Well, “I” can remain in the universe forever by reconfiguring back to star stuff, or it can [via the soul] acquire one or another manifestation of immortality and salvation.
And that strikes me as two very, very different substances. With or without a Judgment Day.
How does it strike you?
What does “I” have to do with it?
“I” is the embodiment of matter able to reflect on [and then react to] its own demise. And that can amount to an oblivious journey back to star stuff or the possibility of an immortal soul able to attain salvation given one or another rendition of a Heavenly Kingdom.
Given, in turn, one or another rendition of Judgment Day.
Or not.
Due to the unavoidably eternal presence of affectance and the infinite universe it forms, there will forever and always be a you and a me … somewhere out there.
And you can actually demonstrate this…how?
Isn’t it by insisting that if everyone defines “unavoidable” “eternal” “presence” “affectance” “infinite” “universe” etc., in precisely the same manner that you do, they will stitch the definitions together into a meaning that coincides with that which you believe “in your head” “here and now” to be true?
On the other hand, using something more akin to, say, the scientific method, how would one go about proving to others that what they believe in their head is that which all rational men and women are obligated to believe [to know] in turn?
By, for example, conducting experiments, or making predictions, or generating mathematical computations able to substantiate the words that, in my view, are merely asserted to be true.
No. It’s by defining words arbitrarily and eternally trying to make sense out of one’s thoughts.
I believe that there is only one possibility (soul): Everything.
Either way, it doesn’t depend on “I”.
Unless “I” is just fabricating it all and there nothing more to it than empty talk. In that case, it’s all about “I”.
Talk of “eternity” and “forever” should always be taken with a grain of salt.
I love music, food, sports, my family, politics, fucking, film, poetry, philosophy, nature…and on and on and on. Depending of course on who you have become as an existential contraption.
“I” for me here is that part of our “sense of self” that appears rooted in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein.
Here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529
In other words, the things that we have come to love as a result of the particular historical, cultural and experiential parameters of our “lived lives”. Out of which our experiences, relationships and sources of information/knowledge play a more or less significant part in establishing all of the things that death will either reconfigure into oblivion or instead will be reconfigured [re what most call a “soul”] into one or another religious rendition of immortailty and salvation.
If, pertaining to each and everyone of us as individuals, discussing “what will remain in this universe forever?” by making that crucial distinction between oblivion on the one hand and immortality/salvation on the other, is just “empty talk” to you, then we obviously are not talking about the same thing.
There will always be something rather than nothing because absolute nothing can only exist for an infinitesimal period of time
The something may be energy or matter but regardless of what it is it will carry on existing forever and in any form it can take
Why do you believe that?
I make the “crucial” distinction between speculations based on ego wants and desires on the one hand and egoless detachment on the other. Speculation based on personal desires is going to be tainted with fears and hopes - it may amount to little more than a story. It’s not really about what happens to the universe … it’s really about what happens to “you” or “I”. Or what is hoped for “you” or “I”. Therefore, it doesn’t answer the question being posed - “what will remain in this universe forever?”
That question has some answer which is separate from “I” and reasons which are separate from “I”.
Like God? Or is he too connected?
Quantum fluctuations become too unstable to tolerate it any longer
Okay, but what on earth does this really have to do with the point that I made? If others don’t define the words that encompass your own “general description” of human interaction here [before and after the grave] as you do, are they or are they not necessarily wrong?
Necessarily because the manner in which you react to “what will remain in this universe forever” is necessarily intertwined in RM/AO and the Real God. Which, to the best of my own understanding, encompasses the one true TOE.
Or are you admitting that while you are right from your side, others may well be right from their side. Depending on which set of assumptions/premises reflects the one true reality.
But that then takes me back to this: and you can actually demonstrate this…how?
And that takes us all back to your “world of words”.
The logic of which would seem to be necessarily…tautological?
I agree. Lots and lots of grains. Given the gap that almost certainly exists between what we think they mean and what any particular individual would need to know in order to actually demonstrate what they are one way or the other.
The whole point of many narratives however is to either insist that “forever” and “eternity” have a happy ending for “I” in one or another celestial Kingdom; or that through a “leap of faith” one is “betting” on this.
As opposed to the narrative that leans more in the direction of a wholly oblivious “I”. And “for all time to come”.
But, sure, I agree: Whatever that means.
I think problems arise when words have either multiple meanings or multiple interpretations. The solution to such ambiguity
is an easy one. When one is using any such word they must define it as rigorously as possible and then stick to this definition
equally as rigorously even if everyone else is using a totally different definition. Dictionaries are descriptive not prescriptive
and deviation is inevitable. So that is why clarity of definition is very important in serious discourse and discourse in general
So, are you arguing that when reflecting on your fate beyond the grave, you have carefully calibrated your own reaction such that you are able to make this distinction with some measure of precision?
Well, good for you.
I — “I” — have never even come close.
On the other hand, how would you go about demonstrating this to others? Given, for example, that you have no capacity even to demonstrate the persistence of “I” [as I encompassed it above] beyond the grave?
Unless of course you do.
There are lots of Big Questions like that though. And all we can do is to speculate about them in places like this.
I merely trudge back to that pesky gap between what we believe is [or may be] true, and that which we are able to demonstrate that all reasonable men and women are obligated to believe.
To the extent that our ruminations in the is/ought world are shown to be in sync with the either/or world.
Which inevitably takes us back to the extent to which the human mind is even capable of grasping that.
And this always takes me back to Mr. Rumsfeld’s conjecture:
There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.
Okay, but, to the best of your ability, speculate on how “for all practical purposes” that may be relevant to the behaviors you choose “here and now” in order to be in sync with whatever you imagine “will remain in the universe forever”.
I have told you maybe a dozen times that since information of what happens “beyond the grave” is so sketchy and unreliable, I don’t live my life based on anything that may or may not be there.
Therefore, I don’t demonstrate anything about it. Conceivably I could list some of the unreliable/contradictory/vague accounts of “beyond the grave” as a demonstration of why I take that approach.
Isn’t a better place for that ILoveWildGuesses.com?
Of course, it could be discussed in terms of some observable physical processes - thermodynamics perhaps - in a science/cosmology forum maybe, but not in this place.