guys what makes life worth living is THINKING! Thinking is the be all and the end all, without it life isn't worth living another moment.
hey thanks Kat! i never realised Twain had so many intelligent things to say! i agree, what i wouldn't give to see life in a thousand years time! oh mAN that would be sooooo cool! how long do you think humanity is gonna last for? another 5000 years? another 20,000? another 1million? MORE? FOREVER? it's gotta be millions of years. gotta be. i mean, think about it, the dinosaurs pulled it off, why not us? i find it mind boggling to think about really. sucks i'm not gonna be around to see it! (nice one Gawd! ) how's it gonna end? i doubt we'd be dumb enough to nuke each other out of existance... shit, i think even the concept of war itself will be pretty much eradicated, definitely within the next 1000 years . also by that time i'm prety sure religion's just gonna be sidebar of antiquity. so we're not gonna have any of these muslim fuckos disturbing the balance.. some interstellar catastrophe? that seems the most imminent danger. hopefully we find some way of dealing with any errant asteroids by then. what a pity it would be for humanity to get cut short by a fluke incident like that. we'd also better find some other planet to inhabit. surely we could find a way to populate the moon and mars. beyond? who knows. we'd need some pretty zippy quick travelling aparatus if we're gonna traverse galactic distances..cos we're also gonna need a new solar system after our sun buys the farm.. imagine we survive right up till the time the universe undegoes heat death! argghhh! imagine living and knowing it's all gonna come to end (i think we'd have some pretty accurate measuring devices by then that could predict the exact minute). i hope someone gets to read this at that time! he could say, "daniel_m you old sea dog, we made it buddy!"
Ahh, but you see, that is where you are wrong. We can prove that existence exists. The fact that you are reading this very message that I am writing (by the time you read it, it will have been written) proves that you must exist to read this message, which also exists. Now, if you propose that there exists a state called "non-existence" than it must come from a set of possibilities where "existence" also resides. Let us pretend their is an object called "Cradula." Cradula is a made-up object that performs a specific task. However, we know that no object called Cradula exists. Ahh, but there is a problem -- since my very mention of Cradula has brought it into existence. This presents a problem. a) If I had not mentioned or thought of an object called Cradula, Cradula would exist in a state of non-existence. However, by mentioning and imagining an object called Cradula, I have forced it from a state of non-existence (assuming nobody else has thought of something called Cradula) to a state of existence. b) If Cradula now exists, how could it have ever existed in a state of non-existence? If it did not exist, there could be no way for me to bring it into existence. Moving on -- we can apply this concept further to life. I want you to stop reading for a moment and really ponder where you would be if you didn't exist. I want you to "imagine" what a state of non-existence would be like. You can't, can you? No matter how hard you try, you cannot envision a state of non-existence because any attempt to do so brings such a state into existence and therefore it never was non-existent. I can't take an object like Cradula out of non-existence into existence because it exists -- I just happened to make reference to such an object in my own mind. However, I cannot take an object that surely exists and place it into a state of non-existence. The best I would be able to do is transform its state of existence into another state of existence. The problem people have with death is that they assume that we go from a state of "existence" to a state of "non-existence." Think of all of our lives like water drops. Where does rain come from? It comes from an ocean or large body of water. When it rains, these droplets "exist" in an isolated form away from all other droplets. Imagine our "egos" as water droplets. When one states dismay over death, they are really expressing dismay over losing control of their ego -- or their unique perception of reality. As rain falls, it eventually joins another large body of water. The water droplet has seized to exist as a subset of a larger state of existence, but the larger state of existence (the large body of water) continues to exist. Eventually, it will rain again and new raindrops will be born, but the cycle of existence does not change -- only the subset of uniqueness which exists in a larger set of complete existence, for which we have already proved cannot ever "not exist." The feeling of a cool summer breeze over my face and how it makes me feel is shared by many other humans. The feelings of having an orgasm is similar to all other humans. We are more connected than we realize, and yet we as humans are so worried about our egos dying thru death when, in actuality, we join the wholeness of life itself and get integrated into a much larger set of existence. We cannot comprehend what it must be like to exist without ego in a larger set of existence, but this is the beauty of life and why we live. This is also why we see such complexity in simple processes here on Earth (rivers flowing to larger bodies of water, water evaporating to create clouds, clouds forming rain, rain rejoining other areas of water to continue to cycle). It is not our "lifeforce" or "essence of living" that dies, because that is always reborn with each new person. Our egos die -- but who cares -- we rejoin the ocean of eternal existence from where we came and enjoy a flow through some rivers before the cycle repeats. Don't sweat it.
dear me Aphie..... 1. Thinking of something whether it is called Cradula or a tree falling in a forest does not make it happen nor does it bring the very thing into existence. Because it is in your head does not mean therefore it exists. That is rather obvious. 2. Imagining the non existence of a person is easy. Just think of what it is like now for those children who are not yet born . It is not hard to imagine the characteristics of non existence. Futures traders have to do it every day. So you get born, then you return to the non existence that was you, before you were born. End of story. You can only display jussive mood whilst you exist. It's why churches can't preach to the unborn or the dead. I bet they would love to do that. dan, this universe's heat death - no problem. The likes of explorers that found new worlds on this planet would be after discovering more universes. Just one is small beer to these guys.
I friggin care Aphie ! To me that is just bs. You die - you fry. B*ll*cks to life force. Thatâs just consolatory nonsense for the reality of death = nothing. My ego My consciousness is what makes me what I am and I want to keep it. (I can hear the voice of Homer Simpson in there. ) I don't want it pooled into a non existent fantasy ocean of everything and nothing. I like it as it is
Aphie, LOL. it must really suck to have spent a considerable amount of time hammering away at something only for your work to be given no credence at all - deservedly. non-existance doesn't exist! bahahaha. seen an actual, living pink polka dot elephant anywhere dude? what about the ottoman empire, does that still exist? what about a square circle? or "god" for that matter! let's just come to grips with it: we don't yeyt have any good naturalist reason for supposing anything except that when you die you cease to exist.
Do you watch Disney? Their contributions are scattered all over the place. A circle starts as a triangle as you keep adding infinitely more sides. Evidence of "structure and design" is evident all over the place. You choose to blind yourself to it. That's not *my* problem Danny Boy! except? What naturalist reasons do we have that suggest we go into non-existence? Just because I'm dead to you doesn't mean I'm dead to me.
How is it rather obvious? Since for anything to "supposedly" exist, it must be observed. However, if I observe in my mind's eye, how does it make what is observed any less real? Oh, I understand that reality is merely a mass hallucination that just happens to be running parallel in everyone's mind, but quantum physics has already shown that observation alone brings things into existence. If there was no sentient system to observe the mechanics of the universe, the universe would not exist. They do exist. Every atom that will make up the egg and sperm of that kid exists right now -- they are just temporarily in an unorganized form. Just like when we "die" (but not non-exist) we get disorganized for awhile. That's not the end of the story. I'm going to get reorganized someday. Maybe some of your atoms will wind up in a bible after you get disorganized? Wouldn't that suck?
aphie, seriously dude, why do you insist on being so damn freakin unreasonable? u must really think you have something here, but i absolutely freakin gurantee you that if you take that crap to any philosophy department of any university it's gonna get thrown out the window after two seconds consideration. (most likely followed by mockingly derisive laughter). i'd give you a longer, more considered, less flippant response, but i just can't be bothered with you. define what constitutes a certain object and the conditions necessary for that object to exist. once either that object no longer conforms to its definition or the conditions necessary for it to exist are no longer there, the object is said to cease to exist. ie, "non-existance". it's kindergarten stuff. take up a course in philosophy or something if this shit means so much to you, cos trust me, the stuff you are spouting now, it really is garbage. sorry.
Aphie are you seriously saying that a loaf of bread exists because there is flour ? Because the constituent parts of something exist, then the something itself must exist. Really ?? You say "If there was no sentient system to observe the mechanics of the universe, the universe would not exist. " Why not ? I can say parts of universe(s) exist now that I have no sentient knowledge of . Is this the old ' a tree fell in a forest but because no one saw it fall did it really fall' hippy nonsense stuff or do you mean something else? If you are going to get reorganized some day into a load of dog poo I don't think you will be wondering about non existence. Thatâs the point. Whether or not we are made of the same atoms as dog poo or stardust, it is all only any use to us as long as it ends up eventually as human consciousness. As dog poo not much thinking takes place. Just what did dog poo ever do for us.? When we die we don't get disorganised for a while we get permanently disorganised. The very same atoms that made us the first time won't be the very same ones the next time around. So ok, I have some of Einstein's atoms in me (admittedly they are all in the wrong place ) but that's no use to Einstein is it? He wants his own back along with his own consciousness. Once you die you lose all that. That's what's obvious. Edit: what dan says too !