While this sentence above may mean ‘in this lifetime’, what is interesting is the momentum of a person in relation to other people and how can that be measured? The momentum of a person is very relevant in terms of all of their assets and how they use them, whether simply now or into infinity.
See, here you are asking the old question, of differentiating the old triad, Being, essence, existence, which was laid down by Arab philosophers, where the essence, is layered meaning for the Soul. Aristoteles took it up in De Anima, it is a prefigured notion, just as self knowledge later, a developmental successor to a more ‘scientific way’ of looking at it.
You are asking the question of requiring levels of knowledge to correlate with each other, in this case old textual ideas such as the soul, with developing ‘scientific’ ways of thinking about them.
We may be much more alike then different, except in contexts where it is more advantageous to differentiate.
It is kind of like a Moebious Strip, where you’d never know where the essential and the real meet, because it’s hard to see it unless the ends are separated in the first place.
It only means “in this lifetime” by default since I’m not aware of any additional lifetimes. The question of lasting influence is still very interesting to me. A person’s influence is broadly the continued affect he/she has on others, even after death, like an afterimage: an impression of a vivid sensation (especially a visual image) retained after the stimulus has ceased.
You had to go there with a Mobius Strip, didn’t you? Now why does the old triad have to be differentiated? One is not enough? Once I recover from this headache caused by Mobius, onto De Anima by Aristotle.
I’d rather sidestep the pomp and circumstance of a formal debate, but if you want to make a bold argument in a new thread - I’ll happily counter at will.
I’m like the ocean - ever changing, ebbing, flowing, wild, serene, much deep within and much observable above me. I contain much and much contains me. lol
Which I think it does. I think a thing has to be presented to us first before we can project an essence onto it. We first get to know a person–get a taste for their attitude–and that for us defines who they are. This can be applied to one’s self as well–we watch ourselves as we express or practice a certain attitude and this gets incorporated into our self-image.
