Philosophy Now Forum

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Are you able to conceive the thought that we are dead?



We are living in death.


It makes sense in a way, for nothing here can really be changed.

Yeah, we move the chairs around and we work to sit in other seats but each move is extremely calculable.

Nothing is new.

We are all here and we really cannot change or create anything.


What if, in our sleep and in our perceived physical death we actually experience life?

What if, in this holding station we call life, we are actually experiencing non-life; or death?


I mean, we really cannot feel our outside surroundings.

We can't really feel or understand each other.


We can't touch anything real.


We are extremely ephemeral.


The moment is here yet it really isn't.


Time keeps shifting for us yet we understand that time does not really exist...only in our experiential dimension.

What if life was so different than anything we can know, so different than anything we we could imagine.

Yet death; our life can be completely known as to it's components and structure. We are death. We are the visible, knowable rock.

What are we afraid of in our apparent death, besides the unknown?

Can we accept that a non-knowable life happens after we pass this realm?






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If we believe in an afterlife or an other-life after we are gone, why aren't we joyous in death and mournful when there is a birth into this restrictive realm, this limited life?



Death = release = freedom.



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Imho...

On a practical day to day level, the words death and life have useful meaning, which is why we keep them around.

On a bigger picture level, such as might interest philosophers, the words "death" and "life" illustrate how our dualistic minds significantly distort our view of reality in the process of creating abstract symbols.

Reality is one big unified thing.

As we attempt to understand this one thing, thought divides this one big thing up in to a bunch of little conceptual parts.

Then the mind confuses the conceptual abstraction that it created for reality. It's like confusing a photograph for the real person in the photo.

Example:

The word "tree" is useful in every day life.

But the word "tree" implies a division that doesn't exist in the real world. In the real world, tree/soil/sun/rain/bugs etc is one unified system. Remove any component of this system, and we no longer have a tree.

I think "death" and "life" are like that. The words are conceptual inventions which are useful on one level, but highly distorting on another level.

In our minds, death and life are two things. In reality I suspect they are one.

Just because the parts are interdependent how do you get to the position that no division exists? If "Reality is one big unified thing" as you say then surely it needs separate things to unify or it would just be one big indivisible thing?

Hi John,

Imho...

The division happens in our minds. The division takes place conceptually, in the realm of symbols and abstraction.

When we mentally divide reality, we are of course not dividing the actual reality in to pieces, right?

That is, when I say the word "tree" I am not there by actually dividing "tree" from "sun", "soil", "water", etc in the real world.

The division takes place entirely in my head. In the real world, tree/soil/sun/water remains all one thing, however I may think about it.

Thus, due to the limitations of the tool we are using, a distorted picture emerges.

In our minds, we see lots of different things. But in reality, there is only one big thing.

A scientist might express this as, "everything is energy". Energy is neither created or destroyed, it only changes form.

A fatheaded aphilosopher might express this as, there is no birth, there is no death, only what is.

I think I see what you're getting at but to me it reads as though you've got this idea that everything is one (i.e. reality) and that the ability to break reality into it's constituent parts is a limitation of our mental processes when I'd say it was a strength. It all sounds a bit suspiciously mystical to me.

Right.

We are free to draw a boundary between "tree" and "not tree" but those boundaries are arbitrary conceptual inventions.

As example, imagine that the sunlight hitting the tree was colored bright orange, and the oxygen coming off the tree was colored bright purple.

Now we could see these elements with the naked eye, and thus the boundaries between tree and not tree would look very different.

The boundary lines we create are a function of the mental and sensory equipment we use to make the observation.



See, there it is again.

A conceptual division between strength and weakness. We've made two things out of what is really one.

The division process gives us the ability to survive, to create science. And now we will use science to create A-bombs and such, so we can blow ourselves up etc.

We live by division, and die by division. It's what makes us both brilliant, and insane.

It's very personal as well. Observe yourself watching yourself think. Observe yourself getting in to little arguments with yourself. There are lots of little people running around inside all of our heads, because...

Thought is inherently divisive.



Well, ok, whatever. That's a little burden atheists have created to carry around, and it's not really my business so I leave you to it.

your reality is on a practical day to day level the same as on a bigger picture level.

the photograph and the real person are the same in your picture of reality.

removing any extingted animal keeps your tree the same as your real world in your reality.

the levels are the same in your reality.

your mind and your reality are the same in your minds reality.

This position in Philosophy is known as Idealism, first stated by Bishop Berkeley in the 18th Century. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley and refined by Immanuel Kant - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_idealism

How can you use "energy" this way as "energy" is truly an abstract concept that does not have any "tree" like attributes.

If you hold this position does it mean you believe that if there were no human beings there'd be no 'trees'? Or do you, like Berkeley, commit to there being a greater mind that sustains these 'trees'? If not do you have it that the "tree" would still exist because the squirrel 'sees' it? If so do you think the squirrel 'sees' the same 'tree' as we do?

From Wikipedia...



Good reference Arising, quite on point.

I wouldn't deny the existence of material substance.

I would instead propose that there is only one thing. But, it's not that important to me to defend that premise to the death.

Perhaps it's more useful to put it this way.

Any good scientist would understand the tools they are using to make their observations, and try to account for any distortions these tools might introduce.

Thought is the fundamental tool we are using. Thus, it's extra important that we understand this tool, and any distortions it may introduce, because this tool lies at the heart of all our observations and conclusions.

Fair enough so far?

It's my proposal that thought is inherently divisive, and that this property of thought introduces profound distortions in to our understanding of reality.

Conceptually, in thought and language, a very strong impression is created that the words "tree" and "sun" refer to two distinct and separate objects. After all, the word "tree" and "sun" are themselves distinct and separate.

In the real world, what we call tree and sun are intimately connected.

The atomic structures that make up our body were created in super nova explosions.

Everything is so intimately connected to everything else that it's reasonable to propose that reality is really just one big thing, and not a bunch of little separate things.



Squirrels are mammals like us, and share much of the same equipment, so I'd guess generally yes.

But say, a creature who could see the oxygen being released by leaves might place the boundary between "tree" and "not tree" in a different place than we do.

Consider the air that is going in and out of your mouth. When is it you, and when is it not you? Does the air magically become you when it enters your mouth?

See what I mean? The boundaries are convenient but arbitrary inventions of whoever is making the observation.

Does material exist? Yes.

Do boundaries exist? Yes. In our heads.

Yes, and it is thought itself that makes us dead.

That is, the majority of time we aren't really experiencing reality, but our thoughts about reality.

It's like a person whose social life consists of sitting around looking at pictures of people. This form of social life could be said to be dead.

Are you able to conceive that when we physically die, and thought is over, awareness may continue?

Except that without thought, there won't be a "me" there to observe it, because what we think of as "me" is itself a thought.

Can you conceive of awareness without thought?

Without a "me" there would be no center for this awareness. It would just be awareness, not somebody or something being aware.

There wouldn't be a division between subject and object. There wouldn't be a division between observer and observed.

This is an admittedly difficult concept to contemplate, as our lives are so entirely saturated with the experience of division "me" and "everything else".

It's interesting to contemplate whether this division is real, or only apparent, a product of the divisive nature of thought.

If the division is a conceptual illusion, then there is no death.

Not really, as you are presupposing that there is a 'tool user' outside of this 'thought tool'? As tho' there is another 'thought tool' that can look at itself?
Again you are already proposing that there can be an 'understanding of reality' outside of this 'thought tool'? What do you mean when you say "thought"? What are you describing?
I agree with Wittgenstein in this matter;

"Instead of, 'The complex sign "aRb" says that a stands to b in the relation R' we ought to put, That "a" stands to "b" in a certain relation says that aRb.' "
But "intimately connected" does not mean "the same" and pretty much implies two objects.
And you know this about the "real world" how?
Then there would be no need for your 'connections'?

I very much doubt it, given the massive disparity in equipment.
Why? As they still appear to have "leaves".
No, when it 'magically' has the oxygen separated in the lungs and into the blood stream, is when the 'air' is me.
There is no doubt that the signs used as symbols are arbitrary but the thing being signified is not.
Many philosophers and religons have had this belief, its called Monism.

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Really great replys Typist.

Actually well beyond what I thought you were capable of conceiving and articulating.


Is reefer legal now in Florida?









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Bill, thanks for your deeply penetrating and thoughtful analysis. It's your trademark, so we know we can always count on you to come through.

And by the way, that picture of me is out of date. I wish you'd use this more recent one.

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Well played sir!



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I'll die for infinity.

The World is like a little closet; we'll all leave here. For sure.

I heard there are 100 billion gallexies counted. And this here is the third or fourth generation of stars; so this whole region will be pulverized to atoms. New eras of suns will acreate from the dust...

Death can be hard. I have skin. I don't enjoy nausea, suffocation. P***.

Death pretty much takes care of itself. Eventually. Nothing in life is easy, but you can be sure it's gonna get done.

Everything is all planned out. This is it. Sparkling.

When we dream, we are alive Bill, or whoever.

"The living is dead and the dead are alive."
- Sophocles; Women of Trachis