Most Logical After Death Scenario

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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ComfortablyNumb
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Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by ComfortablyNumb »

Scenario A: State of Nothingness

Scenario B: If there was anything beyond nothingness it would be some kind of eternal life stream. You would be re-incarnated as "energy" and not the physical matter as we are now. You'd flow as energy through the cosmos, no longer as an individual but as a single entity of something much greater.

/thread
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

What do you propose as a fundamental difference between that "energy" and any kind of regular "matter"? Do you mean perhaps a matter of which you think we know something about ( "physical matter"?) and then some matter we don't (some "energy")?

Then you also talk about "cosmos". This object of consciousness, is it still physics or made by your exclusive "energy"? Be aware of what you're doing here, replacing the energies making up matter in current theoretical physics with another mystical energy making up mystical "after life" matter. So all you are doing is making up some unknown physics replacing the known physics and calling it the after death scenario (version B). And what is most logical about that?

Most logical would be to become more aware of what life is before such counterpart as death is speculated about.

But if you must <speculate> perhaps what we call (living) matter is a sort of concentration or focus of some primal energy. The more concentrated, the more active the matter becomes (chemically). The more active the chemical, the more types of processes occur connected with life. The more connected processes of life occur, like nervous activity as current "tour de force", the more intelligence and awareness prospers. Since this "primal energy" is always in motion and changing internal state, death would not be a meaningful word in this context. But it wouldn't be gone, just less focused in time and place, without the former meaning-defining boundaries. Perhaps it would be still more proper to call that death then. As dead as anything could be in the known universe. And yes, I'm aware this primal form of energy would still be part of all physics. </speculate>
RZoo
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by RZoo »

There is no such thing as more logical or the most logical.

"After death" is an intangible concept. It's practically meaningless to discuss.

We could hypothesize that loss of consciousness occurs after death. This is about as good as a shot in the dark.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

You have a point there. But I do believe it might be possible to understand the fuller meaning of death or how that occurs, generally, to the human mind.

Obviously, at least to me, death has nothing to do with any lack or transplant of consciousness. And as if consciousness isn't an intangible concept...

For example, one interesting subject might be a "dead drive", this will towards death and nothingness, as being paired up to its opposite: the will to forever, sustenance, reproduction and even "everything".
RZoo
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by RZoo »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:You have a point there. But I do believe it might be possible to understand the fuller meaning of death or how that occurs, generally, to the human mind.
Do you know what it's like to be in love? I imagine you've experienced it first hand.
Do you know what it's like to be a king? Maybe you've read some biographies and have been able to relate.
Do you know what it's like to be a chicken? Maybe you can dream about it based on scientific experimentation and observation of chickens.
Do you know what it's like to be dead? Let's see... you've never been dead and you've never received communication from someone who has been. The only thing you can observe about dead things is that their heart stops pumping and their brain activity starts to shut down. If we are to theorize that the brain is the source of our consciousness, it would likely follow that consciousness is lost after death. Of course, all of this is only a crude guess.

How else do you propose to understand death?
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

So you 're saying being dead is some kind of feeling or emotion, like to be in love, to feel like a king or a chicken? But dying is not the same as being dead!

The problem I see with your approach is that you appear to define human being at some point as essentialy biological, as some genetic set of parameters. And so all birth and death become biological states, entirely remaining beyond our experience simply because an experience needs a start and finish point, as frame or definition. But moments of birth and death do not have these clear states upon investigation, unless we define life first as some mechanical pulse which we then measure, like a heart beat or EEG. But clearly that doesn't mean always life "as we know it".

Thinking about death seems useless without also thinking about what life and consciousness is. It's strange that many people see death as some absolute, a guarantee even more fixed and known than their taxes. It's perhaps like describing sickness without knowing exactly what health means unless it's defined as a lack of sickness.

In my view death only exists as suffering: for those fearing its nearing approach or as fear of passing of others. There are many perspectives possible where it means nothing at all: an imagined passing contrasted with an imagined existence, all with some importance attached, or regrets, or unfulfilled hopes. Life is suffering but death is neither here or there.
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by RZoo »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:So you 're saying being dead is some kind of feeling or emotion, like to be in love, to feel like a king or a chicken? But dying is not the same as being dead!
Well, I thought this thread was about "after death" or about "being dead".
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:In my view death only exists as suffering: for those fearing its nearing approach or as fear of passing of others.
I can agree with that, with the caveat that death isn't always suffering, it can be longed for as well. :-)
Glostik91
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Glostik91 »

ComfortablyNumb wrote:Scenario A: State of Nothingness

Scenario B: If there was anything beyond nothingness it would be some kind of eternal life stream. You would be re-incarnated as "energy" and not the physical matter as we are now. You'd flow as energy through the cosmos, no longer as an individual but as a single entity of something much greater.

/thread
The most logical after death scenario is that the sun will come up tomorrow.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Only when you believe you're still there to see it. Or that you believe any distinction between "you" and "someone else" doesn't matter.

Anyway, there's still not much "logical" to this scenario, because it would need to include something like a "because", some reasoning on it.
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Glostik91 »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Only when you believe you're still there to see it. Or that you believe any distinction between "you" and "someone else" doesn't matter.
I've noticed that I have a habit of saying I have eyes and I have a brain. Who has the eyes and brain?
Anyway, there's still not much "logical" to this scenario, because it would need to include something like a "because", some reasoning on it.
I would say it has the best odds because its been going on for a long time, and that's logical enough for me.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Ghostik wrote:I've noticed that I have a habit of saying I have eyes and I have a brain. Who has the eyes and brain?
The one wondering. You ask it, you own it.
I would say it has the best odds because its been going on for a long time, and that's logical enough for me.
Your body has been going on for a long time as well but from a scientific perspective it's certainly shorter lived than Heaven and Earth. And yet the point was that after death this heaven and earth, your horizon, would not remain. What you actually did is to posit an objective view, some disembodied generalized human view on the sun rise, which will continue undisturbed. It's one form of describing a belief in reincarnation, as your current view would resurface again in similar ways?
Glostik91
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Glostik91 »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
Ghostik wrote:I've noticed that I have a habit of saying I have eyes and I have a brain. Who has the eyes and brain?
The one wondering. You ask it, you own it.
If I own it, I must be responsible for it. But how could I be responsible for eye cancer or any cancer? Is that really me? Am I toward the middle of my ears and just a tad to the front?
Your body has been going on for a long time as well but from a scientific perspective it's certainly shorter lived than Heaven and Earth. And yet the point was that after death this heaven and earth, your horizon, would not remain. What you actually did is to posit an objective view, some disembodied generalized human view on the sun rise, which will continue undisturbed. It's one form of describing a belief in reincarnation, as your current view would resurface again in similar ways?
Don't you agree that the sun will come up tomorrow? Won't future generations agree as well? Don't plants respond to the rising of the sun by adjusting their faces toward it? Don't rocks respond to the rising of the sun by heating up?
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Glostik91 wrote:But how could I be responsible for eye cancer or any cancer? Is that really me? Am I toward the middle of my ears and just a tad to the front?
You're responsible to the degree you can respond to the knowledge or the symptoms. Various options are on the table and they'll be evaluated because that's what the mind does when confronted. The mind as scale: weights are placed on the left, the scale reacts, then some weights are placed on the right for balance. But are those added weights "yours"? The point is that some weighing happens and one can give a name to the subjective element, the "i am" sense which cannot be taken out of experience.
Don't you agree that the sun will come up tomorrow? Won't future generations agree as well?
Wouldn't those be academic questions really? These are only important if you make these academic truths important to your own current existence. For example as working assumption, predictions or formation of habit. With all of that you assume your personal experience of a sun rise would be similar enough to what goes on with others. Wouldn't that be a coarse approximation? Only in the very abstract sense the sunrise continues, like the Sun or the galaxy. But these mean something to you by association only and you don't really know their fullness. Then if you only know so little about them now, how would you know about all the intricate ways they might continue or cease tomorrow?
Glostik91
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Glostik91 »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote: You're responsible to the degree you can respond to the knowledge or the symptoms. Various options are on the table and they'll be evaluated because that's what the mind does when confronted. The mind as scale: weights are placed on the left, the scale reacts, then some weights are placed on the right for balance. But are those added weights "yours"? The point is that some weighing happens and one can give a name to the subjective element, the "i am" sense which cannot be taken out of experience.
I, a stranger, am afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master right or wrong.
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since my soul we cannot flee
To Saturn nor to mercury,
Keep we must if keep we can
These foreign laws of god and man.

Things happen to me and then I have to deal with them as if a fair deal could be made. Is this your philosophy?
Wouldn't those be academic questions really? These are only important if you make these academic truths important to your own current existence. For example as working assumption, predictions or formation of habit. With all of that you assume your personal experience of a sun rise would be similar enough to what goes on with others. Wouldn't that be a coarse approximation? Only in the very abstract sense the sunrise continues, like the Sun or the galaxy. But these mean something to you by association only and you don't really know their fullness. Then if you only know so little about them now, how would you know about all the intricate ways they might continue or cease tomorrow?
There also might be a luminiferous ether or a sky daddy but are these things logical scenarios?

When the sun rises it heats up my body. It also heats up rocks in the same manner. Death is arbitrary. The body and mind I have will dissolve but I will not. Who am I again? The one who asks? A mind and a body ask things but I am not these; I just have them.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Glostik91 wrote:"These foreign laws of god and man."

Things happen to me and then I have to deal with them as if a fair deal could be made. Is this your philosophy?
Not sure about fair deals. It was just another description of causality. There is "reason" to owe up to an action or position, the same reason we see in naming something table or chair instead of random sounds each time we refer to them. But if everyone would agree human minds are controlled by gods, self-organizing magic or aliens, we could surely make names for those without it having it change any ability to act, to respond or deliberate "in name of".
There also might be a luminiferous ether or a sky daddy but are these things logical scenarios?
They become weak logical inferences when you'd say "the luminferious ether still won't be there after my death".
A mind and a body ask things but I am not these; I just have them.
Ownership is just another way to define an owner. The owner does not exist without stuff to own.
Glostik91
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Glostik91 »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote: They become weak logical inferences when you'd say "the luminferious ether still won't be there after my death".
People die every day, and the sun still rises. What difference would my body dying make to those still alive? Does the whole world die with me?

To give you credit, saying 'most logical' isn't logical. Either an idea is logical or it isn't. What we should be saying is 'most likely.'
Diebert van Rhijn wrote: Not sure about fair deals. It was just another description of causality. There is "reason" to owe up to an action or position, the same reason we see in naming something table or chair instead of random sounds each time we refer to them. But if everyone would agree human minds are controlled by gods, self-organizing magic or aliens, we could surely make names for those without it having it change any ability to act, to respond or deliberate "in name of".

Ownership is just another way to define an owner. The owner does not exist without stuff to own.
Causality doesn't exist.
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RZoo
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by RZoo »

Nothing exists.

All discussions are pointless.

Wise men avoid discussion using short, witty, vague or meaningless phrases which always dodge the point and "challenge" their interlocutor.

*WISDOM HAS BEEN ACHIEVED.*
Glostik91
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Glostik91 »

RZoo wrote: Wise men avoid discussion using short, witty, vague or meaningless phrases which always dodge the point and "challenge" their interlocutor.

*WISDOM HAS BEEN ACHIEVED.*
Are these short, witty, vague, or meaningless phrases?
Nothing exists.

All discussions are pointless.
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Pam Seeback
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Pam Seeback »

Nothing exists.

All discussions are pointless.

Enlightenment 101, nothing exists. Enlightenment 102, discussions are pointed because they keep consciousness awake. Who does a solitary man talk to, enlightened or not enlightened? Himself. I'm beginning to think that you're our recently departed Dennis Mahar in disguise.
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by RZoo »

movingalways wrote:Enlightenment 101, nothing exists. Enlightenment 102, discussions are pointed because they keep consciousness awake.
102 contradicts 101, as something must exist to be awake.

Also, keeping consciousness awake (if it existed) would be pointless.
Glostik91
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Glostik91 »

movingalways wrote:
Nothing exists.

All discussions are pointless.

Enlightenment 101, nothing exists. Enlightenment 102, discussions are pointed because they keep consciousness awake. Who does a solitary man talk to, enlightened or not enlightened? Himself. I'm beginning to think that you're our recently departed Dennis Mahar in disguise.
Does walking into a class on enlightenment mean you are enlightened?

I'm not Dennis Mahar. I don't know how to prove it beyond verifying my ip is in Iowa.
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Pam Seeback
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Pam Seeback »

Glostik91 wrote:
movingalways wrote:
Nothing exists.

All discussions are pointless.

Enlightenment 101, nothing exists. Enlightenment 102, discussions are pointed because they keep consciousness awake. Who does a solitary man talk to, enlightened or not enlightened? Himself. I'm beginning to think that you're our recently departed Dennis Mahar in disguise.
Does walking into a class on enlightenment mean you are enlightened?

I'm not Dennis Mahar. I don't know how to prove it beyond verifying my ip is in Iowa.
Glostic91, I was addressing RZoo, the words I quoted were his, not yours.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Glostik91 wrote:People die every day, and the sun still rises. What difference would my body dying make to those still alive? Does the whole world die with me?
What I tried to do is suggest a fundamental difference between your own experiences of sunrises and the academic science of the solar system. Your own experiencing, your own reality is constructed in a very particular way with many causal links naturally to lets call them "shared perspectives". But that world, that experience is still private, "idiot", and hardly related to any supposed "true" or "objective" reality. Just enough to communicate about it I guess. Solipsism is nonsense but assuming your way to make sense of the world is completely "shared" is just as much. So yes, the whole world dies with you and what remains was something you hardly knew anyway and will keep changing just as well.
Causality doesn't exist.
So you claim the sun still comes up after your death but you also reject causality? Perhaps I misunderstood you here.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

movingalways wrote:
RZoo wrote:Nothing exists.

All discussions are pointless.

I'm beginning to think that you're our recently departed Dennis Mahar in disguise.
You might have missed the sarcastic criticism in that post?
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Re: Most Logical After Death Scenario

Post by Pam Seeback »

RZoo wrote:
movingalways wrote:Enlightenment 101, nothing exists. Enlightenment 102, discussions are pointed because they keep consciousness awake.
102 contradicts 101, as something must exist to be awake.

Also, keeping consciousness awake (if it existed) would be pointless.
To be or not to be, words, reasoning, thinking, the meaning game. Which everyone must play until they die, and even then, no one can say for certain that it doesn't continue post-death. Keeping consciousness awake is pointless? If this is true, why are you awake?

You assert that discussion is pointless, that staying awake is pointless, that enlightenment is boring, yet since arriving here not even three weeks ago, you've averaged, according to the stats, 3.8 posts per day. Methinks you doth protest too much. Contradiction, the effect of being caused to believe contrast exists - the mind just can't help itself. Pointless, maybe, but, baby, it's all you got. :-)
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