I have real trouble responding to these threads when they get more than a page or two of responses in any way that fully addresses the original questions and includes the ongoing additions to the material....so I'm going to consolidate my thoughts on death a page or two at a time in segments that hit on the statements that my ideas are forming in response to....also there's no inclusion of textbook philosophy so....if my "terminology" isn't the accepted standard, it's because I haven't studied up on the academic application of it.
To the original ideas and inquiries - Death is the ending of life - which I specify as the ending of a form of reality in which that particular form can never return in the same state. Having just given a personal view on how i'd define "life" in a broad sense too - a form of reality that exhibits it's own unique state, I'll say that whether I think life is an emergent property of a body, dependent on that exact form and it's state. So the next issue starts to bring in some real complexity. I think that each specific life can never return and is forever gone.
But now we get tricky on the consciousness issue - while the scope of this question i think is simply address us humans who have the *intellect* to pursue reflection on these ideas thoroughly, already to limit consciousness just to us seems improper to me, and though I won't go on a total tangent on it now, I don't think I'm willing to accept the idea for the moment that other forms of higher life, say my dog, is not conscious. Perhaps not able to answer questions of a philosophical nature, but he is certainly aware of himself, of others, has a memory, a personality, feels things, makes decisions. Although of course he too is subject to that same death that comes to all life.
Ok, now the divergent ideas of the discussion get harder to summarize my response to. In a post in another thread last night, I responded to a question about nominalism vs realism, i won't dare to try and explain it all here, but it was my opinion that in the end, the goal of much philosophy - to find that which is real - discovers many things, but to me there is one single principle that reality in all it's forms is expressing. Some of my favorite words to use for it, although I rather think it's undefinable are life, energy, truth, consciousness...i'm sure everyone could think of one idea that they tend to gravitate towards. Either way, that moves onto surreptitousness's observation of the physics invovled in death, which leads to the thought that when we die our constituent parts are reclaimed by the rest of reality around us (atoms, molecules, the scientific process of our decomposition) and recycled back into it, or rather the sum of energy that made us the form we were - the life we were. In this specific example, our science knows the vessels this energy, the base of reality has taken, whatever we have decomposed into, wherever the winds, rivers, animals that consumed us went, and what happened to them and so on.
To the idea that all life is a manifestation of the same principle, if you think about it, though the singular form that life's energy was is now part of the greater energy of everything which is also life - the earth is alive, it breaths, it shakes, it has a rhythm, a pulse - perhaps IT isn't conscious in the way we usually define it, but I still consider it quite fully alive. Quite a few things said after that which is the experience of death or how it feels or even how we should feel about it. To me, it should be feared it is the simple process by which energy or life, forms into conscious single forms, undergoes a process of perception, both grows and decays from it, and then finally is recycled to be recombined in other forms.
I don't think anything about the ideas on the word "being" in that argument - not only do i not have the academic understand of how it's being used, in my line of thinking, it's rather irrelevant and somewhat sounds like semantics.
Oh god - page two of thread lol. First off Immanuel that's another post it sounds like semantics. Regardless of the proper use, i think James was referring to his feeling that "life" or "consciousness" is some that...manifests...in reality, in his case he meant that all the matter and energy that start as a fertilized egg and end as a conscious human are emerging from the substance of reality in a spontaneous way? (Is that close James?) Hmm, much better, the remainder of that page in this thought process again comes down to arguments on exact definitions and semantics (boy people who talk philosophy really like to nit pick each other's statements, don't they) I will say the word of "being" might be better thought of a specific instance of perception that emerges from reality.
Page three of thread - oh James, it seems we very much are alike in our thinking, as your whole first post confirmed it and had a couple ideas I just already did before I read it. Nice list by the way. Ummm, moving down past most till Bernard's last, since again, it's interpreting them not for the core concept but semantically, I'll say that maybe you're right Bernard, but then according to my thoughts here so far - we are all one being - and yet all our own....I have no problem with that outlook although I'm sure there's plenty who might not like that for an academic analysis...
Oh and a note - I'm sorry I have to respond to it all this way....I simply don't have the way of thinking to challenge each though as a single statement of fact or definition, I'm trying to express my interpretation of the core ideas i believe have truth value.
Page 4 - Jackles, i don't have the heart to bring the time issue into this, I'm musing on death for the moment - can do that in another post.
Ah good, thankfully to me as the thread goes on it again becomes more and more semantic arguments about specific words, statements, etc. You true philosophers can have the pleasure of that, I'm staying on my idea of death. (with any luck for the length of my response, a lot of the remaining pages will be the same i'm gonna start scanning them in 2s or so.
Next - I'll avoid semantics immanuel, but from my perspective "meaning" is a personal attitude or value i have toward something as in it's meaning toward me...although you are welcome to your two definitions as well. I will interpret yours the way you mean them if you allow me the same, but the next couple pages - what is the meaning of death I will express thusly. That life in one form, instance of perception, or other manifestation of reality continually forms, changes, dies, changes, and forms again.
Ok the next batch deal with subjective and objective reality - so far when i've said reality I refer to objective reality by which to me means the one ultimate truth...or energy...or so on...of existence and reality. From all the semantics and philosophical evolution i am familiar with so far, there is just one - reality. After that our job as philosophers should not be to try and overdefine or categorize it's parts, it's to understand all of them. (That's a quick tangent back to the nominal vs realism thought i had last night) As for delusion, Immanuel, I might say I think anyone's belief that they can identify, analyze, or know what's real better than anyone else is probably not wise - so i don't like to think of anyone as delusional....usually just stubborn, or unable to take focus off the parts of reality that they find more important and hence consider to be more real. We all can only be sure of knowing our subjective reality i suppose...objective reality exists, and we should use all our subjective perception to try and make sure the two are as near as possible.
OK, post post post, many more bantering about subjective vs objective, just gave my thoughts on that...quick post from James, i agree "meaning" for an individual is a personal idea. Even the meaning of words that are supposed to be meanings can sometimes mean something different to different people. Indeed the "meaning" of a lot of particular words in this thread, seem to mean something differnent to a lot of people. A few notable ideas: Immanuel, "life" to me is NOT contingent, since i consider life and reality to be essentially the same, for me your disagreement of it rest on a different concept of life. Like all else in reality its energy in motion constantly reforming that just takes specific forms for a time. Or rather "life" and "a life" do not mean the same thing. Indeed all meaning is necesarily in life to me, because all things share in the same ultimate truth...reality...energy...how often i say it...it is just manifesting itself to our perceptions in unique ways. I'll add as conscious beings we get to "believe" in whatever meanings we want wherever we want them to be.
Page 10 - Ah Bernard some of the humility thankfully. Most of the semantic bantering - borderline bickering at times
- comes from people not allowing other conscious perspectives to actually have their own perspective i think. I'm sure a lot of what I've said could be absolutely eviscerated to what some would call "true" philosophers and academic philosophy but i also am not that worried about it.
Quirk i'm not even gonna try and turn you're expressions into anything i want to resummarize but they have been quite entertaining and clever - i'd say insightful, but that's just me
there's just no format my brain has for translating it into my own ideas
Ok, almost done, i'm not bringing religion or my interpretation of a video onto this thought stream...although i could point out to Immanuel that when Bernard makes the link between christ and buddha he means that religions generally attribute "life" or "reality" which they express with things like "Christ" or "Buddha", but again we are all just talking about the underlying principle of existence. A little way further i've largely passed the religious bent on the thread, but you do say we are copies of the original - i'd say all things share in the original...back to the idea of one. For me i keep it a generalized idea.
Oh good, moving on the religion tangent consumed it, I tried to stick with anything directly referencing "The meaning of death (and hence life)" I even tried to keep it concise but well most of the primary ideas of it are in the beginning...the rest wow - is the few tidbits i pulled out of quite a bit of...willful misinterpretation of others ideas or expressions. Or rather each individuals perspective inability to see the others.
In summary, everything shares is one reality or existence....your personal consciousness can define it in anyway or number of ways it wants according to its perception in this instance of "being" (there now i'll use it). My favorite words that most closely refer to the ultimate truth, or the original form...whatever u like...are life, energy, truth, consciousness, or really any of the concepts that are shared by everything.
Life is the manifestation of this energy as a single form. Death is when that manifestion ends and it's energy mingles with the whole and reforms in another way. So for me an individual death also does mean the ending of a particular expression of consciousness, so please, lets all use the best of our forms while we have them for when our energy reforms it could be as anything or indeed any number of things, infinitely continuing in a cycle. Wow, i wonder if anyone will actually read this whole thing...but James asked