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the self ... ceases to be at death--and this makes it very unhappy

How can something that has ceased to be, be unhappy?

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Oct 17th, 2006 at 12:10:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
that's what I like about this place ;-)

It's PNing of the highest order...

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Tue Oct 17th, 2006 at 12:25:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It's not PNing, it's an important issue when discussing death.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Oct 17th, 2006 at 12:27:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Well I would have accused Socrates of PNing, so you're in good company

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Tue Oct 17th, 2006 at 12:31:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
and every philosopher thereafter...

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Tue Oct 17th, 2006 at 12:31:28 PM EST
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Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting young commas.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Oct 17th, 2006 at 12:35:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
lol

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Tue Oct 17th, 2006 at 12:38:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]
What makes the selfish-ego unhappy:

Through complexity it comes to see connections in a past-present-future tense system (Fran's left brain model), and so it realises that it will, necessarily cease to exist: die.  After death, it won't be there to worry, of course.  The dead are calm.  Those left behind are the bereaved.  But as it lives, this selfish-ego is at times overwhelmed with the idea of not existing anymore at some time in the future.  The more society promotes this selfish-ego, the more this unhappiness is spread about.

(Connections here to the potential extinction of humans--the horror!)


Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Oct 17th, 2006 at 04:25:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The solution is, then, to believe in life after death or the transcendence of the soul. Or else to come to terms with the finitude of experience. However, conscious life may actually have no end as we are not there to be aware of the end of awareness in the first place...

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Oct 17th, 2006 at 06:15:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, I think the most important thing is for the alienated "I" to reattach to groups beyond itself, whether they be other humans (community), nature, or 'beyond human experience' (transcendence--or 'ever more encompassing'.  I don't think the selfish-I ever comes to terms with the finitude of existence.  I don't think it was designed--Yipes!  No, there is no external desginer, there is sven's complexity creating designs against the left wall of viability etc.--anyway, the I is one of our survival mechanisms, I think.

However, conscious life may actually have no end as we are not there to be aware of the end of awareness in the first place...

Like going to sleep but without the dream--or the waking up?

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Wed Oct 18th, 2006 at 04:09:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]
However, conscious life may actually have no end as we are not there to be aware of the end of awareness in the first place...

Like going to sleep but without the dream--or the waking up?

Exactly.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Oct 18th, 2006 at 04:22:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Or like something being engulfed in flame...or incinerated...  It depends on the process of death.  Sudden. Whack!  Or slow s l o w  s   l  o   w

I don't think consciousness ends at death, but I think "self" consciousness ends at death...

The question then is: what is this consciousness that isn't the self, and who cares about it?  Which I would take as a comment by the self about its own extinction.  Yet there is a long historical cataloge of humans experiencing states which are, it seems, real but impossible to vocalise in prose.

I died from minerality and became vegetable;

And From vegetativeness I died and became animal.

I died from animality and became man.

Then why fear disappearance through death?

Next time I shall die

Bringing forth wings and feathers like angels;

After that, soaring higher than angels -

What you cannot imagine,

I shall be that.



Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Wed Oct 18th, 2006 at 06:03:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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