Yeah, the material body dies, but the subtle body, the consciousness does not. Hells for some, heavens for others, and back here for most. Figure out how many times though JSS, would ya please. One life repeats, many lives repeat, blah, blah.
In the infA^6 universe, all that is ever alive, is always alive … somewhere.
There’s some differences between the physical and psychological needs, and physical and psychological desires.
I tried to explain these differences in my OP and subsequent posts.
Here’s an example -
Take the need for steak and potatoes vs the desire for a diet coke.
Let’s put aside the notion diet coke can help fat people lose weight for a moment, which I believe is largely unproven at any rate.
What they have in common is they’re both substances we like to consume, and they can be very pleasurable, but that’s where the similarities end.
One is food, and the other is at best a nonfood, and at worst, a poison, depending on what studies you’re looking at.
Food helps us survive in optimal physical and mental condition, nonfoods don’t, and poisons hinder our survival.
Nonfood can hinder our survival to, if we turn to it instead of real foods.
Now, you may not want to survive, but virtually everyone does (so long as they’re not totally miserable, and feeling there’s little-no chance of improving their condition, practically no one has ever committed suicide out of happiness), not only so they can go on enjoying life, but because life and its propagation are valuable for nearly all of us.
So both steak and potatoes on the one hand, and diet coke on the other hand are pleasurable, but the former is going to help us attain things practically everyone value, to survive, to be in good health, and when we’re in good health, we not only feel better, but we function better, and are able to acquire more of what we both need and want, both for ourselves and others we care about, and, the latter, especially if its taken to an extreme, where most of your diet consists of junk food, is going to significantly hinder all of these things.
And so, one is objectively, or as near as can be, more valuable, and very different in its nature than the other, for these reasons, because it aids us in getting other things everyone else wants, in their right mind.
One are substances we evolved side by side with, if we evolved the way mainline science says we did, and are biologically adapted to consume, the others are not, there’s major differences between them, and these differences arguably warrant different words to classify them, and we ought to think and feel very differently about them.
What is the infA^6 universe, another entertainment vehicle like #42?
All biological bodies are flawed. If you can, you make the best with what you were given by making healthier choices to ensure continued existence, physically, psychologically, and spiritually while you live out your allotted time in your material body. None of the three categories can be significantly shortchanged without eventual consequences and I mean eventual as in destined for regret.
A life of sheer hedonism is fleeting, where as a life of substantive hedonism, enjoying things that improve our health and the health of others, could potentially go on forever, living for something that could potentially go on forever, or at least last a lot longer, with few-no repercussions, is objectively better than living for something fleeting, because, it’s objective, because, it exists, and can go on existing, where as the other is temporal, which is close to not existing at all.
Now I’m not saying we can or even should be 100% objective in our tastes or preferences, but it’s something to think about, we should at least be weary of the distinction.
In what sense does life require death?
James is right when he says death obviously requires life, nonliving things can’t die.
I can think of a couple of things you might be referring to.
The old need to die to make way for the new, for the next generation.
The prospect of death and nonlife animates life, gives it meaning, purpose and direction, to avert the former, death, and to make use of the latter, nonlife, to have something to consume, room to grow and propagate itself.
Or to put it more succinctly, nonlife and death makes life live.
Interesting things to ponder, I’ll get back to you on them shortly.
If everything was alive, would we even have the words/concepts life/nonlife?
Are they mutually dependent?
Do things or qualities exist now we have no words for, and cannot think, because they don’t have an opposite?
I’m not sure if consciousness survives death, I tend to think that it does not.
As the brain shrivels up and dies, the mind appears to die with it, like when people get alzheimers or dementia, and that’s just one example of how brain and consciousness appear to be totally intertwined, to be the same thing, merely viewed from different vantage points.
There are near death experiences, but are they just the dreams of the dying?
But then are the dreams of the living a sort of reality, is life itself a dream?
I think he means infinite universe.
If we live in an infinite universe, especially either an infinitely varied one, or one that repeats things across infinite and eternal space and time that’re practically the same as our point in space and time, than while we may die, something exactly like us, or very similar, might be born elsewhere, there could be trillions upon trillions of versions of you and I, an endless number.
I’m not sure if the universe is infinite myself, while I think it can be fun to speculate on such things, I don’t think they’re very practical, nor do I think we can have a definite answer to such questions.
The material organ of the brain is a simple relay station for the incorporeal mind/consciousness. The brain coordinates the sensory body to the subtle body.
Yea, agreed, and that’s one of, if not the major difference between needs and healthy desires, and unhealthy desires, the former two tend to have prosequences, the latter one consequences, the former two are more sustainable, the latter one, unsustainable, especially when taken to an extreme/long term.
It’s important to keep that in mind, it doesn’t mean we cannot or even should not ever indulge in meaningless pleasures from time to time.
That may be true, thou I’ve yet to see any hard evidence for it.
There are many reports of ghosts, past life and near death experiences and so on, I guess that’s a kind of soft evidence that may be sufficient for some to believe.
I think it’s an interesting subject.
“There are more things in heaven and earth…”
Some of the New Age spiritualists are way ahead of science. http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/index.php A site that covers just about everything that science doesn’t care to understand.
Science is the study of observable phenomena so any thing outside of this is beyond its remit but the things that supposedly are may simply
be phenomena for which there is currently no scientific explanation. Such as so the called paranormal or supernatural. However some such
phenomena can be scientifically tested. Such as the claims of psychics for example who employ cold calling that is a technique anyone can
use. And so there is nothing paranormal or supernatural about it at all
There is nothing constant in the universe aside from change itself. Once something changes so much that it is no longer itself, it can be said to die. Everything dies. Stars.
The fragility of individual life is apparent and a requirement based on the condition for life to exist as we know it. To assume life can be immortal is religion. I have no desire to entertain religious thoughts.
Firstly, I’m agnostic, but, or should I say and?
And, I’m skeptical of science, I think it’s rational to be, and irrational or religious not to be.
Secondly, even if what they say about stars dying is true, doesn’t mean life is going to die.
For every star that dies, another is born, likewise, for every individual life that dies, another is born.
No matter how much data you think they’ve sifted through and interpreted correctly, they can’t possibly know what’s going to happen to the cosmos nor life itself billions of years from now with certainty, at best they can make an educated guess and at worst, a wild one.
I’m not assuming the cosmos and life will go on forever, I’m not assuming humanity or some things like it will go on forever, but it’s possible, unless we all think like you, that is, it’s possible.
Thanks, I’m going to investigate these matters further on this forum, I’ll probably join it as Gloominary.
If that is all science is, then we all do that, we all study observable phenomena, a fish does that.
A person who claims to have observed a ghost can study it and come up with rational explanations for it, like if it looks like their sister that just died, and acts like her, maybe it is her, or what remains of her.
I will side with probability. Life feeds on life and nothing in the universe is permanent.
Besides, one day all may collapse into a singularity again. Nothing is forever, not even diamonds, not even atoms.
The universe itself may be permanent.
I don’t think existence is anymore impermanent than it is permanent, it’s really this hybrid of impermanence and permanence.
While astronomers claim to have occasionally witnessed stars dying, and quantum physicists witness atoms dying, no one has witnessed all stars dying, or all atoms dying.
It’s quite a leap to say because individuals die, that kinds will die, and because kinds will die, existence itself will die.
Individual life forms die, species die or evolve, but the same, or very similar individuals keep popping up, and the same or very similar species keep popping up.
I read an article the other day about how the thylacine or tasmanian tiger may still be among the living.
It was shocking to see how similar to dogs they were, virtually identical.
Yet we’re told dogs and thylacines don’t share any recent ancestors because thylacines are marsupials, they both evolved form a mammal tens of millions of years ago that was probably very undog like.
It’s funny how similar they look and behave.
My point is while individuals and even species sometimes die, some species have been around for hundreds of millions of years, and the same basic forms keep popping up again and again.
Even if dogs were to die out, there will probably be more dog like things to come.
If you take two twin brothers, one misdiagnosed with HIV, the other not, which one do you think will probably die sooner? If we assume we’re going to die as individuals or as a species, or even if we think it’s highly probable, we’re probably going to take worse care of ourselves.
It’s a self fulfilling prophesy, self sabotage.
I’m not going to assume we’re going to die as a species, because that would be irrational, and also harmful, just as irrational, and also harmful as assuming we’re going to live.
Even if it is probable that we’re going to die as a species, and it is, if you consider what mainline science has to say on the matter, since most species have died out, and humans are presently putting themselves and most earthlings in peril, it’s still perfectly rational to entertain and keep in mind the possibility we’re going to survive, or perhaps evolve into something we’d admire, or perhaps die or evolve into something we wouldn’t admire, but then evolve into something we’d admire again, and live with those possibilities in mind, we can’t go wrong by living with those possibilities in mind, only by not living with them.