Conceiving Of Death.
What I'm really interested in and what I guess is germane to many philosophical issues via ontology is the (in)conceivability of nonexistence, an euphemism, I realized only now, for death.
Can we, has anyone, conceived of nonexistence/death?
I recall an interview in which Sam Harris (atheist, author, neuroscientist) claims that to believe nonexistence (I mean death) is unthinkable is, as he put it, "...for a lack of trying..." He explains: there are people in Paris, his choice of city, who don't know you exist; in other words, you don't exist as far as Parisians are concerned. That, according to Sam Harrris, is to give you a glimpse of what nonexistence is!
I'm inclined to agree because I too once, many many suns ago, contemplated on death and the way I did it matches Sam Harris' technique. First I imagined the house that I was in, the trees outside, the vehicles on the road and pedestrians on the sidewalk , I tried to put everything I could recall about my neighborhood in a mental picture, everything except myself. That was nonexistence/death to me. I felt a unsettling coldness in my heart but this isn't important. What is is the fact that nonexistence can be conceived of (in this way).
However, this technique of thinking about death/nonexistence has a disturbing and yet interesting implication. We're dead or more to the point I am dead/nonexistent to Parisians!
I'm (as good as) dead! I (practically) don't exist! In Paris that is.
TPF: We're sorry to announce that TheMadFool, a member of the forum for 5 years, has passed away after a long battle with reason and knowledge. :joke:
Parisian: :meh:
A bitcoin for your thoughts...
Can we, has anyone, conceived of nonexistence/death?
I recall an interview in which Sam Harris (atheist, author, neuroscientist) claims that to believe nonexistence (I mean death) is unthinkable is, as he put it, "...for a lack of trying..." He explains: there are people in Paris, his choice of city, who don't know you exist; in other words, you don't exist as far as Parisians are concerned. That, according to Sam Harrris, is to give you a glimpse of what nonexistence is!
I'm inclined to agree because I too once, many many suns ago, contemplated on death and the way I did it matches Sam Harris' technique. First I imagined the house that I was in, the trees outside, the vehicles on the road and pedestrians on the sidewalk , I tried to put everything I could recall about my neighborhood in a mental picture, everything except myself. That was nonexistence/death to me. I felt a unsettling coldness in my heart but this isn't important. What is is the fact that nonexistence can be conceived of (in this way).
However, this technique of thinking about death/nonexistence has a disturbing and yet interesting implication. We're dead or more to the point I am dead/nonexistent to Parisians!
I'm (as good as) dead! I (practically) don't exist! In Paris that is.
TPF: We're sorry to announce that TheMadFool, a member of the forum for 5 years, has passed away after a long battle with reason and knowledge. :joke:
Parisian: :meh:
A bitcoin for your thoughts...
Comments (134)
Forgetting.
Thinking 'the contingency of thinking' (Brassier).
These are as much as I can conceive of nonexistence.
Is it not self contradiction to say one can be conscious on one's unconsciousness?
I feel that death is only significant to the one who is facing one, or had lived and died. It is a personal historical event only meaningful the dead himself. Parisians not knowing the dying, or anyone living and existing has no philosophical significance whatsoever in one's death or existence or non existence.
Indeed, we can imagine ourselves unconscious, even as a rotting, stinkbomb of a corpse as recommended by certain Tibetan Buddhists.
Quoting 180 Proof
Bingo! One can't remember anything before you existed and being unable to recall parts of one's life is in that sense just another way death makes itself known to us.
Quoting 180 Proof
I'd like some details on that if you don't mind. What I feel is being alluded to is the fact that thinking, what we feel is an integral part of existence, is contingent - it needn't have to be.
Quoting Corvus
See my reply to 180 Proof above. However, as I recall now, forgetting = not recording. I hope you catch my drift.
Imagining own death seem just imagining only which has no real significance again in one's real life apart from having some nightmares? :) Suppose one can imagine anything. I feel death is something one cannot experience directly until it comes to oneself. But when it does, one is no longer around in the world, so cannot know about it. But sure, one can imagine it in the boundary of one's imagination only.
@180 Proof (only if interested)
Quoting TheMadFool
The quote is from another thread but is relevant to the discussion.
The mind (imagination) is capable of only grasping at the shadow of death/nonexistence, a few of them appear in 180 Proof's post and one in the OP.
Sure. I feel that it is impossible to conceive realistically one's own death before one's death. Because even one can imagine one's own death, the imagination is happening in one's mind which is live and active. One can think about one's death, but it is then totally different mental activity. An interesting topic.
I think that there are various aspects involved in contemplating our death and one aspect is imagining the world without our existence in it. This would include the potential effects that our death will have on significant others, as well as the significant of our non existence will have in the world. However, I do believe that you are thinking more about non existence from a subjective point of consciousness.
I believe that it is possible that the encounter with our non existence through death may vary from person to person. Here, I am suggesting that the transition to death may involve varying states, some more gradual than others, with some people being more conscious that death is being encountered than others. Perhaps, some people fade into unconscious gradually through dreamless sleep.
On the other hand, there is the near death experiences phenomena. Even if these don't necessarily point to immortality itself, they may represent a transitional state of consciousness, and we don't know how they continue in the process of dying because the people who are in the position of describing them returned to life. This leads me to think that the encounter with death represents an 'unknown' experience, and I think that this is conveyed symbolically by Hindu mystics, who speak of, 'Atman' merging with' Brahman'. In other words, self consciousness, or death of the ego may occur, while our bodies return to dust, as an aspect of the recycling of matter.
Yes. When something is dead it no longer alive and from a qualitative outlook of being in the world and seeing death, beings that have decomposed and personalities that have disappeared, we understand what is generally understood with relation to these deathly experiences. :P
Deep sleep is just like death because death is presumably just the absence of the 1st person view (zero qualia). Since time only passes for the living, you'll be awake far too soon after your dead... but it won't be you because you will have died. You'll be something, either Jane or John Doe, or something very weird but natural.
Edit: The metaphorical/mythic me wants to conceive of the "birth of death" as the act of bringing death(from life) into the world, the cloaked figure fond of drinking coffee, waiting to meet you at the right time and right moment with an accident or a mutually planned meeting.
The white cloaked figure, counterpart, refractable into any color of the rainbow, is getting you into non-fatal life accidents.
There are people in Paris observing the Eiffel tower, who are not observing the computer monitor you are observing; in other words, your computer monitor doesn't exist as far as Parisians are concerned.
And so presumably according to Sam Harris, he has given you a glimpse as to what the non-existence of your monitor is.
Firstly, it seems rather hard to believe that the mind can conceive of actual death (no mind). The mind hasn't/can't experience death because once death occurs, the mind winks out of existence. It's kinda like asking a man what labor pain feels like.
Secondly, but, it could be said, that's precisely what death is. @180 Proof mentioned forgetting as a good way of thinking about mortality. I'm going out on a limb and say that at some level, remembering = conceiving. If so, not remembering/conceiving anything (death) is equivalent to remembering/conceiving nothing. Meno's paradox!
:chin:
Quoting Jack Cummins
A very fascinating take on death - dreamless sleep. This particular way of viewing death is, if I may say so, mind death but Sam Harris' and my way of looking at morte is body death. I suppose this distinction is vital to our general approach to Thanatos. It'a unclear to me how?
Quoting Nils Loc
See my reply to Jack Cummins.
To All
We can conceive of body death. Just imagine yourself as a decaying corpse in a coffin 6 feet underground with a headstone jutting out of the earth. We can also try Sam Harris' what's wrong with this picture? (the nonexistent/dead you is missing) technique.
We can't concieve of mind death. What is it that we can think of as absent from a given mental image of the world? what is it that can be lying in a grave? What is it that mind can say with an acceptable level of confidence is missing/ended/extinguished upon death. The body? No! Then what?
Quoting sime
:ok:
Don't you mean we can't experience mind death (ie. the absence of a mind). We can conceive of "mind death" as the absence of a mind, if we infer that a mind exists to begin with. But we sleep and sleep is always bracketed by what isn't sleep/unconsciousness (the qualia horrorshow).
Quoting TheMadFool
Quoting unenlightened
A salient point I must admit. For my money, language was not designed as much for cogitation than it was for communication. Thus there are some experiences that can only be conveyed via metaphor. Put simply, the set of experiences humans are capable exceeds the set of words that language us. Wittgenstein may be relevant but I don't know enough to comment any more than I already have.
Quoting Nils Loc
Yep but that was my point. Since the mind can't experience death, it can't conceive of death.
So also, your mind cannot conceive of dreamless sleep. :P (Our use of language is annoying.)
This is a bit silly. I cannot experience tomorrow, I cannot experience what is over the horizon, I cannot experience what is in the next room. Most of what we talk about is what we cannot or do not experience. "Conceiving is what we do instead of experiencing.
My bad! I wasn't clear enough but, in my defense, you're being a tad silly too. Imagining the future , what lies over the horizon, what's in the next room, etc. are conceivable only in terms of past & present actual experiences. Death, on thep other hand, can't be conceived because there's no experience (past/present) we can draw from to make that possible.
Quoting sime
Excelente!
Dementia is basically forgetfullness taken to extremes. Your memories are being erased in ways and degrees classifiable as an illness. It reminds me of the statement, "I wasn't born yesterday, you know!"
What a sheltered life you lead! Have you never killed, or come across a corpse, or watched a dying? And to pre-empt the most obvious response, one gets the idea of oneself from seeing other people; if there were no others, one would not be able to imagine otherness, and one would be the world. The ideas of life and death both arise from experience of (m)others.
Quoting TheMadFool
These deeds (kill), these objects (corpse), these events (dying) are, to my knowledge, merely surrogates of nonexistence/death. They aren't the real McCoy so to speak. They're, as I attempted to put up for discussion, merely shadows (Plato's cave analogy & 3D projections of 4D objects like the tesseract) of nonexistence/death - they're ultimately the mind trying hard to conceive of the inconceivable, here death!
Set all of the above aside for the moment. All I ask of you is to present here for our benefit a lucid & vivid description of, not body death (easy problem of death), but of mind death (hard problem of death). If I'm in anywhere close to the truth, the words "DOES NOT COMPUTE!" should make sense to you. In other words, expect your mind to crash like a computer and that, ironically, is as close to an experience of actual death as possible.
That's one of the nearest observation towers if you wanna take a look at Hades!
I've frequently pointed out that I see no good reason to think the "time after" life ceases will be different than the "time before" life began. I was nothing and will be nothing, same state.
So the best I can do is extrapolate to the very earliest memories I have, probably the first time I remember having a conscious perception of a building. When I try to go back and think about it, try to focus on anything before, I find that no single attribute I can make about existence applies.
I suppose that if you've ever had the experience of being black-out drunk, might be similar to the state before birth.
But for some reason, I'd like to know why, this suggestion is not thought about as frequently as I think it should...
Sounds reasonable and also extremely intriguing. @Wayfarer Zen koans (oh! I hope I don't sound like a broken record) are supposed to force us into the Mu mind state (conscious without being conscious of anything) which I consider a thoughtless state much like how we were before we were born and how we'll be, as per your statement, after we die ("...same state...").
[quote=Wikipedia]What did your face look like before your parents were born?[/quote]
Zen Buddhists seem to have a developed a taste for extremes - the Koan could've asked, "what did your face look like before you were born?" but no, that was just too mild for Chinese & Japanese Zen masters - carpe jugulum, make the Koan such that it causes maximum confusion and so, "what did your face look like before your parents were born?" :lol:
This is on point I hope.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Quoting Corvus
Quoting unenlightened
Dying can be experienced and thus conceived. Sorry for failing to notice this earlier - I'm not the sharpesr knife in the drawer I'm afraid.
Quoting TheMadFool
:broken: :fear: :death:
The reason we find nothing problematic - I think - is because we are knowledgeable creatures as a matter of our constitution. We can categorize, make sense of, measure, compare, contemplate, appreciate, contextualize, discern, wonder about, etc. We just can't help it.
So imagining a "state" in which we can do none of these things at all goes against our nature (while being awake, at least), hence the agony.
But there is a silver lining. While we are afraid of death, I think that if we try to apply fear, worry, anxiety, pain and all the bad things in life to the "state before" birth, none apply. Not even boredom. How bored were you before you were born? Huh?
So we miss out on the good, but we skip the bad. I think there are much worse conditions in this life than not feeling anything.
Quoting TheMadFool
Like a physical field or a particle, I'd guess. Nothing too exciting. :wink:
I fear I may have stepped on @Wayfarer's toe here. Uh-oh.
I think that the truth of the matter is that we don't know what 'near death experiences' signify. We don't know how widespread they are. I think that the main difficulty in interpreting them is the fact that the people who had them did not die. But, even if they are just a result of oxygen deprivation, they may be an important aspect of the experience of dying. I think that there are epistemological problems with knowing about the actual moment of death as the ultimate end because none of us have really died, including Sam Harris.
I have a feeling you're on the right track. I see a vicious cycle forming even as I write this. Extreme suffering is another path to achieving the Mu state:
1. I'm in agony, thus I can't think.
2. I can't think, thus I'm in agony
Thus, the two are what I'd like to call a deadly duo - a positive feedback loop that spirals out of control and before you realize what's happened, you're in thick soup! :chin:
Quoting Manuel
Most interesting! So, if the vicious cycle I spoke of above is true, we were all in hell :fear: :grimace: (before we were born) and we're all going back to hell (after we die). I wonder what antinatalists have to say about this?! @schopenhauer1
Quoting Jack Cummins
I'm a chain smoker, depriving myself of oxygen is a regular feature in my life!
The Unthinking-Suffering Equivalence
1. If in pain, not thinking (too painful to think)
2. If not thinking, in pain (people dislike being called a fool)
Ergo,
3. Pain = Not thinking (1, 2 logical equivalence)
Ergo,
4. Maximum pain (hell) = Thinking impossible (pesudo-nonexistence)
Ergo,
5. If we were/are capable of thinking but we didn't (before birth and after death), it could be said that we were in hell (before birth) and we'll go back to hell (after death).
Thanatos is the one true religion and Algea is his prophet!
In that case, did you mean that you conceive non existence via unconsciousness and forgetting?
I am not sure if non existence is ever conceivable. Moreover I wonder if unconsciousness and forgetting state of minds are able to conceive anything.
Quoting Corvus
Yes. Lapses or gaps in my memory inform my conceptions of my own nonexistence.
Not when one is nonexistent. One exists and glimpses nonexistence – we sleep one-third of our lives, we forget much (even forget that we've forgotten), we experience everything changing as things known and unknown cease to exist, and, also, encounter histories of times before one was born, even before h. sapiens or life itself existed. Conceivable signs or indicators, though not themselves experiences, of nonexistence.
Memory is always memory about objects or situations or others which are different from the owner of the memories. Forgetting and having gaps in between memories cannot glimpse one's own non-existence.
Quoting 180 Proof
Hume even said "One cannot find one's own ideas of self', because what one ever perceives is just a bundle of perceptions of the external objects.
Another problem is that, non existence is vague. How can one conceive non-existence when nothing is present?
For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.
But he refers to himself many times, while denying its existence.
At the same time, one's conception is distorted when one applies knowledge to non-existence, which has no knowledge. But we an idea of it in dreamless sleep, or thinking about non-existence before birth. It's vague, but we have it.
On the contrary. A gap in memories (i.e. forgetting) or in an object like a donut hole, thus conceivable and, as a conception, memorable.
Good job! Hume's 'bundle theory' conceives of the non-self, or nonexistence of ourselves as selves. I'll add that to my list.
Apparently, just as one conceives of future events, numbers, vagueness or holes.
When you say that, 'If we were incapable of thinking but we were didn't (before birth and after death) it could be said that we were in hell( before birth) and we will go back to hell (after death)' you are suggesting that non existence as a form of to be dreaded. This is a common attitude to death in Western culture. I think that death and non existence is seen very differently in Eastern traditions.
Even though Hinduism and Buddhism often indicate possible journeys to other dimensions, such as those described in, 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead' and future rebirths, there is still a certain emphasis upon breaking free from the cycle of rebirth and potential Nirvana. Whether the idea of Nirvana is seen as non existence ultimately is something which I am not certain about from my reading of such ideas, but, nevertheless it does point to the end of existence as we know it. I think it definitely points to the end of the existence of ego consciousness and the thinking mind, but this is not viewed as something to be dreaded.
If I understand that correctly, it is exactly wrong; the opposite of what is the case. Being dead is not something you will live through or experience, not part of your life; so it can have no significance for you. It's significance is in those left behind. It is not meaningful to the dead.
But I must have misunderstood you; I can't see how you could get this so wrong.
You have a point. I'm particularly interested in counterfactuals - thinking of possibilities (what can be) instead of factuals (what is). Thus, the mind, in principle, should be able to ponder death/nonexistence (a counterfactual). Sam Harris' method as outlined in the OP is just that.
Yet, I have this nagging doubt regarding whether or not "One can think of oneself not thinking..." Allow me to explain. To contemplate death/nonexistence, one has to have some idea of what not thinking is like but that's impossible because one has to simultaneously be not thinking and thinking - not thinking so that we may assume the mind state of death/nonexistence and thinking to get a feel of what it's like to be not thinking - and that's a contradiction!
This may seem like a total loss but no, it isn't because in line with the purpose of Zen koans - make the mind "crash", make it unable to process what we demand of it, make it stop cogitating - the aforementioned contradiction is just what the doctor ordered. It's like being sucker punched in the face by late boxing legend Muhammad Ali - your mind experiences an acute crisis and is unable to process the input (Ali's punch = the contradiction) and for a brief moment the mind or the brain if you like hangs like a computer subjected to information overload. Put differently, thinking grinds to a halt and that's what death/nonexistence (cessation of consciousness/thinking is (like)! Mushin no shin (mind without mind)!
It must be noted though that Zen doesn't seem to view the mushin no shin state of mind as death/nonexistence - it's actually something else and my hunch is it's the Chinese & Japanese conceptualization of nirvana/bodhi.
This squares with the patriarch Gautama Buddha's view that life is suffering or, rephrased for logical clarity, if you're alive then you suffer. Naturally then, taking the contrapositive, if you don't (want to) suffer then you're (you need to be) dead/nonexistent. Thus, to end your suffering, you need to not exist which is just another way of saying you need to stop thinking. Zen koans are designed to do just that - make you stop thinking.
As you might've already noticed this leads to a paradox: Life is suffering as per the Buddha and Zen buddhism recommends that to end suffering one needs to turn off the mind but as I said :point:
Quoting TheMadFool
suffering itself turns off the mind! Put simply, suffering switches off the mind and Zen buddhism's solution (nirvana) is to switch off the mind. That's like saying the best way to handle an accident that caused the lights to go off is to switch off the lights?! It's already off!!
That means, those in hell, completely unable to have even a single thought, overwhelmed as they are by the most excruciating torture, are enlightened beings, bona fide buddhas! What then do we make of buddhahood advertized as a total, eternal bliss?
:confused: Oh well!
Hey, 180 Proof! Oh, it's no use! He's too far ahead. Let's hope he takes a break and maybe then we can catch up with faer! :rofl:
Hume's comment on the idea of self was while he was living and conscious. He clearly denies its existence. But even without the knowledge, what he seems saying is, one can feel its own existence without its ideas. But if you asked Hume, if one can conceive one's non-existence, I am sure he would have said "No".
Quoting Manuel
Would it be an imagination of non-existence before one's birth? It is not the same concept or mental activity as conceiving. Having an idea of it during dreamless sleep? Not sure on that, as I have never experienced it by myself. When I am asleep, I cannot even conceive my own existence. I might see myself in the dreams, but then I appear as some 3rd party other person many times. Even when I am myself in the dreams, I just see other objects or people, but never my own self. But non-existence in dreamless sleep? I cannot even imagine what it is.
This is interesting. I will try to find some relevant reading material for the point, and will get back to you when / if I can find some idea of significance on it.
You should read some Heidegger :D It sounds like you are talking about death from emotional and sentimental point of view. Here we are discussing death from the stone-cold metaphysical and logical point of view :)
Cannot find any philosophical articles or information on "conception under gap in memories or forgetfulness". There are some articles from psychological researches on the memory loss and forgetfulness, but all seems related to some illness or abnormal symptoms in clinical level from ageing or causation by drugs.
He is an interesting philosopher of language. But outside of the linguistic topics, he has his limitations. The universe and its content are far more than any language can grasp.
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must reason, analyse, and break his silence.
The reason why I went and searched for articles or information on the topic was, that it didn't make sense to me no matter how I tried to think or imagine. You cannot just make up some statements from your imagination or gut feeling, write them out, and expect others to accept your creations in philosophical discussions.
All your statements must be backed by the universal reason to some degree. Otherwise, whatever you utter becomes a pile of poetry or fiction.
It sounds like you are trying force down something analogous to your religious beliefs (faith) or intuition to others throat. It is not going to work.
Sure.
Think about it. Memory is a mental activity which retrieves what had been stored in the past in the depth of mind. But without ever having experienced non-existence directly as a living being, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with memory or gap between memories, hence suggesting any type of analogy between the two (memory, forgetfulness, and non-existence) is simply nonsense.
Sure. The best you can do is have a vague feeling or sensation just prior to going to sleep and as soon as one wakes up. In the non-dreamless sleep or before non-existence, there is nothing to say. It's only in experience that we can look back on these things and comment on them.
But If I tell you that right now, thinking about dreamless sleep or the time "before my birth", I have a vague sensation of what it is. My sensation would not be the same as non-existence, of course, there is no sensation in non-existence. But I have an inkling of what that would be. I don't see a contradiction in this.
Sure. I am not saying you cannot have your own intuition or inklings on your own non-existence. Of course you can, supported by your own imagination too.
But what I am concerned about was, that if you say that you can conceive your own non-existence, be it before birth or after death, then I think there is some contradiction there. Because to conceive something means that you take something into your mind, and form a correct notion of. Now that is too far-fetched an assertion no matter what analogy you bring in with the motivation of trying justify that.
I thought we have been discussing about conceiving one's own non-existence. What donut hole are you meaning? Why do you want to conceive a donut hole?
My definition of "to conceive" is not my own semantics, but it is the standard definition from the English Dictionary and Etymology. You are trying to distort the facts.
Sure. I only speak of an intuition or vague idea, but nothing beyond that.
Fair enough. I don't see any contradiction with that at all.
I wonder how Cotard delusion patients make sense of the contradiction inherent in their condition.
Last I checked the logic of the aforementioned delusion goes like this:
1. Impossible/improbable that any person could've survived such a horrible accident (this delusion is allegedly more common among accident survivors)
Ergo,
2. I (the sole survivor) must be dead/can't be alive!
Ergo,
3. I am dead! (Cotard delusion)
It's not a contradiction if they are in the afterlife. :P
Afterlife adjustment issues, eh?! :smile:
From personal experience, it takes some getting used to, myself being a patient of Cotard delusion! :lol:
Did he ever say anything about death?
"6.4311 Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through." - T.
It's impossible to conceive of death, nothingness, or unconsciousness. The mind tends to visualize them as total blackness or total whiteness. Neither of which are them.
I see. For me, it's like :point:
Agreed. This is one of the most important debates inside philosophy. Not having awareness after death is an issue that even scares me a bit. How unfair it seems that after a life where you read and study a lot of things, then disappear in The cosmos... probably this is why is so worthy do a lot of things before death.
Another interesting fact is the wish of many people of “becoming” a tree afterwards. Their bodies are buried in a field with a seed and then, a pretty tree born in it. It is a beautiful act really.
:up: completely. I also think that is a pretty beautiful way of thinking.
and Philosophy is the coolest subject in the universe. :)
Of course it is! :100: this is why I always respect Philosophy teachers and PhD’s a lot. They expend a lot of time teaching to us the right path to learn and read philosophy.
Assuredly there are ways of conceiving death, many have offered their own methods and I'm grateful.
Nevertheless, the mind fails to conceive death proper.
What else can the mind not conceive of?
Answer: Impossibilities like square circles and the like, contradictions to be precise.
So, is death impossible? Are we immortal?
@Wayfarer :point: Zen koans as meditations on death.
You just used "impossibilities" and "contradictions" in a sentence. Thus, Fool, they're conceived.
:chin: You're right but not completely. The words "impossible" and "contradiction" are different from the words "possible" and "noncontradiction."
When I think about possible and noncontradiction, I can imagine them in my mind e.g. an eagle soaring in the sky (possible) and a pig rolling in the mud while a goat bleats nearby (noncontradiction).
Yet, when I mull over impossibilities and contradictions, I can't imagine them. A square circle (impossible, can't imagine). A ball that's both all white and not all white (contradiction, can't imagine).
All the impossible objects that appear in this pair of videos aren't actual i.e. they are, in Roger Penrose's own words, "illusions". Nevertheless, kudos to Penrose and artists, M. C. Escher being one, for letting us a take a peek into the world of the impossible through their work. It's about perspective is what I gathered from the videos.
I want to run something by you though. Did you notice that the impossible objects e.g. the weird Penrose triangle and the ascending-descending staircase (the way up is also the way down :chin: ) can be drawn in 2D but are impossible to construct in 3D? What does that mean? Taking away a dimension, to my reckoning, removes a restriction and that's why a 2D flat plane can hold an impossible 3D object. Paradox that, no? Most people's intuitions would tell them that increasing the number of dimensions of space should translate into more objects being possible, the added dimension providing an extra degree of freedom.
Thanks a ton for the videos. G'day!
P. S. How might I use the same technique as Roger Penrose (perspective) to conceive of Thanatos?
It's not death we should fear but the pain that might come before.
~Montaigne, "To Philosophize is to Learn how to Die"
Could you explain it? Does the pen suppose to have mind to perceive anything?
We have no need to worry about our non-existence, because the personified process of dying and death takes care of everything for us. It's a free service, though various agencies try to collect as much as possible before The End, when we cease forever to produce revenue.
Granted, at times death seems to provide moderately interesting subject matter, but it's always a dead end, so to speak.
As Emily wrote
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
Emily was sure that the horses pulling the carriage in which she and Death rode were headed for eternity. Paradise? Well, she didn't say that, and she could have if she had wanted to. However, Immortality was a third passenger. I don't expect immortality to be in my carriage ride with Death. You can think so if you want -- it won't make any difference, either way, Just my opinion.
Not exactly, the pen can be used to draw its own end (broken). Take it one step further, take a pen, press its nib on a piece of blank paper and that's it!
Quoting Bitter Crank
That's another way of visualizing/imagining death - motionless inside a coffin in a hearse headed for the cemetery. The eastern version would be the body alight, blazing, on a funeral pyre. Yet these are still not what death is really like. One has to think about not thinking, death being defined as the cessation of all thought. To think about not thinking (death), one has to think (about not thinking) and not think (in order that not thinking can be thought about), impossible!
Interestingly, we can...not think about thinking i.e. switch off metacognition. In easier to understand words, we can stop thinking about thinking. Most people, 90% of the time, are not engaged in metacognitive cogitation i.e. self-awareness is, on most occasions, absent.
Our rather complicated and pathetic relationship with mortality is centered on self-awareness (metacognition) - we feel there's something, a self, an I, that perishes permanently, for all time to come, when we die - and yet self-awareness can be turned off, is missing for 90% of our thinking lives. Thus, in a sense, we can conceive of death, ego death I suppose, by deliberately refusing to undertake metacognitive tasks i.e. stop thinking about oneself. One less thing to worry about I suppose.
... a stone aged human imagining herself on the Moon looking back at the Earth. Death is the ur-counterfactual; the reflection on a mirror darkly from nowhere; an unwanted epiphany of utter oblivion by which every meta-cognitive entity ineluctably calls into question 'being a self'. :death: :flower:
Yet, many times people have looked into the mirror and only seen a stranger eye back at them! Would you care what happens to strangers?
A rhesus monkey looks at a perfect hi-fi image of itself when it looks into a mirror but for the monkey, the image is another rhesus monkey, a stranger.
The image in the mirror, a good mirror, is perfect - every scar, every beauty spot, every thing, is exactly where it's supposed to be - and yet one, humans, recognizes it as self and one, monkeys, see it as an other.
Reminds me of reincarnation. If you've had another face, another body, in another life, the image you see in the mirror won't match the image of yourself you have in your head. You will then fail to identify with your own reflection. Do animals reincarnate? A viable hypothesis for failing the mirror test and its analogs. The person in the mirror is a stranger and yet...not!
:chin: Hmmmmm.
Why he regrets nothing except life itself? Was his life that bad to him? Is there an incarnation after dead? Death is not scary. Or is it? Why? Because one does not know what comes behind? Can an atheist have fear of death? Of the eternal dark? Why doubting a reincarnation or eternal glory and immersion in the divine unity of the duality of the trinity? Why an atheist says that there is no reincarnation?
Sorry couldn't quite make link between the pen drawing its own end, and a living being conceiving its' own death. :)
People try to remember the dead. I often wondered, why not remember the living, but the dead?
Everybody loves you when you're dead! The wreathes are laid by the ones who didnt love you though... What I mean is, knowing that you die must make you act. To love is to act, Victor Hugo said.
One must die to be loved? :roll: :chin:
Not necessarily. But the very fact of dying hurries love. Though you cant hurry love. If I was to live forever for sure I would kill myself one day!
Living forever means that you come back to life even if you killed yourself. So you can't kill yourself. If you can, you were not to live forever. :D
Sharp as ever! I have to think about that one!
Prishon say Corvus nice guy. Prishon wanna...PRIIIISHON! AGAIN, SHUT THE F. UP!
:smile:
I have a saying I came to from sad experience: treat each person the way you will wish you had when they are gone,
There seems to be no way out of my false statement! :smile:
Damned! I gotta slow down! I have posted almost 900 comments in 10 days...
Prishon say good essersise. Prishon wanna go for 1000! Pri... PRISHOOOON....!
Merci Arigato ~ :cool:
Quando sarebbe un magico ti fosse fatto un bel grande gelato. E una favola! :starstruck:
Is it pizza time already? I always imagine you sitting in an office, doing philosophy while working...
There's nothing to it. A pen can be used to draw itself when its whole and in fine condition - it can, in a sense, form a picture of itself "alive". What's death to a pen? When it's broken, no longer able to write, leaking, in pieces. That too a pen can draw i.e. again, only in a sense, a pen can picture itself dead. To push this ability of a pen to its zenith, we take the pen, place its nib on a blank sheet of paper, and...do nothing. There's nothing to draw and that's why we can't conceive of our individual extinction, there's literally nothing that can be meditated upon.
It shows you that the posts we write here convey meanings, and also emotions which evoke the readers' imaginations. :smirk:
Thanks. We had nicely baked bread, meat and soup. :yum: Hope you had a great lunch.
But then, no one alive has ever been dead. How do you know it, without ever having been dead?
Sounds good! We had (have) bread for lunch. With fresh peanut butter. Fatty and juicy. With good, eeeehh, non-saturated fats? Our dog waggles her tail to you! :razz:
Prishon says th... NO PRISHON! SIT!
Indeed! :grin:
Strange... I partook in a discourse about the brain, consciousness, the self (where, who and what they are) and all that kinda stuff, and you say about all there is to it in this one sentence above...
Good question but pay attention to the analogy - how would you conceive of a "dead" pen? What happens to a pen that has reached its end-of-life? It no longer exists, no? That can't be drawn and thus the blank page.
I dropped the pen from the analogy, as not working very well for me.
But picking it up again, looking at it, it depends what type of pen it is. If it were a gold pen, I would still keep it, for the gold. Gold never dies, whatever it is made to. If humans were made with gold, they would be immortal I am sure. And perhaps that is the reason why gold is bloody expensive. Well the recent price is of gold, is it still climbing or falling?
If it is a nice parker pen, then I would replace the ink cartridge, and keep using it - voila, pens resurrect as long as you give them a new cartridge.
If it is a cheap & nasty pen, then ok, it will be thrown into the bin. There will be no remembrance ceremony, no funerals, it will make its journey to the universe. I am still not sure if the pen would know that he is dead, or alive still. I don't know either.
You can look right through me it seems... Im a quite emotional guy and sometimes I indeed feel the tears pressing. Be they of a good vibe (with you), a bad vibe (not so good in some situations), or tears of pure boredom! :cry:
Whats the thing with a pencil? The death of a pencil? Huh?
Emotion is very much connected to the fear of death. If there were no emotions at all, then there would be no fear of death. I think because of the emotion and knowledge of possibility and certainty of death mixed together, people think and worry about death at some point in their life.
Material objects such as pens would not feel any fear of death, because they don't have emotions and don't have any knowledge or perception of death, even if they were to die. For them death would be just recycle process, I would guess.
I think you need to find out, if the pencil was alive first place. :roll:
Haha! The reincarnation of a pencil. The reingraphitation of pencil. A short story... :grin:
There are two ways we conceive of things:
1. Imagination: Past experience plays a role only to the extent it provides some basic material e.g. one has experience of a horn and a horse and these together we imagine a unicorn. We should be able to conceive of nonexistence/death; after all, imagination is, essentially, a tool that extends beyond the realm of the known. Read below and come back to this after that.
2. Memory: Past experience is of significant value. One has experienced a dog and thus one can conceive of a dog. Now, there are times when someone informs you of a shared experience but you doesn't recall it but that's the same as you never having had that experience. Insofar as you failing to conceive of that experience with respect to your inability to recall it is concerned, you could consider yourself as nonexistent. In other words, you not having any memory of event X = you being nonexistent in re event X. They're the same thing.
Thus, to forget is equivalent to nonexistence. In that sense, every time our memory fails, we come face to face with nonexistence or, in more familiar terms, death.
Pencil conceiving death, is a poor analogy. :yawn: