Fear of death.

well i think a lot of people thinks rocks and clouds have souls and i personally i have a thinking form and i don't think there's anything special about that - my dog does, too, i know - but to address your point i know that my body isn't going to end and go away when i die so i'm not sure why my thinking self or soul should end either

Your thinking self has no reason to exist after your brain is no longer active. The soul is the "how" fabricated from denial of the truth about the end.

AKA the soul is just a story.

oh come on though, that's what plato said about physical reality, everything is just a story

I'm not into the made up ones.

The way I reconcile myself to death is by thinking about it in ways that de-abstract it from my mind and consciousness, where it will spiral endlessly into melancholy and conceptualization and desperate palliation. I think about in a biological sense, an animal body born to decay and die and thus united with nature, in the social sense, bonding with other people in a community over shared mortality and reality, and in the human sense, ie this is what has happened to everyone who has ever lived, and if it was good enough for them, it's good enough for me. What am I, an exception? I wished I was when I was a teenager, now I'm more happy to be an ordinary human. Immortality is a monster and desired by monsters, like Napoleon or Hitler. I want to identify with ordinary, good, loving people, and accepting death is one way to do that.
I don't think it makes sense to identify with trees and rocks and particles and energy, nice thought that it is. I think we can only fully and healthily identify with our human-ness. That definition can subtly over time I know, but there are constants that go back thousands of years. I am one of those dying humans, and though it is very painful for my brain to accept, my consciousness can deal with it, though it will never eliminate the fear.
Put bluntly and cornily, if it's good enough for Montaigne, for Schubert, For Ovid, for Bach, for Donne, for the other artists who have touched my consciousness deeply and made me wonder at life and death, it's good enough for me. I am not above them, I am not better than them.

Fuck it, post

Nice

I don't think I can intellectualise the fear of death away: there's something more visceral and underlying about it than just a conscious set of beliefs. I flinch or feel painful emotions when I hear about about other people's deaths, let alone facing the real imminent prospect myself, and the deaths of family/people close to me are upsetting and take time to reach acceptance.

So maybe the most I can hope for is to get less caught up by the fear of death and it interfering with my life now. I keep thinking back to Scott's proposed t-shirt motto on another thread: 'Treat every day like it's shark week - keep moving'.

And Michael to revise my response we could imagine all sorts of scenarios of what it would be like to witness some sort of endless existence, but we can't imagine not having a mind. That's the distinction.

every night, when i dreamlessly sleep, i am without a mind.

and it FUCKING RULES, MAN!

its crazy to me that anyone on this thread thinks 'eternity' is imaginable compared to whatever its opposite is

Eternity cannot come with a standard human consciousness, it's something you can experience only with God-like or Christ-like consciousness. Your experience of time and space transcended through death, you don't have time to worry about taxes, ponder corporeal drudgery, etc. Basically an eternal life is something that exists outside of time. It's not that time is a giant arrow that you just keep following in the same path and the same rate as living humans. You would experience time and space as....well.....there's really no way to describe it to us. Fourth dimension and all that.

If there is a post-death experience, then it is as different to pre-death experience as that is to the pre-birth experience.

If we accept that yes our design is intricate and amazing but our physical matter is no more significant than that of a tree or a rock then we realize there isn't a reason our spectacular thoughts or feelings should be attributed to anything more than the mechanical workings of the mind they reside in. What reason should they continue without it?

This is interesting because with the scientific view here the physical matter that creates our life is of the same stuff as the world around us. Yet we are convinced of our uniqueness, of the brilliance of our consciousness (ego) that there is no possible way anything post-human should be considered. If a tree or a rock can have some level of life, some existence, then why not the air around us? Why not the ground? Or the room we die in?

its crazy to me that anyone on this thread thinks 'eternity' is imaginable compared to whatever its opposite is

― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Wednesday, July 11, 2012 10:29 AM (45 minutes ago)

As I said obviously the endless length cannot be imagined but the setting can at least be conceptualized within the context of human sensors. You only hear this, or you see that, or you think/dream this. The void of nothingness after death cannot be put in that context. We have our brains to thank for sorting all of these stimulants, when it is shut off that's it. When an engine dies in a car I don't think it is floating through eternity dreaming of open roads and tasty oil. So what if it isn't biological or as complex as us? We're all mechanical as well.

This is interesting because with the scientific view here the physical matter that creates our life is of the same stuff as the world around us. Yet we are convinced of our uniqueness, of the brilliance of our consciousness (ego) that there is no possible way anything post-human should be considered. If a tree or a rock can have some level of life, some existence, then why not the air around us? Why not the ground? Or the room we die in?

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, July 11, 2012 10:46 AM (49 minutes ago)

I agree with the first two sentences.
Those things have existence, and if they had a story to somehow tell you could call it their life, but the existence I'm talking about is what can only possibly be relevant to us: the one we perceive.

True. I think you are right there.

But our perception changes even during our lifetime. But yes death is such a significant change that I think people that believe in the 'afterlife' don't really give it as much credit as it deserves. It's not like you would be floating through space with a ghost version of your body, hair, clothes, etc. It would be completely transformative, beyond all 3-d worldly comprehension. Eternal life in that sense is the belief that the real you is whatever part survives the transition, whatever part of you transcends life and death. It probably has very little to do with your worldly existence and in that sense, yeah, there is no 'life' after death.

Plants do react to external stimuli, there are even studies suggesting that they 'see' the world, to some degree. No doubt their perception of time is extremely different than ours, if they have one. Probably seems to go by much faster than ours.

I don't really agree when people say that eternal life would be a hell, that watching loved ones grow old and die and stuff would be horrible. To live an eternal existence would be transcending past time and space. You would be experience time at all levels, birth, death, and in between. It would be such an objective experience that attachment to one time or another would be impossible. Lest you be trapped in the cycle of birth and death.

As I said obviously the endless length cannot be imagined but the setting can at least be conceptualized within the context of human sensors. You only hear this, or you see that, or you think/dream this. The void of nothingness after death cannot be put in that context. We have our brains to thank for sorting all of these stimulants, when it is shut off that's it. When an engine dies in a car I don't think it is floating through eternity dreaming of open roads and tasty oil. So what if it isn't biological or as complex as us? We're all mechanical as well.

― Evan, Wednesday, July 11, 2012 11:36 AM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i disagree and the reason why is, as already mentioned on this thread, sleep. i 'experience' oblivion every night. i know what it's like to close my eyes and disappear, inasmuch as that's possible to 'know.' eternity is unimaginable to me - it's not just 'a lot more of this.'

But our perception changes even during our lifetime.

But this is like equating changing the channel with shutting off the television. And even that is not apt because a turned off TV is silence and black and that can't exist either.

Mechanical creations and biological creations cannot be currently equated. There is more complexity in a single blade of grass than the world's fastest computer.

i disagree and the reason why is, as already mentioned on this thread, sleep. i 'experience' oblivion every night. i know what it's like to close my eyes and disappear, inasmuch as that's possible to 'know.' eternity is unimaginable to me - it's not just 'a lot more of this.'

― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Wednesday, July 11, 2012 12:12 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Elaborate please.

Mechanical creations and biological creations cannot be currently equated. There is more complexity in a single blade of grass than the world's fastest computer.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, July 11, 2012 12:19 PM (55 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Complexity doesn't mean it should be governed differently. If a blade of grass was as complex as a billion fast computers the computers wouldn't then have a soul or other supernatural attribute. Same with a human.

Biological processes that we don't 100% understand ARE different than mechanical processes that we do. Maybe there is no "soul" but certainly consciousness and self-awareness seem to be a product of the former that we haven't yet approximated with the later. Life seems to take place within a context: genealogical heritage, environmental stimuli, ever-shifting DNA. Machines are more or less put together from disparate parts and do the same job regardless of environment or context, as long as they are functioning properly.

I'm going to stop this thought train before it derails into Kurzweilian futurist speculation.

Haha well the core of what I'm saying is that the workings of the body are attributed to the activities of the parts that manage them.

i don't think we understand mechanical processes. i don't even know how mayonaise works.

mayonaise, it's a bit like human conception, it start with an egg

Mechanical creations and biological creations cannot be currently equated. There is more complexity in a single blade of grass than the world's fastest computer.

this is one of those facts that cannot be emphasized enough these days.

how much of that complexity is junk though? also, the information required to reproduce the grass isn't that much I bet.

is that why we can't make one

believe me, solar panel manufacturers would be racing to the patent office if they could figure out how to make a leaf or a blade of grass

But grass can make one!

i think there is some degree of misunderstanding of infinity on this thread, people keep comparing it to things that are "infinitely long" which isn't really the definition of infinity

also evan i'm not trying to be mean here but you're sliding into pseudo-scientific popular science babble that makes about as much sense to me as the afterlife

if a blade of grass were as "complex" as a supercomputer ... what does that even mean?

i disagree and the reason why is, as already mentioned on this thread, sleep. i 'experience' oblivion every night. i know what it's like to close my eyes and disappear, inasmuch as that's possible to 'know.' eternity is unimaginable to me - it's not just 'a lot more of this.'

― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Wednesday, July 11, 2012 12:12 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Elaborate please.

― Evan, Wednesday, July 11, 2012 12:20 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i could elaborate "forever" (LOL) but, basically, it's harder for me to imagine endless existence as it is to imagine everything just stopping.

monsanto messes about with grass on their computers all the time, and are probably using the spare cycles on their supercomputers to play quake or something.

Mechanical creations and biological creations cannot be currently equated. There is more complexity in a single blade of grass than the world's fastest computer.

this is one of those facts that cannot be emphasized enough these days.

Please define "complexity" and explain how you are measuring it.

t's harder for me to imagine endless existence as it is to imagine everything just stopping.

but ... you experience both?

if that's true, which i'm not sure of, that doesn't make them equally easy to imagine!

Heres the thing. People that believe in any form of afterlife really want it to be true. If they didn't want it to be true so badly, they wouldn't focus on unknowns as somehow justifications for a specific conclusion that ignores the laws that govern everything else in the universe as we know it. Your brain creates and holds your thoughts, emotions, etc. When that stops working, all of that ceases. That is the core of how any other functional physical object works. Inanimate matter is all that is left. The only existence we know is the existence we've experienced. We naturally imagine death as part of the journey rather than absolute inhalation of all thought, because we can't comprehend that at all. We can merely acknowledge it and be frightened at it's apocalyptic inevitability. The active information in our brain isn't going to continue in some form intact to roam the universe in any way anyone believes in a spiritual sense simply because we hope it and we can't visualize any alternative.

Sorry if I'm going in circles at this point.

Your brain creates and holds your thoughts, emotions, etc. When that stops working, all of that ceases. That is the core of how any other functional physical object works.

what does this mean?

if a blade of grass were as "complex" as a supercomputer ... what does that even mean?

― the late great, Wednesday, July 11, 2012 3:11 PM (38 minutes ago)

That varying degrees of complexity don't justify something like "magic" out of the more complex of the two.

Your brain creates and holds your thoughts, emotions, etc. When that stops working, all of that ceases. That is the core of how any other functional physical object works.

what does this mean?

― the late great, Wednesday, July 11, 2012 3:51 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That when something becomes inactive, the activity it created while working is longer continues either.

whoa... ***while working no longer continues either****

see this is what i'm saying about circularity

"when something becomes inactive, the activity no longer continues"

this is a syllogism

It's just something that is obvious but spiritual people will at least say humans are the exception when it comes to the mind.

Materialists can think that humans are the exception as well. Materially, the post or pre-death experience (if it exists) is invalid because it does not match the perfection of the human life.

if a blade of grass were as "complex" as a supercomputer ... what does that even mean?

― the late great, Wednesday, July 11, 2012 3:11 PM (38 minutes ago)

That varying degrees of complexity don't justify something like "magic" out of the more complex of the two.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Besides, the spiritual experience is a Grace that is given to us, devoid of any of the effort that the word "magic" usually entails.

computers are a kind of magic in the 'word made action' sense. rewriting the 'code' of a blade of grass actualizes a similar magic process.

ok guys.

for one thing, "consciousness" is not a _thing_. it is a series of parallel and overlapping processes--many of which are preconscious. if you begin to remove parts of a person's brain, their consciousness and bodily functioning will begin to change. if you remove enough parts, one can easily imagine that the "self" begins to break apart and eventually disappear.

second, our brain is ever-chaning--cells die, cells are born, synapses emerge and disappear. there is no "one" consciousness that we are granted at birth and that stays with us until death. the idea of an unchanging or at least integral self is one of the products of consciousness. see first note.

there is no such thing as a platonic -- that is, ideal, unperturbed and unchanging -- self or consciousness that will be restored to us when we die.

to imagine the survival of human personality after death in some form is to imagine another plane of existence in which some version of our consciousness (from when? the moment of death? several years before that? at birth?) is recreated in some other plane.

the only way i can even imagine this is if you take an awesome (and rather silly IMO) leap of faith and imagine that existence as we know it--including all of our findings about evolution, the human mind and body etc.--is some kind of fantasy projection, and that our "real selves," which bear some relation to our "selves" as we experience them in this plane of existence, are intact in some other plane. and that upon death we make some sort of quantum leap to this other plane with little interruption.

if you want to believe that, i guess i have little interest in preventing you. but it has no relationship to anything we experience or know in this world and, as evan as pointed out, it's a rather human-centric conception that mostly--to my mind--reveals our own vanity.

i feel like a lot of people on this thread could stand to read some contemporary neuroscience.

you know i follow your first, second, third there but i don't see how the part that begins "to imagine" follows from there