Please Heed My Advice And Save Yourselves.

Discussion in 'Eastern Philosophy' started by Squashbuckler, Aug 13, 2003.

  1. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    Fair enough. But Vital One has a point. The sort of experiences he was talking about can't be described or explained.
     
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  3. Chalaco Registered Senior Member

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    and I happen to disagree. As you said earlier, an experience, whether vicarious or first hand, can be put into words, just with limits, and I happen to agree wholeheartedly. So let's agree to disagree on whether IdleOne, I mean VitalOne's reference to this putative experience can be put into words or not. It is no longer pertinent, to me that is.
     
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  5. Siddhartha Registered Senior Member

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    To the chap who started this thread, you are most short sighted.

    1. - True.
    2. - False, it is a change of state for the living, and affects them greatly.
    3. - False from 2.
    4. - False from 2.
    5. - True.
    6. - False, I'll show you someone dead to prove it if you doubt,
    7. - False because other pre-requisites have been proven false.
    8. - Load of crap.
     
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  7. Chalaco Registered Senior Member

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    Hmmm.....nope, I didn't start this thread, Squashbuckler did. I did, however, post the text you have in quotation. I was stating Epicurus' stance on the matter, which happens to be my stance as well, if you would've clicked on the link, you;'d know that. Of course, I realize that asking something as simple as clicking on a link may be a bit much, my apologies.

    And so you label me as suffering from myopia simply because you don't agree with me, a cunning strategy by an equally cunning linguist
    . :bugeye:

    good, you're not an entirely lost cause

    Now tell me, is it me, is it me or did the second premiss say nothing of whether death AFFECTS them? Maybe it's just me :bugeye:

    When annihilated, thenceforth, you're not in tune in with cognitive thinking, so this change of state will go unnoticed because you can't notice it, you're dead. The only thing affecting you is the anticipation and fear of an inevitable fact of life.

    You're not dead, thus it does not affect you. The distress of its inevitability affects you, but death itself does not, simpleton. And you agree with me because of your reply in the subsequent quote....

    The fact that you agree with this yet censure the rest of his points has me convinced you just might be special :bugeye: Recognize the cognitive dissonance, junior. Now you could argue that you feel as if though the dead DO exist....

    Hmmm... although you're right, the dead are objective, they do exist PHYSICALLY, but that's about it. Epicurus may have meant what Descartes said, "cogito ergo sum" -- I think, therefore I am -- the dead do not think. But this premiss is a bit suspect so I'll leave it up for debate....


    I feel I shouldn't really have to explicate as to why death is not bad for the dead


    Funny, I found myself uttering the exact same colloquial phrase upon reading your respone, well only if you replace 'load' with 'quintessence', and 'of crap' with 'of idiocy'.
     
  8. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    Is that really what Epicurus thought? If so he's just gone down a long way in my opinion. It appears to be a muddle of ambiguous terms.
     
  9. Chalaco Registered Senior Member

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    link for epicurus
     
  10. Chalaco Registered Senior Member

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    165

    you say that yet you said earlier that


    now, which is it, mister contradiction. And don't give me that, "well, it can be put into words just not depicted or described or explained" cop-out because what else can you put it into words for? To spill out incoherent sentences that say nothing of nothing? No, if soemthing can be put into words, depictions/explainations of at some least form, even if very very minute, would still be just that, depictions and explainations. Why else are things put into words...

    However, I'm open for debate, if you can prove me wrong, I'm all eyes...
     
  11. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    Sorry, I don't see the contradiction.
     
  12. exsto_human Transitional Registered Senior Member

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    Hey, there's nothing wrong with rationality.

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    Rationalism = The doctrine that knowledge is acquired by reason without resort to experience.
     
  13. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    wow, this thread is frightening. Have so many people simply settled on a method of how the world functions, and then closed their eyes to the inconsistancies in their world veiw?

    Let assume the following for a second:
    " 1. Death is annihilation"
    ok, then, death is an annihilation. An annihilation of what exactly? what is annihilated by death?

    lets go to it.
     
  14. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    That's what I was saying.

    My dictionary does not make it so cut and dried. It suggests that reason is the basis of rationality, but it does not exclude reference to experience.

    If your definition is accurate then 'rationalism' is irrational nonsense ex hypothesis, since 'I exist' becomes an irrational statement.
     
  15. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Death is not annihilation, death is an aspect of life, as vital for it's functioning as breathing. How many millions of your cells die every day? How long do you think you would survive if that didn't happen? How long would life survive on the planet if there were no death? So, an individual ego ends, it was an illusion in the first place. The organic and inorganic molecules of a body get recycled, nothing gets annihilated. What ends is a particular pattern and arrangement of molecules. Death creates a space for new life patterns. There coould be no life without death, like a pot, it is as much the empty space in the middle as the material it's made from that makes it work.
     
  16. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    U.G. Krishnamurti
     
  17. Siddhartha Registered Senior Member

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    Now, the latter point there is defeated by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Therefore Objectivism rejects known fact.
     
  18. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    I'm not sure about that, but maybe. What's worse it states that we cannot reason about our experiences. This contradicts most philosophers, who conclude that all reasoning is rooted in experience.

    I don't think it's an accident that academia doesn't take Rand's ideas seriously. It seems to be a collection of opinions with no logical basis.
     
  19. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    thanks, SpiderGoat, my point exactly.

    So if Death is not an annihilation at its most basic, then what is death, in actuality? What is the death of a cell vs the death of a person? What differentiates them? Do we even really know? Or is this one of those questions to mark as "Get back to this later", and should we move on for the time being?

    What is the death of a person? what does it feel like? Physically, emotionally? What does it look like? from the perspective of someone watching it? From the perspective of the person being killed? just before the person actually is dying, what does it look like to have a sword coming at you, or the ground rushing up, or a car swerving towards you? What does your body feel like as that is happening?

    EVen if none of these things have happened to you, you can extrapolate with a certain degree of accuracy based on expiriences that you have had. Excietment, fear, dizziness, adrenaline...all of the above? more? less? different?

    Just like any other fear, to overcome it, you must confront it. By confronting death, you may at first find youself in a depression, but after having understood it, you can gain confidence, and fear it no longer. Just as a person afraid of heights might climb to the top of a tall building and look down, going up is pretty sucky, but the way down is bliss. and you may no longer be afraid. You are then free, as was stated earlier.

    So, no we are no longer abjectly afraid of death (after months/years of work), what does this get us? whjat can we do from here? what has changed in our lives? Are we more depressed, and have low self-esteem, as was suggested at the begining of the thread?
     
  20. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    "There is no such thing as death at all. What do you think will die? What? This body disintegrates into its constituent elements, so nothing is lost. If you burn it, the ashes enrich the soil and aid germination. If you bury it, the worms live on it. If you throw it into the river, it becomes food for the fishes. One form of life lives on another form of life, and so gives continuity to life. So life is immortal.
    But that is not going to help anybody who is caught up in the fear of death. After all, 'death' is fear, the fear of something coming to an end. The 'you' as you know yourself, the 'you' as you experience yourself -- that 'you' does not want to come to an end. But it also knows that this body is going to drop dead as others do -- you experience the deaths of others -- so that is a frightening situation because you are not sure whether that (`you') will continue if this (body) goes. So then it projects (an afterlife). This becomes the most important thing -- to know whether there is an afterlife or not. Fear creates that, so when the fear is gone, the question of death is also gone.
    You have no way of knowing anything about your death, now or at the end of your so-called life. Unless knowledge, the continuity of knowledge, comes to an end, death cannot take place. You want to know something about death: you want to make that a part of your knowledge. But death is not something mysterious; the ending of that knowledge is death. What do you think will continue after death? What is there while you are living? Where is the entity there? There is nothing there -- no soul -- there is only this question about after death. The question has to die now to find the answer -- your answer; not my answer -- because the question is born out of the assumption, the belief, that there is something to continue after death. "

    -U.G. Krishnamurti
     
  21. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    if you take a bunch of Carbon, Oxygen, hydrogen, magnesium, Potassium, etc, e5tc, and pile it up, does it make a human? A plant? more than likely it will make a pile of atoms.

    So what is the difference between a lifeless body- the thing that is made up of the same material as you and I, and a living person?

    energy? Well, I could zap that pile of atoms with electricity, and it doesn't comes alive magically. So what is it?


    edit:minor brain fart.
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2004
  22. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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  23. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    What's the difference between a working automobile and a pile of parts? One is arranged to work in a certain fashion, and one isn't. Our bodies are machines.

    For example, there have been hand transplants. A dead hand has been made living again. If there was some mystical quality about life, this would not be possible.
     

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