How do those of you who do not believe in an afterlife face death?
I'll start with my own answer. I reason about it till I'm more or less at peace with it. I contemplate it fairly often. It allows me to take life a little or a lot less seriously. I have one foot in each dimension, if you will.
One comfort has been that I see myself in others. My personality is only 1% irreplaceable snowflake at best. As a would-be writer, I can squeeze this 1% into words and obtain not immortality but increased lifespan. (The species will go extinct, so no real immortality even for that 1%.)
My other comfort is that I expect nothing from death, literally nothing. I don't mind nothing. It's not that death is bad in itself, but only that death is the end of a game I am invested in, the game of being me. Since I expect aging to diminish the joy I take in this game, death will theoretically be welcome as an escape from the indignities of aging.
*Also I'm always moved by stories of individuals facing death with style.
One comfort has been that I see myself in others. My personality is only 1% irreplaceable snowflake at best. As a would-be writer, I can squeeze this 1% into words and obtain not immortality but increased lifespan. (The species will go extinct, so no real immortality even for that 1%.)
My other comfort is that I expect nothing from death, literally nothing. I don't mind nothing. It's not that death is bad in itself, but only that death is the end of a game I am invested in, the game of being me. Since I expect aging to diminish the joy I take in this game, death will theoretically be welcome as an escape from the indignities of aging.
*Also I'm always moved by stories of individuals facing death with style.
Comments (102)
As to the question as to whether I sometimes think I would be better put out of my misery, I would have to say that at one time in my twenties after drinking too much, and too many different drinks, I suffered what is know as alcohol and was closer to dying then I can remember at any other point in my life. While the alcohol allowed me not to feel any pain (which was very pleasant in it's own way), my inability to get up mover around, etc made me fill paralyzed which wasn't fun at all. If you can imagine what it is like trying to crawl through one of those small underground cave tunnels without any light and getting stuck than you might be able to sort of imagine this experience. To make a long story short, I don't know if this is what everyone experiences while they are either near death or it is just me, but I'm in no hurrying to find out or go through that again.
From what I do know about death, is that it is pretty unpleasant ;since often one's own body is making some last ditch efforts to save itself, and such measures are not meant to be 'fun' for whomever is residing in it at the time that this happens. Also it isn't 'instant' after the heart stops since the brain can survive for several minutes without oxygen. When they use to execute people by cutting one's head off there are some reports of a severed head being able to respond to it's own name for a couple minutes after getting cut off. I don't know what happens in such situations, but I know that nobody is in a hurry to really look into such unpleasantness either.
If you are really worried about it you might what to research something called cryogenics., which is where they basically freeze one's body (or just the head) and take a few other measures to preserve it until medical technology is advance enough to revive them. Whether or not the technology will ever be available and even if it is available will society at that time want to revive such people is debatable, but since the all other alternatives for after you die are not so good it might be considered an opition if you can afford it.
The dying process might be sucky, but I actually think that the nothingness that I expect to result from that process has its charms. Before I experienced a certain sense of completeness of self-realization, this nothingness was something to be tolerated. It did at least put a limit on individual suffering. Also it makes every possible mistake in life merely temporary --at the cost of doing the same to every possible success.
So I don't give cryogenics much thought. If I was extremely rich, I might think it over. But perhaps the real problem is aging. I'd love to be 17 again without losing what I've learned since then. I do so many things differently. I suspect that this is a common fantasy. Even if a person is fairly happy, they can probably look back at lots of wasted opportunity and unnecessary compromise/settling.
I don't really expect anything to follow death, and if one is lucky the process of dying will proceed speedily, and one will soon be unconscious, then more deeply unresponsive, till the heart and breathing stops. Of course, death may not be in a hurry, in which case one will suffer during the dilly dallying around.
"How We Die" by Dr. Sherwin Nuland is a cause-by-cause explanation of how death comes about. It was published in 1994. You can read it for free here.
There is also an interview with Dr. Nuland here. In the interview he was saying that many people say
Nulland died in 2014.
My husband of 30 years died a slow death from cancer; it was quite painful, and the initial surgery was quite disfiguring (it was a very aggressive cancer in the lymphatic system in the jaw). He felt well for a while after the surgery, radiation and tough chemo. It was all for naught -- the cancer had already spread to the bones of the neck, and eventually into the brain. He spent 4+ months in hospice, needing total care. He could speak, and breath, but had little control over his arms and none over his legs. Swallowing was a problem. His care was excellent; he was as comfortable as one could be. He was alert and talkative. About 3 weeks before his death he started a visible decline -- less alert, less conscious, less interest, then unconsciousness, and finally death. It was 1 year, first symptom to death.
If there is nothing after death, then there really is nothing to face after death; life is but an empty dream. A breath of wind, here one moment and gone the next. In the face of eternity, regardless if there is life after death, one merely changes matter and energy from one form to another. Mankind is powerless to create or destroy. A worthless being all together! So why worry about existence now or ever?
But if there is life after death, then an entirely new perspective is available. It becomes possible, based on works or faith in this life to spend eternity in heaven, hell, or to be reincarnated as some believe. So the real question that remains is, what if the idea of no life after death is wrong? What could happen then? Does one truly want to remain in ignorance by not thinking about it until it is too late to pick a new course?
I considered trying to climb down, but climbing down without a rope is much harder than climbing up, because one's eyes are at the wrong end for seeing the next foothold. There was nothing for it but to fly rapidly up the crumbly rock, touching it as little as possible. So I did.
There are two possibilities: either I managed by a miracle to finish the incredibly dangerous climb in spite of being completely off my box, or I am lying broken at the base of the cliff, hallucinating these subsequent 50 odd years as I die. Well actually there are loads of other possibilities as well, but anyway, the possibility of already being dead, and this being an afterlife takes the sting out of death completely.
Aristotle: Believed the soul survived, but also that there would be no consciousness, so no afterlife
Epicureans: They believed that death was the end, so no afterlife. They compared death to the time before one was born. You don't have negative thoughts about the time before you were born, so why would you have negative thoughts about the time after you die?
Stoics: It was a little complicated because at least some of them believed that some (especially virtuous?)conscious souls lived on after death, but even those souls would eventually be destroyed in the great conflagration, and then everything would be recreated again. They seemed to console themselves with the notion that we all would be living our lives over and over again.
If you do not exsist, you do not have the awareness to care about anything, suffering requires awareness.
This is why I see no need to belive that their is no afterlife other than achiving a certain feeling of certainty within this life. The sense of certainty that you will never again suffer after your death.
So, all talk of an after-life, or not, is mere speculation.
That said, we can make some reasoned guesses on the matter.
If we look at death, as objectively as possible, restricted to only the observable, it appears death is a full-stop to existence. That's to say there's no soul, and no after-life. In short, science doesn't seem to support the existence of a soul which is necessary for an after-life to make sense. It can be argued that the soul, being immaterial, can't be scientifically examined like, for instance, a rock.
Personally, I'm confused. On one hand we have sleep - which, to me, is what's death-like - and the existence of a soul seems improbable.
On the other hand, there are many instances of strange events that seem to speak otherwise - making the existence of a soul probable.
I'm undecided on the matter. Perhaps one has to die first and find out for oneself.
If such was the case, I don't think they would care after they're dead, but they would obviously care while alive, because they will have to live with the consequences of their choices until they die.
Quoting Lone Wolf
This:
Quoting Lone Wolf
Yeah, I too think that the idea of life after death is scarier than the idea that death is the end in many regards.
Most of the time I wish I could die, without like, actually dying.
>:O Did you actually panic when you saw that?
My prediction: I don't think you really panicked, maybe you were just very afraid, but you still believed you could do it. You still had some faith left. Because it happened to me when I first practiced climbing a cliff that I panicked in the middle of it, and actually fell off lol - I was lucky because it was practice and I was attached with a rope from above. If you get that scared then reason and everything else goes away, and you can do something stupid just to escape from the fear, including something that kills you lol. I was in 10th grade back then. But I remember the feeling distinctively.
Quoting unenlightened
>:O
Quoting unenlightened
I had to research what this strange expression meant. But now that I have, I will speculate that you escaped not in spite of being completely off your box, but rather because of it. It probably prevented you from getting so scared that you lost all control.
Quoting unenlightened
Yeah but that "possibility" is like the possibility of the sun not rising tomorrow. Logical possibility alone isn't sufficient to justify a position.
What if you go to the fiery pit? O:) >:)
So although I would feel fear, I don't think I would despair. In other words, I would be able to keep the fear in check through the use of reason and my character. But then, I do believe in an afterlife :P
Your body might do anything to stay alive when it is healthy and merely being chased by a long-legged ferociously angry feminist wielding an already bloodied axe. However, when it is dying, I think the situation is different. At some point in an illness one passes the point of recovery and starts down hill to the grave. The body is no longer strong, suffering is constant, and death becomes more welcome as time passes. The dying are not necessarily in terrible mental shape -- they can be reconciled, patient, and even cheerful while they lay in bed.
It is vital that the dying not be given false hope, so they can reconcile with their dying. "Oh no, there is always hope" is cruel bullshit when there really isn't any hope.
As for the fiery pit... it is another piece of cruel bullshit cooked up by vindictive theologians.
No. I realised I was in a precarious position and paused to consider - left, right, up, down, but not for too long, as the longer you stay in a strained position, the weaker the muscles get. Beautiful place tho.
Quoting Agustino
Of course not. I wouldn't dream of trying to justify it. It's just an observation, that having faced death in that rather graphic way, that was the thought I had immediately afterwards, because it was surprising to me that I was at the top of the cliff not the bottom, and ever since then, the difference between top and bottom, life and death, has just seemed trivially small at the personal level - a clump of grass that does, or does not bear your weight for a second.
But this is not to recommend free climbing with no experience on hundred foot cliffs while on LSD.
>:O >:O
Quoting Bitter Crank
It is hard to imagine though. I have a family member who is almost 100, and he suffered a stroke recently. He has recovered very well, but I can tell you 100% that he is very scared of death (his own admission), even while he was recovering. He was also very angry at doctors, nurses, family members, etc.
Quoting Bitter Crank
But there actually is always hope :P . It's just a fact of nature. Even when you're almost 100 there is hope, even when everyone says there isn't, so you really never know. Chances may be very big that you're going to die, but miracles are always possible.
This is one of the things I've learned about life. Even in the most impossible situations, there is still hope. It may not come to pass, but things can turn around very rapidly.
Ahh see - the LSD helped you :P
Quoting unenlightened
Well, I would say that's right since life is very fragile.
Well why do you think because of LSD you'd be in a worse position? I think you might be in a better position because of diminished fear response.
Yes, there is always hope -- the plane has exploded and one's miraculously intact body and mind are plunging toward the earth. But just then a flying saucer catches you in its tractor beam and sets you down on the ground, while your flight mates rain down all around you, along with the plane and the cargo. Then an ambulance rushing to the scene runs over you, squashing you to death.
Yes, there is always hope -- the metastatic cancer has romped all over your abdominal and thoracic cavities, multiple organ failure is in progress, you are comatose. Suddenly a doctor rushes in with a miracle cure, and 15 minutes later you are demanding your clothes so you can go home.
Magical thinking. 100% of all persons who are healthy, merely sick, or terminal die. Miracles do not intercede on behalf of the hopeful 999 out of 1000, and then it wasn't a miracle at all. In 1 case out of 1000 it was a mis-diagnosis and when the wrong medicine was suspended grandma got better and lived another 3 weeks.
Bad faith, too. "The helicopter crashed, but my two relatives survived while the rest of the 8-man crew died in a fiery crash." God performed a miracle." a Deaconess told me. Miracle, indeed! If God performs miracles, why save just her not particularly remarkable relatives and send the 6 others to an agonizing death? Maybe God performs miracles. I didn't step off the curb and was therefore not run over. A miracle. I decided not to come visit you in Europe so I missed the latest bombing in London that injured 22. Another miracle. I didn't feel like potato salad, so I missed the the salmonella that were swarming in the bowl, and later killed several people at the picnic. A miracle.
999 times out of 1000 isn't "hope" it's grasping at straws which 999 times out of 1000 will be very disappointing.
What you need to do, Agustino, is plan on dying one of these days. Have you seen the Bergman film, Seventh Seal? You should see it before it is too late. I hope you have time -- it's one of those films one should see before one dies.
I hear you. But it's also logically possible that I'm a pink dragon in the midst of a long dream of being human. I don't find the afterlife plausible. I personally have no attachment for an insincere agnosticism. Don't get me wrong. For you it may be sincere. For me it would be fake. I don't pretend to doubt what I don't doubt.
As for personal immortality, I don't see its purpose. The highest part of me is not particular to me at all. Nothing so precious about this body or these memories. I truly live in "universal" thoughts and feelings, the usual passions and the shared realm of language. Fortunately we can (through language) inherit the work of those who precede us. They continue on in us. As a philosopher, I am inhabited by my influences. Their work is not lost, not all of it.
I think it was Schopenhauer who described corpses as the shit of the species, just as shit is the shit of the individual. I love this flesh, this vehicle...but I love it as a still-healthy vehicle. The flame passes from melting candle to melting candle. The real death is that of the species. I'm even at peace with that, somehow. Nothingness is OK. The adventure of being is glorious and terrible. I'd prefer the continuation of the human adventure. But there are worse things than nothing at all.
Ginsberg was supposedly exhilarated, but he had lived quite a life and was probably ready for a new experience. "A consummation devoutly to be wished." I think death can have a beauty even for the happy. Indeed, a certain kind of constant dying is arguably identical with constant rebirth. Nobby Brown contrasted "life-death" as a Dionysian unity to something like Apollonion un-death. or un-life. To really live is also to die, while a different force wants to freeze the chaos, cease the cycle. Perhaps philosophers especially want to stop the wheel. They are "undead." The flux is frozen or converted into snapshots, "eternal truths." We can find this perhaps in an ambivalence toward "the woman." The "male" energy might be said to yank the individual out of the mother and out of nature --out of the flux. Death is the womb, the mother. Horror to the anti-natural silver rocket of the masculine principle. Kinch didn't like baths in Ulysses. Henry Flowers liked taking baths a little too much. Hence their fusion or reassembly as the theme of the book.
But to be clear, I'd feel some fear if faced with dying in the morning, for instance. But I wouldn't lose my mind. I'd buckle down for the supreme test of my philosophy. Going out like a boss.
Nope. Do you know the life story of Dostoyevsky? He was saved from death row right before it was his turn.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Sure, so what? The gods pick and choose whom they shall exalt, and whom they shall crush. The Ancients all were keenly aware of this, that their own life ultimately did not lie in their hands.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Simple, God can pick and choose who dies and who lives. I don't think this is bad in any sense of the term. Human beings are not in charge of their own lives. God's sun shines on the wicked and on the good. The good may be crushed, as Job was, and the evil may be given power. Or the contrary.
God saved you and allowed 10,000 others to die. Praise God! His sun shines on the wicked and on the good.
Quoting Bitter Crank
In many ways, it is.
Quoting Bitter Crank
You don't have much of an alternative. It's a strategic choice. If you chance of success is 0.00001% then you better play it to the best of your abilities. What, it's better to just drop your weapons and make your chance go to 0%? Whenever I find myself in a terrible situation, I am pessimistic, but still hope for a miracle. As Heraclitus said, unless you expect the unexpected, you will not find it.
And of course, a miracle is very unlikely. That's why in the worst situations it takes a miracle - something extremely unlikely - to save you. It's very likely it won't happen. But it may.
I don't think it's disappointing so long as you realize it is very unlikely, but still possible. This means you need to be a realist. Your attitude is not a realistic attitude, it's a defeatist pessimistic attitude since it doesn't take into account that slim chance of success which does exist, even if it is small. You need to see things for what they are.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I disagree, I don't see my days as under my control, so whether I plan for it or I don't, I'll still have to die at the same time. So I'd rather plan for other things.
Quoting Bitter Crank
No, haven't seen it. Thanks for sharing it.
Oh well, if you sense of injured justice will make you feel better while in the center of the pit, sure, why not? >:)
Weakness is strength, ignorance knowledge, and self-indulgent self pity mirrored off of anything seen in similar states are the highest good, as everything worked for, hard, difficult, or not freely given and unearned is wicked...
I imagine that somethings are above me, or beyond my judgement. That I'm inept to evaluate them. That I personally am not the measure of all things, at the very least. That there are heights to which I have not climbed, and may be incapable of climbing.
To imagine that everyone is just really fucking dumb, and juvenile, and you're so smart by saying the same thing as every other edgy teenager... nothing beyond you, besides not being taken in by fads and rhetoric like "reason" "evidence" and "science" without substantive content... yeah I'm all butthurt. I just can't take the damage.
How much do you trust your memory? What if you did ask and have forgotten?
I didn't realize you thought so highly of me, I am flattered.
Was it you that did any of the things that you have now forgotten?
Quoting Lone Wolf
I don’t want to remain in ignorance, but I see no choice in the matter, because I just don’t believe the evidence is there. I certainly don’t want to spend my remaining time (I’m 65) in a probably fruitless search. I’ve got better things to do.
Best way to face death – call a friend, make a coffee, read a good book, go for a walk in the sun or the rain, play with the dog. The best way to face death is just to get on with living. That's what I try to do, and I'm successful 99% of the time. Of course, it helps that at 65 I'm still pretty healthy. When I'm 75 or 85 I may be singing a different song.
The ambulance ride took about 30 minutes, I'd say, and it's a curious thing but I didn't panic, or worry, or ask for a priest, but though in pain observed what was taking place with some interest and hoped in a rather vague manner that I would make it through alright. I found myself very much involved in the moment, too busy it seemed to me to wonder what would happen if I died or after I died. And so it went on as I was hauled out of the ambulance and encountered an amiable doctor and his two assistants who may have been nurses or other doctors but in any case gave me something or other, and then I seemed to hover pleasantly while they spoke together and sometimes to me, while they slipped a wire into my wrist, cleaned out my left ventricle or perhaps something else, installed a stent, wheeled me to a room and told me I had "beat the widow-maker."
I have no idea whether there will be an afterlife, but suspect it's unlikely. Regardless, though, I'm here to say that facing death might sometimes entail simply watching, with interest but without overwhelming fear, things happening or things done to you. You're too busy to do much more than that. Was it the morphine or whatever other worthy drug they gave me while in the operating room? I don't know, but think it's likely that without them I would simply have been not only too busy but in too much pain to do anything more.
Consider this, Wosret. Any "creator of the fucking universe" is for me a mere hypothesis, an image or concept in my mind. I am indeed in a position to judge this image of my mind. On the other hand, I can only judge this ideal image in terms of other ideal images/concepts also in my mind.
As far as the resistance to subordination goes, this is itself a subordination to an ideal image that includes independence, critical thinking, etc. In other words, I can resist being subjugated by the usual rhetoric of false humility precisely because I am already subjugated by a self-referential rhetoric authenticity, the sacredness of my own mind, etc.
From my perspective, your position in the quote above is blind to its own arrogance. IMO, all positions function also as self-advertisements, virtue signals. You seem to me to abase yourself in order to exalt yourself. I don't judge or blame you for exalting yourself. That to me is essentially what we are. I consciously exalt myself via philosophy.
I struggle to shape my ideal self, which I am always already subordinated to. Because this ideal includes self-criticism, it is more mobile to some ideals, more subject to what amounts to self-editing.
For me, the best philosophy is the rhetoric of self exaltation, either on the individual level or in terms of one's community (a less direct but more common target of public narcissism). I only criticize you for writing as if you were not doing this.
Thanks for sharing. Great story.
I can mostly relate, but I think the gap between us and other animals is extreme. We are like gods trapped in dogs. We've been to the moon, brother. We can cognize the end of all life on the this planet, if not all life in the universe as we know it. Of course biologically we are animals. I have no taste for woo. Our capacity for thought is uncanny.
So for me we are "gods" trapped in the dying bodies of "dogs." We spend decades developing unique personalities until we are able to utter sentences that know human before did or even could utter. So there's some tragedy in our deaths. For me the tragedy is greater where the individual is greater. But there's also beauty in death and even a constant dying within the individuals who attain the sense of themselves as "gods." We are "gods" because we can peel our identities away from the given. We die into a virtual divinity. This "dying" is (as I see it) the death of our childish, tribal fantasies --the deaths of the same identifications that allow us to be civilized (thoughtful) in the first place.
I think there is nothing after death. Also, yes, life is "ultimately" an "empty" dream. "All is vanity" = Everything is empty. But this is only ultimately.
If one decides to live (by not killing one's self), then one has to make decision after decision in the face of uncertainty and ambivalence. Marriage, career, friendship, free time, health problems, etc. etc. etc.
So this empty dream is crowded with incident.
When life is going well (is mostly fun and pleasant), then it has a positive net value. Just as you don't want to lose your cash-stuffed wallet, you don't want to lose your fun and pleasure. That's a move from net value to neutral or zero value. Yes, we won't be able to make that calculation in the grave. So with Nabokov we can say that the fear of death is the master madness. All this struggle to stay alive can indeed appear like madness to one in a specific mood. This is just one of the mood-based perspectives that has no comfortable abode in the busy and earnest public discourse.
When one is "pregnant" with a project, death is a threat to its birth. As ol' Schop put it, the writer is an insect that wants to lay its eggs before it dies. Once those eggs are laid, good night. For most creative types, their own still-developing "infinite" personality is an egg that's never quite dropped. As I start to feel physical aging, I see that it's probably only the slow failure of this "vehicle" that will allow me to welcome as opposed to tolerate death. As S. Johnson said, "it's not use whining." But heroically not-whining is not the same as crawling with a sore body into a soft bed.
Of course life can also appear as a net "bad" or an obscene horror. Anyone who has not seen this "horror" is maybe a little shallow. But those who can only see this horror are maybe a little out of touch with the monster in themselves who likes it just fine. Opinions, obviously.
As you are to me, and I am to you. I don't know you, and you don't know me, so when I conceive of you, I construct what kind of person you are. A flimsy one made of straw, or something constituted of more sturdy material.
The inscription at the temple of Delphi, "know thyself" meant to know your place, while in the presence of Apollo, while in the temple.
I only speculate on your competence, on your aptitudes, I don't know them easily, and may not have a comparative aptitude to evaluate. Someone has to be pretty well close to me, and not too far from me to see them well.
This cannot be true for someone that says that they're in a position to judge the highest, maximal point, to judge infinity. They are either judging what they see as a human being, and their conception in a weak form, or are mightily awesome themselves. I did in fact assume the former, but still found it arrogant to write off just other people like that.
You can freely poorly assume my motives, as just trying to look or feel awesome or whatever.
Only in comparison to dogs. The only thing that makes us stand apart from all the other animals is pattern recognition and an incredible rate of learning - again, in comparison.
Quoting n0 0ne
I'd also point out that we have killed billions of each others, constructed weapons to potentially render our own environment uninhabitable for many years, and it wouldn't take long on a Google search to start reading about some of the sick unimaginable things that some people have done to each other on a 1 to 1 basis. Yes, humans have done great things and in comparison to dogs we may seem like gods (until perhaps we come in contact with some being far more intelligent than ourselves), but aren't we also a bunch of narcissistic demons with a flawed sense of reality?
Really, this pattern recognition is how we are able to communicate (orally and through technology - the alphabet) and the fact that our thumbs can pinch things is what sets apart the average Joe from a dog. Not all of us can design rockets that go to the moon, the general population can't even name all of the planets in the solar system let alone the order they are in from the sun. I'm not having a downer on the human race, i think you just have to be a bit realistic in the credit that we give ourselves.
Your sentence implies the following argument:
X created the universe.
Therefore I should not judge X.
Clearly not a valid argument.
I should also mention that "virtue signaling" isn't even an insult, and signal theorists denounce it as an insult. It just means signaling, and can only be construed as an insult in the sense of dishonest signaling, what values you're signaling you do not actually hold, or enact, or preaching to the choir. The pejorative thing though, is a politicized, rather than scientific notion of virtue signaling.
No man... people were speaking in hypotheticals, saying that if they went to hell, then that wouldn't be fair, and only an unjust being would decide that. I was saying how that didn't follow, as one wouldn't be in a position to judge something like that. I don't think that's all that wild of an assertion, unless you don't know fuck all about much...
Socrates argued for instance that in the meno dialogue that there isn't a problem of will. Everyone wills the good, we just disagree about what is, and isn't good. What works, and what does not work. The only evil ignorance, and the only good knowledge. People act in accordance with what they think is right and true, and against what they think is wrong and false. Is this controversial? We are not all equally right, or equally wise... is that controversial?
Very Epicurean of you. The symmetry argument:
After all,
the presently imagined future isn't the actual future,
just as the presently remembered past isn't the actual past.
And the presently imagined actual future isn't the actual actual future,
just as the presently imagined actual past isn't the actual actual past.
And the presently imagined actual actual future isn't the actual actual actual future ,
just as the presently imagined actual actual past isn't the actual actual actual past.
And the...
So the imagination cannot refer to time but only empty signs of temporal pretence, while the present reduces to whatever one is imagining or looking at.
What if you are wrong and you die? How do you know that everything is empty?
Quoting n0 0ne
How do you speculate that life is merely chance and not directed?
Quoting n0 0ne
Quoting n0 0ne
Sorrow deepens the ability to receive joy. Without pain, then there can be no pleasure that can be fully appreciated. So one cannot truly discern if life is worthless or not based on emotions at the moment, nor based on emotions that have built up over a long time. Pessimism is an attitude, not the ability to determine if life is worth living or not.
Quoting Herg
I am very sorry for your loss. But perhaps it would be best to reconsider what you can and can't change. Death will likely be unchangeable, but what you think about death changes. What happens after death cannot be changed when one is dead, but what could happen might be able to be changed before dying.
Quoting Herg
With the preconceived notion that there is no after-life, then truth cannot be found. You do not expect to find anything, therefore you do not search with much effort. You don't believe there to be evidence, therefore it is possible that you have merely rejected the evidence. You contradict yourself when you say you have no choice, but then say you have better things to do. So by your own statement, you have chosen to remain ignorant because you claim to have better things to do.
There is IMO something that might be called a leap of faith or rather unfaith in atheism and/or the denial of afterlife. As I've wrote elsewhere, I think we can find only irrational foundations for our otherwise rational or rationalized positions. I can make a case for my position. I can explain why it appeals to me. But I don't pretend to be doing an absolute science or "word math" with the language I've inherited. In short, my lifestyle is a measure of my subjective certainty.
In an ideal logical sense, I could of course be wrong. But if religion is a matter of knowledge in the sense that God is a tyrant who may be hiding and waiting to punish the skeptical, then what we are really talking about is a quasi-scientific hypothesis. God becomes a monster toward which we can only feel fear and contempt. If I somehow became certain that such a tyrant existed, then I would submit. Eternal suffering is that kind of threat. But why is a God who rewards critical thinking and autonomy any less likely? Why not postulate a God who punishes believers or those who claim to know his nature and intentions? What if God despises all prophets as false prophets? Of course I don't think there is a God, or at least not the kind who metes out justice in the afterlife.
IMO, this is quite a stretch of the word "only." But for me this is not really an "objective" matter. We disagree perhaps in the realm of values or fundamental existential investments. From my perspective, you are speaking from a desire to humiliate man.
Quoting MPen89
For me these are two sides of the same coin. We are indeed narcissistic demons, and God was created in our image. Note, though, that as a human you judge humanity. I'm not accusing you when I say that your position is one more assertion of a standard or a norm, one more imposition of an ought-to-be on what-is. The violence you mention can be chalked up to human tendency. Religious wars phrased moral preferences in terms of the will of God. Secular war is expressed in terms of abstract principles. And you and I right now are engaged in a polite war of ideas.
But my position is really about zooming out, trying to think beyond good and evil. I realize that this detached or amoral position is "evil" for other perspectives. When I speak of man as a god, I'm thinking of the individual's ability to put all inherited values in question.
I didn't mean to come off as rude, just to be clear.
For me the issue if whether the "infinite" has any content. What I took from Hegel is the vacuity of the thing-in-itself. I'm taking this out of context and understanding it spirituality. If I believe in a perspective that surpasses my own (like the mind of god), what exactly am I believing in? All I seem to have is a bare negation of my own perspective.
Let's say that God is to man as man is to dog. What can a man be to a dog? Perhaps only an ideally clever dog. If the dog could understand man, he would already be man, albeit strangely trapped in a dog's body.
We can take Hegel himself as an example. Imagine a 20 year old who picks up the idea that Hegel is some master sage. He has a vague belief in some superior perspective but no actual grasp on this perspective until he reads Hegel. As he understand Hegel, he becomes Hegel. In short, we only understand or know what we have already become. I think Hegel continued this kind of thinking:
[quote=Fichte]
Now the essence of critical philosophy is this, that an absolute self is postulated as wholly unconditioned and incapable of determination by any higher thing...Any philosophy, on the other hand, is dogmatic, when it creates or opposes anything to the self as such; and this is does by appealing to the supposedly higher concept of the thing, which is thus quite arbitrarily set up as the absolutely highest conception. In the critical system, a thing is what is posited in the self; in the dogmatic it is that wherein the self is posited: critical philosophy is thus immanent, since it posits everything in the self; dogmatism is transcendent, since it goes out beyond the self.
[/quote]
I don't at all understand it as an insult. If that's what personality is, then "accusations" of virtue signaling can only be more virtue signaling. So to be clear, I understand myself also to be virtue signaling. I "confess" it. I was just trying to point out that accusations of arrogance also assert knowledge-virtue.
I more or less define personality as the assertion of some notion of the ideal. The objective/universal pose is one that asserts some moral/intellectual ideal as binding for all humanity. The less common subjective pose is one that presents sentences as tools for others sufficiently like himself to appreciate such tools. I identity with this subjective pose.
From my perspective (asserted as a lived vision of the world), we all act and a speak from irrational foundations. Our criterions for true and false and right or wrong cannot justify themselves. We act and argue from investments that we can only rarely sincerely put in question. If we occasionally manage this, it's because the shape of that investment is self-referential. Perhaps I let go of my notion of being a "good guy" as I try to realize my ideal self as ruthless pursue of the truth. This is what Nietzsche especially means to me. In pursuit of the truth, morality is finally put into question. But then the pursuit of truth itself as an unquestioned absolute value is put into question. It can even be said to put itself into question. And that's how the subjective pose is born from the objective pose. (So I venture as an assertion of unjustified personality.)
You ought to consider that I never posited a god, or said that I was a theist, but was speaking within a hypothetical scenario. that in no way required me to. That this was just supposed to be so, and then reacted to so strongely should give you pause.
Hegel is a good example, as he does reject the metaphysical limits Kant set out, as he thought that you could only delineate such limits, define them and their scoop from beyond them. He also is famous for dialectics, and the notion of progressing through conversation. So, think that if I interpret, and construct my interlocutor's position as flimsily, and stupidly as possible, and mine as strongly as possible, what am I doing? What is the goal there other than to protect something that I identify as myself, and part of myself from damage?
I don't want to argue about what God is or isn't, or whether or not it is or is, but just that there are things beyond you. If you go to learn a discipline, you subject yourself to their mastery. You listen intently, take them seriously, study what they tell you to, practice what they tell you to, and eventually things start falling together.
Now imagine two disciples, one doesn't pay attention, believes that the professor is an idiot, doesn't engage in the practices, doesn't study the material, and the other does the opposite. Which student do you figure will master the discipline, and which will not? Which will become an authority on the subject, and which will not?
No masters, or teachers are Gods or infallible, but you need to move through them, and beyond them in order to truly figure that one, it is far more difficult to reinvent the wheel, from scratch, thinking every other wheel maker a fool from the beginning, and a far better wheel than has ever been made before.
You of course do need to be on someone's level before you can understand them, and their are certain behaviors and attitudes which are not very conducive to getting there, and there are other behaviors and attitudes which are.
So you were saying that my opinions were value laden, and therefore equally valid to everyone else's? I didn't get that... that's a silly thing to think, and you can't actually think it. You literally can't actually behave as if that is true. You will behave as if some values are superior to others, and some are wrong. Saying that on some meta-level analysis you think they're all valid, but we can't help but act otherwise doesn't actually change anything then, if we all act like they're true anyway, then there is no difference besides some kind of back-handed dismissal, or enlightened self-awareness that you can't in any sense actually enact.
I think a difference in our attitudes may have something to do with "embracing the killer." The novel Steppenwolf comes to mind. From the wolf's point of view, war is beautiful. Men would not return to it again and again if it did not appeal to them. Rich, comfortable, civilized nations sometimes go to war. There is an "excess" in man's psyche that finds peace boring or repressive. Part of us wants to kill and die. Orgasm has been called the little death and that figures in too.
There is the desire to survive peacefully (a constructive, future-invested drive) and a drive to give one's self away to the moment. "Sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll" are related to this second drive, along with war.
From my point of view, there's a safe, righteous kind of thought that dominates the public space. For instance, you mention the "sins" of man as if you yourself cannot relate to the joy in destruction. Maybe you indeed cannot relate. But I for one enjoy shows like Gomorrah. I love Breaking Bad. I root for the evil hero. That's the inner gangster, etc. TV is a magic circle where the repressed beast is allowed to feed on the flesh of his enemies. It's like "true blood" (the product within the show of the same name.) If we do establish peace, it'll probably be by means of virtual as opposed to actual war.
In short, I experience condemnations of man's evil as incomplete or not quite convincing. I think the ambivalence runs through the center of the individual heart.
No. Not saying that. We will kill and die for our own values. I'm no hippy. My "leap of faith" is organ deep, just as yours is. Equally validity is the opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying that I don't pretend to speak from some objective place. I "speak from the I," without justification in terms of some alien other. It's an "evil" position, not some feel-good maternal nonsense.
Yes. Some of us pose as if we have an authority to justify this action. Others find reaching for this authority too servile or inauthentic.
What's the difference?
Who care's if they're servile, or inauthentic? You're just speaking from some alien position, it isn't as if it's true. It wouldn't matter if it was or it wasn't either, as that would require a value for the truth.
I'm saying we are irrational wills clashing in the void. Some of us convince ourselves and others that the world is not like this. It is not a void of clashing wills. They say that they know this God fellow or this universal rationality that elevates them beyond the mere assertion of personality. They identity the substance or kernel of their personality with a principle or image that is transpersonal.
But an earnest pursuit of the transpersonal (Nietzsche's quest for the truth about truth) can result in a generalized skepticism with respect to the transpersonal. One can ask one's self: do I really give a damn about posing as a scientist or the agent of some god? Or was this all along the assertion of the value of my individual personality? Such a person can cut out the middle man, drop the objective-righteous rhetoric and assert the I directly in terms of its dark charisma.
A demonized Sartre is sort of what I have in mind. He didn't have the nerve for existentialism. He worked in a Kantian ethic and eventually sold it out to Marxism. He collapsed into a high-brow moralist.
Why are you even talking to me then, if we're both just irrational anyway? Why reason with me? What's the point of that? There couldn't be a reason I guess, just irrationally doing so, for no reason.
Also, is everyone irrational? That's a transpersonal claim...
You've receded into contradictory irrationality and inactionable nonsense, sir, not I.
Yes, I am "irrationally" invested in autonomy. It just is sexy. As I said, I think we have notions of the ideal man that we compulsively "incarnate." We have a passion for what is largely a vague image that we therefore conceptually elaborate.
Let me be clearer. It does make me feel good. But colloquially "feel-good" positions are often maternal. "It all works out in the end. Karma's got your back. The real is the rational is a the real." My little song is a dark song of the heroic ego facing the void, dying alone. It's sexy in an austere way. It's bleak. Of course it's macho. No doubt: for me philosophy has been a conceptual elaboration of masculinity. Phallogocentric and all that jazz.
Now, just be consistent, and drop that "we" stuff, and you'll have arrived.
I've been down this road before. We exert ourselves in the world through language by seducing otehrs to see the world in our own terms. Our sentences are viruses. Moreover we (including myself) like to spit out our favorite ideas. It amuses me to paint these words on the public wall. Maybe someone will get where I'm coming from. Maybe someone like you will test my wits with objections. I like playing blitz chess & I like playing with ideas.
I think our motives our irrational, yes, but that "rationality" is the symbol-employing pursuit of our heart's desire. The mind is the tool of the dark heart. I offer that not as science but as a tool. The representational paradigm has its limits. It's constrained by the transpersonal pose. Representation is also (often) persuasive. I impose my interpretation as reality itself. I am well aware that I cannot control the meaning of my strings of words. I think Derrida has a point that the ideality of language means that every sentence is a mirror of our own finitude. Am I present the necessarily iterable concepts that I string together? They outlive me. They are objects in a quasi-spiritual realm that "haunts" the realm of sensation and flesh.
What we're maybe really talking about is re-envisioning of philosophy. Typically it seems to be envisioned as a kind of objective science. But we can widen that notion by not assuming objectivity. It's a genre or an historically organized collection of sentences. Philosophy can be understood as a branch of philosophy that assumes or institutes the universal pose. I'm trying to speak from outside that pose, and I tend to be misunderstood when doing so.
I personally am not just amusing myself, nor just playing games. I think we're done.
Sure. But to get nit-picky about my language is not necessarily to respond thoughtfully. Obviously you may hate my perspective. I offer it without justification, like a piece of sculpture or a dick joke. I try to state it forcefully (engrossed in shaping the concepts into sentences), but it is of course a joker's or asshole's philosophy. Divine malice, the laughter of the gods, etc. It irreverently questions "the spirit of seriousness." The film A Serious Man also did this. The nice guy scientist lacks a certain oomph as a protagonist. There's something flat in such an ideal. (Notes from Underground also comes to mind.)
This sounds so much like "spare the moronic boredom and spoil the kid." I like to laugh; and what about Nirvana? Is that not equal to "nothingness"? and if it IS equal to nothingness, then don't the serious get to experience mortality?
This whole Buddhist thinking makes no sense, forces man to live an unnatural life, and it's for the birds, as far as I can tell.
Don't you see some sculptures of the "Laughing Buddha"? Well, what's up with that? Or is there humour that is serious, and is there sombre thought that is frivolous?
You just don't get it. The above contradicts itself to the extent that it claims to be true in any objective sense, otherwise it violates the limits it itself proposes, which you keep doing. You don't get that you're accurately describing your own inner workings, but nothing more.
That's a Chinese God, and not Buddha. There are times to be serious, and things to be serious about. Not everything is a joke, or identity politics, where we're just trying to overpower one and other, and our words can become unrestricted by truth, and become aimed at persuasion and dominance above all else.
Good quote. I don't totally buy the dichotomy between amusement and seriousness. Divine malice. Seriousness of the child at play. As far as gazing on the frivolous multitude, my view offers its own version of that pleasure. It is free of the common pretense, no longer alienated or finding its essence beyond itself. "Nothing human is alien to me" and eventually "nothing alien is inhuman to me."
F R MA M N O LY
"FOR MADMEN ONLY" (the flickering sign in Steppenwolf)
Maybe you don't get it. That statement itself is exactly the kind of seduction it describes. It is a transpersonal bluff that recognizes itself a such. You might say that I'm an ironist doing performance art. But that would not be some final description either. I'm not doing science. I'm doing something more general with sentences. I include objective-sounding statements in this performance. The meaning is holistic. I'm not doing word math. I'm sketching a personality. Not even my own personality but a "fictional" post-philosophical position that I find fascinating and indeed embrace. 'Course I'm never done playing with it, building it, etc.
You're trapped in a hot-air balloon, headin'er for space.
I happen to be Chinese today. The Laughing Buddha is not a Chinese God. Maybe it's not the Buddha, but I think it is, because it is called The Laughing Buddha. Maybe it is not the same Buddha that you worship, but a different person by the same name. Much like there was Groucho Marx and Karl Marx, or Kate Bush and George W. Bush. Or Jesus and Jesus (many don't worship this lesser known Jesus, but He is also mighty and a powerful God.)
Sure there are times to be serious. And there are times to be frivolous. "There is a time for everything." But the quote I quoted from you quoted from Buddha denies the right to exist for any frivol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budai
"Budai, Hotei or Pu-Tai[1][2] (Chinese and Japanese: ??; pinyin: Bùdà i; r?maji: Hotei[3]; Vietnamese: B? ??i) is a Chinese folkloric deity. "
I close this discussion. I don't tolerate senseless and unnecessary censorship well.
If this continues, I may quit the site altogether.
If one is "possessed" by the spirit of seriousness, then one can find no use for my word-art. That's OK. I love to read philosophy, but I don't usually find much agreement among them. They find me frivolous-narcissistic-irresponsible and I find them alienated-inauthentic-"superstitious." To question the basic scientistic/objective pose of the metaphysician is perhaps to go beyond or before metaphysics. When Plato and Socrates and the gang imposed a distinction between what they were doing and what the other wordsmiths were doing, they instituted "sacred sophistry" or anti-sophistry or philosophy. I think most intellectuals experience this pose as a necessity. That's what thinkers do, science.
But this view of thinking is contingent. We happened to get religious about certain conceptions of the use of conception itself. Because I use declarative sentences rather than a tiresome train of pomo-qualifications, you can say that I'm still doing "science" here. But I am more generally stringing words together and clicking "Post Comment." I am spraying spores of my own personality as an option for others. It's a culture-product. Lots of philosophers are as subjective, autobiographical as Kerouac. Few of them admit it. That's the gimmick of these particular spores. The objective pretense is abandoned even as it is employed to communicate this abandonment. (Declarative sentences insist that language is bigger than declarative sentences. Language is represented as being bigger than representation.)
"Probation" eh? You sound like a bad influence... What did you do?
Maybe there is just an amount of time that must transpire between posts or something, though I dunno, ought to inquire about it.
I largely agree. History is driven by this quest for the beyond. Alienated man pursues his apparently distance essence. The student trusts the guru as the possessor, for instance, of this essence. So projection/alienation is absolutely central to my thinking.
Riffing on Hegel (without appeal to his authority), absolute knowledge is only possible at the end of history--in this case personal-ideological history. The student becomes the guru only when projection is overcome --when projection is recognized as projection. So the guru is self-subverting all along (in my vision of this process), but the student has to gather the nerve to live without the projection. Why?
Because the projection is a crutch. The projection is an essence for the student, a refuge from freedom. (This is a Sartre-Hegel blend.) The guru tries to tell the student that he "exists" or "juts out" from the given. As I see it, the guru's message is that there is no guru. Less paradoxically, the student's attitude toward the guru is the itself the unwisdom of the student that must be overcome. This can only be done in terms of the student's "misunderstandings" or "projections." He is deaf to that which does not relate to the sacred as he currently conceives it. Critique is immanent. Positions collapse only on their own terms. They fail their own criteria for success or validity and mutate in order to ease this tension or correct this failure. The process continues until alienation is overcome. Otherness is grasped as temporary, fictional, provisional. The criterion ceases to fail itself ("absolute knowledge" or what-you-may-call-it.)
A fuzzier version of this is the young man's hero worship of the great dead philosophers. He admires them in a way that forecloses the possibility of him becoming them. They themselves "spoke from the I" charismatically. They got themselves taken as authorities. They imposed their personalities as Truth. So young men not yet come of age argue with one another in terms of their chosen Father images (favorite philosophers around which they cannot see). Just as Christians quote the bible, the young thinker quotes the secular scripture of the famous dead thinker. Of course (as you say) we can't start from zero. Life is too short. We need the shortcut of centuries of thinking. But we are only fully mature when we can venture forth and "speak from the I" and our own here and now.
I replied to you saying that Budai and its variations are not the Buddha. I meant this application of logic seriously, but nevertheless mine was a funny post, or an attempt at humour. I insisted that the Laughing Buddha does depict the Buddha, and not the Budai et al.
I said something to the effect that mixing up the Buddha with the Budai et al is a mistake like mixing up Groucho Marx with Karl Marx. Then I said maybe there was the Buddha, and there was another Buddha, much like there was Jesus, and there was a lesser known God also called Jesus, with a different life story and stuff.
I don't know why that post still hasn't appeared.
Budai is actually NOT the Buddha. It is Budai. It's like mixing up Himmler with Hitler.
Your fact is totally dead on true, but is unfortunately irrelevant in this case.
The Laughing Buddha is not the Laughing Budai, Romaji, Hotei, or Bo Dai. It is the Buddha. Check Wiki again if you don't believe me.
a) Believes in an afterlife
b) Doesn't believe in an afterlife, or
c) Is undecided about an afterlife
1. What do you imagine an afterlife, or the absence of an afterlife to consist of?
2. What makes you think that your current imagination of the afterlife/absence of afterlife isn't merely your definition of the terms "afterlife" or "negated afterlife"? What makes you think that your imagination in either case has a transcendental meaning beyond your immediate imagination?
Contrast this problem against an ordinary example of imagining something that might or might not have a reference:
For example, I have never been to Egypt (to the best of my knowledge), but I believe that I can currently imagine what the interior of an undiscovered tomb in Egypt might look like. But does it make sense for me ask myself solely on the basis of this image as to whether or not my imagined tomb will be discovered, or for that matter whether or not it is in Egypt?
Doesn't look anything like the Buddha bro. I was going to hilariously remark that you must be a racist for saying "that's not a Chinese god, I'd know, I'm Chinese, and being Chinese have a complete knowledge of all things Chinese".
That covers one of the two possibilities. "If it comes to that". And what is your stance on the issue should it not come to that? :-)
The creator doesn't have to care what ee say or think.
Death is the opportunity for life.
Just as destruction breeds creation.
In Hinduism one god dances to destroy while the other creates.
This all happening now.
Imagine if you would an infitine amount of nows. How would that be? It'd be like what I assume the vibration in the air looks like once you've smacked a gong,constantly over and over again without end.
Every time you hit that "gong" a new universe rings out untill the sound grows silent and fades away but there will be more if it continues to be rung.
Bang
Bang
Bang
The only constant is the gong itself.
Maybe thats what we call god or the source
Some say it's consciousness itself but why does it have to be?
Life is the intertangled creative thought of the vibration itself making its way in such creative colorful patterns it actually seems,physical.
As if anything ever was.
I don't know if I explained that right.
It's probably all just a big game of hide and seek anyways but what do I know?
Not a thing.
Btw the hell fire doctorine is tottal crao because we are nothing but receivers for frequencies and thoughts to project off. Kind of like a black mirror. So why is it our fault for what thoughts come in our mind and subsequently the resulting action. If god knew everything from the beginning every move you'd make and at the same time wishes none of his creation perish do you think he would even create you knowing you would end up in hell?
That sounds like some sick kid on the playground with a maginifne glass terrorizing ants sorta shit that just doesn't make sense.
I'm not going to get into a discussion of free will and freedom of choice yada yada.
Just know I'm pretty sure god would understand the ignorance that makes humans do what they do.
But again he doesn't have to care what anyone thinks.
He could be a total dick and say fuck you if your not a mormon you're fucked.
Who knows?
Is what you said. I'm not so low in reading comprehension as much as that is low in intelligiblity. A lot of interpretation was involved, I assumed it meant that you were Chinese, both that day and every other. It could have also meant that you were in Chinese, neither one in anyway would suggest that "therefore you'd know" as it implied.
Learning and relearning.
Until you finnaly achieve.. .
Perfect hair.
Fair enough.
What about being judged by a ruler in the afterlife who has not communicated his or her objectives to you, in fact, mislead you, and what you consider a life well lived, and expect rewards for it, is exactly the opposite to for what he rewards the dead?
I mean, I sort of get it that if you are judged by a fair judge, you will be happy. But what about an unfair judge? Have you considered that possibility?
Is there anything I can do about it?
But... here's the hitch... you are not given the fact that the promise of reward in the afterlife for living a right life is true or the reverse is true.
This is not fantasy... it's a real life situation. Much as you simply and contently stated you won't mind being judged by a fair judge, you are given assurance neither pro, nor con. You have to decide that, and you have a 50% chance at any rate to go to hell or to go to heaven, and now you can answer your own question, whether there is anything you can do about it.
I don't know what you can do after you die... some people talk about the dead visiting, but the best they can do is drive you insane with constant rattling of bones and rattling chains, so you lose sleep before big the golf game with your boss. That's about all I've heard as facts regarding the actions of the dead.
Please don't give in to the hype... the "night of the living dead" was made with dead extras, there were not any famous dead celeb actors involved in the casting... The celebs mostly failed the auditions when they insisted they want to play Hamlet of Lady MacBeth, and in the middle of their soliloquy their left eye started to run out of its socket, or the actors tried to bite off the casting director's head.
According to the Christian Bible, that God does not punish the skeptical for being skeptical. Those that are damned are punished because they willfully sin and violate a set standard of laws. No one accuses a government of being tyrannical when it punishes a criminal for obvious crimes such as stealing or murder, so why would a God be accused of tyranny if He punishes evil?
Quoting n0 0ne
Hmm, I am not sure I understand your point. Some portrayed gods do attempt to suppress one's ability to think, but that is rather the result of man's interpretation. Many brilliant thinkers believed in a God of logic and reason.
Of course, from the point-of-view of your survivors.
From your own point of view, of course there's no such thing as "oblivion". You never reach or experience the time when you're completely shut down and have no experience. How could you experience a time when you have no experience? You never reach "oblivion".
"Oblivion" is a myth.
There's no soul, "Mind" or Consciousness separate from the body.
Well, let's not jump to conclusions. You never reach "nothing".
Science isn't helpful outside its legitimate range of applicability. But yes, there isn't a soul.
Doesn't follow. As I said, there's no such thing as oblivion, because of course you never experience the time after your experience has completely shut down.
Only the physical world can be scientifically-examined. There's a tendency to want to apply science outside its legitimate range of applicability, resulting in a Science-Worship religion.
As Shakespeare noted, in sleep we dream. We don't remember most of our dreams (only those that are close to when we wake up), but we nevertheless experience them. In dreams, we have experience, but don't know about our waking life, and usually believe in the dream-reality.
...all suggesting that we should be cautious about concluding anything about what death is like.
After the initial experiences described in NDE reports, you'll be too unconscious to know that you've found out.
We can all agree that dying is like going to sleep. But that doesn't tell us much in detail. But there's nothing wrong with going to sleep. It happens daily.
But, if you want to discuss what the details might be like--
Eastern traditions have suggested, and it seems metaphysically-supported, reincarnation for most people, and eventually, after many lives, upon thorough life-completion, an end of lives, and then a preference for and reaching of Tiimelessness.
Michael Ossipoff