Do you think people can cease to exist? And do you think they can do it out of their own will? But how?
Quote from: NellGwyn on February 19, 2018, 05:51:39 PM
Do you think people can cease to exist?
Yeah. It's called dying.
Quote from: NellGwyn on February 19, 2018, 05:51:39 PMAnd do you think they can do it out of their own will? But how?
Some rope and an overhang.
Quote from: Sal1981 on February 19, 2018, 06:13:37 PM
Yeah. It's called dying.
Some rope and an overhang.
No, there is a big difference between dying and ceasing to exist. After a person dies, his/her soul still exists. Cease to exist means their soul will no longer be anywhere.
What is a soul?
I want your definition of a soul. That way, I'm not arguing against a strawman.
QuoteAfter a person dies, his/her soul still exists.
Evidence please.
Puts up hand .. "I am a theist". Going shortly to teach Biblical Hebrew ... we are studying Psalm 23 ;-)
So ... I would say, what "exists" means is the primary dispute. I don't think you can tell, when you don't exist (from personal POV). So from that POV, you have always existed. Other people's POV .. there was a time when you didn't exist (but you may have been elsewhere in metaphysical terms) ... and there will be a time when you won't exist (same reason). But that is the difference between the objective and the subjective view. Most atheists over-emphasize the objective exterior POV. Spiritual people over-emphasize the subjective interior POV. I know what I prefer ;-) But both are true ... and if that breaks logic, that is because consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds (Emerson?)
This seems to defeat itself. If someone leaves a memory of themselves, they continue to exist, but if nothing is left of them, we can't say that because we'd be acknowledging their existence. sort of bends back in on itself there.
Quote from: Munch on February 19, 2018, 08:03:04 PM
This seems to defeat itself. If someone leaves a memory of themselves, they continue to exist, but if nothing is left of them, we can't say that because we'd be acknowledging their existence. sort of bends back in on itself there.
You are breathing a molecule of oxygen that Caesar once breathed. Does that mean he survived the Ides of March?
Quote from: Baruch on February 19, 2018, 07:34:23 PM
Most atheists over-emphasize the objective exterior POV. Spiritual people over-emphasize the subjective interior POV. I know what I prefer ;-) But both are true ...
"Both are true," but only in YOUR imagination. That's how the goat herders got so much in the Bible wrong. They wrote what spilled out of their brains in a state of primitive ignorance. This they called "the truth" and the "light", but it was just wild unverified claims of imagination. Anything they said that was actually the truth was purely accidental.
Quote from: SGOS on February 20, 2018, 05:31:19 AM
"Both are true," but only in YOUR imagination. That's how the goat herders got so much in the Bible wrong. They wrote what spilled out of their brains in a state of primitive ignorance. This they called "the truth" and the "light", but it was just wild unverified claims of imagination. Anything they said that was actually the truth was purely accidental.
But you aren't ignorant, you are a Bright, from Alpha Centauri, right? So you ignore your desire for Mexican food, because 99.9% in a carefully controlled experiment prefer hamburgers? If you have a desire for Mexican food, isn't it true that you have that desire? But nobody can tell if your desire is true, even with brain wave scanning (people can learn to scam lie detectors and other biofeedback devices). You might be lying.
If one is overly skeptical ... maybe nobody should trust you if you tell them what your desire is, because it can't be proven. Or if you are paranoid, then you mustn't believe yourself if you seem to desire Mexican food, it could be alien brain wave influence. The truth of subjective is different but not completely, from the objective. Objectivity is controlled experimental subjectivity.
So in the case of the Bible, say one of the Psalms. It is poetry. Did Robert Frost actually "take the path less taken" and can you prove it? A smart person recognizes poetry as such, and journalism as such (and journalism isn't worth much). Ape men can't tell their chocolate pudding from fresh shit. Is that the fault of the shit?
Not everything is epistemology. Not everyone is obsessed with knowing how we know (that is a circular logic if I ever met one, no matter your answer). Knowing what we know is a bit better, we simply assume that how we know is given. So if I read something in Wikipedia, I can say, on such and such a date, the following article in Wikipedia says X (it could read differently on different days because it is re-edited).
But suppose it is re-edited ... and when you read it, the article says Y? Am I a liar? Oh yes, truth are the things that never change. And Heraclitus eats your shorts thank you very much. The Bible, being relatively less edited and of long publication does get a kind of pseudo-verity, compared to a Wikipedia article.
Skeptics are semi-nihilists, they choose for now to not go full retard like a full nihilist. Skepticism is good, particularly when buying a used car. Nihilism or paranoia isn't so useful, even when buying a car. If I am a skeptic of a used poem (and Psalms are very used) ... what does that make me? A Philistine of course!
Quote from: Baruch on February 20, 2018, 06:27:06 AM
But you aren't ignorant, you are a Bright, from Alpha Centauri, right? So you ignore your desire for Mexican food, because 99.9% in a carefully controlled experiment prefer hamburgers? If you have a desire for Mexican food, isn't it true that you have that desire? But nobody can tell if your desire is true, even with brain wave scanning (people can learn to scam lie detectors and other biofeedback devices). You might be lying.
If one is overly skeptical ... maybe nobody should trust you if you tell them what your desire is, because it can't be proven. Or if you are paranoid, then you mustn't believe yourself if you seem to desire Mexican food, it could be alien brain wave influence. The truth of subjective is different but not completely, from the objective. Objectivity is controlled experimental subjectivity.
So in the case of the Bible, say one of the Psalms. It is poetry. Did Robert Frost actually "take the path less taken" and can you prove it? A smart person recognizes poetry as such, and journalism as such (and journalism isn't worth much). Ape men can't tell their chocolate pudding from fresh shit. Is that the fault of the shit?
Not everything is epistemology. Not everyone is obsessed with knowing how we know (that is a circular logic if I ever met one, no matter your answer). Knowing what we know is a bit better, we simply assume that how we know is given. So if I read something in Wikipedia, I can say, on such and such a date, the following article in Wikipedia says X (it could read differently on different days because it is re-edited).
But suppose it is re-edited ... and when you read it, the article says Y? Am I a liar? Oh yes, truth are the things that never change. And Heraclitus eats your shorts thank you very much. The Bible, being relatively less edited and of long publication does get a kind of pseudo-verity, compared to a Wikipedia article.
Skeptics are semi-nihilists, they choose for now to not go full retard like a full nihilist. Skepticism is good, particularly when buying a used car. Nihilism or paranoia isn't so useful, even when buying a car. If I am a skeptic of a used poem (and Psalms are very used) ... what does that make me? A Philistine of course!
You may believe what you just wrote. You may even believe it's germane to my criticism, but I can never verify whether you actually believe your own shit or if you just want to jerk people around with words. Either way, it doesn't matter. It amounts to useless blather. The problem is that you can't support your original brain fart by simply adding more brain farts half which are irrelevant to the original claim to begin with. You don't even convince me that you know what you are talking about.
Quote from: SGOS on February 20, 2018, 06:53:06 AM
You may believe what you just wrote. You may even believe it's germane to my criticism, but I can never verify whether you actually believe your own shit or if you just want to jerk people around with words. Either way, it doesn't matter. It amounts to useless blather. The problem is that you can't support your original brain fart by simply adding more brain farts half which are irrelevant to the original claim to begin with. You don't even convince me that you know what you are talking about.
And because you can't verify it, it isn't true? Man who has one clock, knows it is time to go to work. Man with two or more clocks is never quite sure ;-)
Yes poetry is useless, because it isn't physics that G-d stopped the sun in its path for Joshua? Well the Odyssey didn't happen either, but it remains one of the greatest and oldest products of European civilization. And if you are a nihilist, nothing will convince you of anything. Your bubble chamber will be a safe place for your snowflakes. I wasn't trying to convince you, but I do this for the great unwashed audience. And if you don't know who Robert Frost is, I would suggest looking him up. It will improve your life, in a way that QFT will not. One thing I will regret, is not spending more time, with our late great AF poet before he passed last year.
Quote from: Baruch on February 20, 2018, 07:34:08 AM
And because you can't verify it, it isn't true?
No, it's irrelevant because neither YOU or I can verify it. It doesn't warrant consideration as anything beyond the imaginary.
Quote from: Baruch on February 20, 2018, 07:34:08 AM
Yes poetry is useless, because it isn't physics that G-d stopped the sun in its path for Joshua? Well the Odyssey didn't happen either, but it remains one of the greatest and oldest products of European civilization.
And how does this verify imagining something as true?
Quote from: Baruch on February 20, 2018, 07:34:08 AM
And if you are a nihilist,...
Which I am not so I will disregard any further lecture on that point.
Quote from: Baruch on February 20, 2018, 07:34:08 AM
And if you don't know who Robert Frost is, I would suggest looking him up. It will improve your life
Oh, Pa-leese. Anybody who went to high school knows who Robert Frost is. But nice attempt to flounder off the topic.
Yesterday I listened to a three-hour podcast with Anil Seth, a British professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. He believes consciousness, sense of self and perception of the world is a hallucination and strictly a biological process. I won't go into the details but if he is correct when your brain dies you cease to exist. Another consequence of consciousness being strictly a biological process is it doesn't matter how intelligent we make AI it won't be conscious because consciousness isn't a product of intelligence. We also can never upload our consciousness to a machine.
I'm willing to entertain that there is some kind of experience after death but the idea that I will still be "me" makes no sense. Even if one subscribes to mind-body dualism, I wouldn't be "me" without a physical body. Many Christians recognize this and believe people who go to heaven have actual biological bodies but that strikes me as complete fantasy. Let's hope there are toilets.
Quote from: SGOS on February 20, 2018, 07:56:25 AM
Oh, Pa-leese. Anybody who went to high school knows who Robert Frost is.
The personification of frost, ice, snow, sleet, winter, and freezing cold?
Quote from: PopeyesPappy on February 20, 2018, 09:30:50 AM
The personification of frost, ice, snow, sleet, winter, and freezing cold?
That was Robert's brother, or maybe it was a cousin.
Well, OP, get over your ego. There was a time in which you did not exist. You were born and because of biological functions, you live. There will be a time in which you will not live. Basically, the universe will have existed without you--except for a very tiny sliver of time in which you did. From dust to dust--yes, you will cease to exist and the universe does not give a shit one way or the other.
Quote from: NellGwyn on February 19, 2018, 05:51:39 PM
Do you think people can .....
I am not convinced many people can even think.
Quote from: Mike Cl on February 20, 2018, 10:32:56 AM
Well, OP, get over your ego. There was a time in which you did not exist. You were born and because of biological functions, you live. There will be a time in which you will not live. Basically, the universe will have existed without you--except for a very tiny sliver of time in which you did. From dust to dust--yes, you will cease to exist and the universe does not give a shit one way or the other.
All I can remember from my existence is the time when I was alive. I have no recollection of the time before I was alive, and if I actually existed before then, there should be a few trace memories. That period was at least 13.7 billion years. Not a sound, not a sight, not the least inkling of awareness for anything in the universe since the creation of time, matter, and energy themselves have existed, while those billions of years slowly past by.
It's easy to believe our existence must continue, because it's all we have ever known. And indeed, sometime in the future some of my raw materials will be part of a rock sitting in a meadow, or slowing flowing in some molten state deep in the Earth's crust. Well, Yahoo! I could say I still exist, but that is a stretch. Without awareness, I will be right back where I was with time passing by until the universe, matter, time themselves are gone, while I don't experience any of it. And thank goodness for that. After 40 billion years waiting for an experience, I would get quite bored. At least I won't get bored.
Quote from: SGOS on February 20, 2018, 07:56:25 AM
No, it's irrelevant because neither YOU or I can verify it. It doesn't warrant consideration as anything beyond the imaginary.
And how does this verify imagining something as true?
Which I am not so I will disregard any further lecture on that point.
Oh, Pa-leese. Anybody who went to high school knows who Robert Frost is. But nice attempt to flounder off the topic.
Poetry isn't irrelevant. Even video games aren't irrelevant. Depends on the circumstances. Wearing a French beret, quoting French existentialist poetry, and holding a lit cigarette in a funny way ... is relevant.
You people wouldn't know truth if it swatted your toked up ass in the middle of an orgy at Woodstock in 1968. The fact that some people are artistic and others are not ... is very relevant. Human psychology is about the only thing relevant. It has nothing to do with epistemology among Philistines who hate philosophy (irony alert).
Quote from: NellGwyn on February 19, 2018, 06:17:28 PM
No, there is a big difference between dying and ceasing to exist. After a person dies, his/her soul still exists. Cease to exist means their soul will no longer be anywhere.
Where was my soul before I was conceived? That's the same place it'll be once I melt back into oblivion.
Quote from: Unbeliever on February 20, 2018, 01:17:54 PM
Where was my soul before I was conceived? That's the same place it'll be once I melt back into oblivion.
In one heretical (in West) theology, we have always been existent, you actually volunteered to be "you" before you were conceived. This puts a different twist on the Zen koan ... "what was your face before your (grand) parents were born?". This is less of a problem for reincarnation believers. And the Tibetan Book of the Dead is a really wild ride.
Well, that's a theology I don't happen to share.
Quote from: Baruch on February 20, 2018, 01:10:12 PM
You people wouldn't know truth if it swatted your toked up ass in the middle of an orgy at Woodstock in 1968.
No, I confess that anything I might experience if I was toked up the ass at Woodstock, I wouldn't take too seriously. I suppose you would, but you're more suggestible than I am.
Quote from: SGOS on February 20, 2018, 11:56:07 AM
All I can remember from my existence is the time when I was alive. I have no recollection of the time before I was alive, and if I actually existed before then, there should be a few trace memories. That period was at least 13.7 billion years. Not a sound, not a sight, not the least inkling of awareness for anything in the universe since the creation of time, matter, and energy themselves have existed, while those billions of years slowly past by.
It's easy to believe our existence must continue, because it's all we have ever known. And indeed, sometime in the future some of my raw materials will be part of a rock sitting in a meadow, or slowing flowing in some molten state deep in the Earth's crust. Well, Yahoo! I could say I still exist, but that is a stretch. Without awareness, I will be right back where I was with time passing by until the universe, matter, time themselves are gone, while I don't experience any of it. And thank goodness for that. After 40 billion years waiting for an experience, I would get quite bored. At least I won't get bored.
Yes--my thoughts exactly.
Quote from: NellGwyn on February 19, 2018, 06:17:28 PM
No, there is a big difference between dying and ceasing to exist. After a person dies, his/her soul still exists. Cease to exist means their soul will no longer be anywhere.
"Soul"--Another fiction--like god and Jesus--to concoct to fool the masses.
The only "soul" that exists is the music - and some damned good music, at that!
Quote from: Unbeliever on February 20, 2018, 02:45:11 PM
The only "soul" that exists is the music - and some damned good music, at that!
My car's paint job is Soul Red Metallic, but someday it will cease to exist too.
Quote from: Unbeliever on February 20, 2018, 01:17:54 PM
Where was my soul before I was conceived? That's the same place it'll be once I melt back into oblivion.
Most posters are in oblivion now ... at least on Friday nights ;-)
Quote from: Unbeliever on February 20, 2018, 01:21:53 PM
Well, that's a theology I don't happen to share.
If you don't share it ... then keep it to yourself, why don't you ;-)
Quote from: Baruch on February 20, 2018, 06:14:18 PM
Most posters are in oblivion now ... at least on Friday nights ;-)
Last month I was deep into Oblivion. That game still holds up well, even with the dated graphics.
Quote from: NellGwyn on February 19, 2018, 06:17:28 PM
After a person dies, his/her soul still exists.
[Citation Needed]
Quote from: NellGwyn on February 19, 2018, 06:17:28 PM
No, there is a big difference between dying and ceasing to exist. After a person dies, his/her soul still exists. Cease to exist means their soul will no longer be anywhere.
On a religious level thats how people remember those who have died, even if its just passing on memory of them. The actual important part of not ceasing to exist is to be remembered. Everyone remembers people like Abraham Lincoln or Cleopatra, even if long since dead.
Infact the irony is even if someone makes the excuse that a bad person will burn in hell, they don't cease to exist either, because people like Hitler and Josef Stalin are remembered and don't cease to exist from the minds of people generations on, as a reminder, and living in infamy
Memory is over-rated, and usually corrupt. Things didn't happen the way we remember them. We recreate what happened, in our minds, based on more or less signposts of past experience, which include dreams. Most of us live anonymously, and die that way too.
Quote from: Baruch on February 21, 2018, 06:33:48 AM
Memory is over-rated, and usually corrupt. Things didn't happen the way we remember them. We recreate what happened, in our minds, based on more or less signposts of past experience, which include dreams. Most of us live anonymously, and die that way too.
Yeah, but without memories, are you still you?
That's why dementia is my greatest fear.
We may, and in fact do, misremember. But if you were to wipe all my memories and drop me off in a country where I had to start over, or had me reïncarnate after death without any recollection of my past life; I wouldn't be me anymore and I would not see it as a continueation of my existence.
Quote from: Baruch on February 21, 2018, 06:33:48 AM
Most of us live anonymously, and die that way too.
The most significant people in our lineage will be forgotten within three generations. We will remember our ancestors, at least that we had them, but names, visual images, and specific accomplishments go fast, and we are talking about rather huge chunks of our DNA at that. People fuss about living forever, be it as spirits, or just in the hearts of loved ones, but the reality for most people is that 75 years from now, we will be forgotten and of no consequence to anyone. We are carriers of an ever evolving DNA code, and nothing more. We pass this code on, but it is only a non thinking code without gratitude, a plan, or a soul. That's the entirety of what makes us temporarily aware and what makes us alive. Nothing has ever been detected in the code that says it creates a soul. The soul is an invention of man in an attempt to explain away the transitory inconsequence of his existence, comforting to some, like a Teddy Bear, but nothing more than a prop.
Quote from: Mr.Obvious on February 21, 2018, 07:08:56 AM
Yeah, but without memories, are you still you?
It depends on how you define you. In my mind, if the YOU is more than just a robotic feeding machine, it's all about memories and conscious awareness, which is what theists seem to confuse with a life after death. Conscious awareness fades in dementia, and ceases to exist in death.
I read somewhere that some theist/scientist once claimed that upon death, there was an almost imperceptible, but immediate weight loss due to the departing of the soul. Of course, no such weight loss could be detected, so once again, it didn't prove anything at all in the way of supernatural mysteries. But it was a nice try, I suppose.
Quote from: SGOS on February 21, 2018, 07:14:59 AM
The most significant people in our lineage will be forgotten within three generations. We will remember our ancestors, at least that we had them, but names, visual images, and specific accomplishments go fast, and we are talking about rather huge chunks of our DNA at that. People fuss about living forever, be it as spirits, or just in the hearts of loved ones, but the reality for most people is that 75 years from now, we will be forgotten and of no consequence to anyone. We are carriers of an ever evolving DNA code, and nothing more. We pass this code on, but it is only a non thinking code without gratitude, a plan, or a soul. That's the entirety of what makes us temporarily aware and what makes us alive. Nothing has ever been detected in the code that says it creates a soul. The soul is an invention of man in an attempt to explain away the transitory inconsequence of his existence, comforting to some, like a Teddy Bear, but nothing more than a prop.
^This!--My thoughts exactly!
Since souls don't actually exist, the answer to your question is that a new person ceases to exist an average of every 3 seconds.
Even if we could "live" forever in the memories of others, that wouldn't do us a bit of good, since we'd know nothing of those ongoing memories. And that isn't even an option anyway, as has been pointed out already - of the estimated 100 billion or so people who have lived (http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2011/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx), only a very tiny fraction are remembered at all.
Quote from: Mr.Obvious on February 21, 2018, 07:08:56 AM
Yeah, but without memories, are you still you?
That's why dementia is my greatest fear.
We may, and in fact do, misremember. But if you were to wipe all my memories and drop me off in a country where I had to start over, or had me reïncarnate after death without any recollection of my past life; I wouldn't be me anymore and I would not see it as a continueation of my existence.
Depends. If the real you, is just an actor playing the part of Mr Obvious ... then when you stop playing the part of Mr Obvious, does the actor playing that part cease to exist? I think not. The metaphor is one that keeps on giving. In one form of Hinduism, our fake selves are jiva (think poster ID), our real selves are atman (think the human at the other end), and Brahman is the actor playing all the so-called real selves. Think of yourself as a "genticle" but the actor playing you is The Beast With A Billion Backs ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGwC7U6Sf3o
Quote from: Baruch on February 21, 2018, 04:12:11 PM
Depends. If the real you, is just an actor playing the part of Mr Obvious ... then when you stop playing the part of Mr Obvious, does the actor playing that part cease to exist? I think not. The metaphor is one that keeps on giving. In one form of Hinduism, our fake selves are jiva (think poster ID), our real selves are atman (think the human at the other end), and Brahman is the actor playing all the so-called real selves. Think of yourself as a "genticle" but the actor playing you is The Beast With A Billion Backs ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGwC7U6Sf3o
There are no bounds for those who are into wishful thinking.
Quote from: Baruch on February 21, 2018, 04:12:11 PM
Depends. If the real you, is just an actor playing the part of Mr Obvious ... then when you stop playing the part of Mr Obvious, does the actor playing that part cease to exist? I think not. The metaphor is one that keeps on giving. In one form of Hinduism, our fake selves are jiva (think poster ID), our real selves are atman (think the human at the other end), and Brahman is the actor playing all the so-called real selves. Think of yourself as a "genticle" but the actor playing you is The Beast With A Billion Backs ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGwC7U6Sf3o
As someone whose hobby is acting... that was a confusing rant buddy.
I don't know about you, but...
I'm not playing at being anyone, irl or even online. I'm me. And I will continue to be me because of who I've been.
Only when I'm acting, I'm acting. And when I stop playing my part, that part does not die. It was only an act after all.
But curiously, the act does become part of the actor, through the experience and, and I cannot stress this enough, the memory of the experience accompagnying you forward.
Quote from: SGOS on February 21, 2018, 07:14:59 AM
The most significant people in our lineage will be forgotten within three generations. We will remember our ancestors, at least that we had them, but names, visual images, and specific accomplishments go fast, and we are talking about rather huge chunks of our DNA at that. People fuss about living forever, be it as spirits, or just in the hearts of loved ones, but the reality for most people is that 75 years from now, we will be forgotten and of no consequence to anyone. We are carriers of an ever evolving DNA code, and nothing more. We pass this code on, but it is only a non thinking code without gratitude, a plan, or a soul. That's the entirety of what makes us temporarily aware and what makes us alive. Nothing has ever been detected in the code that says it creates a soul. The soul is an invention of man in an attempt to explain away the transitory inconsequence of his existence, comforting to some, like a Teddy Bear, but nothing more than a prop.
Your DNA code is the real you ... pass yourself on ... if you dare! Bwahah. Ever see the Eddie Murphy in "Meet Dave"? Your genes are like tiny astronauts inside your space ship body.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YvDY_RiUJc
Quote from: Mike Cl on February 21, 2018, 04:17:52 PM
There are no bounds for those who are into wishful thinking.
Like those books in the HS library decades ago, for advice on future careers ... "So You Want To Be A Genticle"
Quote from: Mr.Obvious on February 21, 2018, 04:23:27 PM
As someone whose hobby is acting... that was a confusing rant buddy.
I don't know about you, but...
I'm not playing at being anyone, irl or even online. I'm me. And I'm wjll continue to be me because of who I've been.
Only when I'm acting, I'm acting. And when I stop playing my part, that part does not die. It was only an act after all.
But curiously, the act does become part of the actor, through the experience and, and I cannot stress this enough, the memory of the experience accompagnying you forward.
You are confused indeed ... you are not Mr Obvious ... but that is an assumed name. I hope that Cavebear doesn't really hibernate ;-( Also the notion that your conscious mind or memories etc is the real you ... is an simplistic assumption. When you are in deep dreamless sleep, do you cease to exist?
I suppose that actors get confused with their roles. Yul Brynner played the king in The King & I, on Broadway, over 4000 times. Consciousness is just a sustained yet pragmatic delusion ... the primal scream you have been making since you were forced out of your mother's womb. People are like ice bergs, only not as cold. Most of who you are, you have never experienced yet, not even in your dreams. Of course Hindus would agree with Freud, that the atman lies unexplored in the unconscious mind. And then again, the there is the collective unconsciousness of Jung, who must have stolen the idea from Hindus (who call it Brahman).
This addresses both Unbeliever and Mr Obvious ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElqYH2bxKtY
Quote from: Baruch on February 21, 2018, 04:32:25 PM
You are confused indeed ... you are not Mr Obvious ... but that is an assumed name. I hope that Cavebear doesn't really hibernate ;-( Also the notion that your conscious mind or memories etc is the real you ... is an simplistic assumption. When you are in deep dreamless sleep, do you cease to exist?
I suppose that actors get confused with their roles. Yul Brynner played the king in The King & I, on Broadway, over 4000 times. Consciousness is just a sustained yet pragmatic delusion ... the primal scream you have been making since you were forced out of your mother's womb. People are like ice bergs, only not as cold. Most of who you are, you have never experienced yet, not even in your dreams. Of course Hindus would agree with Freud, that the atman lies unexplored in the unconscious mind. And then again, the there is the collective unconsciousness of Jung, who must have stolen the idea from Hindus (who call it Brahman).
This addresses both Unbeliever and Mr Obvious ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElqYH2bxKtY
I feel like you are trying to make things more complicated than they should be.
I don't cease to exist in a dreamless sleep, because I wake from a dreamless sleep and that dreamless sleep becomes an experience that shapes the awakened me. And whether I remember not having dreamt or I lose it in a sanguine sea blurry memories, that fading memory is still something that helpt shape my personality. If you lose your memories however, you lose that identity.
Now, if I never wake from a dreamless sleep, yes, I cease to exist.
If I wake with complete amnesia and my memories are never restored, yes, I cease to exist.
If I party to hard and black out, I don't cease to exist either, btw.
I just have to live with the shameful memory and experience afterward.
Do you have any memories of dreamless sleep? I think not. We mostly don't have memories of our dreams except sometimes for a short time after waking. And memory is unreliable anyway, particularly from a dream (we are heavily into dream interpretation even if we aren't Freud). How do you know, internally, that you are the same person you were when you went to sleep? Given that you can't verify your memories independently? Sure, waking consciousness seems to coherence, given other people tend to reinforce the notion that you are still you .. but given a case of amnesia, an if you wake up around people who never knew you before ... did you cease to exist?
Complicated? Human experience, let alone whatever the hell reality may be, is a lot more complicated than anything I can possibly articulate in mere words.
Quote from: Baruch on February 21, 2018, 04:49:37 PM
Do you have any memories of dreamless sleep? I think not.
No. But you don't understand. If I wake up from a dreamless sleep, I realize I didn't have any dreams or memories to recall. But that experience in itself is a realization I shall carry with me forward, no matter how insignificant and blurry it will get as time passes. It's a grain of sand, impossible to locate once you take your eyes off it, in the beach that is my mind.
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We mostly don't have memories of our dreams except sometimes for a short time after waking.
Agreed. But again, not relevant to my point (of view).
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And memory is unreliable anyway, particularly from a dream (we are heavily into dream interpretation even if we aren't Freud).
Agreed. But not relevant to my point (of view). And I've mentioned this same phenomenon in the posts that came before.
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How do you know, internally, that you are the same person you were when you went to sleep? Given that you can't verify your memories independently?
Simple. I'm not. I'm not the same person I was when I started typing this reply either. Because my experiences keep growing and building, along with my memories. We are never truly 100% the same person(ality) we were ever before.
But there is a difference in growing your entire life and waking up one day without any of that history and
starting over.
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Sure, waking consciousness seems to coherence, given other people tend to reinforce the notion that you are still you .. but given a case of amnesia, an if you wake up around people who never knew you before ... did you cease to exist?
If people forget me, to them I cease to exist, but I don't cease to exist truly.
If I forget me, then I do cease to exist.
You can get mystical and woo-ey about this all you want. But it's simple, my friend.
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Complicated? Human experience, let alone whatever the hell reality may be, is a lot more complicated than anything I can possibly articulate in mere words.
Truly? I always figured the human experience to be amongst the simplest of things I can think of.
Well, doesn't that response take all!
A human being is the most complicated entity in a whole galaxy, we have more atoms than all the stars in the Milky Way.
Also ... do we really have dreamless sleep, or are we just consistently amnesiac about it?
If you are amnesiac and around people who don't know you ... but there are still other people elsewhere who knew you before ... then to them, you still exist (somewhere) ... they just don't know where you wandered off to. And people were just arguing earlier, that other people's memories of you, means you continue on after death. What about if you only left the room? Babies have to learn otherwise, regarding their mother. Also people's memories of you, are no less perception bullshit than your own memories of yourself. Memory isn't a VCR, let alone a tricorder.
Quote from: Baruch on February 21, 2018, 05:09:22 PM
Well, doesn't that response take all!
A human being is the most complicated entity in a whole galaxy, we have more atoms than all the stars in the Milky Way.
I thought we were talking about the human experience. Not the human being.
I mean, we can talk about is the whole of reality, physics and biology 'truly' complicated or is it just something our human minds don't understand. But that, I could easily concede, is semantics.
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Also ... do we really have dreamless sleep, or are we just consistently amnesiac about it?
Relevancy?
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If you are amnesiac and around people who don't know you ... but there are still other people elsewhere who knew you before ... then to them, you still exist (somewhere) ...
Yes. In
their memories.
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And people were just arguing earlier, that other people's memories of you, means you continue on after death.
If this is to be taken literally. I don't agree.
I think most mean it metaphorically, however. Your impact on their lives, the memories you created for them, persist after you die.
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What about if you only left the room?
What about it?
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Babies have to learn otherwise, regarding their mother.
Relevancy?
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Also people's memories of you, are no less perception bullshit than your own memories of yourself. Memory isn't a VCR, let alone a tricorder.
So?
52 replies to only one burp.
The power of the fly-by. We end up talking amongst ourselves. Well, past each other mostly. What started as a marginally silly OP has become meaningless chaos, more incoherent than the original post, as far as I can tell.
Quote from: SGOS on February 21, 2018, 06:59:53 PM
The power of the fly-by. We end up talking amongst ourselves. Well, past each other mostly. What started as a marginally silly OP has become meaningless chaos, more incoherent than the original post, as far as I can tell.
I know what I am talking about (it is coherent to me, if not to anyone else). I also know what others are talking about, because we are the same species, and I have had many of the same experiences that other posters have had. The perception (had I been there instead f you) would have been different of course .. different personalities. I was non-theistic for over 10 years myself (too much physics). The universe is a hologram, and the planetarium projector is broken ;-(
No matter how many electrons you have, they are all the same. Boring repetition ... that isn't what complication means. Physics is intelligible precisely because it is simple enough even a cave man, more or less, can understand it.
Did someone just fart?
Quote from: SGOS on February 21, 2018, 08:24:59 PM
Did someone just fart?
Swamp gas ... there is no Washington DC ... it is called the Swamp for a reason. Lots of lobbyists go there to make furry love to Congress-critters.
Quote from: Baruch on February 21, 2018, 05:09:22 PM
A human being is the most complicated entity in a whole galaxy, we have more atoms than all the stars in the Milky Way.
I bet an elephant has more atoms than the Andromeda galaxy. Does that make elephants more complicated than us?
Quote from: Unbeliever on February 22, 2018, 01:34:11 PM
I bet an elephant has more atoms than the Andromeda galaxy. Does that make elephants more complicated than us?
Yes. Unlike people, they never forget ;-)
Quote from: NellGwyn on February 19, 2018, 05:51:39 PM
Do you think people can cease to exist? And do you think they can do it out of their own will? But how?
There is zero evidence that such a thing cuul occur. Human will
can not force matter to disappear, no matter what charlatan Deepak Chopra might say.
QuoteLook up the dictionary, my dear.
Yes, the dictionary has a definition for 'soul'.
Too bad no one has ever provided evidence that such a thing exists.
Can you?
Quote from: NellGwyn on February 19, 2018, 05:51:39 PM
Do you think people can cease to exist? And do you think they can do it out of their own will? But how?
Any human (as any other animal) can cease to exist. Death is an utterly complete ending of existence. People can end their lives deliberately. I don't think OTHER animals can very well. Some other animals will fight to death to protect offspring, but that is not quite the same thing.