Death

[idav]

Existence is birth and death and destruction are illusions.

Well, death is just the absence of life, I'm not too sure I agree that death is an illusion though, could you elaborate on that?
I do agree though, that once dead, we'll be 'deconstructed' and returned to the universe like everything else. It's no the concept of being dead that terrifies me - it's the process of dying and how traumatic it could end up being.

 

[Aquitaine]

Existence is birth and death and destruction are illusions.

A lot of posters are saying similar things; that Death is "just an illusion".
Could you elaborate on your views a bit?

 

[godnotgod]

A lot of posters are saying similar things; that Death is "just an illusion".
Could you elaborate on your views a bit?

For birth and death to be real, there must exist a self that experiences them. Who or where is this self called 'I' that we imagine is the 'experiencer of the experience'?

We think: "I am living", and "I am dying".

Who is this "I' that lives?
Who is this "I" that dies?

Can you tell me?

 

[Nakosis]

A lot of posters are saying similar things; that Death is "just an illusion".
Could you elaborate on your views a bit?

I also see life and death as illusions.
Whatever you experience of death I suspect it will be unique and individual. One might experience Heaven, Hell, non-existence.

Like a play that unfolds for your experience that gets written as you go along. I suspect we are the authors of that play but are disconnected from that knowledge. So it seems we have no control. If you ever read fiction, one looses themselves in the reality of the story.

You take on the roll of an individual who plays a part in the story as it unfolds. That's the illusion. The reality would be that you not only write the story yourself but play all parts. Sometimes a character dies, the story continues.

You as a character, may or may not continue after death. It depends on how the story gets written. However if you don't like the story, there's really no one to blame but yourself.

 

[Aquitaine]

For birth and death to be real, there must exist a self that experiences them. Who or where is this self called 'I' that we imagine is the 'experiencer of the experience'?

We think: "I am living", and "I am dying".

Who is this "I' that lives?
Who is this "I" that dies?

Can you tell me?

The very same "I" that wrote your post: individual consciousness.

 

[Aquitaine]

I also see life and death as illusions.
Whatever you experience of death I suspect it will be unique and individual. One might experience Heaven, Hell, non-existence.

Like a play that unfolds for your experience that gets written as you go along. I suspect we are the authors of that play but are disconnected from that knowledge. So it seems we have no control. If you ever read fiction, one looses themselves in the reality of the story.

You take on the roll of an individual who plays a part in the story as it unfolds. That's the illusion. The reality would be that you not only write the story yourself but play all parts. Sometimes a character dies, the story continues.

You as a character, may or may not continue after death. It depends on how the story gets written. However if you don't like the story, there's really no one to blame but yourself.

Isn't that equivalent to saying that individuals have complete control of their fate, and that the only limits to our ambitions are our motivation and imagination?

 

[godnotgod]

The very same "I" that wrote your post: individual consciousness.

There is no such "I" that wrote anything, just as there is no such 'IT" that rains. Show me how the physical being can contain non-physical consciousness as an entity called "I".

 

[Aquitaine]

There is no such "I" that wrote anything, just as there is no such 'IT" that rains. Show me how the physical being can contain non-physical consciousness as an entity called "I".

Isn't consciousness physical? Brain activity involving all the Neurons and regions of the brain etc.
When your physical body becomes hungry, you get a desire to eat, so one's own consciousness is being affected by internal demands from their physical body.

 

[godnotgod]

Isn't consciousness physical? Brain activity involving all the Neurons and regions of the brain etc.
When your physical body becomes hungry, you get a desire to eat, so one's own consciousness is being affected by internal demands from their physical body.

So where is 'I', the self that lives and dies? Is it not merely a self-created idea?

Your scenario is that the physical body creates consciousness, but have you considered the reverse scenario? We do have documented evidence that consciousness (ie; focused meditation) actually creates thicker cerebral cortexes, for example.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

The very same "I" that wrote your post: individual consciousness.

Yes, and it looks like an individual consciousness begins with each new human birth and then ceases when that human dies. The rest is speculation.

 

[godnotgod]

Isn't consciousness physical? Brain activity involving all the Neurons and regions of the brain etc.
When your physical body becomes hungry, you get a desire to eat, so one's own consciousness is being affected by internal demands from their physical body.

You are implying that the agent which gets a desire to eat is already present prior to such desire. Therefore, this agent called 'I' is independent of the stimulus from the physical body, contradicting your premise that 'I' arises as a consequence of the body's activities.

Furthermore, is there a distinction between consciousness and the notion of 'I'? Isn't consciousness always present even without 'I'?

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Isn't consciousness always present even without 'I'?

There is no evidence of this no.

 

[godnotgod]

Babies intuitively know, without having been taught, how to play the game of Peek-A-Boo. From where does this knowledge originate?

 

[godnotgod]

There is no evidence of this no.

But there is direct experience. For you to reflect on the presence of 'I', something must already be in place. That something is consciousness.

When Rene Descartes said: 'I think, therefore I exist', he assumed the presence of 'I' prior to any thought of 'I'. IOW, 'I' only exists when the thought of 'I' occurs. Therefore, 'I' is merely a product of mind, and as such, is purely illusory.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

But there is direct experience. For you to reflect on the presence of 'I', something must already be in place. That something is consciousness.

When Rene Descartes said: 'I think, therefore I exist', he assumed the presence of 'I' prior to any thought of 'I'.

Direct experience without verification is not evidence. And your second part is false. His assertion of his own existence was only evident to himself. It is not evidence to anyone else. But to yourself you can be sure of your own existence because you are able to create the product of thought. What "I" is could simply by by-product of the brain. There is no requirement for it to be otherwise in logic or sound philosophy.

 

[godnotgod]

Direct experience without verification is not evidence.

Direct experience is verification itself. I never said it was evidence. The escapee in Plato's Cave directly experienced the Sun, but could not provide evidence for it to the other prisoners. For they to verify the escapee's claim, they would have to go topside and directly experience the Sun themselves.

You burn your finger on a hot stove. Your direct experience, without an 'I' that experiences it, is verification that you have, in fact, burned your finger. In fact, 'you' haven't burned your finger; there was only 'burning finger', without a 'finger burner'. Only a split second AFTER the event did the thought arise that 'I burned my finger!'.

And your second part is false. His assertion of his own existence was only evident to himself. It is not evidence to anyone else. But to yourself you can be sure of your own existence because you are able to create the product of thought. What "I" is could simply by by-product of the brain. There is no requirement for it to be otherwise in logic or sound philosophy.

You're contradicting yourself. If 'I' is simply the product of the brain, then one can be sure of nothing, in terms of logic and evidence, as per your premise. The 'product of thought' is just an idea of 'I', and not any true reality of an 'I'. Therefore, one's existence cannot be defined via any mental concoction, but via direct experience.

But your response does not address the fact that Descartes was merely assuming the presence of 'I' prior to his thought of 'I'. Here is the critique:

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard provided a critical response to the cogito. Kierkegaard argues that the cogito already presupposes the existence of "I", and therefore concluding with existence is logically trivial. Kierkegaard's argument can be made clearer if one extracts the premise "I think" into two further premises:

"x" thinks
I am that "x"
Therefore I think
Therefore I am

Where "x" is used as a placeholder in order to disambiguate the "I" from the thinking thing.[17]

Here, the cogito has already assumed the "I"'s existence as that which thinks. For Kierkegaard, Descartes is merely "developing the content of a concept", namely that the "I", which already exists, thinks.

Kierkegaard argues that the value of the cogito is not its logical argument, but its psychological appeal: a thought must have something that exists to think the thought. It is psychologically difficult to think "I do not exist". But as Kierkegaard argues, the proper logical flow of argument is that existence is already assumed or presupposed in order for thinking to occur, not that existence is concluded from that thinking.

Cogito ergo sum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

'I' is precisely the 'by-product of the brain', and as such, is a SELF-CREATED PRINCIPLE.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Direct experience is verification itself. I never said it was evidence. The escapee in Plato's Cave directly experienced the Sun, but could not provide evidence for it to the other prisoners.

You burn your finger on a hot stove. Your direct experience, without an 'I' that experiences it, is verification that you have, in fact, burned your finger. In fact, 'you' haven't burned your finger; there was only 'burning finger', without a 'finger burner'. Only a split second AFTER the event did the thought arise that 'I burned my finger!'.

It is not verification. It is subjective by definition. Subjective opinion and subjective experience are non-verifiable in many cases. This is one of those cases. [/quote]

You're contradicting yourself. If 'I' is simply the product of the brain, then one can be sure of nothing, in terms of logic and evidence, as per your premise. The 'product of thought' is just an idea of 'I', and not any true reality of an 'I'. Therefore, one's existence cannot be defined via any mental concoction, but via direct experience.

But your response does not address the fact that Descartes was merely assuming the presence of 'I' prior to his thought of 'I'. Here is the critique:

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard provided a critical response to the cogito. Kierkegaard argues that the cogito already presupposes the existence of "I", and therefore concluding with existence is logically trivial. Kierkegaard's argument can be made clearer if one extracts the premise "I think" into two further premises:

"x" thinks
I am that "x"
Therefore I think
Therefore I am

Where "x" is used as a placeholder in order to disambiguate the "I" from the thinking thing.[17]

Here, the cogito has already assumed the "I"'s existence as that which thinks. For Kierkegaard, Descartes is merely "developing the content of a concept", namely that the "I", which already exists, thinks.

Kierkegaard argues that the value of the cogito is not its logical argument, but its psychological appeal: a thought must have something that exists to think the thought. It is psychologically difficult to think "I do not exist". But as Kierkegaard argues, the proper logical flow of argument is that existence is already assumed or presupposed in order for thinking to occur, not that existence is concluded from that thinking.

Cogito ergo sum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I stopped debating you mainly because you refuse to fall into line of logical arguments but I'll give it another go.

"I" is not required as some pre-supposition to thought. I is a byproduct of thought. If you think then you can determine that you exist by that product. You cannot determine that "you" exist as anything other than a construct or byproduct of a physical brain. End of story. Not even Soren Kierkegaard does not support what you are talking about. His research on the concept supports the idea that for one to have a concept of I one is already conscious. And that consciousness may exist even if you do not know it. It does not mean that it exists always regardless of anything else. The issue you fall into is that you seem to think that "I" can only be defined in the way you have proposed rather than as the definition of our current best understanding of psychology.

 

[Nakosis]

Isn't that equivalent to saying that individuals have complete control of their fate, and that the only limits to our ambitions are our motivation and imagination?

I suspect what limits us is our attachments. I can self motivate and my imagination is pretty good. My fear of loosing what I have keeps my actions in check. Like dreaming you possess a billion in gold and being afraid to wake up and find it was only a dream.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Isn't consciousness always present even without 'I'?

Yes, but only for a live person. A dead person has no consciousness. I'm not sure how your posts in this thread are actually relevant to the OP.

 

[NulliuSINverba]

What are your visions for Death?