Death and Everything Thereafter
I have been considering the implications and definition of death for an exceptionally long time and in doing so have constructed a series of premises and an inference that I am desperate to explore and debate with like minded individuals.
Premise One: Death is not simply the process of living and then dying but is perhaps more accurately identified as the absence of one’s consciousness.
Premise Two: All forms of conscious life begin initially with an absence of itself, an absence of its consciousness. Via birth this condition is transformed and the consciousness is developed and woken to reality.
Premise Three: Upon dying the individual’s consciousness returns to an absence of itself and ceases to exist.
Inference: Life proceeds death because death precedes life.
Given that I proceed an absence of myself, can we conclude that a return to this absence will encourage the cycle to repeat?
I implore you to evaluate the potential veracity and value of the premises (especially the first) and I am incredibly eager to further investigate what we anticipate to proceed our eventual deaths.
I personally subscribe to the notion that upon death we will simply be replaced by another consciousness that emerges posthumously via birth with a broadcast of a new and very much separate experience. (Not a form of reincarnation).
This is the case I wish to present and explore all relevant arguments.
Premise One: Death is not simply the process of living and then dying but is perhaps more accurately identified as the absence of one’s consciousness.
Premise Two: All forms of conscious life begin initially with an absence of itself, an absence of its consciousness. Via birth this condition is transformed and the consciousness is developed and woken to reality.
Premise Three: Upon dying the individual’s consciousness returns to an absence of itself and ceases to exist.
Inference: Life proceeds death because death precedes life.
Given that I proceed an absence of myself, can we conclude that a return to this absence will encourage the cycle to repeat?
I implore you to evaluate the potential veracity and value of the premises (especially the first) and I am incredibly eager to further investigate what we anticipate to proceed our eventual deaths.
I personally subscribe to the notion that upon death we will simply be replaced by another consciousness that emerges posthumously via birth with a broadcast of a new and very much separate experience. (Not a form of reincarnation).
This is the case I wish to present and explore all relevant arguments.
Comments (120)
While dreamless sleep is the first and immediate comparison to death that comes to mind, your statement would imply that anytime I go into dreamless sleep, I actually die. I don't think that is what happens to me every night.
Quoting Dante
Where consciousness begins (or what it even is), I believe, is one of the great mysteries of life.
Keep in mind that even cells react to their environment. To light, to heat, to chemical surroundings and all sorts of other factors. They maintain themselves, grow, diverge and multiply. Are they conscious? Science hasn't quite come to an agreement on that question, as far as I know. If our singular cells are conscious, do we even begin life absent of consciousness? Or is it rather just an absence of memory until our brain is developed enough?
Quoting Dante
I don't think it's a conclusion we can viably make. How do we know it's a cycle?
I haven’t quite worked out how to quote and reference precisely yet… so apologies for that!
In reference to dreamless sleep, the consciousness may not be in a lucid state but the brain continues to function and maintain the body’s sub conscious operations and thus the consciousness, whilst dormant, is not absent from reality. The absence I refer to is of course brain death, in which case the consciousness cannot be retrieved or sustained.
In reference to the consciousness of beings, for the sake of my case I regard a conscious being to be a sentient organism (featuring a nervous system) that can compile and respond to memory stored in the brain. Of course less complex biotic factors could be conscious to a lesser extent, in that they have fewer senses and can still react to their environment, but to say they experience reality to the same extent that we do, would be false or maybe hopeful.
The cycle that I imply in my question is the supposed observation of absence then formation. It is perhaps possible that the absence proceeding death is similar in condition to the absence required before the formation of life.
It is true to say, given the timeline of the universe, that at some point life didn’t exist at all and in the end will be completely erased. In which case death is a universal condition from which all life has formed and will return to, any exchanges or transformations in the middle of these two events are what I’d like to explore.
Does life simply imply death or does death in fact imply life, if an absence precedes formation?
The living devour the dead until their carcasses in turn, ouroboros-like, are devoured by the living. Death is the only god which provides and answers when we call. :fire:
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Quoting Dante
Consider a person in a coma. There are the ones that can react and sometimes recognize external stimuli, which means at least a part of the mind is still there. Then there are the ones who are totally unresponsive. They're in dreamless sleep indefinitely, unaware even of their own existence. Humans have drawn the comparision of sleep being the little brother of death for a couple thousand years now. Not for nothing death is called the "long" if not "eternal sleep". Are they conscious or unconscious, considering that the body maintains itself regardless?
The thing is, there's countless definitions for what consciousness and life are.
For life, I got myself a personal favourite one from a microbiologist, which I reckon captures the essence of life really well: "Life is a chemical system that uses energy to to keep itself from reaching chemical equilibrium." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibpdNqrtar0)
For consciousness, I'm not so sure on a definitive definition.
Is it a requirement for life? Probably. But I'd argue then that even the smallest of cells are conscious themselves. Perhaps our consciousness is the accumulation of billions of tiny little cellular consciousness? Or perhaps it's all just one big united consciousness and that's where we return to when we're not conscious individually anymore?
Quoting Dante
I'm sure the sensation (or rather the not-sensation) is the same. The Buddhists say something along the lines of: "If you want to know what dying is like, imagine what it was like before you were born."
Generally, I'd say a cycle of life and death as you propose it is possible. Me personally, I'm a big fan of concepts like cosmic cycles and even reincarnation. However, scientifically speaking there is no way to either prove or disprove any such speculation - that's the sole reason why religion is and has been under so much debate through all the ages.
The problem is this: We only know existence from the point of being. We are conscious. We are. This is our being. We can theoretically discuss "dying is like this and that". But we can never experience it because non-being is not supported during the mode of being. We only know that we have been sleeping because we wake up the next morning. The only way to know if you died before is to be born again - but I'm pretty sure by that time you'd have forgotten :P
I suspect I can’t quote properly on my phone.
Even though I desire an eternal and unchanging death, I just don’t see that to be likely. Whilst death for the individual is permanent, I just can’t see that conscious non-existence can be anything but temporary. For example, when I die, this does not impede the motions of life in any way.
“Death is the end of you, but it is not the end of life.”
Coma is definitely a grey area, but brain death can be monitored, a person doesn’t become irretrievable until their brain dies. Even a vegetative state can be recovered from and thus the consciousness is still preserved.
Ah yes, I also favour that definition.
It is commonly perceived that the body upon death returns to the Earth as energy and material but it says nothing about the perpetuation of consciousness. Our access to reality is complex and so I find it hard to live vicariously through the perspective of a cell. It is undoubtedly alive and is a great contribution to the being, but conscious? Accessing reality in a self aware sense? No.
I do support the Buddhist sentiment. The time before birth must be akin to the time proceeding death. We cannot experience death for it is in essence non-being and thus impossible. Only life can be experienced as far as we know. And thus that is what I expect.
And yes agreed, no one will prove nor disprove my proposed cycle of absence then formation for memory it seems is a non-transferable asset. But given my definition of death I can observe the absence before me and call that death, from which I have emerged. And thus I can anticipate a similar reaction proceeding death.
I feel quite burdened by my belief for I do not wish it to be veracious but alas I have convinced myself of my convictions. One death for a man should be enough, but I empathise with the billions before me and the billions after me, of which life will experience and suffer. And what are we if not life?
As simply as the fallen leaves of autumn are replaced, everything alive right now will die and their experiences will be replaced by new ones. Nothing magical nor spiritual, just change.
Some people think "consciousness" is a 'user interface' generated by the unconscious brain. So, in a sense, we are never "conscious". What we are (after birth, before death) is "in existence". We didn't exist, we do exist, an then once again we don't exist -- and we will never be back in any way, shape, manner or form -- at least that is what I think.
What I think about the matter, and what anyone else thinks about the matter, doesn't matter because it doesn't make one whit of difference. Every living thing eventually dies and it stays dead. At least as far as we can tell.
Non sequitur.
You haven't proven this :point: life proceeds death, nor does this :point: death precedes life, make any sense.
How can death precede life when death is defined as the end of life (cessation of physical and mental functions)? Isn't that like saying a fire was extinguished before it was even lit. Something's off. I reckon you're confusing nonexistence with death; apparently they aren't the same thing. To drive the point home, do you say a stone is dead or is calling it a nonliving object easier on our sensibilities? A stone can't die because it never was alive.
Zen moment for me! Please give me some time process this magnificent observation!
Of course once something is dead it stays dead, I do not contest this point. But life continues to emerge and replace what is lost to the void. So I guess I query if the transmission of a new experience is sequential and replaces an absence left by someone else, an absence that is universal and from which all life seems to surface.
@TheMadFool
I anticipated some disapproval of my redefining of death. We are so eager to subscribe to the individuality of our eventual termination. But death is indeed conscious non-existence and I maintain that the state before life and after one’s life meet the same requirement of being an absence of oneself.
If of course you’re arguing that non-existence and death are different, how is the state of death unique for the individual? Is not every death the same state as any other death and is thus enveloping and universal and not specific to the individual?
That's what the OP seems to sayiing.
:point: Nonexistence 1--->Life--->Nonexistence 2(Death).
Almost all studies on nonexistence with regard to life has been, is, will probably be about Nonexistence 2 (Death). Very few people seem interested in Nonexistence 1 and one among them is Lucretius (De rereum natura). He writes,
[quote=Lucretius]Look back now and consider how the bygone ages of eternity that elapsed before our birth were nothing to us. Here, then, is a mirror in which nature shows us the time to come after our death. Do you see anything fearful in it?[/quote]
I must extend my gratitude to the OP @Dante for helping me to see the light as it were - it's time we shifted our focus from Nonexistence 1 (Death) to Nonexistence 1 (before life). Of course, all this assuming either that someone else hasn't already done so but failed or it's an easier problem to deal with than Nonexistence 2 (Death).
Quoting Dante
Nonexistence and death, to my reckoning, aren't the same because the former doesn't require a period of time when there's life but the latter does. Yes, death is a state of nonexistence and hence I referred to it as such (Nonexistence 2) but the "2" there is to emphasize the fact that there was life that preceded it.
Such a beautiful response and exactly the kind of contribution and feedback I am after!
I often denote this sequence of non existence, life and then non existence as 010.
I often identify that non existence transitions into life by birth (0 becomes 1) and via death returns to non existence (1 becomes 0). Given that 0 becomes 1 initially my mind often queries if the second 0 can in turn become 1 again via birth as has already occurred.
Of course I don’t subscribe to the magic or transference of reincarnation, but I do wonder if the wake of death permits life to broadcast a new transmission, thus enacting replacement.
Non existence 1 is beautiful because temporal motions are passed infinitely quickly and the timeline of one’s life commenced in utero or shortly after the waking consciousness perceives its reality. Perhaps then the second non existence is passed with a similar haste and life forms yet again.
I often have the notion that life is the only thing that can be experienced, for we know of nothing before us and will know of nothing after us. Life is all that can be known.
I appreciate and accept your definition of the second non existence as having an aspect of life before it. But what if non existence one has life before it? Life that was once experienced and discarded by its death? What if this cycle of absence then formation has been perpetual since the first consciousness to emerge in the universe? A thought worth considering?
Your remarks are words I myself have uttered. Humans feign an ignorance to death but they are delusional. The time before us is indeed akin to death and as an experience is an oxymoronic impossibility. Only life is known. Life is all that there is for the individual.
Thank you for your words.
Of course there permeates an eternal now but the human mind is divided into portions of time for the sake of its own sense of continuity. There is only change as a constant and time need not always be considered an appropriate axis.
Oddly, I have been present for three years and have long discarded a continuum as an actuality. But that is a conversation for another time.
Indeed, from that angle, before one is born (pre-life) is indistinguishable from after one is dead (post-life). The lack of any means of making a distinction between things resonates with me; it's been the leitmotif of many of my posts if you want to know.
Quoting Dante
There doesn't seem to be any hard evidence to suggest that but, to be fair, it can't be ruled out in a way, to a degree of certainty that would clear all doubts. We're treading, it seems, at the very limits of what humans, all taken together, claim they know. I wish we could send a probe like those used in space exploration back into our past, to a time before we were born, to, well, find out. What in your opinion would such a proble look like? It has to be mental, it must be retrievable, and as far as I'm concerned, that's all she wrote.
Such a probe would have to be masterfully crafted, concise and elaborate, and very telling. It would be the opposite of a legacy, given that it goes back in time rather than forward or maybe I have misunderstood the task. I have no idea what I would offer in all honesty. Which is a severely lacking response, but I don’t know how to confirm such a gesture.
Speaking of limits and margins, there are some impossible questions that I often ponder. Why this specific existence, why not sooner, why not later? Why am I me of all things? What deterministic laws determine my emergence. I don’t care to know if there is a why (I suspect a lack of intention) but the how is deeply intriguing.
That's a vacuous statement.
In another comment:
: "Life is a chemical system that uses energy to to keep itself from reaching chemical equilibrium."
That doesn't address consciouness. Its what is factually (materialistically) going on, but it makes a flower equal to a human. It are the processes of my inner world (made possible by the physical processes going on in the physical world outside) and the non-physical, qualia-like content they have that make consciousness. The hard consciousness problem is solved this way.
So consciousness is easy to explain while at the same time a wonder. God exists!
I subscribe to physicalism in that the consciousness is a coordinated result of a complex biological system working in order to preserve itself. Consciousness improves the chances of survival and thus that is why it was naturally selected.
I dont agree. These things could also happen if consciouness was absent. Imagine... You laughing with and there would no feeling in the processes corresponding to that nice feeling that accompanies laughing when you find something funny. You would be an empty physical process. That is, the physical shell around your inner world and the outside world would laugh in vain...
It's just an idea - there are, all said and done, two mutually overlapping words, the physical and the mental, and the many approaches to the former we seem so confident about could be useful to say the least in the latter. There are many scientists and technicians involved in the construction of space probes which are intended to physically visit distant worlds (planets/stars/galaxies) and relay their findings back to earth. I see no reason at all why we can't construct a mind probe (an old idea but, till date, only employed for nefarious objectives) that can travel in mind space and either return with information or somehow "broadcast" it back. The most interesting thing about the mindspace, germane to this our discussion, is that it doesn't seem to be temporally restricted/constrained - memory (past) & imagination (future).
I use a phone too. Select the text you wanna quote and tap the quote button right uo. I had the same problem. Like that the one you react to gets notified.
If there would be matter processes only, how can there be a feeling of funniness? Because of the complexity? Then an electro colliding with a proton have consciousness too. But elementary.
You could do this. The probe being questions.
It sounds like a very hopeful experiment, but I doubt it’ll succeed much more than that? Mind you I’ve never heard about such ventures.
@Prishon
The feeling of funniness is a chemical and neurological reaction in the mind. As science would support. As someone with depression I am subject to these chemical reactions and they manipulate the entire shade of my experience, unfortunately. I wish I were more spiritual, but it’s wasted on me.
And also, I still cannot work out how to quote…
I worked it out! Thanks.
Okay. I have highlighted your text. If all functions well there becomes visible a black button with white text "quote". Tap on it with your finger and the selected text appears in a next comment opportunity. :yum:
The laughing feeling indeed corresponds to some complex reaction in the brain (and not to forget, the body!). But what if this physical process has no content? No magical content?
Without magic life becomes a lot harsher and less desirable I suppose. Believing in such things is great for the individual in healthy doses. Faith for example empowers so many, so who are we to discredit the potency of their convictions?
I always wished that I subscribed to ideas that make my life easier and more comfortable, but the sciences aren’t always here to make life easier, just more honest.
I would say that in essence it does smile. A smile is a curved line, can be expressed (not intentionally) by many things, including an emoticon or a waveform.
What alleviated the depression for you?
The depression? Yeah, it’s pretty persistent. Only reading reduces its severity.
Are you still jumped by it?
Let me pause for reflection for a second!
No worries, I didn’t infer that :)
I know the feeling! Terrible! What kept me going was the thought that it *hd* to go away some day. But time moved so slowly! Thoughts popped up about my past. About who I was as a kid. Sometimes shocking. All kinds of thoughts. Including how to kill myself. But then ALL would be gone (although I am certain about reincarnation there is something withholding me from suicide; every shitty feeling is gone indeed but also the potential to get relieve). I took heroin, and other stuff. Like oxazepam, from which I was " cured" last year because my supplier died and I didnt have the keenness to buy it on the net. Luckily, because I dont need it now anymore. Though physicalky I wanna take one... I didnt sleep 4 months!!! Four months! Now Im physically recovering. I take a dose of methadone each day. But that doesnt take away a depression itself. It only keeps it down and the beasts roars the more if wakened. But its gone now! It just did. Maybe because I have a clear worldview now. Do you have one? A clear wirldview?
Yes, one way would be that but I was gunning for something a little bit more sophisticated than sitting somebody down and asking fae to answer a barrage of questions. You know, the mind probe has to be a rather complex but not necessarily a complicated thing, it should have on board the latest "equipment" available in the fields of consciousness, memory, psychology. My wild ideas. Pay no attention!
I have a very clear worldview, I’ve recorded many of my postulations and theories as well as the initial foundations that enabled them. But my worldview isn’t something I admire, it’s fairly realistic and doesn’t offer much in the ways of positivity.
I DO pay attention. My inner space has been probed by your comment... I can refine the probe (Im not sure if you mean a physical probe; but I dont assume) by refining my questions over and over again, like I can refine my questions to external Nature. The latter can involve sophisticated experimental set-ups. That can also be the case for exploring the internal Nature. Or in exploring you, being the one between the internal world and the outside one.
Why is that? What in that view makes it negative? The reality of people being MF's?
My thoughts on death in particular frustrate me to no end because I’d prefer non existence to be eternal and peaceful, but I can’t see this being the case given that I even surfaced in the first place.
:ok:
You think you will resurface after death?
No, of course not. I just think I’ll be replaced.
Then whats the worry? We are all replaced by other people. In 100 years from now there will not a single person be alive that lives now.
I understand this fact, certainly. But I live vicariously through those that will surface and that bothers me greatly, for surely there is much suffering in life.
Im not sure I understand. It cant be reincarnation. How can you live vicariously through (?) those surfacing (after you are dead?)?
Because they will be the cynosure of their own existence, as I was. I feel that the line between self and all other is very blurred.
Sorry, the button for "reply" is too small on my screen.
There could be infinite, separate dimensions of time, all moving in discrete directions.
That's what I believe, but the simple fact is we just don't know. But to speak of "endings" and "beginnings" as though they are the sole means of imagining reality would be disingenuous.
I agree with this sentiment. I perceive time to be so much more than an additional dimension of space. Science encourages us to search for answers so that we can design more accurate questions.
I fear that our understanding of time is not only limited but limits our understanding of reality.
To transcend time is my ultimate goal.
Hawking invented imaginary time. The implications of multiple time dimensions have been probed. The block universe exists with the whole time axis present at the same time. Entropic time considers intervals of time only. Then there is the subjective experience of time. There is a neverending now. I dont live in other people. Everyone has their own cynosure. But how to transcend time? Everything becomes one in that case. How to achieve this? Even a baby isnt in this state.
I'd say if transcending time is a possibility, then you're most likely in the process of doing exactly that, although you wouldn't know it?
Time is another one of these incredibly intangible concepts. But if I had to make just a single guess about it, I'd speculate that consciousness and the experience (or illusion?) of time are inexplicably linked.
I would agree. Time may just be a human construct and perhaps holds no actual bearing over these motions through space.
In all honesty it was three years ago when I stopped feeling the progressive pressure of time, so I’d say I’m closer to my goal than I’ve ever been.
NO! Death does NOT solve that riddle. LIFE does!
It suggests a way of understanding time.
The problem with death is that, the dead never tell us how they are doing.
I’m not overly concerned about the dead, my concern is with the emergence of life.
But that made me laugh.
Death is one of the immortal topics of philosophy. :)
Yeah, I was wondering, it would be so cool, if the dead could tell us whether they are still the same old life after the deaths, or having totally different living after the events of death somewhere in the universe, or indeed if they exist at all. But they never contact us once they departed. :chin:
Religions would have their versions of the scenario on deaths, but without supporting evidence.
I fear that there will never be any empirical evidence other than the sound observation that the dead lack a consciousness.
My question is whether death is not in fact individual but universal. A condition to which all life is returned and from which it may form.
Great point. Definitely something to think about. Will reflect over, and return if / when I get some ideas on it. Have a good day.
Many believe in “reincarnation for this or similar ideas.
Quoting Dante
Why use the term “we” then. If “we” are “replaced” by something non- “we” in any way shape or form then there is absolutely no continuity. You could just as easily say sometimes matter gets organised into something conscious. Reincarnation suggests a continuity of “conscious being” - some fundamental phenomenology whereby the consciousness that maintains our personal awareness is never lost but rebuilt. If you believe in replacement rather than continuity then there’s nothing intriguing about this as we know from science in a mechanical sense that we are recycled materially at least.
Quoting Hermeticus
Not necessarily. Dreamless sleep is retrospective from a state of being awake. Just because one doesn’t recall being aware during sleep doesn’t mean they didn’t dream. They just didn’t record it in memory. And unlike death or being awake neural activity actually increases during sleep.
Can you tell an Alzheimer’s patient that because they don’t remember the last hour they were dead for that hour. No.. they were still aware during that hour they just don’t at present recall having been so.
My postulate is similar to reincarnation for sure because it posits a cyclical motion of absence then formation, but I do not go as far as a sense of continuity, especially not for the individual.
Quoting Benj96
My idea is certainly more inclined to rely on science rather than hope and faith. However if the individual can be replaced by another individual, and life is all that can be experienced, then may exist a sequence of consciousnesses, though bearing no relation to anything it succeeds or replaced.
OK from your first premise,
There are 2 types of absence. Absence to be transformed to non-absence through time such as the sun light at night (it is absent at nights but returns in the mornings), and the eternal absence (once departed, eternally non returnable).
It looks like the absence of one consciousness due to death is the latter one. Logically and scientifically the departed consciousness will never return, hence the eternal absence, unless you then come up with some esoteric belief or religious faith to negate that physical evidence and conclusion.
I’m not implying that the dead return in any capacity, they are indeed removed irrevocably from reality.
Quoting Corvus
The departed consciousness will never return, but life will still emerge, one’s death does not impede the motions of life. Given that the initial absence was conquered by the emergence of life, the absence after death should be navigated by a similar motion.
I am still yet to find a convincing argument as to why death is different to the initial absence of life. People are very eager to defend this idea that conscious non-existence is eternal, when we know from our own existence that this is seemingly untrue.
The initial absence of life is unexperienced, non-progressed, un-lived, un-started state of absence, whereas the absence after death is non-existence of lived, experienced, progressed, expired and came to an end, therefore perished absence. There are clear differences in 2 non-existences.
How will life still emerge? What is the motions of life? Could you elaborate?
That is very hopeful, but the consciousness is absent in both cases, marking them as essentially identical. The state proceeding death is still non-being, unexperienced. The absences are the same, but you are trying to attribute a difference based on preceding events without actually considering death for what it is, which is nothing.
Quoting Corvus
History doesn’t matter to death, for death is nothing, it doesn’t even really exist, it’s just a way for the living to describe a state where life isn’t. But of course life is all there is to experience.
Even if death as an absence proceeds a life, this says nothing about the associated consciousness, which is not present at either state of non-existence.
Life emerges from an absence and death forms this requirement. Life will march on and thrive regardless of death.
It seems we are so eager to conclude that we are an individual and totally unique phenomenon, but death is encompassing, universal, a void that is the same for you or for me, the same state shared by literally everything that has died. An absence, and we already that absence precedes formation.
How can you say they are "essentially identical", when they are absent?
I do not understand your question. I am saying that any absence is the same as any other absence.
The absence preceding me is the same as the absence preceding you. The preceding time periods are not part of our timelines. Our timelines commence in the womb where the consciousness is developed.
I was meaning if something is non-existence, you don't know if they are the same, or different in essence. You can only tell how the existence got into the absence. But once they are non-existence, you cannot tell they are identical or not in essence.
I am not sure about that either. I believe that the consciousness emerges from a human being when it is about 2-3 years after birth. Before that, it has instinctive perception, but not consciousness loaded with intelligence. Human consciousness is a function emerged and evolved from brain. When a human being gets old, his consciousness gets dim and cloudy due to the worn out brain state of the old age. I have witnessed it in real life before.
Something cannot be in non-existence. Non-existence is just a human construct to describe a lack of something. It doesn’t actually exist within reality,
Once something ceases to exist it does not exist in a state of non-existence, it does not exist at all. Especially the consciousness. Non-existence is the same for every death, it is not unique nor individual.
You wouldn’t say that a lack of apples suggests that there are apples existing in a realm of non-existence.
I watched two little brothers develop. Babies are conscious. They are not endowed with superior intelligence but they do in fact compile memories and can respond to them. That’s how they acquire language, that’s how they feed, thats how they learn their parents’ faces.
You seem to be suggesting that a conscious being is one that relies on its ability to remember. I have been blackout drunk before where there were hours I could not recall, but everyone had recalled me being conscious and talking and living normally. Just because I didn’t remember anything doesn’t mean I wasn’t conscious.
Non-existence is the same for every death? I don't know. I cannot imagine what non-existence or death would be, not having experienced personally. I am sure you have not either.
Quoting Dante
Apple and death are not even apple and oranges. Categorical mistake.
Never said they are unique or individual. But definitely unknown, or nothing to comment on, because they are not existent.
Sure, I would say that it is a type of evolved emergent function of consciousness from brain. When one gets old, it fades away, I saw it.
You cannot experience death. It is by definition a complete lack of experience and thus yes, I have already “experienced” it. It came before me and I am very aware of that nothingness.
Quoting Corvus
No mistake. A lack of an apple is comparative to a lack of humans. You cannot say that something exists in a state of non existence.
No no, not just remembering. The whole lot. Consciousness covers all mental activities I would think.
You can become unconscious too, if you were hit on the head for sure.
I never said that :gasp: that something exists in a state of non existence. ???? I said you cannot say they are identical when something is non existent.
So you’re saying there is no mental activity in the womb? If consciousness began at the age of 2 or 3, the baby would fail to survive upon exiting the womb.
That makes no sense. If the universe didn’t exist, then everything would be in an identical state. Matter would be no different to energy or space if they did not exist. If I don’t exist and you don’t exist, then we are in the same identical state; non existence.
Nope !
Instinctive perception would be enough. They don't have to go through some bush wilderness survival. They are in well protective environment of nature.
How can you say whether something is identical or non identical or wet or dry, when non existent?
I’m not sure that you have the same definition of non-existence as me. Non-existence is a not a state with different properties or characteristics, in fact, it has none. It is just a human construct to identify that something doesn’t exist, it is uniform for everything.
Something that doesn’t exist has no properties, it is not wet nor dry.
Sure. I think our definition on non-existence is not far off. But that is why I feel that you cannot say anything about it. To say something about something, it must exist. If not, then we cannot say anything about it. It sounds like Wittgensteinian actually, but it makes sense to me.
If you say, you can, then we would be talking in Kabbalistic view of the universe, not in critical philosophy.
A non existent apple has the same properties of a non existent banana, which is none. Non existent things share the fact that they have no properties.
I am not sure if "none" is a meaningful or intelligible property. Property of something is for the objects which exist in the real world. Never for something none existent.
Hmm interesting... but one would imagine all conscious beings have some consistent feature that they all share. The parameters scientifically speaking that give rise to the state? The laws that permit it. Even if the form and content of each “life” is unique both qualitatively and spatial temporally.
Spatiotemporally in the sense that identical twins are genetically identical but we understand them as two separate individuals because they don’t occupy the same space though they are clone of eachother. Even conjoined twins are not one organism
What it is it then that demarcates the individual?
Quoting Dante
Quoting Dante
Contradictory statements for non existent things.
Not really. If they share a lack of properties then that in itself can be the only “property” that they share.
Another point is "None" is a pronoun like he she that or these. It cannot be a property of something.
It is also an adverb.
To be a property of something, I would have thought, it should be either primary or secondary quality which can be sensed. No?
"None" is like that, it, they, he, she ... a pronoun, not a perceivable qualia.
This is a pointless discussion of semantics. In the case of something that cannot be sensed in any capacity then it has neither a primary or secondary quality in which case I describe the total of properties with the adverb “none”.
Or you could say that the primary quality is that it lacks any tangible quality. A void. An absence.
Please do a quick Google of the word none. It is a pronoun, but also an adverb.
You started the pointless semantics initially in the middle of the discussions, and I am trying to clarify on the points. If it is an adverb, then it modifies verb, adjective or another adverb. It still cannot qualify as properties or qualities of something.
Due to illogical attributes of none as the property of none existence, you come to the wrong conclusion that all death are same. I feel that it doesn't make sense.
Correct, we are not dealing with “something”, we are dealing with a lack thereof.
Extract from another site:
“ Assumption: An object has no properties.
I can think of that object as an object with the property that it has no properties, but this is a contradiction to my assumption. Hence all thinkable objects must have at least one property.
On the other hand I can think of an object that has no properties, but then this object will have a property: "The property of not having any properties".
Before matter existed the universe only had energy. Thus it had no material properties; none.
Feelings don’t hold any weight. If you feel that the state of death is unique and different for all life forms, I’d love to hear why this is so?
If we were to say that some experiential properties of the consciousness are the ability to; see, hear, taste, smell, touch and compile memories. Then the termination of this consciousness suffers a severe lack of all these properties.
For death as a condition to be unique to the individual then it must possess a distinguishing property, but what properties can death be said to have regarding the consciousness, if not none at all?
Wouldn't it be that because you are now thinking about death and applying the concept "none" to death, it looks as if it is something that doesn't exist or some state which is non state?
One's death itself would mean, no perception, so there would be no possibility to perceive anything, not even the concept of "none".
Other people will perceive and remember the dead, but it would be just the body, not the state of none existing consciousness or the state of death of the dead.
It would be only possible to postulate immortality of souls, if only if one enters the realm of religion such as Christianity or Kabbalah. In the realm of reason, death is final, nothing to perceive or explain, because it is indeed none existence which has no quality or property. None existence means none existence, nothing less or more.
Correct. Death doesn’t exist. It is an illusion. It is not a real state.
Quoting Corvus
So then we agree.
Quoting Dante
:ok:
How much suffering must someone experience in order to make it "worthwhile" to kill himself?
In terms of game theory, a value is missing here.
I would argue that... Well, first I would argue that everything is living, but barring that...the lives of the deceased still have an immeasurable impact and influence on the present and future.
This is what I term "the spirit." Though, to me, the "soul" is the physical body.
In my opinion, if something exists, ever, it is eternally "real" and nothing, not even the passage of time, can make it "unreal."