atheist hell

Sorry about confusing you with an about thread then.
Perhaps you have had an opportunity at this point to reconsider what I have said. Information need not be to the exclusion of but in addendum to.

 

As oft as you do this, re-member me.
Thet we may be attached to sensational being does not mean we may not choose again.

 

Being is sensational. I won't have to remember you, because I'll always want to. You make an everlasting impression.

 

If you know someone and they live far away and you rarely talked to them, they died but you were not informed of that death, how would you conceive of that person. The only evidence you have is the same on both accounts. If you were informed of their death the only immediate evidence is the narrative. To accept someone as dead does not require the sight of a dead body only the report of one, absent any contravening evidence. The same is true for accepting someone is alive, as we describe people that we each have never met.

 

Do you mean the experience of being is sensational?

 

I was alluding to a principle. It hasn't concerned me to be remembered because I am connected.

Sensational being, . . , can we hear silence?

 

Yes, they had children, and those children had children and so and so on, resulting into you and I.
Aside from that, there is a vast majority of the human race we know nothing at all about.
Obviously somebody once knew of them, but not anymore.

I don't think I was confused about this thread.
I was trying to keep that point in mind.
That is a reason I thought you were changing the argument.
You seemed to brush disillusioned's point aside and follow your own argument to it's conclusion...
I have appreciated what you have said, I just thought you were aware that we were talking about another non religious view of an afterlife.
To be fair, I think the OPs point was more akin to yours rather than mine.

I'm sure at this point you can appreciate what I have been saying in relation to what the thread should have been about.

Personally, it seemed, you were talking about others perpetuation of the consciousness not the consciousness continuing with another life (as it were).

I've been considering what you have been saying all the way through.
I just think we were arguing about two things.
Perhaps you have had an opportunity at this point to reconsider what I have said.

 

I think the question "can we hear silence" is an inadequate allusion to the fact that it only exists as a distinction between hearing and not hearing things (at least i think thats what your doing).

If it was, allow me to explain:

Silence doesn't exist to be heard or not heard, rather it is the absence of sound that creates silence, which is not "Something" to talk about, but the absence of "something", which is in and of itself something else completely independent of sensation.

The absence of sensation can be applied (imagined onto) to all of the senses because senses are psychological capacities within organisms.

Eyes = seeing
Ears = hearing

It is possible to be conscious of colors and sounds because they exist in the objective universe.

Humans are conscious of colors and sounds because our physiology allows (most of) us to be.

 

Heeh:

The distinction being...?

thedope:

How deeply do you want to feel it though? For what would we be contented?

The idea cannot be divorced from the senses. The most it can do is rule them.

Odon:

We shall have to know them by their fruits then Odon, my dear old ancestor!

 

Is that a euphemism?

 

Does it matter? Since you and most of the world think we have to die, it may as well be a bloody aneurism.

 

Oh my, this is a lively one, better grab a beer. This arguement seems to revolve around the concept that there is some some innate conciousness that is independant of the physical nature of the brain, and that said innate conciousness may continue after death despite one's belief in god/aftelife etc. Nice thought, I have hoped many times that it it is true, I would love to surf the universe, see through time, see Granny again. But in my heart I know this can never be.
What state of mind would you like to spend eternity in? As a temporally and physically "fixed" entity your conciousness is a product of this rather linear cause and effect universe. To transcend this, given the opportunity, you could no longer be "you", your conciousness would have to be able to comprehend a non linear "single moment" universe in wich all things have happened/are happening/will happen. The self you have developed would be irrelavent. So even if conciousness survives death, and I will not say it doesn't, "you" don't.
Cheers
C/O

 

Well, saying "being is sensational" seems to only regard chemical compositions that are aware of things.

I mean, being isn't anything to a rock. Its just a rock that exists. The rock is being and cannot sense.

 

lol

Forget I was ever trying to be practical! Let's discuss becoming then if there's still fun in turning over our terms.

What are your thoughts on what we should do with our consciousness?

 

lol i'm not trying to be an asshole, i'm just trying to understand what everyones talking about.

anyways.....I don't think there is anything someone "should" be doing with their consciousness unless they want to involve someone else.

Society wise, i think we would be far better off taking an objective look at our current institutions and thinking about why they are being perpetuated. I think we should either be enjoying life and enjoying working towards a better society, or sustaining the best thing we can produce.

I really dislike the idea of competing for a meal when I go to work, and thats exactly what i'm doing. That in my city of 17% unemployment (and let alone the world) so many people have no freedom, because the system just doesn't fit with how much we currently understand.

I guess "we" would be people that understand things should be based on objectivity.

 

edit:tide

 

"No, there is nothing after life except the decomposition of the biological body. 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."
I was saying simply that this quote by disillusioned is a false statement on the face of it. Shouldn't I offer complementary testimony? I regarded that statement in general terms just as relaxx had pointed out. If it wasn't for that particular statement my participation in this thread could have been confined to the point that we share our thoughts.

On that point I do agree with the op that we can have a belief in the continuation of an individual identity after death without believing in a deity.

I was attempting to point out that Individual mind is part of a communal mind.
Mind itself is abstract by nature.
I am not trying to establish the reality of reincarnation, or "spiritual" entity

I think I have understood you. I think the claim that the individual mind is an isolated entity is not supported by the empirical evidence.

 

The question, "can we hear silence", is an invitation to investigate the prospect. What we hear for one is the transduction of a pressure wave that is given meaning by virtue of the crystalline structure of neural networks. Our senses are stimulated and what emerges are the properties of our composition, our interpretation of stimuli.

We hear what we listen for. The sound of silence does indeed have a property, it is our attention.

Eyes and ears equal information collection.

The common denominator is our own objections. There are no discrete systems in reality. Objects become "visible" through corridors of refraction.

 

When did I say "we have to die" ?

 

Remember we are talking about life after death.
Yes, when we are alive: We communicate, interact and affect each others lives. And that is: the life of (a) consciousness.

Tho OP premise was:
The natural assumption is that I think I have some kind of soul or spiritual body that goes on to live in some spiritual realm, but I have no logical reason to believe that, so I don't.

But he didn't actually answer that point.

Both of your arguments pointed to a continuation of the consciousness...
...but isn't the point of the thread the person having control of their consciousness after death...that seems to have been what the answer was trying to address.
...not the consciousness being remembered in aspect with out any control, interaction or addition to it?
Obviously a part of a person can live on in the memory of another person and what they thought can be read if it was written.
Attempting to use that as a comparison to the religious POV is unfair.
It's basically trying to say I think it is true: I would continue to experience things after I die...but I have an less: fuzzy headed religious thinking.
But it isn't actually an alternative answer.
It seems you are using Bert's logic to justify the meaning of "I" ergo "ego"...and that justifies a fair comparison or logical answer.

What does "individual identity" mean?
How is the person in control of their "individual identity"?
How does that answer the question of a person continuing after death: Feeling, experiencing etc.
Surely that is part of the religious belief.
Not that we all live on in the memory of others.

Clearly. Well others were. But you were disputing their POV with another conclusion that wasn't addressing the question.
The OP seems to have been trying to too.

I don't think you have.