A Question For You!

[Guest]

How can you proove that there is or is not an afterlife without actually dying.
I'd think that anybody who'd venture into that area of research isn't bound to bring back any results.

[Natty Batty]

we can only assume based on logic/reasoning.
(didn't that sound like sivakami)

your thought of reasoning may be based, for example on psychic encounters to prove that there is an after life while non believers may ... I dunno know, but u get the point.

[FrozenViolet]

hahhahaha ehahahahha!

what is an after-life? what is to die? the physical? the spiritual?
what is to know?

[Guest]

Actually, in all seriousness, I'm trying to ask how can you proove such things impossible. How can you proove something non-physical impossible based on physical data. Many people have experienced some things before, so sure it can be possible. I'm talking about things like god, after-life, belief, visions, dreams, or even thought itself.

Sure they might be possible since other people have experienced them before -- but others haven't. Thought is a very common thing, so everybody (well, most everybody ) believes in it.

What I'm saying here is probably not presented in the most solid way, but I thought it might be intersting to bring it up.

[BluTGI]

A recent death has me to belive there is no religion. that you die and are just base decomposing materials free of the life that kept you. Seeing a 18 yr old boy dead, before his prime even started had no purpose. wastefull death of a hard worker who was liked by many and hated by none or the least.

[JP]

How can you proove something non-physical impossible based on physical data.

Which is a round-about way of deferring the onus of proof onto the sceptics.

Sure, the afterlife may exist, but, so far as I can see it, we lack evidence that would go any way to verifying it. Once again, no, I cannot prove definitively that there is no heaven by appealing to a lack of evidence (absense of evidence is not evidence of absense) but the second you take my position and use it as evidence to further the cause of your own position, you are beginning to clutch at straws. I cannot prove the non-existence of heaven in the same way that I cannot prove the non-existence of the Almighty Quaarg, or unicorns, or goblins. This is not evidence, however, to support your cause, as the onus of proof - as the one making these positive assertions - is fair and square on you, the one making the claims.

I'm at uni now, but when I get home I'll relate a story that the chaplain at my old school told me that may help with this and clarify my position a bit better.

I'm talking about things like god, after-life, belief, visions, dreams, or even thought itself.

I'm fairly sure the NDE's can be explained as either drug-induced, or the result of different mind state which can occur as the result of the trauma of the event that has nearly killed you, lack of oxygen in the brain, increased adrenaline levels and so on.

It is common for people to see a "bright light" or a "tube" of different colours or patterns when they die, yet only religious people are likely to interpret this as a sign of the afterlife. The atheist will see these "delusions" for what they are (even if they do not realise that they are hallucinating, they will still see just a bright light, rather than interpreting this as a passage to heaven) and will not wake up recounting stories of his "near passing". The religious or superstitious type, however, will be more likely to give the hallucination a form or a recognisable pattern. The mind will contort and invent the things it sees, so as to give itself the impression that it is entering heaven, and not actually deluding itself under the influence of its extreme situation.

A religious person will try to make sense of that which makes no sense at all, and they will do this by correlating what they see - subconsciously - with what they believe. In fact, this could serve as a useful analogy for the way religious types conduct their day to day lives - though I do not wish to go down that path of discussion for now.

[Polemarchus]

How can you prove that there is or is not an afterlife without actually dying?

Philosophy and science provide us with likely explanations rather than absolute proofs. Mathematics and logic provide us with proofs. But I'd remind you of Einstein's observation:

"Inasmuch as mathematics applies to reality it is not certain, and inasmuch as it is certain, it does not apply to reality".

On one end of the spectrum we can have applicability without certainty, and at the other end we can have certainty without applicability. Between these extremes we can only estimate the probabilities of truths that tell us something about the world.

Any answer we accept concerning the possibility of an afterlife will necessarily be given in terms of possbilities. What is possible? Nearly anything. What is probable? Ah, now that's what we need to be asking ourselves!

I'd like to quote at length the Spanish philosopher, Fernando Savater from his book, The Questions of Life:

"Throughout the centuries there have been many legends about death, many promises and threats made in its name, no end of rumors about it. Very old tales-possibly as old as the human race, or rather, as old as those animals that became human when they started asking themselves about death-are the universal foundation of the various religions. Come to think of it, all the anthropomorphic gods are gods of death, gods concerned with the meaning of death, gods who distribute rewards or punishments or grant reincarnation, gods who have the key to eternal life. Above all, gods are immortal-they never die, and when they pretend to die they either resuscitate or go through a metamorphosis. Everywhere and throughout all times religion has been used to give meaning to death. Were there to be no death there would be no gods-or rather, we, the human mortals would be gods, and would find atheism divinely pleasant!

Religions such as Christianity, promise a happier, brighter existence to those who have abided by God’s precepts-and of course also promise an eternity full of refined tortures to those who have not obeyed them. I use the word ‘existence’ because what is promised cannot really be regarded as being truly life. Life, in the only way we can conceive it, is full of unforeseeable changes and swings between the best and the worst. Eternal beatitude and eternal damnation are nothing but two perpetually frozen states, not modes of life. Thus not even those religions that offer the greatest post mortem assurances can guarantee eternal ‘life’-they can only promise eternal existence or duration, which is not the same as human life, our life."

So instead of an afterlife, religions can only offer us at best, an "existence". Does the thought of having an "existence" satisfy you as little as it does me? The lowliest Earthly bacterium has a life. Religion can't even offer me that much!

At this point, with our anxiety risen, many succumb to plugging their ears and covering their eyes to death. They abandon their reason and simply will themselves to believe in an afterlife. Savater has this to say about these "believers":

"It is paradoxical that we normally call ‘believers’ those who hold religious convictions, since what mainly characterizes them is not that in which they believe (mysteriously vague and diverse things), but in that which they do not believe: that which is most obvious, necessary and omnipresent-in other words, death. The so-called ‘believers’ are really ‘unbelievers’, for they deny death’s ultimate reality."

Call them believers or unbelievers, few people care to look at death as a simple matter-of-fact. This has nothing to do with what death is, but everything to do with what they wish death was. Some people suggest that death is not unlike sleep. Of course to sleep is often to dream. Savater speaks of this as well:

"...the possibility of some kind of survival after death must have occurred to our ancestors through observing the great similarity between someone deeply asleep and a corpse. I believe that if we did not dream, nobody would have thought of the astonishing possibility of life after death. If when we are motionless, with our eyes closed, apparently absent, deeply asleep, we know that in our dreams we travel through different landscapes, we talk, we laugh, we love...why should this not also be the case for the dead? Thus, pleasant dreams must have given rise to the idea of paradise and nightmares were seen as premonitions of hell."

I find sleep to be little better than a poetic metaphor for death. Those who sleep do so with a perfectly functioning body in temporary repose. The thing that seems most certain to me about death is that our body falls to pieces. It is no more. Even if you die in your sleep, you don't continue to sleep, you die.

I can't tell you what death is; this is the crux of the matter. Death isn't! I've little doubt that I will die, but I shall never be dead. This realization dates back to at least Epicurus' time.

So what does it feel like? What did it feel like for you in the year AD 1066? Speaking for myself, the year AD 1066 wasn't painful or lonely, it wasn't pleasant or interesting. It simply was nothing. It didn't bother me in the least that I didn't exist for at least half an eternity, so why would I think that my nonexistence for another half-eternity would be any different?

The only difference is that I am here now thinking about my future death. Savater writes:

"Really, when our imagination allows death to cause us pain - poor me, everybody is happy enjoying the sun and making love, everybody except me, who nevermore, nevermore... - it does so precisely now, when we are still alive. Perhaps we should reflect a bit more on the strange occurrence of having been born, which is as great a wonder as the terrible wonder of death. If death is not-being we have already defeated it once, on the day we were born. It is again Lucretius who in his philosophical poem On the Nature of the Universe speaks of mors aeterna, the eternal death of that which has never been and never will be. So we may well be mortal, but we have escaped eternal death. We have succeeded in stealing a chunk of time-the days, months, years during which we have been alive, each moment when we are still living-from that enormous death and, happen what may, the time will always be ours, time belonging to those who triumphed against death through being born-it will never belong to death, even if we must in the end die."

Now this is reassuring as well as reasonable! History may be as Paul Valery wrote, "...the science of things that are never repeated," but even death cannot take away the fact that I lived and loved. I triumph over death by having lived with passion, not by living forever. Goethe correctly noted that, "A useless life is an early death." When I hear a man say, "Thank God it's Friday," I envision him merely as a walking corpse; as if his business were only to dispense with his weeks as quickly as possible and thus hasten the arrival of death. I can pack a whole lot of living in between now and next Friday.

Love your life, find someone else's life to love as well. Cheat death by living with outrageous passion.

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

Michael

[Guest]

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

That quote sums up pretty much my whole argument! Nobody knows where death brings us, or what exactly it will do to us. Then the last part is especially interesting, "...cannot take from us what we have lived."

Thanks for posting that quote.

And thanks for having such a nice discussion too!

[BluTGI]

the toll for nice discussions is .50 cent or you could just register and get a name. But guests are charged .50 for every nice discussion they get. heheheheh ben were rich!!!

[guest]

think about this.ask yourself these two questions.
are you sure there is no afterlife?
are you ready if there is?

some day everyone who has,is or ever will be on this earth will stand before the throne of almighty God.there will be no where for you to hide.if you are not ready you will be asked of God why you rejected His Son.what will you say.
[/b][/quote]

[Polemarchus]

some day everyone who has,is or ever will be on this earth will stand before the throne of almighty God.there will be no where for you to hide.if you are not ready you will be asked of God why you rejected His Son.what will you say.

I guess that was meant for me.

What would I say? I would say two words, "Non Sequitur." And God would say, "Right answer! I've deliberately withheld from man the evidence sufficient to conclude that I exist. This was my test to separate men with the courage to reject unsupported beliefs from those that would believe nearly anything on the basis of nothing. Come and be seated at my right side."

I'd turn as if to take my rightful place, but that would only be a feint. Instead I'd grab his beard with my right hand and pop him hard with my left fist. I'd say, "You son-of-a-bitch, that's for allowing my father to suffer so terribly before he died. Why would you think I'd want to sit by the side of an almighty God that allows innocent people to suffer?" And he'd struggle back to his feet saying, "Right again, that was my second test. It was to see if you would sit at the right hand of a deity that's a son-of-a-bitch." But hearing this, I'd just be after him again. It would be a mess.

I hope I've answered your question, Guest.

Michael

[Pax Vitae]

I agree with what Polemarchus said on another tread, God is what we call everything we don’t understand, or anything we find that is mysterious so attribute to the idea of God. While I would agree with this, there is something in me that sees and seeks “God” in the world I live. Henri Nouwen called this “the God in me seeing, the God in the world.” While what I call God might really just be hope for something greater then this substandard world.

If God is not the grand total of all that is good, then God is not perfect, and if God is not perfect he should not ask for perfection from us. We live in a world were evil exists. I find it difficult to believe that if God had the power to control this world he would allow evil. The only reason for evil is if it’s a tool to teach. But there are some things that just seem cruel, like disable people (an idea came to me just as I was about to post this, maybe its because this is what will happen a lot more if we start playing with people’s DNA? Just a thought). Why allow this? This is why I feel God is very powerful a life form, but not one which is 100% perfect. I some times think that God will look for forgiveness from us, as we will look for forgiveness and comfort from Him. But I’m assuming that God is a real thing and not just an imaginary friend that helps me makes sense of the world.

I have only one problem with the notion that God doesn’t exist. It raises issues about the believed right to life. As long as you don’t commit a morally evil act you have a right to life under most modern understandings of religion. If we remove God and the idea of an afterlife, all we are left with is this life. Then our only right to life is given by what humanity’s sets as the standard of acceptable behaviour if we don’t wish to forfeit our life. This has the possibility of cheapening the value of life, (yet maybe we currently of rate it, like we did all those Internet stocks).

The Standard for life could be something like as follows: A life is of obvious value when it’s either keeping the status-quo or producing something of worth. This could be commodities (food, computer programs, art), or if the life has an emotional value to another person. Meaning if other people like family members love you or you have lovers, you are bringing meaning to that other person’s life.

While I know the death penalty exists still in some countries, it’s not the standard. Could it be possible to get to the point where if a person is causing more harm then good, he forfeits his right to life because of all the suffering he has created. Like the whole 3 strikes and you’re out, or in this case, killed. Could we get to a point where we love harmony more then life? So if a person is going around causing others extreme problems, to solve the problem we just kill that person. Because if you look at it this way, all these troublemakers are going to die eventually, and if they’re going to die anyway and there’s no afterlife for me to be held accountable in, why not stop all the suffering caused, by just killing them now? As Spock would but it, “The needs of the many out way the needs of the few.”

As without God, our rights simply become the rights the strong wish to impose. Welcome to the wonderful world of Might Makes Right unabridged!

Pax Vitae

[Polemarchus]

Hey Pax,

Yes, it would indeed be wonderful if there were a benevolent, just, wise, and almighty God. Well no, not the jealous and vengeful God of the Christians; I'm talking about a truly benevolent God. A Supreme Being composed of titanic heapings of goodness, power and wisdom would have constructed a world in which children don't suffer from the likes of Leukemia. He'd take it upon himself to warn us when a volcanic eruption or an earthquake was imminent.

What would you think of me if I knew a cure for a disease you were dying of, yet I withheld it from you? What if I knew that the school your children were attending was going to collapse today in an earthquake (as happened so recently in Italy), yet I chose to say nothing? Would you praise me for my wisdom and goodness? In fact, you know that if it were in my power I'd do all these things for you. This, despite the fact that I'm far less benevolent than you or I would imagine a benevolent god to be.

Yes, it would be grand to have a benevolent God in the heavens busy dispatching armies of guardian angels to watch over us. We do occasionally hear claims that God has averted some disaster by whispering a last-minute warning into someone's ear. But if that's true, then it's all the worse for God. For why is he so capricious that he would let some airliners crash yet protect others? Does he suffer from an attention deficit disorder? This would only imply that we have an all powerful, yet incompetent God.

In this world airliners crash because a tiny part is defective. Ferryboats sink because someone has forgotten to close a hatch. People die in head-on automobile collisions on their way to work as a volunteer in a home for the aged. But if we are determined to believe in a Supreme Being, we've no choice but to admit that he/she/it is either uncaring or incompetent, or both. Neither quality prompts me to readily burst forth with a "Gloria in Excelsis Deo."

If a Supreme Being is running this world, how could we escape the conclusion that any afterlife will only be more of the same? If this world is the handiwork of some god, then what we have now is an example of the sort of things this particular god is pleased to create. If the Taliban had gained control of neighboring Pakistan, do you think they would have modeled Karachi on Las Vegas, complete with gambling casinos and feathered showgirls? Isn't it far more likely that the Taliban would have simply created another fundamentalist Islamic State in Pakistan? If there is a God, then this world is the best example of the sort of things he likes to build. If there is random suffering here, we should expect there to be random suffering in an afterworld. If there is injustice here, there will be injustice there.

we remove God and the idea of an afterlife, all we are left with is this life. Then our only right to life is given by what humanity’s sets as the standard of acceptable behaviour if we don’t wish to forfeit our life.

Even the cheapest Chinese-made microwave oven comes with an instruction manual. Yet as complex as we are, humans arrive in this world with no instruction manual at all. If there is a God, he should have included a complete, non-contradictory and unambiguous set of moral instructions for us to follow. It has been the traditional Western recommendation that we take the Christian Bible as our user manual. However, the Old and the New Testaments give us a no more complete, non-contradictory, and unambiguous set of guiding principles than we'd have by replacing the Old Testament with an issue of Mad Magazine, and the New testament with a Superman comic. A god capable of creating something as complex as a human would scarcely issue such a nutty and convoluted user manual as the Bible.

God or no God, we arrived without the manual. Men have had to write their own user manual. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. It further appears that the best manual we could produce will never be complete, entirely non-contradictory and perfectly unambiguous. Shakespeare has Julius Caesar say:

"Men...are masters of their own fates: The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves..."

Michael

[Skeptic]

Amen! I nominate Polemarchus for next term!

Polemarchus could do much better than our current God. I vote for a new God because the current one is less competent than his own creation. Either that or he has just been on vacation.

[Pax Vitae]

I agree with everything you’ve said. To me the idea of God, is Hope for something better.

1) There is no God.
2) There is a God, but he’s a bit flaky and should never be counted on.

The only reason I still hold out hope for a God, is because of the Primary Cause argument. Everything in life points out the fact that for every effect there is a cause. I just hope the primary cause is God.

While I know this argument can be easily countered with: The Universe has always existed and the Big Bang is a black hole that has gone critical and exploded out all the matter it sucked in. Life is just a process of the universe being sucked in and blown out of a black hole for all eternity. A bit like a heart beating.

If there is no God and we look at existence from the big picture, our life is no better then a rock’s. The only difference is we can think and feel. Like us the rock came from nothing and will go back to nothing. It played its part in the chain of matter, like we do. A rock by its nature is a rock, a human by its nature is a human. I see no difference, other then our nature included a consciousness.

Just as a side note on Christianity, its very selfish about what it thinks “life” is. Not everything that lives has “life.” A cow or sheep lives, but we don’t expect to see it in the afterlife. I find this very selfish. I know I’m always talking about eastern thought. But I believe they have a more all-embracing approach to loving life in all its many forms, not just what we might call a sentient life. To them, Life by its living nature is something special and should be cherished. (mmm, I’m starting to sound like a god damn hippie, I’m off to hug some trees )

Pax Vitae

[Qzxtvbzr]

Pascal's wager.

When all else fails, resort to pascal's wager.

[Polemarchus]

Pax wrote:

A rock by its nature is a rock, a human by its nature is a human. I see no difference, other then our nature included a consciousness.

Quite correct, but our having consciousness is rather spectacular! The brain is composed of roughly 100 billion neurons (the same as the number of stars in our galaxy). A pebble might be composed of as many atoms but this fact alone doesn't bestow consciousness on pebbles. We appear to have consciousness because our 100 billion neurons exist in a complex interactive feedback system. The biologist, E.O. Wilson wrote:

"A star is simpler than an ant."

Now, when one considers how much more complex humans are than ants, there is a great cause to think that the human mind is something rather spectacular. I've written before in this forum how I used to gaze at the stars in wonder, but that I now reserve that wonder for looking in the mirror. The British philosopher, Frank Ramsey, said in 1925:

"I don't feel in the least humble before the vastness of the heavens. The stars may be large, but they cannot think or love; and these are qualities that impress me far more than size does. "

Life by its living nature is something special and should be cherished.

I couldn't agree more.

Qzxtvbzr wrote:

When all else fails, resort to Pascal's wager.

Hi Qzxtvbzr. Blaise Pascal was a wonderful man in many respects, but his acceptance of this wager (which actually pre-dated him) was a bit hasty.

The problem with Pascal's wager is that it assumes too much. The whole point of making the wager is that we have no reason to believe that a god exists. But if we know so little about a god that we don't even know he exists, then how can we possibly know that he would want us to worship him? It would be equally possible that a god would punish superstition. He might loathe the thought of us worshiping him. Again, if we know so little about a god that we have to make a wager, then we know too little about him to make the wager.

Michael

[Pax Vitae]

"A star is simpler than an ant."

Now, when one considers how much more complex humans are than ants, there is a great cause to think that the human mind is something rather spectacular.

I agree, Consciousness is undeniably a very powerful natural gift. Unlike most animals that only react to their environments, humanity to a large extent can shape the one’s we wish to live in. But the same Consciousness that can build wonders can also cause its own downfall.

To me Consciousness is the ability to choose our own nature. Our parents set up the basic rules that we are going to start our lives with. Then education, which is the shaping and directing of a Consciousness, to ends that our society and the individual Consciousness will find mutually beneficial. The more knowledge we have, the greater are ability to reshape ourselves and become what we would sooner be and throw off our original shape. If we don’t search and learn for new knowledge we will never become the person we truly would want to be. With hindsight we can look back at our past and say, “Wow, I was such a fool for doing that or thinking that, but luckily I have found knowledge that shows me the proper way to be.” With more knowledge it’s possible to make more discerning decisions and become more Conscious of myself and the world I live in.

Consciousness is the ability to be aware of ourselves in an environment, and also what other interactions exist in that environment. (Note: I say, “in an environment”, because I believe if we don’t have anything to stimulate one of our five senses, we don’t have any way of knowing that we exist. It’s through space / time interactions and our memory, we learn of our own consciousness by trial and error, and recognising the cause and effects, which must come through our senses and are then stored in our memory for later comparisons. As access to our memories is like a sense, though all it is, is a recording of an earlier sensory input which we can playback when we wish. I’m also unable to think of any thought that is not influenced by one of my five senses, this to me suggests that I must have at least one sense to be truly conscious.) But to me Consciousness is also tied to our Intelligence and our ability to understand what influences what, in our environment. Meaning it’s possible that a person with a very low Intelligence will have a Consciousness that is less Conscious then a person with a greater Intelligence.

I would say all animals have a consciousness that is just like ours, but they lack the Intelligence and the ability to recognize complex patterns, and also essential but slight differences. If these animals had better memories I think over time they would become self-aware. I’m almost sure (but can’t remember where I read it) that Dolphins can tell the difference between their own reflection and other Dolphins, this is one of the basic self-awareness tests. We can train most animals to react in a predictable way to a predefined signal. Like teaching a dog to sit on command. But we don’t yet have a way to express abstract ideas with other animals, and it’s these abstract ideas that are the real proof of self-awareness.

I’ve written before in this forum how I used to gaze at the stars in wonder, but that I now reserve that wonder for looking in the mirror.

Have you lost your ‘wonder’ for the stars because to a large extent you understand them? But when you examine yourself in the mirror, you’re left puzzled because you don’t fully understand what you have found? Are we really self-aware? We know what we do and can learn from experiences. But we don’t know how we do it! I believe we are still evolving to self-awareness, both through biological abilities and by adding to the pool of knowledge and wisdom.

Our Conscious mind is almost like a playpen for our sub-conscious. A place away from the monotonous tasks it must administer too on a daily basis to keep our body running smoothly. Where in the seclusion of a quieten place it can pick and choose what problems it feels must be solved to try and adapt to its current environment.

What if? Like the way the Conscious mind can’t directly see how it influences its own sub-conscious mind, our life is a mirror of this. Meaning, I live in the “relative” seclusion of the body to get away from the problems of the bodiless mind. Aldo this is just the restating of an old eastern thought. This would mean there’s no “afterlife” so to speak, only life existing in different forms.

But like I said before, if there is no afterlife for me to look at the life I lived and call it my own. So in other words, from nothing to nothing, with no memory before or after. Then even with my Consciousness I’m still only as important as the rock to the chain. While I might affect the chain more, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Pax Vitae

[Magius]

Polemarchus stated:

Yes, it would indeed be wonderful if there were a benevolent, just, wise, and almighty God. Well no, not the jealous and vengeful God of the Christians; I'm talking about a truly benevolent God. A Supreme Being composed of titanic heapings of goodness, power and wisdom would have constructed a world in which children don't suffer from the likes of Leukemia. He'd take it upon himself to warn us when a volcanic eruption or an earthquake was imminent.

Polemarchus, I am elated at your sincere appreciation of human happiness, for few are ever concerned with anything more than their own happiness, and the happiness of others so that it gets returned to them yet again. But I tread cautiously through all such intuitive answers, for I don't think anything is as simple as intuition makes appear - otherwise what would be the use of reason? I think you would agree with the following example (if not correct me): Before we evolved there was nature and all it's creatures, plants, earth, water, and air. All things were in harmony between their life and death. Whether a deer died because it tripped and fell down a canyon, or if it was eaten by a lion, or if it was killed through disease; it live and died for the harmony of the earth and it's recycling of matter. The death of one is the bettermeant of another, the bettermeant of another is the death of the next. Hey, I just made that up, sounds good Anyway, benevolence enters the picture only relative to the mind of humans. A religion called Jainism promotes life without hurting anything else better than any other religion in the world. Their philosophy has led only to this

"The only way to not kill a living thing is to die".

Polemarchus, we learn from pain and suffering - I believe suffering is what makes us better and is the chief impedus behind why we progress continually. Otherwise, you should be punching God not for making your father suffer, but for making 'suffering' part of all living things in reality. Is it any wonder that some say life is only the ability to suffer.

Polemarchus, I am sorry for the pain you experienced through watching your father suffer before his death - but a disease (if that's what he died from) is but a living thing striving to preserve itself by gaining bettermeant which unfortunately meant the death of your father. Nietzsche may have been right (although I don't think he was) when he said:

"The essence of life is exploitation"

If you have ever experienced something wonderful because of pain (suffering), if you have ever realized something because of pain (suffering), if you have ever been incited to do something that you knew you wanted to do, had to do, and it made you feel alive; like you were God himself because of pain (suffering) - then you have grasped the essence of pain (suffering) and will come to terms not just with your own pain and suffering but with everyone elses as well.

I hope I helped...
~Magius

[BluTGI]

How can you proove that there is or is not an afterlife without actually dying.

The Eastern philosophy would say meditation.

The Western philosophy says if you are a good person death is worth it.

But to answer your question ill tell you that you cant because there is only 2 modes, Life and Death. After life comes Death, possibly after death comes life. nature is verry dualistic. But Your indivdual life is not the same persona that your energy will form in the next phase. Why? because the only thing that is required. Think of it like a leaf on a tree. in winter the leaf falls and dies but soon is replaced by another leaf who betters the Tree. Who Mankind betters i do not know.

[Polemarchus]

Pax wrote:

Have you lost your ‘wonder’ for the stars because to a large extent you understand them?

Hi Pax,
Astronomical objects are certainly fascinating. But a mind contemplates a star, a star doesn't contemplate a mind. A star is, a stone is, but a mind is conscious, and a human mind is conscious of its consciousness. A star doesn't matter to itself. And again, as Frank Ramsey said, a star cannot love or offer sympathy. It's not that the stars aren't amazing, it's that humans are so much more amazing.

A mind contains roughly 100 trillion (10^14) synaptic connections, and across each connection there can be as many as ten different weighted responses. The British astrophysicist Martin Rees has written, "Stars are gravitationally bound fusion reactors." Complex biological objects are made from simpler astronomical objects. In a debate about consciousness, Marvin Minsky remarked:

"In the old days, to say that a person is like a machine was like suggesting that a person is like a paper clip. Naturally it was insulting to be called any such simple thing. Today, the concept of machine no longer implies triviality. The genetic machines inside our cells contain billions of units of DNA that embody the accumulated experience of a billion years of evolutionary search. Those are systems we can respect; they are more complex than anything that anyone has ever understood. We need not lose our self-respect when someone describes us as machines; we should consider it wonderful that what we are and what we do depends upon a billion parts.

As for more traditional views, I find it demeaning to be told that all the things that I can do depend on some structureless spirit or soul...I feel the same discomfort when being told that virtues depend on the grace of some god, instead of on structures that grew from the honest work of searching, learning, and remembering. I think those tables should be turned; one ought to feel insulted when accused of being not a machine."

Man is a failure in comparison to his gods. He'll never measure up to his dreams for himself (in Sartre's words, "...man never coincides with himself"). Success only prompt us to raise higher the goal posts by which we measure our worth. Stanislaw Lec asked:

"Is it progress if a cannibal uses a knife and fork?"

We are not fallen angels, we are pond-scum risen. We did not descend from a God; we ascended from the primal condensation of hydrogen and deuterium, from stellar furnaces, supernova explosions and the primeval swamps. Evolution is never direct or certain. We might never become more than cannibals with good table manners. But I think the answer to Stanislaw Lec's question is "yes." I think that every joy experienced and every kindness extended, no matter how small, further elevates us from the swamp. As Minsky said in the quote above, what we are depends on a billion things.

Magius wrote,

The death of one is the betterment of another, the betterment of another is the death of the next.

Hey Magius,
You've reminded me that when I came to this mountain I asked the other engineers if I might replace the mousetraps in the hut with the kind that catches the mice alive. After the laughter subsided a bit I was told a story. Once another engineer caught a mouse alive. It was during winter and he let the mouse run free across the snow. Now, the weather here in the winter can be brutal with temperatures to minus 30 degrees C and winds gusting upwards of 100km/hr. So, this guy closed the door and watched the little mouse run across the snow. It ran less than ten meters before it stopped dead, frozen in its tracks. A raven picked up the mouse a few hours later.

If you have ever experienced something wonderful because of pain... then you have grasped the essence of pain...and will come to terms not just with your own pain and suffering but with everyone else as well.

I don't go around hitting my thumb with a hammer on purpose, but I do make something of a habit out of toying with discomfort. That is, I go out of my way not to feel like a pampered papoose. I wonder if others do the same? For example, winter or summer, I often finish my shower in cold water. I push myself in the gym unto exhaustion and occasionally go without food until I'm light-headed. Religious ascetics in the past wore "hair shirts" made of coarse cloth as a penance for their sins, whereas I figuratively don the "hair shirt" because it makes me feel a bit more alive. A warm shower feels like heaven and a simple bowl of soup tastes as good as a meal in a fine restaurant after one has trudged across a mountain in a fierce snowstorm. Epicurus wrote in his, Letter to Menoeceus:

"...they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it...

But ’tis a different thing altogether when pain is beyond ones control. I use small doses of pain to sweeten my pleasures, but for so many others pain only brings interminable suffering. Such suffering fosters despair rather than enlightenment. This suffering diminishes our humanity, and as such, I despise it.

Michael

[inward]

We are not fallen angels, we are pond-scum risen. We did not descend from a God; we ascended from the primal condensation of hydrogen and deuterium, from stellar furnaces, supernova explosions and the primeval swamps.

Indeed, it is very tempting to believe that. But I ask you this, is that the truth?
After all, up until the 19th century they all believed Euclid's fifth postulate to be universally true..

But ’tis a different thing altogether when pain is beyond ones control. I use small doses of pain to sweeten my pleasures, but for so many others pain only brings interminable suffering. Such suffering fosters despair rather than enlightenment. This suffering diminishes our humanity, and as such, I despise it.

Suffering is part of being human, being truly human. This doesn't mean you should start cutting your fingers off, one by one, and dance on fire. Suffering usually brings enlightenment, but that only after bringing despair.

[Pax Vitae]

Pax wrote:
Have you lost your ‘wonder’ for the stars because to a large extent you understand them?

Polemarchus wrote:
Hi Pax,
Astronomical objects are certainly fascinating. But a mind contemplates a star, a star doesn't contemplate a mind. A star is, a stone is, but a mind is conscious, and a human… <SNIP>

I didn’t quite make my point clear in the last post.

Pax wrote:
Have you lost your ‘wonder’ for the stars because to a large extent you understand them? But when you examine yourself in the mirror, you’re left puzzled because you don’t fully understand what you have found?

What I wanted to ask you was: Do you wonder at your Conciseness because it’s unknowable? An enigma that will forever remain unsolved, as unsolvable problems can be intoxicating for a while. To a creature like ourselves that has evolved because it can see real but abstract relationships between objects, yet when we examine the human mind we only find phantoms. I would say Conciseness is to be aware of our own and others ever changing nature, all things change, but not all have the sense (as in our case sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing, and memory [we can remember what it was like before we changed]) required to experience this change. It’s impossible to be more then what we’re “feed”, I mean from our senses. Like the computer processing term, put junk in and you’ll get junk out. We are the same. We can filter, organize, and label data, but if the data is crap, then no amount of hard work will ever transform this into something of value.

We are the chaotic disorder in the material world. The sun will shine, and the rock will stay hard for its allotted time. But humanity is fickle and somewhat unpredictable. We follow general patterns, but there are no specific rules, other then the one’s our physical body must abide by to exist. To me it’s not my Conciseness that I’m amazed at but these unseen Rules that must exist before we can exist. To put it another way, it’s the order in the universe that amazes me, not our conciseness as it’s just one of the many side affects of the Rules. I’m not saying these Rules come from a divinely created universe, but we are a creature that understands cause and effect, so for something not to have a cause is like trying to understand infinity. There’s no reason not to say that the universe has always existed, and on the scale of infinity big bangs are quite common occurrences.

But the real question about our Conciseness comes from evolution: Could we de-evolve just as quickly as we evolved? Evolution is said to be humanity’s ability to adapt because our environment changes. Are we just adapting to our environment without a long-term plan? I believe so. We are no more then a reaction to some external stimuli. We cannot help or stop our adaptation, without creating a protective cocoon around ourselves that is unchanging, static. Do we flatter ourselves by saying we evolve, are we really advancing? Or just changing, like all things in any other chemical reaction, yet we are “lucky” (and I use this word very loosely) that we can see and comprehend this change? If it weren’t for the rock we’d have nothing to stand on, and if it wasn’t for the sun we wouldn’t have used photosynthesis to produce food. Our conciseness is only one small part of the very large picture. But I suppose because we have the ability to say I, by that very nature we get very self centred. (I don’t mean selfish, just our mental centre is our self).

A question I’ve been pondering a lot these days is: If I created complex rules for how all matter interacted with other matter and these rules where built into a device called a “universe.” If I filled said universe full of random matter and gave the whole thing a good shake. Then placing it down and standing back to watch all the random matter start to interact and form things based off my rules from the chaos. Kind of like shaking a snow globe and watching the snow come to rest on the miniature house. Or how when you bake you need to sieve the disordered flour so it’s just right for the cake. Would my universe end up looking like the one we live in now?

Polemarchus wrote:
I think that every joy experienced and every kindness extended, no matter how small, further elevates us from the swamp.

That is a Moral statement and would mean nothing to the people unaware of Morality in a swamp. To them it might even look like madness. An example: If the kindness was giving the swamp people food and you did this for everybody in their village they would soon stop hunting and just come to you for their food. If this went on long enough they would eventually lose there keen hunting edge and when you stopped giving them free food they would be at a loss for a time while they adapted back to there hunting ways.

Kindness, is to do an act of some type that we are not directly responsible to carry out. Why does this self-sacrificing elevate us? Kindness only works short term, after that you start to breed dependency as the example above demonstrates. Most people are generous enough to help their friends once or twice, but if that friend doesn’t make an effort to help themselves, patience will soon wear thin. I think this kindness is due to evolution. Everybody at some time or another has problems that they are unable to resolve without help. This short-term kindness can help the group as you don’t needlessly waist a human resource, which over the long term has a positive effect on the group. But long-term kindness only weakens the group, as the person is just a drain on other resources. This dependency goes against the law of survival of the fittest. It all comes back to our postings on “What is Morality is it just something trivial” If morality is not of divine origin then if practiced to a large extent it will create laziness in immoral people. For large problems like world hunger only education and population control will work in the long run. This is how nature has always kept the books in balance, Death! Heartless in moral terms, yet pragmatic and we live in a pragmatic universe. Also I feel the same about greed, or it might be best expressed as avarice; as in the long term this will damage the group.

I hope you don’t think I’m heartless. But I believe real kindness enables people to help themselves, not to become, dependent on others.

Pax Vitae

[Polemarchus]

H2O wrote:

But I ask you this, is that the truth? After all, up until the 19th century they all believed Euclid's fifth postulate to be universally true..

Hi H2O,
A postulate is only a postulate. We accept it because it's useful, not because it's been proven to be true. Different postulates produce different geometries. Euclid's 5th postulate is entirely consistent within Euclidean Space. Non-Euclidean geometry hasn't invalidated Euclidean Geometry. All the various geometries are true (and sometimes useful) within the bounds of their assumptions.

I'm comfortable in my belief that a Christian God is only a medieval superstition. But I cannot tell you with 100% certainty that there is no Christian God. Neither can I tell you with 100% certainty that a meteorite won't crash through the ceiling and kill me within the next minute. I live my life and make my plans as though no meteorite will strike me and as if there is no God. Given the evidence available to me both of these assumptions are entirely reasonable.

Michael

[Polemarchus]

H2O wrote:

Suffering usually brings enlightenment, but that only after bringing despair.

Heracleitus wrote, “The beast has to be driven to the pasture with blows.” Is this how it is for us? Is what is best in man brought out by the sting of the lash? The Judaeo-Christian world is but a vale-of-tears where pain is welcomed as spiritually uplifting. Christianity is a veritable theme park of suffering: the stain of original sin, the cross we must all bear, the scourging, the crown of thorns...

If suffering is a conduit to enlightenment it should be interesting to consider our state of mind whilst we suffer. Do you experience the poetry of the universe through your toothache? In his Enemies of Hope, Raymond Tallis writes:

”In toothache, I am as remote as possible from being a lens on the universe; I am a place of toothache...To be in severe pain is to be rolled in the brazier of anti-meaning.”

I don't reach out to connect with the cosmos while I’m in pain; instead I contract into a little ball of suffering. My entire universe shrinks to the dimensions of my suffering.

I sat next to my physician brother-in-law at a big family dinner this past Christmas Eve. As dessert was coming out an old fellow hobbled over to ask my brother-in-law for advice concerning his acute spinal stenosis. We all became quiet and stared down at our plates as this old man loudly pleaded for relief from his pain. What drove this man to ignore normal propriety and to risk embarrassment by announcing his personal problems in the middle of our Christmas cake and coffee? Didn’t he realize that he was as welcome as a skunk at a garden party? No, I think his pain had driven him to despair. His world had contracted to the dimensions of his lower vertebrae. There was no room in his world for the joy of Christmas, for the enjoyment of the fine meal, or for the pleasure of the company of others. The pain in his back had absorbed his entire being. Tallis would say that this poor man had been rolled in the brazier of anti-meaning. To misquote Dr. Samuel Johnson, pain has a wonderful ability to focus one’s mind, but the focus is concentrated exclusively on the source of our pain. When we suffer “it’s all about us.” Emerson wrote:

”Sorrow makes us all children again.”

I’ll occasionally comment about the fine weather to someone only to have them say, “Yes, but we’ll pay for it later.” Must we really pay for our pleasures with our suffering? Some folks are afraid to enjoy their life because they imagine that as soon as their life is going well a tragedy is bound to occur. This reminds me of a groom on his wedding night constantly looking over his shoulder, for fear that his father-in-law will appear with a baseball bat. It reminds me of prison inmates afraid to venture out of their cells long after their jailers have unlocked the doors and fled. But life does not punish those who enjoy it, nor must we earn our joy by our suffering. Spinoza wrote:

”Nothing forbids our pleasure except a savage and bad superstition.”

I heard an old Vermont farmer tell a story about the time he was driving home along the back-roads when he suddenly saw a large young man run screaming across a field towards his truck. The farmer said that his first reaction was fear; he felt the impulse to step on the gas. But then the farmer thought he heard the guy say the word “cow.” The farmer pulled over. When the guy reached the truck he yelled, “Our cow’s just calved!” The farmer took his hand, congratulated him, and listened to the guy tell him all about the birth of his first calf. The farmer said he probably never had seen someone so happy. As the farmer drove away he figured it out; “Sorrow can be borne alone, but joy has to be shared.” The British philosopher, Roger Scruton, has said:

”A truly solitary laugh is not a laugh at all, but a snarl of isolation.”

Likewise, Pierre Corneille wrote in his, Notes par Rochefoucauld:

"Le bonheur semble fait pour etre partage."
"Happiness seems made to be shared."

When I have a migraine headache I only want to be alone, but when a Hermit Thrush sings in the evening I instinctively reach for my wife’s arm. Sartre wrote:

“An emotion is a transformation of the world.”

We transform our world through both our sorrow and our joy. Sorrow shrinks our world to the dimensions of our suffering and is most often expressed by whelps of pain and sobs of grief. Joy expands our world and is best expressed by laughter and poetry. The Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, went so far as to say:

"Laughter is the language of the soul.”

Michael