Philosophy Now Forum

So you think that the capability to think some true thoughts rests solely on the occurence of some particular event within our personal experience?

You would have to elaborate that a bit further, Psychonaut.

Do you think people can realise the ephemeral nature of existence without the experiences which contributed to your own understanding of it?

I do not like, personally, to specify what experiences contribute to my own particular awarenesses, only to draw from my overall experience.

There are, perhaps though, a few prime candidates for experiences which contributed to those particular understandings.

As I said, most people live their lives as if it's real. I believe anyone can perceive that our existence is inherently devoid of any substance, a completely ephemeral experience, but this is not possible in most situations because everything in this world is designed to attract us back to life, and to concentrate on surviving till the next day. Little time and space are left for this kind of reflection.

Observe the people around you: they are so obsessed with and concentrated in their 'own personal existences' that it's very difficult for you to even try to convince them that such 'personal existence' is just an illusion. And I must add that in most situations even the most lucid and enlightened man will surrender to the illusion too.

That's what we both are doing right now. That's why we cannot honestly blame or censor our fellow men for their 'ignorance' in this respect.

Well indeed, I believe that any understanding we have tends to be visible only once we have enough elevation from depth of understanding, which can only be achieved with enough breadth of understanding (combined with good structuring).

Ofcourse, if you're standing on this great hillock and facing one way, you will see something quite different to if you face the other, and there is the problem of where the hillock stands.

I never consider any of my personal understandings to be anything other than that, and will not censure people for failing to see what I see. I will try and show them what I see, by broadening and deeping their experiences and assisting with the structuring.. I am interested to see if they happen to then see the same thing, but do not consider it to confirm my own seeings, and also happy if they see something else, because it gives me a bit more information for how I might deal with my own stack.

I think that there are certain things that everybody can perceive. Ok, everybody will interpret determined events/happenings/sensations in a different manner, but even so the things that make these events possible remain the same.

Death is a good example. No matter how you see or 'interpret' the event, it always amounts to the same: the annihilation of the physical body. In a certain sense, you will only believe that death means something different from that if you are willing to comfort yourself or another person, and forget about the cruelty of nature.

Personally, I think death is the annihilation of the self.

Hence, I would not care if my body was to be annihilated but my mind kept intact (say, in a machine), but I would care if my body was to be kept intact while my mind is destroyed.

The mind is a part of the physical body. It cannot exist independently, as far as I know.

The death of the physical body means the death of everything that differentiates us from the world around us. Our feelings, emotions, sensations, memories, beliefs, etc, are all directly related to it, and are not even conceivable without it.

It is possible to imagine a body without a 'mind', but it's not possible to imagine the opposite.

Oh indeed, a mind cannot exist without a body but it is, at least theoretically, possible for this mind to exist without this body.

One of the things that differentiate me from all the people around me is that I always concentrate in what I have at hand.

Theories, wishful thinking, unlimited imagination all have their place in my mind, but I never forget their nature, and never forget that these things can't alter reality, or rather, the reality I perceive with my senses.

In other words, the possibility that a mind could ever survive without a body doesn't change the fact that this has not been conceivable hitherto. And I would never find much consolation in such a thought, though Christians and spiritualists do.

I think you may have misunderstood me..

I do not think it is possible for minds to exist without a body, even theoretically.

I think it is possible for my mind to exist in another body, such as a robotic one.

No, in fact there was no misunderstanding.

For me this possibility is another theory that can only serve as a source of consolation.

By the way, the idea of my mind surviving in another body doesn't comfort me much.

Nor me, particularly. But I do not mean it as a source of consolation, but just to be clear about what actually constitutes death, insofar as my body can live on while I am long gone, such as when the brain ceases function.

However, I also think it is true that if certain aspects of my personality which I consider to be my 'identity' are removed or altered by some means then I would be sufficiently different as to, from where I stand now, consider myself dead.

What would be living in my body might be very similar to me, but it would not be me.

I think I am only one in a line of identities who have lived in this body, an identity which has made a long march from within the subconscious terrain of my brain smashing down other comers and, unlike many of the prior incumbents, looks set to have a long reign.