Is sleeping an acceptance of death?
We all have to sleep, and we generally feel better afterwards. But we don't yet know all it does for us. I imagine as kids many of us feared bedtime because it removes consciousness for an uncertain amount of time. And much older people fear dying in their sleep which consciousness in their case can help prevent. Is going to sleep routinely kind of like an acceptance of death? Of the unknown?
Comments (85)
No.
Sleeping is part of life; it's something that can't physically be done when dead.
Quoting TiredThinker
I'd say sleep, among its other functions, involuntarily habituates one to prolonged loss of one's self-awareness and thereby diminishes with age the anxiety of the inevitability of one's own death. Regardless, btw, the fear of dying (suffering) and the death of others remain – sleepwalking dreams of counterfactuals (e.g. "electric sheep"). :yawn:
Mirror images.
We expect to wake up yes, but it is never promised, and we know we will succumb eventually so non-acceptance is pointless. But certainly we'd prefer to be aware of our environment and self. If we tried to stay awake to the extent that it kills us that would certainly be dedication to extending awareness and sense of self that we hope to keep.
:up: :ok:
Quoting TiredThinker
How about if I put it this way: From sleep, it's possible to wake up but from death, there's no such thing as life.
It is acceptance of death and it's further form decrepit; you're not there, mirrored, thus you are not there twice.
It is a precondition of ugliness; you tire out.
It is a prerequisite of afterlife and sacrelige; you dream and recover.
However, it's only consciousness (the brain) that's got a diurnal cycle; the kidneys, the liver, presumably other organs too, continue functioning as if the earth doesn't rotate around its axis or, for our forbears, as if the sun never went around the earth.
Consciousness and light are connected in some way. I've mentioned the obvious link above, but there could be more if only we look for them. What about the blind? Genetic inheritance explains their nightly shuteye; the question is are the blind really conscious? What about eyeless organisms, are they conscious?
If you're curious about the nature of sleep or wish to improve your sleep, there is a good book "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker. In this book, Matthew claims that all animal species sleep, including those who can see in the dark:
He also argues that sleep is so important for living organisms, that even evolution, as creative as it is, couldn't find a way to eliminate it despite all of the survival benefits that would come from it.
More like a rehearsal of Death, if you remove dreams. We practice it every day till our final premiere.
Quoting The Opposite
So is death. Nothing that lives doesn’t also die.
Quoting Agent Smith
This is true in one sense; false in another:
It is true that once you die your consciousness of yourself as a living breathing being is gone...but is that all there is to your being? Cannot a being survive his own death in a different way: ie, through his own writings or books written about him? Given that we all must die, wouldn’t we wish for the next best thing to immortality: to be remembered in our own or others writings?
Shakespeare said, "To sleep, perchance to dream."
I'm old; I don't fear dying while I'm asleep. Seems like that would be the most convenient time to die. Children have all sorts of ideas about death, dying, the here after, the before here, up there, down there, etc. My fears about death were shaped by horror films. Maybe they still are?
Yes. That's all, folks! According to The Church Without Christ, the dead stay dead, the lame don't walk, and the the blind don't see.
So... make the most of being alive.
We don't really understand why most animals (if not all) need to sleep. There are guesses having to do with repairing or optimizing neuronal activity, to save on energy use, etc. It certainly feels quite normal, and is rather great when waking up feeling well rested.
I think it may have been @180 Proof who pointed this out, but, Thanatos and Hypnos in Ancient Greek Mythology are brothers, suggesting that at least one culture suspected them to be similar.
One could hypothesize that being in a state of dreamless sleep "feels" - if this word can be used in this occasion - not unlike it "felt" prior to be born: nothing, so far as I can tell.
Of course, I betray everything when analyzing "nothing" using (human) experience. But, there's no way around this problem.
If sleep were "acceptance" of death, one would think people would not be afraid of death at all. That's not the case, as far as I can see.
Yep, but that's not the kind of survival, post-death, that people have in mind. :up:
Quoting Manuel
Quoting Manuel
:up: We define an unknown (death) in terms of a known (dreamless sleep).
I blame Shakespeare. (Although he was only making a metaphor)
Shakespeare? I didn't know the phrase "dreamless sleep" was the English bard's handiwork. Good to know.
So to answer your question, sleep is a useful 'private' model of death in that both concepts pertain to the concept of amnesia and nothing else.
Men who died centuries ago still live for me; and, though lame, I can walk and run and gambol in the Elysian Fields with many a “dead” immortal soul: All I have to do is pick up his book and read it. In order to read it I require eyes and light, but those eyes and that light are not the ones in my head or above it: they’re the ones in my soul...
...for, as Christ taught us, you can have ears and not hear; eyes, and not see.
...yet I just read an article in the Times that mentioned his name. It was a quote from Madison, who said that, even if every Athenian citizen had been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would have been a mob. It is clear to me from this that Socrates lived for Madison as the representative of a reasonable man...
...And here’s the funny thing: Socrates has been more alive after his death than he ever was while he lived. Had he never lived and died the way he did, the Republic and Apology and all the other dialogues, and the Memorabilia, would never have been written; the Enlighteners would have never had the foil of Socrates to contend with that was the core of their disagreement with the ancient thinkers.
Finally, it is not even the living breathing Socrates that we encounter in Plato, but the condensed and purified one—ie, the “real” one. For Socrates was more than his flesh. The rest of us will go to our graves as forgetful mortals, for we were never anything true; Socrates will die only when civilization herself perishes.
Old in body, young at heart!
In for a penny, in for a pound, eh?
Did you know...
[quote=Julius Caesar]Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of dearh but once.[/quote]
We need to put thanatologists and the pusillanimous in the same room...maybe then we can expect to make some headway into this rather difficult subject.
Imagine if we could quantum tag every quanta which came from a dead human during disassembly and trace its 'fate'.
Matter cannot be destroyed it only changes form.
How much 'raw material' from dead humans become part of new humans?
In this sense, we are all part of a commonality of the nature and properties of the raw materials that we are made from. All of those raw materials remain available after death.
I like the idea that an atom/quark or the like that was once part of Socrates or maybe Newton is now part of me. Not so attracted to having a quark from Hitler et al or even a Maggie Thatcher.
At least some of me may have been once part of other humans who died/disassembled before I was born/assembled. Same for animals, insects, trees etc. (don't want to upset any panpsychists or cosmopsychists but always happy to argue with theists)
I don't refer to people in stories that never existed such as Jesus Christ, Mohamed, et al or constructs that don't exist such as the poorly defined 'soul' concept.
Acceptance implies choice. Try to say awake, how long will you last.
'Sleep of death' makes no sense. Death is the beginning of disassembly, sleep is an evolved method of physical maintenance. Dead and asleep have very little common ground in my opinion.
Why? Thanatos (death personified) can sleep, no?
Thanatos never existed, just a fable, never existed so never slept, was never born and never disassembled.
Good logic!
Thanks, but that raises another interesting question. 'Good logic' from a duelist standpoint suggests the existence of 'evil logic.' Was Plato's Logos (the source of the word logic) intended as a philosophical 'singularity.' (the root of the platonic forms), Was logos presented by Plato as a construct which was capable of the state 'good' or 'evil?' If so, then did Plato ever suggest a mechanism for movement between the two states?
No, my mind jumps around a lot. I've been accused/described in the past as having a butterfly mind (constantly jumps from plant to plant seeking nourishment). Digression from the main thread of a discussion, can be a tendency I do not control as well as I probably should.
Rather than connections between human sleep and death. Your 'good logic' comment made me jump to Plato's Logos. Much of Western civilization is built on Plato and the Christians have certainly used his musings to push their viewpoints. I was just commenting about the posit that the Logos is portrayed as the 'origin point', 'the beginning', 'the singularity', from which the platonic forms originate. It therefore must be (only from Plato's musings of course) the origin of the moral concepts of good and evil. The logos was associated with the sun, which was considered good. But good in the sense that it provided warmth? or morally good?
I don't think 'good logic' and 'evil logic' can be used in the moral sense. I think you have successful logic and incorrect logic or logical thought that turns out to be incorrect under testing.
A good murderer would be a successful one, that's logical, perhaps even good logic but 'good murderer' would be taken by most as a morally reprehensible statement.
A lion kills and consumes a baby deer. That's good logic on the part of the lion as it helps the lion maintain its systems. I don't think the deer would see it that way if it has the consciousness level required for the analysis. I don't think humans would call the Lion evil due to such actions.
I think much clearer definitions and understanding of the labels good and evil are required if humans are ever to progress enough to be able to overcome the evolutionary fear they formed from their time in the wild and finally get rid of the need for gods and monsters.h
This should be a different thread so please don't let my tendency to digress skew this interesting current thread
To be superseded by new monsters? So called objective monsters?
Logos was invented to make a connection of the forms Plato thought existed in the metaphysical realm of mathematical objects. Only logic could describe them approximately and mathematical logic supposed to be the best approximation. This begs the question.
Thanatos is no fable. Together with Hypnos he had a grip on humanity and made them sleep and let them die.
However, you're not doing it right or in an interesting way. You need more practice I'm afraid. Keep at it.
You can choose any other lifeform you like, I prefer any such like, to the easily duped mind of the theist.
This begs what question?
I don't know if you are serious about Thanatos but just in case, If Thanatos existed then so does Thor, the Hulk, Spiderman etc. In fact, there is better evidence for their existence than there is for Thanatos. Fables all. Stories to entertain, nothing more.
The term objective monster has no meaning to me.
Are you theistic?
I want to see your [s]butterfly[/s] monkey mind in full bloom! Go on...show us your stuff!
Are you Theist?
You decide. What does it matter anyway? Being a theist doesn't help me get a raise, it might get me fired though. Hmmmm. It does matter.
If you give permission for others to decide or dictate who you are and what you represent then you leave yourself open to accusations of thoughtlessness and risk quick dismissal of your voice as irrelevant.
Of course I am. But I leave the gods to their own devices. Who else can have created the universe? Thanatos and Hypnos were once reality. These days they battle each other far away from us. But they still make us sleep an die. They are replaced by laws of nature, which are just as fable like. I haven't encountered a single law yet.
Quoting universeness
About the reality of a mathematical metaphysical universe.
Sound advice. However, I'm not just a collection of ideas, am I?
Fair enough. "I leave the gods to their own devices," would suggest you are not monotheistic, is that accurate?
At what point in the estimated 4 billion years of the Earth do you think these two superheroes existed.
Where is this far-away place where they now exist? By what mechanism do they influence our sleep and death? By what mechanism does an immortal get "replaced by a law of nature", which you then contradict with your opinion, that laws of nature don't exist. The points you make are at best fallacious and at worse ridiculous and leave you at risk of ridicule.
"Just a collection of ideas, no, a sentient being with the capability of thought, yes. An acceptable and impressive description of a human in my opinion. You are certainly capable of verbalising more impressive thinking than your earlier "Show us your stuff," which is a sexual request and something a monkey might do to display its willingness to defend its territory by force. Was that the imagery you were going for?
I would like to alter my description to 'A sentient being with the capability of RATIONAL thought.'
I think so, yes. It's similar to fear of the dark, in kids and adults. But it's even more superficial than that: it's the discomfort associated with stopping. This is why problems around sleep are so common -- it's cultural. We're overworked and overstimulated, and now technology has conditioned our brains to be constantly moving.
I think assigning some days to having no inputs, walking in the woods more often, and meditation can all help with this.
You crack me up!
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defintion of "show one's stuff"
(Informal): to show what one is able to do : to show one's skills The competition gives young performers a chance to show their stuff.
Clearly you're not a 100% there!
In Carl Sagan's 'The Demon Hunted World' and 'The Dragons of Eden,' He discusses this area.
Early humans would hunt by day as they could not see in the dark. As well as other sources, they hunted reptiles and raided their nests for eggs. At night the reptiles would hunt humans and attack the in their caves. The sounds shhhhhhh and pssssssst are thought to be amoungst the earliest sounds made by humans and were warnings sounds made by humans. Theses sounds mimic the sounds made by reptiles and warned of the vicinity of a reptile threat. This early struggle between reptiles and humans is thought to be why we learned to be afraid of the dark. Nothing about this is supernatural.
Natural selection/evolution came up with a few different mechanisms for efficient 'maintenance' routines.
Hibernation evolved to respond to a habitat in which few resources were available in winter and plenty in spring/summer. Some creatures enter cocoon states to morph into better adaptations of their former condition. Nightly sleep in humans probably developed due to 'not much else to do efficiently, when you cant see in the dark.' I don't think there is much evidence for a general "discomfort associated with stopping.' If you try not to stop or sleep for long enough you will simply collapse.
I'm sorry to "crack you up", especially for anyone out there who believes humpty dumpty was real and still exists in a very far away place.
I accept that the imagery in your head for "show us your stuff", was your dictionary definition and not related to the actions of a monkey when they feel threatened. Perhaps this is an example of why people have to think carefully before they transfer their thoughts to text as their choice of words/turn of phrase etc are very important. They speak loudly as to who you are! Perhaps you should watch more YouTube debates involving such people as Dan Dennet, Steve Pinker, Matt Dillahunty, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins et al and you will witness how carefully they choose their words.
Quoting universeness
I do watch videos of these people. Thanks for the reminder.
your welcome
I understand common phrases/idioms very well but such common phrases/idioms can have multiple meanings, it comes down to context and you used "show us your stuff" in the same sentence as 'monkey brain.'
I have accepted your claim that you were using your dictionary description but you may be attempting to deceive, only you know. I see no problem here that I need to consider.
Monkey Mind. I thought you knew.
The human mind is contained in the human brain, did you know?
Anyone? Anyone?
No? Then stfu.
There is a lot of evidence about it, actually. It's not a matter of not sleeping -- of course we all sleep. But the quality of sleep and the length of sleep has changed, largely due to cell phone usage. You can see it with prescriptions for sleep medications as well.
Category mistake.
Ok, I think I misunderstood your meaning with the use of 'discomfort associated with stopping'. I thought you meant something along the lines of 'people are scared to stop what they are doing in case they never start again.' Disturbed sleep is certainly a major concern but I wonder if it was not ever thus.
Can you think of many times in history when the majority of people were under less stress?
World war, local war, majority poverty, famine, pestilence, scary reptiles invading your cave at night!
The threat of hell and damnation if you did not comply with invented religious directives, etc etc
Really? I stated human and not monkey deliberately.
Human/monkey mind is not an object that can be "contained" in a human/monkey brain. Do legs "contain" walking?
Nonsense, The human mind is contained in the human brain. The same applies to monkeys. Do you think you would still have a mind, if your brain is removed and destroyed, but your brainless body is still maintained?(probably not medically possible yet)
Walking is a coordinated action of the objects called legs, people without legs cant walk. Even one-legged humans cant walk without a prosthetic. Legs are capable of many other actions, kicking, skipping, jumping etc
Don't forget the actual occurrence of hell on Earth for people who don't and didn't comply with the invented directives of science. Actual hell seems a lot scarier than an imaginary.
For example?
Most people living in indigenous communities. The communities were simply wiped off from the face of the Earth. Children taken away from them to teach them the western way.
"Don't forget the actual occurrence of hell on Earth for people who don't and didn't comply with the invented directives of science. Actual hell seems a lot scarier than an imaginary."
Nonsense! and hell is not scary as it does not exist. Don't try to pass on the fear you obviously feel yourself in the dark places. These are just indoctrinations forced upon. you in your more vulnerable years. I have defeated such irrational fears. I have personally challenged any god, to visit me anytime and demonstrate its power. The best you will get is humans who delude themselves that they will act against you in their gods name and then claim their god is working through them.
"Most people living in indigenous communities. The communities were simply wiped off from the face of the Earth. Children taken away from them to teach them the western way"
Yeah, in almost every case this was done 'in the name of god'. It has been ever thus!
What on Earth are you talking about? You think I have fear of the gods? Absolutely not. I just care about their creation.
Quoting universeness
Without the aids of science this couldn't be done! Science is just a modern day story of creation. And just as in the old days of God, it's obligatory to learn globally and forbids other means of living because it has joined with the state.
"Now I have become death, the destroyer of worlds"
Oppenheimer about his toy. Russia is mad enough to use it. As America and NATO generals. Ain't that hell on Earth? I prefer hell below.
"What on Earth are you talking about? You think I have fear of the gods? Absolutely not. I just care about their creation"
Ok I accept that, so why mention Hell? The intention of this word is to conjure an image of a place of disgusting and vile punishment of individuals who have rejected gods as non-existent. People like me. To try to play down that true intention of that word is just sophistry and it is sinister. I am not accusing you of having that purpose but many theists do. If you need the source of our existence, God then thats fine. If your god image is a non-intervening god then fine. I don't have a deep problem with the diest position. I have even more patience for some of the theosophists, the panpsychists, the cosmopsychists, etc (I was a cosmopsychist for years, especially after watching Babylon 5 and listening to the musings of Delenn of the Minbari) but now I think such is pointless, as I would ask why the need for such? but maybe you feel, you do need such and its not my business why. Perhaps you take the view of the likes of Jordan Peterson who says it would take him at least 10 hours to start to explain why he believes in God.
The idea of people experiencing hell on Earth, I completely appreciate but I am with the late, great Christopher Hitchens who commented that (not a direct quote, a paraphrase from memory)
'You can die on Earth and the suffering stops, in hell, the suffering is eternal, there is no escape.'
This is one of the nastiest inventions the human mind has spewed forth and it is totally false. Not a scrap of evidence.
"Without the aids of science this couldn't be done! Science is just a modern day story of creation. And just as in the old days of God, it's obligatory to learn globally and forbids other means of living because it has joined with the state.
"Now I have become death, the destroyer of worlds"
Oppenheimer about his toy. Russia is mad enough to use it. As America and NATO generals. Ain't that hell on Earth? I prefer hell below"
Here your mixing politics and science and conflating religion with science.
Bombs and bullets don't kill people, people kill people.
As I said, no, there is no hell on Earth because suffering ends at death.
Doubt this had much to do with science.
Perhaps we don't have the same ideas about what we mean by "mind", "contains", and "brain", emphasis on the second word. In other words, we disagree on the relevant terms.
Lungs contain air, but it hardly seems appropriate to say the lungs contain breathing!
Yeah but you are just playing with words, in the same way as David Bowie (I'm a big fan by the way)
used to put some songs together by moving clever words and phrases around on a table and deciding which combinations sounded good.
A similar idea would be 'A wine barrel contains wine or air, maybe even wood but you can't say it contains drinking.'
It's just nonsense. You then try to conflate towards your hidden intention, which is to suggest that based on such skewed logic, the human mind is not, or at least not fully, contained in the human brain..... therefore..... consciousness outside of the human brain..... leading to what....god perhaps?
Come on....give us all a break!
I have to stand up for the agent here. Mind is contained in the brain, but it is no thing. Like charge is contained in matter, mind in contained in brain. How does it feel to be a charged particle? Fabulous!
Sleeping is waking up from the harsh game of reality. It's nothing to fear, nor is death. Worse than reality it can't get. Some dreams entered are mares in the night, like their daytime counterparts in the physical, and some of them I don't wish to come true...
"Mind is contained in the brain, but it is no thing. Like charge is contained in matter, mind in contained in brain. How does it feel to be a charged particle? Fabulous!"
Sorry Raymond cant make much sense of this maybe due to typing on your wee phone.
"Sleeping is waking up from the harsh game of reality. It's nothing to fear, nor is death. Worse than reality it can't get. Some dreams entered are mares in the night, like their daytime counterparts in the physical, and some of them I don't wish to come true..."
I can understand some of this but its perhaps a bit too cryptic for me. I don't know what point you are making
Well, the charge is "stuff" inside matter. It doesn't resemble matter, so it's non-material "stuff".
Charge is simply an attribute of some subatomic particles. A source or sink for electric fields.
I don't think there is much traction between the concept of an attribute of a particle and the concept that the human mind is fully contained in the human brain.
You would require evidence which was telekinetic or telepathic etc to demonstrate that any aspect of the human mind can permeate outside of the human brain or body, not simplistic comparisons with subatomic particle attributes.
Simply an attribute? Then what is it?
Dunno... Who's under it?
The point is, materialists think the mind is the effect of a huge collection of ordered particles interacting with the physical world. They think that matter is just matter. But physicists unknowingly introduced the notion of the conscious when introducing charge. It's that which produces force fields. If you think deeper about it, you will see they don't have an answer what it really is. String theory says it's a vibration of the string. What then makes it vibrate? One of the reasons string theory is non sense. It's exactly the non explainability of charge that makes the conscious inexplicable. Outside the mind we can see the material aspects of the brains of other people (veeeery limited though). Inside it you can feel it.
If the mind can leave the body, yes. Some body once. But then the body has now fallen apart. Without charge the brain can't even develop, nor the body nor the world.
I've seen a ghost before. It was the spirit of a man in a rock on a coastal road in the Philippines. I think he was watching me drive by.