atheist hell

relaxxx:

The depth exists, but as a whole we are not yet high enough to fathom it. Our consciousness is developing still, and is there really any doubt that we can be active in its development?

What about the idea then that we can connect as many?
Fantasy shall yet serve a function unforeseen by the stalwart defenders of the status quo!

(Yes, I'm a prophet, you can pull at these rags to make sure they're real lol)

 

A prophet with a narcissist's complex, perhaps.

 

lol Perhaps. Are you reflective enough to diagnose me?

 

That brown acid must be making the rounds!

 

Bertrand Russell,
I would have liked to have met your friend Mr. Russell to ask him how he would reconcile the statement, “when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive,” with our current understandings of the physical processes of this world. Perhaps as a current champion of his sentiment, you would be willing to engage me on this issue.
First let me try and pare down the variables so that we can speak the same language. When he says ,”I,” we take it to mean the physical body because that is the only element of this linguistic formula that is subject to decomposition. “I shall rot.”
The word, “my,” in this instance is not the same identifier as the word, “I.“ The word my refers to a current awareness, as when he says ,“when I die,“ he is referring to a time for which he has no functional reference. The word I, on the other hand, referring to the body, is available for current inspection.
The word ego has several conjugations, self esteem, part of the mind containing consciousness, or philosophically the individual self as distinct from the outside world and other selves.
Time and space require coincidence to be observable. An automobile may exist, but in order for you to observe it, you must be at the same place at the same time. Therefore it does require a leap of faith to assume that the I that is my body is the same I that is my ego, that the dissolution of the body necessarily implies the end of the ego.
Mr. Russell’s body has long since rotted. Can we observe any evidence of his ego? If that ego be self esteem, then the ego he describes is indeed available for current inspection as you have testified to your esteem for him. If that ego be the part of mind containing consciousness then his ego is certainly tangible in my awareness. If the ego be the individual self as distinct from the outside world and other selves, then any body will serve to fill that function, I can demonstrate that he is not me. His body is not required.
There exists enough current awareness of Mr. Russell’s ego for me to suggest that he would probably view the statements of the previous paragraph to be nothing more than a pun, yet we must be talking about an extant, “something.” It turns out that the ego demonstrates itself to be the, “story about,” a biographical account concocted as much by Russell’s contemporaries as by himself, as much moreover by you and I.
The first law of thermodynamics suggests that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. I am unaware of a time when I was not. The story of my birth is an account about me, given to me by someone else. The story of my transient nature is something to which I can not personally testify, as my experience is only of continuity. As far as I can tell, the entire story of nonexistence was fabricated by people who didn’t know what they were talking about.

 

How so?

So you are simultaneously here and not here at the same time?
Sure.
Life isn't a metaphysical science experiment (Though I'm sure you could argue it is).
It is quite possible to be the last person on earth and not vanish into thin air when the last but one is no more.
That seems to be what you are suggesting isn't true.
Are you suggesting if I had the last 5 cats on earth and killed 4 the last one would not actually exist anymore?
Where would it go?

Yes I do.

Now this is where the philosophy of language might come into play.
I don't mind a little bit of semantics but Bert took the piss.
While I have never seen "death" per se... I have seen dead people.
"Death" isn't a tangible thing, is it?..so I can't have "seen" "death".
This is why I asked: Does this mean I have seen death?
I'm basically asking what "death" is.

The "I" in my last post means "me". Now can you answer my question(s)?

"Ego" is a "man" made phenomenon.
You either believe you have an ego or you don't.
The same as a spirit a soul or anything else you can not touch or feel but think makes up who you are.
Who I am is contained entirely within me.
So I am in full agreement with poster you responded to.

My argument suggests no.

You are assuming I am agreeing with you before I have. Fair? no.

I understand what you are saying but there are a few problems with this theory.
While you and the OP seem to agree that, basically, because there can be people to remember who a person is, they can continue to exist...it also means if there isn't anybody who remembers who a person was, then they no longer exist.
The other problem is, even though we might know a fraction of who a person was this isn't ever a fair reflection of who the person was or is (if we accept your and the OP theory).
So a person is always a vague notion not clear and precise...that is quite clearly a fact.
Effectively when we die we no longer exist.
If you think this isn't true, please tell me precisely who Jesus was in every glorious detail...or find anybody who can tell me. Good luck.

I obviously don't know what I'm talking about.

 

Life transcends, not life, in that life exists.

No I am always here. I evidently inserted one too many words into that sentence. What I meant to say is that I cannot exist in the absence of someone like you, or someone like me.

This is relevant how?
I would not argue for life being a metaphysical science experiment. I don't even know if I understand the comment.

In which case that last one would cease at the appropriate hour.

Non existence is not a state of being. What does not exist is not real. It can't "go anywhere". Will that last cat last forever? You need more than one cat to sustain cat.

An episode of life, and yes I mean seen death in any form. To have seen death yet continue to live means that life transcends death in our experience.

Certainly

The word ego has several conjugations, self esteem, part of the mind containing consciousness, or philosophically the individual self as distinct from the outside world and other selves. The word ego comes from the latin meaning "I"
What does belief have to do with this? We maintain an ego for ourselves and make one for everyone else as well. Yes, the ego is a man generated phenomena.

What argument

Actually I copied and pasted a response I had made to someone else on the same subject. I just left it as it was, it seemed to fit the discussion.

How is this a problem? There are living people we have never met or are not familiar with but whom we know as the other. The other occupies the same part of the mind that could potentially harbor the "deceased not remembered."

Russel's statement was nothing of him shall remain yet here I can call upon his name and his repute. These social currencies can be negotiable for sometime depending on the person.

Consciousness is real, I think how it purports itself is variable.

I experience quite a few effects still, from people I have met and that have become an indelible impression.

Well, I prefer to answer as I have above.

I don't believe in nonexistence. Nonexistence is not a state of being.

 

To say that consciousness is a emergent property of the biological functions of our body/brain doesn't coincide with what experience tells us.
If consciousness was simply an "effect" of the biological workings of our body/brain then where does the internal awareness of an altered state of consciousness come from?

I have experienced various altered states, natural and drug induced, yet some part of "me" is always able to compare and contrast the difference and arrive at the conclusion "I'm really high". If our consciousness were simply an emergent effect of bio-chemical process, than does it not make sense that our subjective awareness would also be effected rendering any comparison hard if not impossible. It is like the thing of putting a frog in a pot of water and slowly increasing the heat. The frog will supposedly cook to death because it's body temp rises with the water temp and no contrast is apparent.

There always is some "observer" that is outside or unaffected by bio-chemical properties of our body/brain structures.
The whole is much greater than the sum of it's parts.
At least that is my take on it at this point in my journey, always tentative and subject to further change according to the information available.
Which brings me to the most important point in all this sort of stuff....
I don't know and neither does anybody else. Plain and simple. If somebody claims to know what lies beyond the body/brain ceasing to biologically function and this thing we term "death", they are full of crap.

"I don't believe in nonexistence. Nonexistence is not a state of being."
I agree, I have never known of someone or something that was nonexistent.

 

I agree with your last part pb smith in that we can't say for certain what happens after death or before birth in terms of consciousness

but the whole gestalt type idea of the whole is greater than the sum or mind being separate from the body is simply not true with alot of supporting evidence. The most obvious example being phineas gauge who was a steel worksr and had a rod go right through his brain and upon removal his personality became completely different. The fact you can notice your change in behavior and consciousness due to drugs just goes to shoe that the brain being effected is causing the mind to be effected as well. Same can be said after sex when you get that rush of endorphins causing that on top of the world relaxed post sex feeling.

As someone who has had a few concussions I will tell you that there is a point where that observer view disappears.

 

Happens every night when we sleep but we wake up and so did you.

 

Thats true and I'm not sure if that furthers my point or opposes it.

 

Ain't it

 

1. Consciousness is an effect of the body.

2. The body can become an effect of consciousness. (This is where the determinists can host their contentions)

3. Consciousness is never separate to the body, but the fact of its being always in some measure subject to itself suggests an 'end' for it that we are really only just beginning to understand.



Life does transcend what it isn't, by becoming conscious.

The fact of its transcending itself is simply incidental to this.

 

What body?

 

Human body

 

Human body the seat of consciousness?

 

That's interesting. I consider myself a Christian, but I have no faith in an afterlife, and as a matter of fact have faith that there is none. No one really understands the phenomenon of consciousness, and atheist Sam Harris, himself a student of brain functioning, says we don't know whether or not consciousness depends on a physical brain. In that respect, I'm more of a materialist than Harris, because although consciousness is not matter, I think it depends on chemical activity in the brain. I'm not saying that that is true, only that I believe it as something I'm betting my life on.

 

I don't regard the question of is there an afterlife to be relevant to life.

A slime mold may disagree and has a better chance of surviving a major conflagration than I would.

 

My bottom line would be, is that enough?
Is it enough to say that we live on in others and therefore it is an "after-life" that our consciousness continues in others...there is so much that is lost when a person dies and in the end everything is lost.
It really isn't enough, imho.
Nothing you have said states that consciousness continues after death.
All you have basically said is that people are remembered to varying degrees and those that are not are "others".
Imho, mumbo bloody jumbo...and pretty much no comparison to anything other than reading a biog' of somebody and appreciating a few things they thought and went through...and you call that an after-life?
I'll write to the Oxford English dictionary asap.

I accept certain aspects of a person can carry on in the memory of others, but it isn't enough and it isn't even close to the person existing past their death.
All it really is is a memory and partial remnants of who they were.
There are literally billions of people that do not exist in any shape or form any more, even people that we presume "live on" (by your definition)...that is why I mentioned Jesus.
We are not even sure he was even alive/real.
There are no records of his birth or death, are there?

To cover the people we do not know you said:

How is this a problem? There are living people we have never met or are not familiar with but whom we know as the other. The other occupies the same part of the mind that could potentially harbor the "deceased not remembered."

It's a problem because nothing of them is there, absolutely nothing, so how would we differentiate one from another...?
It isn't good enough to say they are an "other".

The 'mind' and all that relates to it, such as memory, belief, emotion etc. cease upon death. These states of mind do not transcend death, nothing does.

That is absolutely true.
Nothing you have said disputes that.
You just changed the rules and the argument, imho.

 

Your confusing consciousness with personality in the example of Phineas.

Phineas suffered physiological damage to brain structures that resulted in an altered "personality". But he was still very aware and conscious. Now was he able to tell the difference in his own personality or not?
Your other two examples are still within the area of brain chemistry and not consciousness or awareness.
Being knocked unconscious may disrupt your ability to interact with your environment and memory formation, but not consciousness itself.
I think we are considering consciousness from two different perspectives or definitions here.

Your comment about the endorphin rush after sex falls into line with my premise of there being a portion of awareness unaffected by alterations in brain chemistry.