There are degrees and types of innocence.
And there are degrees and types of interpretations as to what they are. For example, is Barack Obama guilty or innocent of war crimes?..guiltier or more innocent than Georege W. Bush?..than Henry Kissinger?
Though I think we will all agree that babies are innocent of war crimes. Though not all children.
I don’t see how we can use logic to reason about things like life and death, when the best scientists of our day tell us that the universe was literally created out of nothing. I think when you admit that as a real possibility - that something can come from nothing - it necessarily undermines any attempts to comprehend the mechanisms which underlie the processes of life and death.
Yes, what is most discomfitting for some is the realization that not only don’t we understand life and death but that, perhaps, we can’t undertstand them.
In other words, we can’t just assume the human brain is hardwired to comprehend everything.
True, but I see this as an infinitely better alternative than presuming that we do understand everything and that there is nothing mysterious or unfathomable about the processes of life and death. If creating something out of nothing is not a miracle, than I’m not sure what is.
If someone genuinely believes that, “after I die I’ll spend eternity in Paradise with the Lord” that is a presumption that gives them both the psychological eqillibrium and the emotional equanimity I am no longer able to experience myself. From their point of view this is certainly better. And I would have to agree even though I am equally convinced their beliefs are not rational.
At best the mytery of death allows for the possibility of life after death simply because we don’t know for certain what death entails.
Why can’t you experience pyschological equilibrium…
Why doesn’t acknowledging this give you equilibrium?
Who are these “scientists”, and simply because they say something does it make it true? Also ,sense when does something come from nothing I thought scientists debunked that with the dismisall of the spontaneus generation theory .
Stephen Hawking, to name one.
No. Spontaneous generation theory argued that the process of something spontanously arising from nothign was a common and everyday experience. It certainly is not, and does not seem to occur within the boundaries of our known universe.
And yet, Hawking writes:
“the universe can and will create itself from nothing,”
I have this weird thing where I don’t believe that “bad” things happen in the ultimate sense. Most people I know wouldn’t agree. But Hegel said that “What is Right is Actual and what is Actual is Right” and I tend to agree with him. Lets take an example.
Lets say there is a group of people who believe themselves to be superior to another group of people based entirely on their ethnic background. Now, lets assume that they suppose that because this belief is true, certain outcomes can be expected and predicted. However, when they abuse the other ethnic group, they find that the outcomes they expected to occur do not occur. Why? Because they are operating from a false belief. People are not superior or inferior based on their ethnic background. So the abuse does not lead to the predicted results. What is the outcome of this? The abusers sense of the world and the way it works becomes a little bit more shaky and unstable. Cracks start forming. Maybe as a result more abuse occurs, and more cracks form. But ultimately, what’s going to happen is that their belief is going to be broken. It may take decades if not centuries for this to happen, but so long as the abused group does not agree with the false belief that they are inferior, than the right sort of belief will emerge.
The beauty in all this, then, is the action of the abused. Their suffering and pain will eventually lead to the elimination of a false belief and bring the abusers in greater alignment with the universe. They might not intend to, but ultimately, they are suffering so that others will benefit, and that is good and beautiful and right.
As a side note, I think the process of death may operate under certain similar principles. It appears to us to be a very great wrong against us, but perhaps in the end it is a process that is helping to bring life, or consciousness, more in line with the fundamental perfection of the Universe.
Perhaps that is simply how it appears to him with the amount of knowledge he has today, It simply doesnt seem to make much sense based on anything ive ever heard. It’s like saying 0=1.
Yes, but before you were born you were cognizant of nothing to lose.
Because whatever I am able to embrace [and to love] on this side of grave will be taken from me for eternity.
And so I struggle to reconcile the paradox:
Because I die life means nothing; and because I die life means everything. But as I have less and less of it to live a foreboding disequillibrium grows ever more tangible.
And the only way in which to bring it back into balance is the burgeoning pain that will surely accompany increasing age.
Read, for example, Simone de Beauvoir’s biography of Jean Paul Sartre.
That’s as close to empathy as I have ever come.
Death is not inevitable. Within 40 years we may be able to cheat death and extend our unbroken perception indefinitely with artificial means. This technology will compound itself in a singularity. By the time the sun expands our race will be long gone, populating the galaxy. Even if the universe contracts some day, there might be a scenario, like Galactus, where we survive it. On some nights I convince myself that the odds of me being immortal are as high as me being mortal and this terrifies me. Also consider, like in the film Inception, that life and time can seem to move slower depending on certain brain states. So there’s a scenario where we might stumble on a technology or state where we find ourselves living the experiential equivalent of thousands of years in a single day. Obviously I have not begun to accept death as an eventuality.
Good points. We can only ponder/grasp our own particular death in our own particular context. Mine, today, revolves around the seeming certainty that science will not bestow immortality upon the species anytime soon. So, for all pratical purposes, this is irrelevant to me.
And Simone de Beauvoir once wrote a novel—All Men Are Mortal—in which she explored the potential pitfalls of living forever.
Still, I think the fear of death revolves mostly around all we will lose that we love. And about the obliteration of “I”. That’s why being reincarnated as an ear of corn [or past/future lives] has never really appealed to me. And that from someone who believes “I” is largely the illusion of dasein!
I don’t believe in God but I do believe in reincarnation although I am far from certain. I feel sure there is scientific evidence that strongly points towards the existence of a soul and reincarnation.
Look at a living body and a dead body. What’s the difference? The living body constantly composes itself while the dead body decomposes. The difference is composure. The composing force has left the dead body. If the force is composing it must be composure. Composure cannot be decomposed. That’s my reasoning for the existence of the soul. The soul is composure.
I also study near death experiences (NDEs). People describe NDEs as far more ‘real’ than dreams and even more real than their usual awareness. They describe their NDEs as the most intense experiences of their lives but they often appear to have them when EEG machines register near zero activity suggesting zero consciousness. For me this is evidence of the soul that can exist outside of the body.
The after effects of NDEs are the most powerful evidence of all. People who have had NDEs suddenly become concerned with reducing poverty and violence in the world and looking after the environment. I believe this change occurs because their NDE has made them aware that they will return to the Earth after they die and so they seek to improve the world to maximise their chances of having a good life after they are reincarnated.
You may think the idea of immortality in our lifetime is irrelevant simply for a lack of proper research. There are people more informed who really believe in it. Ray Kurzweil for instance.
I don’t think Simone could have possibly imagined an immortality with all the flux, growth and diversions possible in a technological singularity. States of consciousness that go somewhat beyond that of the 20th century man. She can hardly be faulted. Gene Roddenberry gets a pardon for handheld flip phone communicators (no video) in the 22nd century that are inferior to an iPhone.
We don’t lose anything in death because we never experience death. Something may be lost in death, but that’s different than “us” losing it. In death there is no “I,” so I can’t lose anything as a result of death.
Heideggar may be your problem. His was a philosophical alchemist who never found gold.
Slow John,
Immortality implies invulnerability or invincibility. Even if we overcome age, disease, and decay, death is still a possibility by accident, war, suicide, etc.
What evidence?
You say:
As I recall, the living body constantly recomposes itself on a cellular level.
What empirical evidence is there to authenticate the existence of this “recomposure” stuff? Your reasoning in my view seems circular. The body dies and decomposes. Therefore there must be something in the living body that allowed it to compose and recompose in the first place.
But we can point this out regarding worms and slugs too. Do they have a soul?
In my view, the mystery that remains revolves around the reality of life itself. How did non-living matter manage to evolve into living matter? We don’t know. Not entirely. Just as we don’t really understand the nature of NDEs. Most of what we have here are anecdotes. But that’s not the same as validating the existence of souls or an afterlife or. Or the Gods that generally come with them.
But I would be curious to hear more about the EEG research.
I believe all organisms have souls. Humans, cats, dogs, plants, bacteria. Anything that composes itself when alive and then decomposes when dead.