again when you die. But how can you know? I'm curious, what do you think is the point of life if we are dead, come to life, and become dead again? What's your view on reincarnation?

Polemarchus stated:

"In fact, it is only this very moment we are assured of having. "

A most interesting idea indeed. I must say that I sense the hand of Descartes in this statement. Many dangers lie ahead with this statement, or so I fathom. I would go further with it and say that we are not sure of anything but the thought of being sure at the moment the thought is happening. But the problem lies in defining 'assured'. Is it first a feeling and then a thought, or firstly a thought and only secondly a feeling? To elaborate, I mean, does one have a thought and <i>feel</i> assured they just had a thought and it can never be taken away, or does one <i>feel</i> assured and then think of assurance in connection to their feeling? What do you think?

You concluded most beautifully, I give you cheers for a great structure of a few concluding words that create an almost arcane realization of life. I don't have the time right now, but I would be most gracious to debate with you further into the idea of happiness.

What's your take?

[David]

In the remark "The universe is choatic" I wanted it to carry a duelistic meaning within it. Firstly I wanted it to allude to the existential view that the world and indeed the cosmos is devoid of any meaning, in this context I wanted meaninglessness to equated with the choatic. While on a quantum level it been suggested that that the building blocks of matter are described as being unpredicable in their nature and this seems to be the case with the electron. In this context I wanted the notion of this unpredictablity to be equated with the notion of the choatic.

does that make sense.
DS

[David]

Sorry Magius that I structured that opening sentence in the form of barb to hook u in. I just wanted to stimulate a responce nothing more so i do apologise for teasing u in that way ok....

I do apreciate ur feed back .... well most of it ...lol
DS

[Polemarchus]

Hi Magius,

Thank you for the reply. I'm pleased to meet you, and always pleased to discuss philosophical ideas.

This entire business, ultimately, is an intensely personal process of coming to terms with our own mortality. I suspect that we don't really even have to get it right; wise men lose their lives the same as fools. Whatever notion of death we take in our head, be it profound or silly, matters naught beyond our last heartbeat. Philosophical speculations on the nature of mortality are sought as a comfort to the living; the dead have no need of them.

While the value of our speculation lies in its ability to bring us comfort rather than truth; it's clear that to lie to ourselves is utterly useless. If I were surrounded by hungry lions it would be of no comfort to tell myself that they were merely kittens. If I am starving it would be of no comfort to imagine that my belly is distended as a result of a feast rather than famine. It matters not in the least that you, or anyone else adopt my own ideas about death. Your personal belief will be of precious little use to me when my own time comes. What I come to believe has to square with me, and me alone. All right, enough with the disclaimer...

I fear my own dying, but not my death. Besides the fact that dying is often painful, saying goodbye is always a sad thing. But death, pfft! Death itself is nothing to me! I'm already something of an expert at death. I've already got death down to perfection. The fact that a brief life was sandwiched between two eternities of death does not change the nature of my death in the least. But again, there is no such thing as "my" death. There is only my dying. I shall die, but I will never "be" dead. Unfortunately, language throws a tantrum when we force it to speak of what is not. Even when we speak of nothingness, the nothingness we speak of is something. But death is not a "something." So, I take heart in knowing that though oneday I shall have to say goodbye forever to those I love, I'll never be dead. It took a while for the fullness of this thought to soak into my head.

Magius, you wrote about ashes-to-ashes, and the fact that our molecules dissipate from our body to become new life. Do you remember the little ditty recited by kids?

Man eats bird
Bird eats worm
Worm eats man

Indeed it's true. Well, actually I'm a vegetarian, but that's no matter. My body is made up of organic and inorganic molecules that have already passed through countless other lives, just the same. One day these same molecules will become part of new life.

It's a statistical fact that at this moment I've molecules of water in my stomach that once were in Julius Ceasar. Similarly, I've molecules of air in my lungs that were once part of Charlemain and Ghengis Khan. If you simply allow enough time for complete mixing of the molecules around the planet, you may safely assert that molecules from any historical figure you care to remember are part of your body at this moment.

This was lifted from a physics exam on the Internet:

"Assuming that the atmosphere has become completely mixed over the last 2000 years, how many molecules from Julius Ceasar's last breath are in your lungs at the current moment?

Estimate the volume of the lungs as two cylinders 30cm in length, 5cm in radius; V = 2 lungs x Pi x (0.05m)2 x 0.3m = 0.005 m3.
Julius Caesar's last gasp had
(1.3x10^44)x(0.005 m3)/(5x10^18m3) = 1023 molecules,
of which (1023)x(0.005 m3)/(5x10^18m3)
(about 100) are in your lungs right now."

I think about this when I shovel snow in the Winter. Perhaps it's only boredom (we have lot's of snow), but I like to wonder at how many molecules of all my distant ancestors are contained in each shovel full of snow I toss over my shoulder. The same thought occurs to me when I stand next to the brook near my house and watch the molecules of my ancestors flow by me.

Well Magius, there's a good deal more to be said on this subject, but since I don't expect my death is imminent, I've time to let it rest for the moment and get some rest myself.

Michael

[David]

As for the reason why I contend that consciousness is prior to the world will take a little longer to explain......

I can begin by describing what I believe is the defining characteristic of consciousness. Its intentionality. All consciousness is structured intentionally. In other words consciousness always has an object. For when we hate, we hate something. When we judge, we are in judgement concerning something and so on. (It could be argued that consciousness only comes into being when engaged with an object). Whether the object of consciousness is real or imaginary is of no concern to me as a phenomenologist. For I focus purely on the lived-experience of that object. I suspend the existential status of the object itself. The theories and assumtions of everyday common sense made manifest through the natural attitude are also suspended in this eidetic reduction.


Will try to finish this description later I do need some sleep, my eyes are beginning to close by themselves ....lol take care
DS

[sublimed&mad]

hey sorry about changing user names so much .the stupid system is f***** up.every time i log in it just resets and i have to change my e-mail ad. every time i log in.well could life be like we may be part of a universal spirt kinda and each individual is like a leaf of the 'tree'of the universal.and when we die we become earth and we help new trees grow and in that time we are as david said in a flux of unconsionous and we may come back around to aa leaf agin like in nature.this also can be compared to my circle of life anology i used in latter forum.

[cba1067950]

Don quijote had the most meaningful life.

Do we even know that the afterlife is the end? How can you say that it is the end to our possibilities? It might be... it might not be.

[Polemarchus]

Do we even know that the afterlife is the end? How can you say that it is the end to our possibilities? It might be... it might not be.

Hi again Cba,

Well, that half-eternity of nothingness before I was born was a useful clue. The pattern has been:

No body=No life, Body=Life, No body= ???

Hmm...how do you think I should fill in the rest of this pattern? Do you really think it should be:

No body=No life, Body=Life, No body=Life

or does it make more sense to suppose it will be:

No body=No life, Body=Life, No body=No life

There is no absolute proof for anything in this world. Euclid's geometry was accepted as the the explanation of space for two thousand years before anyone had the slightest notion of non-Euclidean geometry. Now we think that space appears to be structured more like non-Eulcidean rather than Euclidean geometry. I further suspect the future will bring new ideas to light on this matter.

It's induction that leads me to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow. There's a funny story about inductive thinking.

It seems some chickens noticed that each morning a man came out to feed them. Their accepted hypothesis was that morning invariably produces a man with food. However, one morning eventually produced the man with an axe instead of food.

With that in mind, the above pattern that I suggest is the correct pattern might be false. Likewise, I have no absolute certitude that I will live till midnight tonight. I think it's probable that I will. And I also think it's probable that my pattern above is correct. None of us lives according to certitudes. We make our judgements according to probabilities.

"A common defect of the mind is that it craves either complete certainty or complete disbelief." R. A. Lyttleton

Regards,
Michael

[cba1067950]

I actually agree with the idea that after we lose our bodies that we don't continue living but for the sake of argueing I'm going to be annoying.

You can't really base a pattern on two variables.

1, 3, ? could be 5, 7 .... and more

It's just there are so many theories out there. I'd hate the truth to be an ending.

[Polemarchus]

Greetings Sublimed&mad,

...could life be like we may be part of a universal spirt kinda and each individual is like a leaf of the 'tree'of the universal...

That's an interesting idea, Sublimed. I occasionally think a similar thing.

Each cell in my body has an individual life of its own, but in their billions they act in concert to produce one single organism known as Me. At any moment individual cells in my body are dying while others are being born. Individual cells have fairly short lifespans, but as a composite organism, I live much longer.

Then I think how our tiny planet would appear from a great distance out in space. From a distance, individual humans might be thought of more as individual living cells which act in concert to produce one single organism known as Humanity. At any moment individual human cells are dying, while others are being born. Individual human cells have rather short lifespans, but as a composite organism, Humanity lives much longer.

I generally like this thought because I prefer to see other men as my brothers. I also prefer to think of myself as part of something greater than just me. I'm built from the dust of earlier lives and future life will be built upon my dust. I also like to think I have a duty to the entire organism of Humanity. I'm speaking here of a moral duty towards others, and towards the whole of Humanity.

I'm not so sure if other people like this idea. I suspect that a lot of other people wouldn't like to think of themselves as a cog in the mechanism of a larger lifeform. What do you think?

Michael

[Polemarchus]

I actually agree with the idea that after we lose our bodies that we don't continue living but for the sake of argueing I'm going to be annoying.

You're not being annoying. It's a good topic, one worth our grinding the mental gears over.

You can't really base a pattern on two variables. 1, 3, ? could be 5, 7 .... and more

Unless you have multiple reincarnations in mind, the entire pattern only consists of three elements, two-thirds of which are already in place. The important bit of the pattern to match is:

No Body=No Life

You see, that part is already "a given" in our case. We already know that piece of the puzzle. It would be vastly more difficult to match the following pattern:

No body=No life, Body= ???, No body=No Life

Gads, that would be a tough one (Not the least of which is how do you solve a puzzle without a life at all?). So be of good cheer Cba, the puzzle could be much worse to solve!

It's just there are so many theories out there. I'd hate the truth to be an ending.

Ah, now this part I understand. I love my life and share your wish that our life might somehow last longer than 75 years. Despite the fact that some insects only live a matter of weeks, I feel somewhat cheated with only 75 years. My life lasts a couple of thousand times longer than some insects, yet still I complain of its brevity. Some men manage to put a good life behind them by age 25, while others never come to terms with it by age 85. Age does not automatically bring wisdom. Age only brings age. We hear lots of pretty statements about our "golden years," but I think Charles DeGaul was simply being honest when he said:

"Old age is a train wreck."

Death only deprives us of a future which does not yet exist. I think Spinoza might have first made that observation. In any case, Arthur Schopenhauer hit the nail squarely when he noted:

"Every moment of our life belongs to the present for only a moment. Then it belongs forever to the past."

And Marcel Proust commented on our possession of these past moments when he said:

"Death take us though it will, cannot take from us what we have lived."

I did want to comment briefly on the fact that we must be especially careful not to let what we want to be true influence what we think is true. If one is not careful, this slippery slope can lead to religion, among other things. Religion tells us that exactly what we long for, is magically just how it is. We want immortality. You've got it. We desire to see justice for the wicked and a reward for the good. Religion gives that to us as well. So why would anyone in his right mind not believe in religion? The answer is that religion promises us what it does not possess to give to us. Religion is a device for making your dreams come true. If you don't mind replacing reason with fairy-tales, it can work for you as well. You have to choose. Do you prefer a pleasant work of fiction, or can you handle a stark truth?

The world is wonderful, but not everything in it is to our liking. Dying and injustice come prepackaged along with the same life that makes possible love and joy. I've decided that the love and joy bits, far and away, make up for the dying and despair-at-injustice bits. The highs are far higher than the lows are low. And while I don't like the idea of dying one little bit, if I have to accept dying to get a swing at love and joy, which I do, I'll take the deal in a New York second.

Gotta run,
Michael

[Magius]

David stated:

In the remark "The universe is choatic" I wanted it to carry a duelistic meaning within it. Firstly I wanted it to allude to the existential view that the world and indeed the cosmos is devoid of any meaning, in this context I wanted meaninglessness to equated with the choatic. While on a quantum level it been suggested that that the building blocks of matter are described as being unpredicable in their nature and this seems to be the case with the electron. In this context I wanted the notion of this unpredictablity to be equated with the notion of the choatic.

Cosmos devoid of meaning, meaninglessness equal to chaotic? Lastly, you tie Hiezenberg's (Spelling?) Uncertainty Principle into a web of nothing along with the chaotic and meaning. Because something is unpredictable, does it mean that it has no meaning? Could unpredictableness have a meaning? I would like to think that many things appear unpredictable, but aren't, especially people. This electron location uncertainty is still only a theory, this clarification is quite important. As Polemarchus has illustrated with quotes, the human mind likes to believe completely or not at all. We don't know what <i>meaing</i> lies in the uncertainty of an electron - relatively it has not been a long time since quarks were discovered (in theory). Given fifty more years, atleast two other particles may be found within the atom that we never knew of, the more particles the more sense will be brought to the happenings of the atom and everything in it.
Moreover, how is the cosmos devoid of any meaning, I think the one thing that acts most devoid of meaning are human beings. The planets, solar systems, and galaxies move in rules of math that are not yet synthesized enough to explain everything, but it's getting there. There is everything BUT lack of meaning in the cosmos. I hope I'm not being too hard, I'm just expressing my disagreement with your view. Nothing personal.

What's your take?

[Magius]

Polemarchus stated:

"Philosophical speculations on the nature of mortality are sought as a comfort to the living; the dead have no need of them. "

I don't mean to be insulting when I say that the former part of the above statement is made from projection. Otherwise why would you think so. Are you not open to the idea that there may be a person out there that doesn't seek philosophical speculation on the nature of mortality for anything other then the comfort to the living? I hope you are, cause I am one of them. I, like you do not fear death, nor do I fear living a life of hardship (although I do not strive for it either). I also believe that the greatest power in the universe is information. One could take this statement and put it through the Nietzchian assembly line to make it look as though life is only a struggle for power in the end, but I assure you this is not what I am driving at. Information, whether bad or good, to me, is the point of life. One of Polemarchus' quotes again hit the nail on the head of this one too, where I forget who but someone said that Information is good, and ignorance the only evil...or something like that. I do not attain any pleasure or comfort to the living knowing that my being mortal means I have to keep my mouth shut about matters of truth in certain circles of society or else my mortality may be altered into a state which we call 'hurt', 'unconscious', or worse 'dead'. Yet I know this and philosophically speculate about the corrupt government and the state of matters in the more wealthy circles of society. I do agree, that many people do commit the wrong of speculating about mortality only to somehow edge their existance into a coherent and somehow pleasant painting of life with everyone else. But I, and I profess my belief that others too, are not like this.

Polemarchus stated:

" it's clear that to lie to ourselves is utterly useless."

I agree, but I wish to bring up the topic of a book in reference to lying to oneself. I am near completing my read of Dostojevski' <i>"Crime and Punishment"</i> (Unabridged) and found a statement (accompanied by an profound explanation) most interesting, the character Svidrigaylov states that those who are able to lie to themselves best, or deceive themselves best, are the happiest. The statement was in reference to things that bother one to think about and only seize to irritate when one is absent minded of the topic. Many examples in life create quite the dilemma in disproving this, atleast for myself. What do you think?

Polemarchus stated:

"The fact that a brief life was sandwiched between two eternities of death does not change the nature of my death in the least."

In my previous post I bequethed you for an explanation as to your rationale of these two eternities of death, specifically the former eternity. Could you articulate in more detail?

What's your take?

[cba1067950]

I agree, but I wish to bring up the topic of a book in reference to lying to oneself. I am near completing my read of Dostojevski' "Crime and Punishment" (Unabridged) and found a statement (accompanied by an profound explanation) most interesting, the character Svidrigaylov states that those who are able to lie to themselves best, or deceive themselves best, are the happiest. The statement was in reference to things that bother one to think about and only seize to irritate when one is absent minded of the topic. Many examples in life create quite the dilemma in disproving this, atleast for myself. What do you think? "

"Ignorance is bliss"

Which reminds me of a question I constantly ask myself. It's kind of off topic though so I'll start another post.

[Brad]

The proof of what happens after death doesn't really matter to the discussion at hand: there are at least two kinds of death.

The first is physical death (hearts stop beating, lungs stop working, the flat line kind of thing) and death as a definition. In the first kind, people who come back from the Great Beyond are coming back from death; in the second kind, you can't come back by definition.

The funniest way to look at this is from an incredibly bad movie I saw recently, "Spawn". As the situation is explained, the main character must conserve his power (his thanonuematic energy or some such thing) because when it is used up he dies, but those powers come to him precisely because he's already dead. So what happens when he dies again? Does he go back to hell and the whole thing starts over again? Or does he really die, or can he really die now and only now after he's dead?

If we concentrate on the second kind, death as a definition, then this makes a kind of sense and I think that's what should be focused on in discussions of this type.

[alex]

Polemarchus, there is a problem with your series:

No body=No life, Body=Life, No body= ???

Hmm...how do you think I should fill in the rest of this pattern? Do you really think it should be:

No body=No life, Body=Life, No body=Life

or does it make more sense to suppose it will be:

No body=No life, Body=Life, No body=No life

in that your premise cannot be verified and therefore it is useless to base anything else upon it. You cannot know in any verifiable sense that because you did not have a body before you were born, you also did not possess a life of some kind. You have reached your conclusion, to write your series to verify your conclusion. This is not a worthwile way of disproving an afterlife in my opinion.

That said, your point that one can never be dead amazed me, I had never thought of that and I found it very interesting.

One further point. If we define death as the cessation of existence, and existence as the source of meaning, then is it not a waste of existence, and hence potential meaning to discuss death? Why are we doing so?

[Polemarchus]

Alex,
Thanks for the reply. It’s nice to hear from you. I’ve enjoyed reading your posts on this Forum.

You cannot know in any verifiable sense that because you did not have a body before you were born, you also did not possess a life of some kind.

My mother tells me that she had to change my diapers (nappies to you) when I was young. Imagine that. If my life on Earth were merely a resumption of an earlier life, isn’t it a wonder that of all the great knowledge acquired in my earlier incarnations, I still had to be re-taught not to shit in my britches? I might have been as clever as a Newton, talented as a Mozart, and as articulate as a Shakespeare in my earlier life (or lives), nonetheless, I arrived in this world drooling saliva out of my mouth.

For the sake of argument, let’s suppose that I did have an earlier existence. Despite the fact that I remember none of it, could it be that I’ve already lived millions of prior lives? Alex, you might argue at this point that it doesn’t matter if I remember my earlier lives. You might say that the fact that I don’t remember them does not preclude the possibility that I had earlier lives. I say it does preclude the possibility, and here is my argument.

My argument revolves around the notion of what makes you, you, and me, me. Also of pivotal importance is the concept of the continuity-of-life.

All right, let’s imagine what it might be like to have a very specific earlier life. Let’s erase from your mind everything you have learned since you were conceived in this present life. Yes, I know, you’d be back to drooling and messing your pants. So let's make you a mature man. Your name is Simplicus Simplicissimus. Let’s drop you into the world in what is present–day Germany, say in the year AD 1669. Despite the fact that you’re an earthy character; you still manage to “humiliate the mighty, confound the gods, and ridicule the pretentious.” You’re something of a rustic version of James Bond. You live in a time and place of incredible upheaval and turmoil, the time of “The 30 Years War,” to be exact. Simplicus doesn’t just go to the office after his breakfast of orange juice and Wheaties. Simplicus has to fight daily for his very life. He uses his wit to survive. If he wins, he is allowed a bit of “rape and pillage.” If he loses, he gets a pike in the belly. Now please remember Alex, this isn’t just your ancestor we are talking about, this is you, in everything but the flesh.

So, we have you born to parents you now don’t remember, living in a distant time you now know little of, and speaking an old dialect of German which would sound much the same as Greek to you today. You have had incredible memories that you now cannot remember, as well as friends and loves whom you couldn't today even recognize. You perpetually had a bad haircut and smelled like the monkey house. Yes I know, this guy doesn’t look, think, or speak like you do today. Still, despite the fact that you've no recollection of it, and despite the fact that nothing Simplicus thought or did in his entire life changes a single moment of your present life, I'm supposing for the sake of argument that he is as much you, as you are you today.

But wait. If Simplicus bequeathed you nothing; not his genes, not his memories, and not his ideas, then Simplicus could have just as easily been me in a former life as he was you! What claim do you have of him that I could not equally make? Actually, neither of us could make a credible claim that one over the other were Simplicus.

You and I are each the direct product of our individual genetic, environmental, and random histories. Part of what makes me who I am is the scar on my forehead I got when I fell down the steps as a kid. Part of what makes me was my thrill of climbing with a girl into the backseat of my old Chevy. It’s also the fact that my eyes are blue and my arms were too short to throw a baseball from the outfield to home plate. Part of what makes me who I am was as a kid coming across a novel by Albert Camus, and my early chance hearing of a sonata for violin by J.S. Bach.

If you remove from me all I’ve experienced in this life, I’d be back to chewing on my buttons and throwing my food across the table. I’d have to begin again to make myself; partly from the world as I find it, and partly as I make it. I’d still have the same parents, the same siblings, and the same body, yet I’d become a different person. Simplicus had neither the same parents nor the same memories as you and I. Well, I have a term for people with different bodies and different minds than mine. I call them other people. Simplicus’ entire life of struggle means far less to you or I than the most insignificant and random event of our life here.

One Random Event
One morning as a kid at summer camp, my friends and I decided to practice archery just after breakfast. We were screwing around as usual when we walked up to the range. I was the first to put an arrow in my bow. I aimed, released, and watched my arrow skim just over the top of the bales of hay that held the target. I heard a scream. My legs were barely strong enough to carry me behind the wall of hay to see a woman lying on the ground. She clutched her left arm up near her shoulder and cried hysterically. I nearly wet my pants. Her husband appeared, insane with fright and anger. My arrow wasn’t sticking in her arm. It had struck her and bounced out. I suppose the blunt target head had something to do with that. It did however, make a gouge to the bone. An ambulance took her away, and I never saw her again. I should explain that the two of them had been searching for their own errant arrow behind the wall of hay, as we walked up to begin shooting. I worried for years what would have happened if my aim were just a tiny bit to the left. I would have sent the arrow into the woman’s heart. I might have killed a young woman if only I’d turned my body a single degree to the left. On the other hand, if I’d aimed a degree lower, I’d have hit the bale of hay instead of the woman. Doubtless, I’d be a somewhat different person today if that arrow had hit the target instead of the woman. An individual life is filled with millions of such “could have” events. The totality of these millions of "could haves" makes you what you are.

My life has a continuity about it that may be traced back to the first replicating organism on this planet. The climate and food supply of my ape-like ancestors some millions of years ago continues to have a profound effect on what I am today. Each moment since my own birth has had a part in shaping the person that now sits before this keyboard. The next sentence I write is a result of the totality of this history. The stars that exploded billions of years to produce the atoms that give me my body have as much to do with the next sentence I write as does the fact that the mushroom I had for dinner last night wasn’t toxic. Life is a major result of a near infinity of minor details. Herr Simplicus simply wasn’t one of those minor details! My life is mine, his was his, and yours is yours. That I aimed my bow a bit too high back in summer camp, means far more to my life than if “I” were the Pharaoh of Egypt in a previous life.

The exploding stars that produced my body were not “me.” My millions of ancestors whose lives had so much to do with who I am at this moment, were not “me.” If some nebulous spirit descended from the heavens to further impregnate the moment of my Earthly conception, that spirit was not “me.” The single celled zygote that attached itself to my mother’s womb and began the process that eventually resulted in my sitting at this keyboard was not “me.” The microscopic dot of ultra-dense matter that triggered the Big-Bang might be the ultimate zygote of life. Still, that tiny ultra-dense dot of everything wasn't “me.” Take a way a cell here, a memory there, turn up the heat to high, or turn on the wrong gene, and you will destroy “me.” Human life is characterized far more by its delicacy rather than by its robustness. If upon my death a spirit should rise out of my body to take flight; well, that spirit won’t be “me” either. I'm no more a spirit than I'm an arm, a leg, or even an entire collection of body parts. I am a specific, composite biological organism endowed with a unique history.

Let me make one last point. Suppose that we somehow could transcend our own death, and manage to retain our own identity. Which version of me becomes immortal? Perhaps I should better explain my question.

Suppose a man has a normal life, with the usual birth, adolescence, maturity, and old age followed by death. Let’s say that at his maturity he was a happy, successful and respected man, but in his later years he fell ill with Alzheimer’s disease. His last years in were spent in a nursing home, unable to recognize his wife and children, unable even to dress or feed himself. My question to you is, which version of this man flies away with the Angels to become immortal? I suppose we might first think that the man that exists at the moment of his death is the one to fly away. To take the man at any other place in his life would be arbitrary, besides, to preserve the man as he was in his earlier life is to discount a portion of the man’s entire life. If this were permissible, the Angels might as well "rewind" the man at his death, and thus preserve the man as he was at birth. But the “man” at birth is nothing at all like same man at his death! To preserve the man as he was at birth would say that the details of his life were not important. You might suggest that the man as he was at the height of his life should be preserved. Yes, but which point in his life would that be? Would it be when he is 21 and able to play a 90 minute soccer game, or is it when he is 50 and at the height of his successful business and social network? I would point out that even though his Alzheimer’s prevents him from recognizing his wife, even while ill he might have still enjoyed contemplating a vase of roses, or taken some secret delight in hearing a Mozart piano concerto. The day before his death might have held a moment for him that was the most beautiful of his entire life. So my question is; Which version of this ever-changing man would the Angels choose to wisk away so as to preserve his immortality? If they take the eldery and sick man, they leave behind most of his memories. If they take the young man they leave behind most of his life experience.

your premise cannot be verified and therefore it is useless to base anything else upon it.

Alex, along with nearly everything else in this life, my premise can never be absolutely verified. I have however, attempted to explain how it makes sense to me. The subject matter is not at all simple, and despite the fact that language wasn't designed for discussing philosophy, it will have to do. Wittgenstein remarked that:

"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language."

The validity of my viewpoint is one thing, my ability to express it is another thing, and your abilty to understand what I have written is something else altogether. It's a wonder that few of us ever feel we are truly understood.

Michael

[David]

Alex I would differ from u on the point that "existence is the source of meaning" rather existence is the vehicle which allows us to arrive at meaning. thats all

DS