Are we eternal? (Eternal Recurrence)

[Lev Muishkin]

Well, Lev, your above statement made me smile. I can't remember the last time someone called me "childish", but apparently you think so. (chuckle) You are correct in that I did not make an argument, but I thought it unnecessary. Just pointing out the lie should have caused you to reevaluate your statement. But if you want an argument, I can provide one.

Please consider that Philosophy is the study of what we can know, and how we can know it -- or what is true. You stated that in "every single case" of investigations regarding reincarnation, the results have shown it to be false. So the question is, How can you possibly know this? You would have to know about "every single case". That would take more than a lifetime of study, so I seriously doubt that this is true. Then one must consider that if you knew about "every single case", then you would have to already know about Dr. Stevenson's work. So you would have to know that Dr. Stevenson found evidence of reincarnation.

In order to dismiss the evidence, you would have to base your knowledge on something other than evidence. So it is my thought that you base your knowledge on assumption, opinion, and belief. This is a common problem with religious people, but this is the Science forum, not the Religion forum, and I did not think you were religious. Hence, your statement is a lie.

In the future, you may want to consider qualifying such grandiose statements with something like, "in my opinion", or "as far as I know", or "to my knowledge", instead of stating something as fact, that is not fact.

Gee

Accounts of re-incarnation would be easy enough to verify were they true.
And in every single case where such investigations have been made to prove re-incarnation the results have shown false.

[Arising_uk]

I agree with what you say about Nietzsche. The rest is just chatting.

...

Groundhog Day (the film) is the best explanation of the meaning of the ER.
...
The whole of the idea of ER can be encapsulated in a single idea: Live your life as if you did so with maximal knowledge. In the film Groundhog Day, Bill Murray lives a day again and again until he gets it right; flawless.

Not quite Nietzsche then as he gives you no second, third, ..., chances in his ER.

Nietzsche uses ER to demands that we do not live life, like a pathetic Christian as if it were some sort of rehearsal. There is no heaven, no reward in Nietzsche's world, and when we live it had better be done right, as if we had to face the day eternally, as if we had to endlessly repeat that life the same way. He asks simply would you live your life again repeating the same dumb mistakes again and again?
No you must live your life the best you can.
There is nothing more to the ER.

Thats how I read it, i.e. act as tho' you WILL be doing what you are going to do eternally so choose wisely and it gave me one of the biggest belly-laughs I've had in Philosophy when I got to it. I also admired how it was the counter-point to Kant's universal categorical imperative. But then I had the thought, 'But how do I know if I'm on the first time around?'.

[Impenitent]

I agree with what you say about Nietzsche. The rest is just chatting.

...

Groundhog Day (the film) is the best explanation of the meaning of the ER.
...
The whole of the idea of ER can be encapsulated in a single idea: Live your life as if you did so with maximal knowledge. In the film Groundhog Day, Bill Murray lives a day again and again until he gets it right; flawless.

Not quite Nietzsche then as he gives you no second, third, ..., chances in his ER.

Nietzsche uses ER to demands that we do not live life, like a pathetic Christian as if it were some sort of rehearsal. There is no heaven, no reward in Nietzsche's world, and when we live it had better be done right, as if we had to face the day eternally, as if we had to endlessly repeat that life the same way. He asks simply would you live your life again repeating the same dumb mistakes again and again?
No you must live your life the best you can.
There is nothing more to the ER.

Thats how I read it, i.e. act as tho' you WILL be doing what you are going to do eternally so choose wisely and it gave me one of the biggest belly-laughs I've had in Philosophy when I got to it. I also admired how it was the counter-point to Kant's universal categorical imperative. But then I had the thought, 'But how do I know if I'm on the first time around?'.

deja vu

-Imp

[Arising_uk]

...
deja vu

-Imp

That's a thought. Bugger tho' as it means I might have already done it so no point in ER as a moral guide anymore.

[Impenitent]

...
deja vu

-Imp

That's a thought. Bugger tho' as it means I might have already done it so no point in ER as a moral guide anymore.

Nietzsche had no use for free will

"What alone can our teaching be? – That no one gives a man his qualities, neither God, nor society, nor his parents and ancestors, nor he himself (the latter absurd idea here put aside has been taught as "intelligible freedom" by Kant, perhaps also by Plato). No one is responsible for existing at all, for being formed so and so, for being placed under those circumstances and in this environment. His own destiny cannot be disentangled from the destiny of all else in past and future. He is not the result of a special purpose, a will, or an aim, the attempt is not here made to reach an "ideal of man," an "ideal of happiness," or an "ideal of morality;" – it is absurd to try to shunt off man's nature towards some goal. We have invented the notion of a "goal:" in reality a goal is lacking . . . We are necessary, we are part of destiny, we belong to the whole, we exist in the whole, – there is nothing which could judge, measure, compare, or condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, and condemn the whole . . . But there is nothing outside the whole! – This only is the grand emancipation: that no one be made responsible any longer, that the mode of being be not traced back to a causa prima, that the world be not regarded as a unity, either as sensorium or as "spirit;" – it is only thereby that the innocence of becoming is again restored . . . The concept of "God" has hitherto been the greatest objection to existence . . . We deny God, we deny responsibility by denying God: it is only thereby that we save the world. –" Twilight of the idols (the four great errors- part

-Imp

[Lev Muishkin]

I agree with what you say about Nietzsche. The rest is just chatting.

...

Groundhog Day (the film) is the best explanation of the meaning of the ER.
...
The whole of the idea of ER can be encapsulated in a single idea: Live your life as if you did so with maximal knowledge. In the film Groundhog Day, Bill Murray lives a day again and again until he gets it right; flawless.

Not quite Nietzsche then as he gives you no second, third, ..., chances in his ER.

Nietzsche uses ER to demands that we do not live life, like a pathetic Christian as if it were some sort of rehearsal. There is no heaven, no reward in Nietzsche's world, and when we live it had better be done right, as if we had to face the day eternally, as if we had to endlessly repeat that life the same way. He asks simply would you live your life again repeating the same dumb mistakes again and again?
No you must live your life the best you can.
There is nothing more to the ER.

Thats how I read it, i.e. act as tho' you WILL be doing what you are going to do eternally so choose wisely and it gave me one of the biggest belly-laughs I've had in Philosophy when I got to it. I also admired how it was the counter-point to Kant's universal categorical imperative. But then I had the thought, 'But how do I know if I'm on the first time around?'.

I agree. But that is why I said "AS IF you had to live your day recurrently"

[Nibbana]

In terms of physics, yes we are all eternal. it's kinda like the cycle of water. we are just the forms of energy. energy always exists.

multiverse?

noun (plural multiverses)
- (philosophy) The world, considered as lacking in purpose, design, or predictability.
- (physics) The hypothetical group of all the possible universes in existence.
Our universe is a very small part of the multiverse.

I don't think multiverse is what you have said. you can do the shopping in UK and have sex with your lover in US.. at the same time? The concept of multiverse is not possible.

[Lev Muishkin]

In terms of physics, yes we are all eternal. it's kinda like the cycle of water. we are just the forms of energy. energy always exists.

multiverse?

noun (plural multiverses)
- (philosophy) The world, considered as lacking in purpose, design, or predictability.
- (physics) The hypothetical group of all the possible universes in existence.
Our universe is a very small part of the multiverse.

I don't think multiverse is what you have said. you can do the shopping in UK and have sex with your lover in US.. at the same time? The concept of multiverse is not possible.

No, "we" are not the atoms of which we are comprised. "we" are the unique physicalisation of the organisation of atoms in flux. When that structure stops, we end.

[Nibbana]

In terms of physics, yes we are all eternal. it's kinda like the cycle of water. we are just the forms of energy. energy always exists.

multiverse?

noun (plural multiverses)
- (philosophy) The world, considered as lacking in purpose, design, or predictability.
- (physics) The hypothetical group of all the possible universes in existence.
Our universe is a very small part of the multiverse.

I don't think multiverse is what you have said. you can do the shopping in UK and have sex with your lover in US.. at the same time? The concept of multiverse is not possible.

No, "we" are not the atoms of which we are comprised. "we" are the unique physicalisation of the organisation of atoms in flux. When that structure stops, we end.

Do you speak English? We are kinda structure or something? Please explain.

[Lev Muishkin]

In terms of physics, yes we are all eternal. it's kinda like the cycle of water. we are just the forms of energy. energy always exists.

multiverse?

noun (plural multiverses)
- (philosophy) The world, considered as lacking in purpose, design, or predictability.
- (physics) The hypothetical group of all the possible universes in existence.
Our universe is a very small part of the multiverse.

I don't think multiverse is what you have said. you can do the shopping in UK and have sex with your lover in US.. at the same time? The concept of multiverse is not possible.

No, "we" are not the atoms of which we are comprised. "we" are the unique physicalisation of the organisation of atoms in flux. When that structure stops, we end.

Do you speak English? We are kinda structure or something? Please explain.

The grammar is perfect, except the second 'we' ought to have a capital. My apologies.
You have the essence of the meaning.

What makes me is a unique and complex structure of matter. Not the atoms that form the structure.
Romeo and Juliet is not the Latin alphabet, but the order in which the letters of that alphabet are gathered. If you separate the words and letters - you just get a pile of nonsense.

Humans have the same atoms as a dog, a banana or a cat: mostly C, O, H, N, a little P and P, some Na and a few traces of other things.

We are not eternal, just because are atoms persist after our death. Death is the disorganisation of matter.

[Nibbana]

The grammar is perfect, except the second 'we' ought to have a capital. My apologies.
You have the essence of the meaning.

What makes me is a unique and complex structure of matter. Not the atoms that form the structure.
Romeo and Juliet is not the Latin alphabet, but the order in which the letters of that alphabet are gathered. If you separate the words and letters - you just get a pile of nonsense.

Humans have the same atoms as a dog, a banana or a cat: mostly C, O, H, N, a little P and P, some Na and a few traces of other things.

We are not eternal, just because are atoms persist after our death. Death is the disorganisation of matter.

No. We are eternal. It's against the law of conservation of energy if we are not.

Right, after death we are disorganized. Our forms of human change. But we still exist in the new forms of matter. New forms of energy. We as a matter or energy are immortal. Matter or energy never dies. It just changes its form.

New things are actually the new forms of old things. Old things are actually the new forms of new things.

For example, I bought a new chair. What is it? It's now the combination of old things, ie wood, nails, etc. After five years, that chair will change. It will be old, of course, new form.

[surreptitious57]

Human beings themselves are not eternal but the matter which they are composed of carries on existing
long after death as it is simply transferred from one state to another. It also existed long before birth as
well as it comes from dead stars many billions of years old without which there would be no life at all so
while you may not be that old the processes necessary to actually guarantee your existence however are

[Immanuel Can]

I agree. But that is why I said "AS IF you had to live your day recurrently"

Okay, but why? We won't relive any days, so doing that does not reflect a real concern; and if we say that imagining it functions merely as an heuristic device (a way of getting information fictively that we could not get from realism, rather like the "categorical imperative" of Kant) then what line of argument shows this to be an accurate or useful heuristic?

Did not Nietzsche himself claim the "superman" is he who gets "beyond good and evil," in the sense that those categories no longer determine his view of the world at all, and no longer limit what he does? So in his view, freedom consists not in discovering moral limits, but rather in learning to banish them altogether. So over and against Nietzsche, you need to say why this heuristic business of imagining reliving days should be allowed to limit our actions. Nietzsche would say that nothing should.

What's more, it's far from clear that imagining reliving a day would yield increasingly morally better outcomes of behaviour. How many people can think of opportunities when they could have done something questionable that they passed up to do, and if they had the chance they might well do it after all? Or take the Groundhog Day scenario itself: Bill Murray tries all sorts of nasty tricks on his successive days. And even in the final scene, as he's sweeping his new love down the road, he lies to her about wanting to buy a place in town, implying that maybe he's not completely reformed after all...

Is there a guarantee that thinking about many days would make us more moral rather than potentially less...or rather than having no discernible effect at all?

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

god I hope not. Though it doesn't really make a difference, because, in truth, all lives are equally horrible. Thus, the timeline itself must be destroyed, and all infinitely greater timelines. Removing the timeline, removing The All, that is, removing all forms of existence, erasing all things, forming the 1, is the only and Supreme Morality you need concern yourselves with.

[surreptitious57]

One cannot remove the timeline although one can become unaware of its existence. This shall
occur at the precise point when consciousness becomes non consciousness. An eternity of that
state shall then commence though one shall not actually be aware of it. Death is the final and
permanent destination and one free from all suffering so why are humans so afraid of it. None
were afraid of it before they were born so why be afraid of it before they die ? Makes no sense