on being dead......

[MotherCossack]

have recently been forced to confront my mortality...and am struggling with the absolute.......we all die.
after birth.... it is the only thing we can all be certain of... death happens to everyone.
so what happens to all the thoughts inside our head.
have we got a soul? does it all end at once ? is death the end?

these humungus questions are pogoing around in my head.
i might combust spontaneously...if i dont find any answers soon.
can anyone help?

[i thought of putting this in non-political.
but didn't because i am being, or trying to be, vaguely serious, and want to steer well clear of anything remotely chit-chat like....!!!!! recent exchanges being what they were!!!]
please move if necessary.

[Ostrinski]

Death is death. Meaning, you die. Ergo, the end.

[The Stalinator]

Well, be thankful you live in a time of great and constant medical advances. You will likely live much longer than your ancestors. Some say that some digital form of preserving our consciousness might come to reality late this century.

If that's not enough, look up Ian Stevenson's research. It gives a smidgen of hope for the likelihood of reincarnation, though I personally haven't changed my views on death because of it. Very interesting though, he studied a multitude of cases all across the globe related to children who recalled the life of someone who died not long before their birth, entirely on their own, during their early years, and never shut up about it.

[The Jay]

The brain creates the phenomenon of consciousness, so without a functioning brain there is no consciousness. Thoughts are simply chemical shifts in a pattern of neurons that we experience. They are not objects that stay after our deaths; unless, in the future the patterns in our heads could be read. In that case, we could copy our consciousnesses entirely into computers, but that's not currently the case.

[GatesofLenin]

There's something comforting knowing that when my time comes, my time has come. I don't have to worry whether I get approved for the last credit application of my life so I can enter some magical pearly gates or get rejected and go straight to sulphur-city.

[CommunityBeliever]

Would you want to play tictactoe games for all eternity? With finite options the game will get boring, and since the universe has finite options it will become equally boring.

[The Stalinator]

They are not objects that stay after our deaths; unless, in the future the patterns in our heads could be read. In that case, we could copy our consciousnesses entirely into computers, but that's not currently the case.

Yeah, this is what a lot of futurologists are predicting will happen not too far in the future. It's absolutely fascinating to me. I love the idea.


Would you want to play tictactoe games for all eternity? With finite options the game will get boring, and since the universe has finite options it will become equally boring.

True, but it's not like we'd be doing the same shit for all eternity -- conditions wouldn't stay static obviously. I can imagine living 500 years from now would be radically different than living today.

[MotherCossack]

yep. hate to say it but i think you are right.
the life after death thing is, clearly, a simple case of wishful thinking.
although if it helps those of us who have reason to dwell on such matters to cope with it, then i suppose it is understandable, even useful, as a mechanism.
so, really the truth is neither here nor there, for it is only the living that matter, and if it helps them... it does its job.

i do believe that the only way in which the dead live on is in the minds of the people that knew them, namely in the form of memories.
unless of course you are lucky enough to have become immortalised by fame, in books, art or for some other exceptional achievement.
so i suppose if you want to live forever it is wise to start networking big-time and make as much mess as you can of one sort or another.

[Prometeo liberado]

I like these lyrics from the song Broad Majestic Shannon: Take my hand, and dry your tears babe
Take my hand, forget your fears babe
There's no pain, there's no more sorrow
They're all gone, gone in the years babe

Dealing with life and death and moving on.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Yeah, this is what a lot of futurologists are predicting will happen not too far in the future. It's absolutely fascinating to me. I love the idea.



True, but it's not like we'd be doing the same shit for all eternity -- conditions wouldn't stay static obviously. I can imagine living 500 years from now would be radically different than living today.
Regarding this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth

[Ele'ill]

What immense pressure we have on us to be alive.

[Elysian]

Everyone wants life, eternal life. If not, why is it they hesitate to die now? Why do they cling to life?

[blake 3:17]

Everyone wants life, eternal life.

Maybe, maybe not. Surviving happily and healthily and self preservation aren't the same as aspiring to eternal life.

Edited to add:
I like these lyrics from the song Broad Majestic Shannon: I only know the Pogues version. It is a beautiful song.

[CommunityBeliever]

True, but it's not like we'd be doing the same shit for all eternity -- conditions wouldn't stay static obviously. I can imagine living 500 years from now would be radically different than living today.When you play tictactoe games you aren't always doing the "same shit" it is just that there are so few possibilities and we have a knowledge of all them. In the same sense we could have a knowledge of all possibilities and all conditions in the universe, which would make existence boring and pointless. As the common saying goes ignorance is bliss.

Just like logging off of a video game after thoroughly playing it, I want to log off of the game of life when I have a thorough understanding of its gameplay and mechanics.

[dodger]

yep. hate to say it but i think you are right.
the life after death thing is, clearly, a simple case of wishful thinking.
although if it helps those of us who have reason to dwell on such matters to cope with it, then i suppose it is understandable, even useful, as a mechanism.
so, really the truth is neither here nor there, for it is only the living that matter, and if it helps them... it does its job.

i do believe that the only way in which the dead live on is in the minds of the people that knew them, namely in the form of memories.
unless of course you are lucky enough to have become immortalised by fame, in books, art or for some other exceptional achievement.
so i suppose if you want to live forever it is wise to start networking big-time and make as much mess as you can of one sort or another.

"It's only the living wot matters?"

I think you pretty much nailed it Mother Cossack. All your points raised have merit. All individuals have their own way of dealing with loss. Their own pace. It is up to others to respect that as humans. In point of fact each society and class has created norms which they carry with them. Living in London one might easily get confused at an Irish funeral, an open casket drinks a plenty, the best food and china, toasting a corpse. Here as everywhere women are the strongest link and have to take most of the strain, Mothers or eldest daughters. They too need their time to grieve. Often because of a busy life they feel guilty about devoting time to themselves. The Colonel fixed in my mind at least an image of a man chasing Tories from his neighbourhood. A fitting memory whether in a strangers mind or carved on a tombstone. I'm sure there were many more facets carved on that that stone....

[artanis17]

I wish I had eternal life. Some say it would be boring. I don't think so :D

[SacRedMan]

Too many theories about this, so you can only pick one or combine others. Well, mine goes as this:

The life here on earth is just like all our other lives in other physical universes, only with small differences. Some scientists believe this too, that there are copies of us in other universes. While I'm typing this, someone in another universe is doing this to. Or, like a said before, every universe has differences, so I can be posting this on StormFront in a universe where I'm a nazi instead of a communist.

There is also that one theory that if we scroll out, like I see myself in this chair behind my computer, then the earth, then the universe, then an atom, then a blood cell and eventually you again scrolling. You understand?

While there are particles of us living in the physical world doing almost the same things as you do now, I believe there is a spiritual world above all of that, our centre, where all of our thought and memories go. Like some big computer, where we can meat all the other spiritual centres of our friends etc.

That's my theory on life and death.

[The Stalinator]

When you play tictactoe games you aren't always doing the "same shit" it is just that there are so few possibilities and we have a knowledge of all them. In the same sense we could have a knowledge of all possibilities and all conditions in the universe, which would make existence boring and pointless. As the common saying goes ignorance is bliss.

Just like logging off of a video game after thoroughly playing it, I want to log off of the game of life when I have a thorough understanding of its gameplay and mechanics.

Right, but the number of possibilities in tic tac toe is static. It'd take a hell of a lot more than 70-100 years to see all of the places life could take you... and there are new possibilities being unveiled all the time. I certainly don't want to die now when it's possible that I could someday travel to a far-off planet if I lasted a couple more centuries.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I just hope that Mother Cossack still has many good years of life ahead for her and her loved ones.

[Rafiq]

It's quite hard to grasp not existing. But reality exists regardless of my conciousness, after all.

[GoddessCleoLover]

The difficulty of grasping one's non-existence in addition to a desire to be reunited with deceased loved ones are probably two of the major reasons that give rise to the notion of an afterlife.

[Prometeo liberado]

I for one do not wish to live forever or be remembered. Who am I to interrupt life from the dead? Life is for the living and not to hold on to the past.

[Doflamingo]

As I've said before. I hope that there isn't a christian afterlife. Hell would suck and Heaven wouldn't be much better.

[ColonelCossack]

living forever would be so horrible. Because, even after you've done everything possible in the universe, you'd be stuck doing nothing for infinitely longer. Which would be like hell. Which would be shit.

[Rafiq]

living forever would be so horrible. Because, even after you've done everything possible in the universe, you'd be stuck doing nothing for infinitely longer. Which would be like hell. Which would be shit.

Do everything again.

[MotherCossack]

ahhhhh! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

i feel like my head will explode with all these vitally meaningful offerings.

being of very modest cranial capacity... my, well-meaning but, sadly, mediocre brain is

throbbing and trembling.

it begins well, with admirable intention.... but too soon becomes full like a venue that wants to put on a great big gig but

only has enough seats for a class of 11.

i will reread all these mighty interesting illuminations anon...

[GoddessCleoLover]

Don't try too hard to comprehend that which generations upon generations have struggled to comprehend. The better strategy might be Carpe Diem.

[The Stalinator]

Do everything again.

I've actually thought about that... if there was a way to preserve my consciousness, if I ever got desperate for something new and non-boringI could wipe every single memory and learned behaviour I had from my mind and start over again.

[GoddessCleoLover]

How could one's consciousness be preserved following one's death?

[Tenka]

I think we need to get rid of taboos against human cloning and figure out a way to preserve brains that the memory/spark of consciousness/whatever would remain intact if we were to transplant said brain, partially or in full, into a blank slate clone. This combined of course with general health/life extension of any given human body. For those too unimaginative to bear a very long life, they could opt out of it any time they want after a decent "natural span".
Hope I'm making sense.

[Ocean Seal]

living forever would be so horrible. Because, even after you've done everything possible in the universe, you'd be stuck doing nothing for infinitely longer. Which would be like hell. Which would be shit.
Play Skyrim

[GoddessCleoLover]

Tenka-you make sense to me, but I doubt that brain transplantation is something that in within the likely capability of human medical doctors. Seems more in the realm of science fiction.

[MotherCossack]

I wish I had eternal life. Some say it would be boring. I don't think so :D

i concur. [cover mossack, that is.... the fiendish trickster lurking inside my damnably difficult host... she is increasingly unwilling to be led astray.]
eternal life, sounds great. i'd love to be all powerful and go on and on.... that's why being a vampire is so appealing ...they live so long. although if drinking all that blood is anything like bloody mary's i might have a problem..... and SHE...[mo.coss.] is mighty inparticular about potion, unfor-tun-ately.

[CommunityBeliever]

Tenka-you make sense to me, but I doubt that brain transplantation is something that in within the likely capability of human medical doctors. Seems more in the realm of science fiction.

Life extension technologies won't be invented in our lifetime, but you can use cryopreservation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryopreservation) so that you can be revived by a future society which will have them. Personally, I would like to live for thousands of years in this way, but I am also fortunate that someday I will die.

There is an interesting scene in star trek voyager death wish (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Death_Wish_%28episode%29) where Quinn, a member of the Q continuum, explains why mortality is a good thing. Definitely worth a watch.

[Thirsty Crow]

so what happens to all the thoughts inside our head.
have we got a soul? does it all end at once ? is death the end?

What we call thoughts are functions of the living organism, in this case, of the human being, necessary for her/his survival. They cease when the brain ceases to work, or in other words, yes, death is the end.

Though, if you want to get more philosophical and all, human thoughts are peculiar in that they can be recorded, and in this sense death is not the end although the specifically interactive process - communication - will no longer exist. What will exist, if you took care to record it all, is a collection open to interpretation, but you can talk of death not being the end of it all in this way if it suits you and offers a comfort of sorts.

[Искра]

Who cares... Why can people just live until they die? I mean... point of existance is to eat, fuck, have kids and die. People with to many free time on their hands think too much.

[GoddessCleoLover]

In other words, Carpe Diem?

[MotherCossack]

you know... i am sitting here trying to imagine how i would have responded to this conversation a month ago.
i was 44 and lucky enough to have avoided the death of anyone close to me.
- sound of me thinking-
you know what... i would a/ not have started the thread. b/ not have been overly desparate to contribute if someone else had. c/ if encouraged , have said a load of totally different stuff..... then....
wham... bang...your granddad is dead... period... end... caput...finished... no negotiation... i dont do deals... he is gone... the switch is off. his life is over. no more mr nice guy.... no more nuffink... no more dinky grumbler... no more nuffink... no more fortunata... markantonio... no more wise guy with a gag...no more round rome way... no more granddad.!
and what am i?
yeah i am nigh on middle-aged...
yeah, alright, i do get upset, quite easily.... with a granddad called fortun-bla-bla markant-bla-bla.....guess where i get that from!
but still it was a bit of a monumental head-f**k of a shock!!!
even at my age, when, let's face it, it was not so long ago that people were considered well old themselves.

all i am saying is... that you can have a set of very nice views about all this stuff, theoretically very important, serious business....
but when the shit hits the fan [or whatever] well.... it dont half go everywhere.
i still get the odd tsunami wave of emotion and dont quite believe any of it.......all i know is i suddenly feel very young, very different, and very aware of our temporary existance.

lastly... i have stopped [utterly and completely] the practise of saving nice, new things for 'best'.... it , i have suddenly realized, is utter madness!

[Ele'ill]

You were 44 when your grandfather died?

[dodger]

Don't try too hard to comprehend that which generations upon generations have struggled to comprehend. The better strategy might be Carpe Diem.

Carpe Diem, good point, though with a family, it hardly needs saying. I am glad she makes time for herself. We each of us have to make sense of things, if we have the luxury of doing that in our own sweet time, all well and good. Vita pergit or vita operiri non vult, a workmate who stepped back from takin' his vows. He filled my head on nights with Latin bon mots, I wish now I had listened more intently.

[ColonelCossack]

Do everything again.

Yeah but after you've done that a few thousand time it would get super dull

And you'd still have infinitely more time ahead of you.

[Franz Fanonipants]

pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our deaths

[dodger]

pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our deaths

Dear Franz, I should not be at all surprised if there are not tormented screams for father Murphy, on my deathbed. Insurance policy. Anyhow lights out, do hope I wake up in the morning.

[Decolonize The Left]

have recently been forced to confront my mortality...and am struggling with the absolute.......we all die.
after birth.... it is the only thing we can all be certain of... death happens to everyone.
so what happens to all the thoughts inside our head.
have we got a soul? does it all end at once ? is death the end?

these humungus questions are pogoing around in my head.
i might combust spontaneously...if i dont find any answers soon.
can anyone help?

[i thought of putting this in non-political.
but didn't because i am being, or trying to be, vaguely serious, and want to steer well clear of anything remotely chit-chat like....!!!!! recent exchanges being what they were!!!]
please move if necessary.

Well you can look at this in the most simple fashion possible.

Basically, there are only two theoretical possibilities.
1. You are your physical, human, animal, body. When you die your heart stops pumping blood to your brain, your brain becomes deprived of oxygen, and your organs stop functioning. This is physical death. It can be relatively painless (such as 'having your breath go out in your sleep') or it can be immensely painful (such as being shot in the liver and not having any anesthetic). Regardless, it is a biological phenomenon which awaits us all.

What does this give you? A nice, neat, package of explanation in regards to the physical functioning of your death. But you probably want more - you probably want to know what happens to you (not just your body). See below.

2. You are your physical, human, animal, body, but you posit something metaphysical beyond this (a 'soul' or whatever you want - the notion of reincarnation falls in this category as well as it posits a link between lives which is metaphysical). Now once you posit this phenomenon, you have a whole host of problems:
- You have to explain what it is
- You have to explain where it goes
- You have to explain why it's there
- You have to explain who has one and who doesn't
- Etc...
So, you have some choices. You can read up on any number of ideas which explore and advance this notion, and there are many, from christianity to zen buddhism to scientology. You can then choose one to believe in and adopt it's explanations, etc...
What does this give you? An answer. It's not a proven answer, and most likely not true, but it's an answer none-the-less and it may be just what you need.

Now, I am not advocating that you become religious. Quite the contrary - in fact, I am advocating that you abandon the idea that you exist as you know it. I am advocating the idea that "the self" / "the ego" / "the mind" / "I" / "consciousness" / "MotherCossack" / "[your actual name]" is nothing more than a linguistic tool that our animal bodies use to facilitate communication and survival. I am further advocating the idea that this tool has taken on a 'life of it's own' and over the course of many years has brought us to the faulty belief that it exists independently of our bodies.

If you are willing to accept my premise, then death is absolutely nothing to worry about. "You" do not need to worry about what happens to "you" because that question itself is faulty and worthless (i.e. it has no answer). You cannot possibly know what happens to you after you die because:
a) there is no you
b) there is no you to die
c) there is no you live on after you die
Please understand that this is not buddhism (the notion that the ego is an illusion and must be eliminated in order to achieve nirvana). I do not posit a nirvana. I do not posit a heaven. I posit nothing.

I merely claim that we are animals like all other creatures on this planet. We are smart animals with big brains, and in our big brains we developed a way to communicate (language) which is unique and incredibly useful. Over time this language gave rise to an idea which took hold so well that we now believe it exists independently of our bodies, which it does not. This is the idea of the self. It doesn't exist in physical reality. It is an idea.

There is no such actual thing as the self. Accept this and death is a non-issue. It is merely the ship we all must sail, and where it goes is irrelevant; the question is how we approach the ship. With fear? Or with calm assurance that we have done our best with our time?

- August

[NoMasters]

have recently been forced to confront my mortality...and am struggling with the absolute.......we all die.
after birth.... it is the only thing we can all be certain of... death happens to everyone.
so what happens to all the thoughts inside our head.
have we got a soul? does it all end at once ? is death the end?

these humungus questions are pogoing around in my head.
i might combust spontaneously...if i dont find any answers soon.
can anyone help?

[i thought of putting this in non-political.
but didn't because i am being, or trying to be, vaguely serious, and want to steer well clear of anything remotely chit-chat like....!!!!! recent exchanges being what they were!!!]
please move if necessary.

I honestly believe in reincarnation in a lot of ways. We all have a conscience and I am assuming that we will return as another conscience and we won't even know it!

But I have no proof of this, just as no one has any proof of anything after death.

[MotherCossack]

You were 44 when your grandfather died?

Exactly! how lucky is that!?

He was 90 though. the wonder goes on....

He was married to an identical twin, my nan, who died 16 years ago.

However her identical twin, my great auntie Love Loopie [anagram]

survives!!

She became my surrogate nan and at 96 is the coolest person that has

ever lived and i am so ,sooooo proud to know her.

What a woman! and you know what ... hearing her witheringly, complete

dismissal of the political right, in the way that only wise folk, who have lived

awhile, can successfully achieve, is a reward, and a gift to be treasured.

I will stop there. [Fate is easily tempted....]

[MotherCossack]

Well you can look at this in the most simple fashion possible.

Basically, there are only two theoretical possibilities.
1. You are your physical, human, animal, body. When you die your heart stops pumping blood to your brain, your brain becomes deprived of oxygen, and your organs stop functioning. This is physical death. It can be relatively painless (such as 'having your breath go out in your sleep') or it can be immensely painful (such as being shot in the liver and not having any anesthetic). Regardless, it is a biological phenomenon which awaits us all.

I merely claim that we are animals like all other creatures on this planet. We are smart animals with big brains, and in our big brains we developed a way to communicate (language) which is unique and incredibly useful. Over time this language gave rise to an idea which took hold so well that we now believe it exists independently of our bodies, which it does not. This is the idea of the self. It doesn't exist in physical reality. It is an idea.

There is no such actual thing as the self. Accept this and death is a non-issue. It is merely the ship we all must sail, and where it goes is irrelevant; the question is how we approach the ship. With fear? Or with calm assurance that we have done our best with our time?

- August

this is a very, very interesting and helpful post and i thank you for it.
although i dont quite know where it takes me........
maybe it helps ...on the other hand.... these irritating little chemical reactions, masquarading as my conscious self, have an annoying habit of fooling this particular animal into opening up an illusory diologue with itself.
that said .... i am grateful to you for providing me with exactly what i was seeking ....
a bit of a meaty philosophi...... hell ... my vocab isnt up to expressing, with sincerity, ideas of this density!!

[SacRedMan]

http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/56895

:thumbup1:

[Decolonize The Left]

this is a very, very interesting and helpful post and i thank you for it.
although i dont quite know where it takes me........
maybe it helps ...on the other hand.... these irritating little chemical reactions, masquarading as my conscious self, have an annoying habit of fooling this particular animal into opening up an illusory diologue with itself.
that said .... i am grateful to you for providing me with exactly what i was seeking ....
a bit of a meaty philosophi...... hell ... my vocab isnt up to expressing, with sincerity, ideas of this density!!

There's nothing wrong with the self as a linguistic construction. I refer to myself as a self all the time, it's just what we do as an animal species. My point is that we need to understand that it's nothing more than a linguistic construction.

Have you ever noticed when you talk to yourself and you say things like:
"We need to clean the kitchen."
"You need to remember to get your jacket."
This is totally nonsensical when you think about it. Your brain is effectively talking to itself like it's more than one person. This would mean that we all have psychotic delusions of multiple personalities. But we don't. It's normal to talk to yourself like this because language is what runs our brain discussion. And in language, you use multiple personal pronouns to have a conversation.

My end point is that death is nothing to fear. You only fear it if you fear of losing a "self." But there is no self, so there's no fear of death. It's just what's next after life (or better yet, death is just an absence of life).

- August

[Rebid]

no negotiation... i dont do deals... he is gone... the switch is off.
[--]
all i am saying is... that you can have a set of very nice views about all this stuff, theoretically very important, serious business....
but when the shit hits the fan [or whatever] well.... it dont half go everywhere.
i still get the odd tsunami wave of emotion and dont quite believe any of it.......all i know is i suddenly feel very young, very different, and very aware of our temporary existance.

I've felt in my relatives' funerals like "nothing" that I've known before has any value, like we don't understand anything about this life here we are living, and still we pretend as if we did. First someone you hold dear is alive, then suddenly s/he doesn't exist anymore. How can you understand something like that? Or life? Death? And what's the purpose of our everyday lives? We fancy this and that, but what value do our wantings really have? Life is all the time on the edge, but we take life for granted, as if we truly did live forever. No theoretical explanation makes you really understand that concrete reality, the finality of death, but neither has any other explanation helped me understand it. Maybe it (the mystery) is somehow part of concrete life, as breathing.

[Rafiq]

Yeah but after you've done that a few thousand time it would get super dull

And you'd still have infinitely more time ahead of you.

Wrong.

Let's say there are 100 billion things to do.

No matter what, even if you have done them all sixty times, by the time you get to 100 billion, you would have already forgotten the first thing you've done. It is a process that can continue forever, without getting bored.

[Rafiq]

Incredibly useful posts there, August.

[ColonelCossack]

Wrong.

Let's say there are 100 billion things to do.

No matter what, even if you have done them all sixty times, by the time you get to 100 billion, you would have already forgotten the first thing you've done. It is a process that can continue forever, without getting bored.

hmmm, I hadn't thought of forgetting things, you may be right there. But maybe if you did everything enough, the neural pathways in your brain would be strengthened to such an extent that they stayed imprinted in your memory? The brain is a very complicated thing. However, there are probably many more than 100 billion things to do, so maybe (despite it's complexity), all that wouldn't remain in your brain, as you say. But are there 100 billion interesting things to do? Your brain would probably be more likely to remember the interesting things done, which (I assume) number a lot less than 100 billion. But then again, there might be 100 billion interesting things to do. So there are a lot of assumptions here; how much the brain can memorise, how many things there are to do, how many of these are interesting, how long it takes to forget things, etc. Maybe too many to make a good judgement, for me at least - I don't really know enough to make these estimations, and I'm not a neuroscientist, so I can't really say. :)

Anyway also, in the context of any kind of "life after death", it's likely that if there were any kind of "soul" (which there isn't), it probably wouldn't be tethered by mortal limitations, i.e. forgetting things because of a lack of cranial capacity. However, if our physical bodies were to live forever, then you're probably right. But it's like August said; there isn't anything in us independent from our physical beings, so if were were to find a way to live forever it would be in these bodies.

[ColonelCossack]

Well you can look at this in the most simple fashion possible.

Basically, there are only two theoretical possibilities.
1. You are your physical, human, animal, body. When you die your heart stops pumping blood to your brain, your brain becomes deprived of oxygen, and your organs stop functioning. This is physical death. It can be relatively painless (such as 'having your breath go out in your sleep') or it can be immensely painful (such as being shot in the liver and not having any anesthetic). Regardless, it is a biological phenomenon which awaits us all.

What does this give you? A nice, neat, package of explanation in regards to the physical functioning of your death. But you probably want more - you probably want to know what happens to you (not just your body). See below.

2. You are your physical, human, animal, body, but you posit something metaphysical beyond this (a 'soul' or whatever you want - the notion of reincarnation falls in this category as well as it posits a link between lives which is metaphysical). Now once you posit this phenomenon, you have a whole host of problems:
- You have to explain what it is
- You have to explain where it goes
- You have to explain why it's there
- You have to explain who has one and who doesn't
- Etc...
So, you have some choices. You can read up on any number of ideas which explore and advance this notion, and there are many, from christianity to zen buddhism to scientology. You can then choose one to believe in and adopt it's explanations, etc...
What does this give you? An answer. It's not a proven answer, and most likely not true, but it's an answer none-the-less and it may be just what you need.

Now, I am not advocating that you become religious. Quite the contrary - in fact, I am advocating that you abandon the idea that you exist as you know it. I am advocating the idea that "the self" / "the ego" / "the mind" / "I" / "consciousness" / "MotherCossack" / "[your actual name]" is nothing more than a linguistic tool that our animal bodies use to facilitate communication and survival. I am further advocating the idea that this tool has taken on a 'life of it's own' and over the course of many years has brought us to the faulty belief that it exists independently of our bodies.

If you are willing to accept my premise, then death is absolutely nothing to worry about. "You" do not need to worry about what happens to "you" because that question itself is faulty and worthless (i.e. it has no answer). You cannot possibly know what happens to you after you die because:
a) there is no you
b) there is no you to die
c) there is no you live on after you die
Please understand that this is not buddhism (the notion that the ego is an illusion and must be eliminated in order to achieve nirvana). I do not posit a nirvana. I do not posit a heaven. I posit nothing.

I merely claim that we are animals like all other creatures on this planet. We are smart animals with big brains, and in our big brains we developed a way to communicate (language) which is unique and incredibly useful. Over time this language gave rise to an idea which took hold so well that we now believe it exists independently of our bodies, which it does not. This is the idea of the self. It doesn't exist in physical reality. It is an idea.

There is no such actual thing as the self. Accept this and death is a non-issue. It is merely the ship we all must sail, and where it goes is irrelevant; the question is how we approach the ship. With fear? Or with calm assurance that we have done our best with our time?

- August


There's nothing wrong with the self as a linguistic construction. I refer to myself as a self all the time, it's just what we do as an animal species. My point is that we need to understand that it's nothing more than a linguistic construction.

Have you ever noticed when you talk to yourself and you say things like:
"We need to clean the kitchen."
"You need to remember to get your jacket."
This is totally nonsensical when you think about it. Your brain is effectively talking to itself like it's more than one person. This would mean that we all have psychotic delusions of multiple personalities. But we don't. It's normal to talk to yourself like this because language is what runs our brain discussion. And in language, you use multiple personal pronouns to have a conversation.

My end point is that death is nothing to fear. You only fear it if you fear of losing a "self." But there is no self, so there's no fear of death. It's just what's next after life (or better yet, death is just an absence of life).

- August

Yeah, really useful. You've managed to succesfully articulate what I've sort of thought, but could never really put into words. Cheers!

[MotherCossack]

There's nothing wrong with the self as a linguistic construction. I refer to myself as a self all the time, it's just what we do as an animal species. My point is that we need to understand that it's nothing more than a linguistic construction.

Have you ever noticed when you talk to yourself and you say things like:
"We need to clean the kitchen."
"You need to remember to get your jacket."
This is totally nonsensical when you think about it. Your brain is effectively talking to itself like it's more than one person. This would mean that we all have psychotic delusions of multiple personalities. But we don't. Its normal to talk to yourself like this because language is what runs our brain discussion. And in language, you use multiple personal pronouns to have a conversation.

My end point is that death is nothing to fear. You only fear it if you fear of losing a "self." But there is no self, so there's no fear of death. It's just what's next after life (or better yet, death is just an absence of life).

- August

Yeah... this is all amazingly pertinent, clearly and thoughtfully argued and highly intelligent. I applaud and thank you for taking the time and effort to respond so fully.
Yet I cant help feeling untouched by it.
I accept, completely the basis of your argument... indeed much of what you say is in accordance with beliefs I have held for many years. Especially in relation to our mistaken elevation of the human soul/self/spirit or for that matter, really, any idea that we possess a unique intellect that is anything more than the result of being a, run of the mill, mammal with, incidentally, quite a large brain.
It seems to me almost comical that our species has constructed all this elaborate nonsense to embellish the time each of us spends alive. As if that was not enough we have come to build an imaginary existence that, we convince ourselves, defies time itself and allows us to either: be elsewhere, after we die, or come back here again, and get another go.
wishful thinking, maybe... and certainly implausible, if we're being honest...
The obvious truth is that.... Like nearly all living things we are born, we live, we die we end and break up into our component parts or ingredients... because flesh is, I believe, readily biodegradable.


All this is fine and dandy... but it does not make me feel less sad... just because I realise what I am [or am not] doesn't seem to affect the influence of my imaginary self, or reduce the pain caused by a mis-guided belief that I actually exist.

and, to be honest, I think i'd rather play safe and stick with the delusion, just for now, thanks anyway.

[Decommissioner]

I think we need to get rid of taboos against human cloning and figure out a way to preserve brains that the memory/spark of consciousness/whatever would remain intact if we were to transplant said brain, partially or in full, into a blank slate clone. This combined of course with general health/life extension of any given human body. For those too unimaginative to bear a very long life, they could opt out of it any time they want after a decent "natural span".
Hope I'm making sense.

If we can go that far, I would rather my mind be able to exist in a network mainframes, connected to other minds, sharing all knowledge. Maybe load consciousness into a physical being at will.

[Capitalist Octopus]

When I die, I believe everything fades, and I no longer exist physically, spiritually, or in any manner.

In this sense death is freedom because I am not looking back on my life and contemplating what I could have done better, I am no longer experiencing the difficulties of life nor it's pleasures.

Dying today or 70 years from now will only make a difference to those left in the world, but it will not make a difference to me. The only reason I continue living life is because I enjoy the pleasures it brings about at times.

If these pleasures are to fully cease existing, I probably will too.

[MotherCossack]

i can understand the instinct to survive and to procreate......
but how did all this complicated stuff come about?
we are so temporary, our lives so fleeting....
so what purpose to all these obstructive feelings serve?
they only make it harder to confront our rapidly approaching fate.

[Decolonize The Left]

Yeah... this is all amazingly pertinent, clearly and thoughtfully argued and highly intelligent. I applaud and thank you for taking the time and effort to respond so fully.
Yet I cant help feeling untouched by it.
I accept, completely the basis of your argument... indeed much of what you say is in accordance with beliefs I have held for many years. Especially in relation to our mistaken elevation of the human soul/self/spirit or for that matter, really, any idea that we possess a unique intellect that is anything more than the result of being a, run of the mill, mammal with, incidentally, quite a large brain.
It seems to me almost comical that our species has constructed all this elaborate nonsense to embellish the time each of us spends alive. As if that was not enough we have come to build an imaginary existence that, we convince ourselves, defies time itself and allows us to either: be elsewhere, after we die, or come back here again, and get another go.
wishful thinking, maybe... and certainly implausible, if we're being honest...
The obvious truth is that.... Like nearly all living things we are born, we live, we die we end and break up into our component parts or ingredients... because flesh is, I believe, readily biodegradable.


All this is fine and dandy... but it does not make me feel less sad... just because I realise what I am [or am not] doesn't seem to affect the influence of my imaginary self, or reduce the pain caused by a mis-guided belief that I actually exist.

and, to be honest, I think i'd rather play safe and stick with the delusion, just for now, thanks anyway.

The argument I made above was not meant to 'touch' you in any serious sense. Nor was it meant to convert you to my perspective or anything like that. It was merely an explanation of what I believe it true, and why I believe it to be true. It also happens to be highly pragmatic when dealing with serious issues like mortality and the all-too-human fear of death.

As for your issue of feeling sad, no argument will be able to relieve you of sadness or fear. Arguments will only help you understand something - it will not help you feel one way or the other about it.

So to clarify, you do actually exist. Your person actually exists. You have had a life of great adventure (even giving birth to and raising a child!) and have made many connections with other people which will last long past your eventually death. People will remember who you were and think of you often - I'm sure. And you still have plenty more to come. There is no doubting that you are an individual person with a name, date of birth, individual philosophy/code of ethics/morality, appearance, etc...

What I was speaking about was how you think about all these things in relation to your death. I am not denying them, I am attempting to frame them within a specific perspective in order to change the way death appears in the end. That's all.

---

I will leave this discussion (as I do not want to belabor the dialogue) with a very interesting analogy originally put forth by Friedrich Nietzsche. At the moment I cannot remember in what book it was written, but I will paraphrase as best I can:

Think of the entire universe as all the physical matter there is. Think of the world as a part of this universe, and think of people as parts of the world. We are not separate from the world, we are merely a product of it. Even when we are alive and physically feel separate, we are not - we are of the same origin and constitution as stars, dirt, everything.
Now, with this in mind, consider the human brain and the sensory organs (especially your eyes and ears) as the world looking at itself. Since you are a part of the world, when you see the world and hear the world you are a part of the world perceiving itself through a specific locus. In short, you are mirroring the world.
Now, you do more than just perceive, you reflect upon your perceptions; you think about your perceptions. Think of this act as a second mirror: the world mirrors itself through your body, then mirrors this perception in the brain (and recreates it in memory). The mind is then nothing more than a mirror of a mirror of the world.
BUT, more is at play here then this simple explanation. For we do not only think about what we just perceived, we think about our thinking, and about the thinking of yesterday, and the thinking of the thinking, etc... We have many, many, many mirrors within our mind. In fact, once you hold a mirror up to a mirror you get infinite regress. So consider all the "complexity" of the human mind as this infinite regress of mirrors. There is veracity to them, for they stem from reality and address it in one way or the other, but problems arise.
The problem is that mirrors are never a perfectly accurate description of what it actually there. They are always distorted in some way or another. Some are dirty, others are warped, etc... And an infinite set of mirrors infinitely distorts reality. The problem is not the distortion (because it is inevitable) but when one accepts the distortion as truth. When one lives within the mind and in the mirror one begins to believe what one sees in the mirror. One believes the distorted view of reality because one is trapped within it.
Yet we are not trapped within it. "We" are a product of the distortion. "We" are nothing other than the mirror reflecting back upon itself and assuming this reflection to be existent in itself.

To paraphrase: When the brain mirrors the world this is perception. When the brain mirrors the mirror this is thought. The "self" emerges here, in the mirror of the mirror because the brain interprets the reflection as existent in itself, when it is in fact only a reflection. This is why you think there is a "you" in your head, because through language your brain interpreted the reflection of the world as a thing in-itself thinking, when in fact it was only a process.

---

I am sorry for rambling, take it as you will.

- August

[MotherCossack]

Think of the entire universe as all the physical matter there is. Think of the world as a part of this universe, and think of people as parts of the world. We are not separate from the world, we are merely a product of it. Even when we are alive and physically feel separate, we are not - we are of the same origin and constitution as stars, dirt, everything.
Now, with this in mind, consider the human brain and the sensory organs (especially your eyes and ears) as the world looking at itself. Since you are a part of the world, when you see the world and hear the world you are a part of the world perceiving itself through a specific locus. In short, you are mirroring the world.
Now, you do more than just perceive, you reflect upon your perceptions; you think about your perceptions. Think of this act as a second mirror: the world mirrors itself through your body, then mirrors this perception in the brain (and recreates it in memory). The mind is then nothing more than a mirror of a mirror of the world.
BUT, more is at play here then this simple explanation. For we do not only think about what we just perceived, we think about our thinking, and about the thinking of yesterday, and the thinking of the thinking, etc... We have many, many, many mirrors within our mind. In fact, once you hold a mirror up to a mirror you get infinite regress. So consider all the "complexity" of the human mind as this infinite regress of mirrors. There is veracity to them, for they stem from reality and address it in one way or the other, but problems arise.
The problem is that mirrors are never a perfectly accurate description of what it actually there. They are always distorted in some way or another. Some are dirty, others are warped, etc... And an infinite set of mirrors infinitely distorts reality. The problem is not the distortion (because it is inevitable) but when one accepts the distortion as truth. When one lives within the mind and in the mirror one begins to believe what one sees in the mirror. One believes the distorted view of reality because one is trapped within it.
Yet we are not trapped within it. "We" are a product of the distortion. "We" are nothing other than the mirror reflecting back upon itself and assuming this reflection to be existent in itself.

To paraphrase: When the brain mirrors the world this is perception. When the brain mirrors the mirror this is thought. The "self" emerges here, in the mirror of the mirror because the brain interprets the reflection as existent in itself, when it is in fact only a reflection. This is why you think there is a "you" in your head, because through language your brain interpreted the reflection of the world as a thing in-itself thinking, when in fact it was only a process.

---

I am sorry for rambling, take it as you will.

- August

cor blimey!
that is indeed a very big concept, and fitting it all into my head, without cutting it up first is a big ask!
but i am having a go .... and i can sort of, just about, fit the idea in.... how i respond... actually i think i should maybe practise having that idea in my head....a few times and then moving on to try and form a view....

but again thanks for bothering to try and explain to one such as me, i am trying to step up to the plate.

[MotherCossack]

So....
Whitney Houston has gone the way of the .... folk who are dead [i s'pose]

So you are this thing ... with a whole universe inside your head....
You've got a body, that carries you around....
But it is the stuff in your head that is you.
The stuff that is invisible, thoughts, fears, hopes, dreams, worries, memories, knowledge, times tables, map of the area, instructions for the washing machine, address book, playlist, shopping list, and dictionary, thesauras, not to mention remote control of said body.
Such a lot of stuff in a relatively modest cranium......
All of it down to a few chemical reactions and some incy wincy teeny weeny electro magnetic impulses running along the many nerve strands and around the grey matter.

So there's all that cracking off inside, when you are alive....
Every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of every decade of every life.....
Until the moment when it all stops !
and you die.
Then all that remains is a decomposing hunk of human meat.

The End.

[Ele'ill]

But you (and those impulses in your brain, your memories, your quirks, how you talk, how you walk, who you help) mattered while you were alive and will matter to those who still live on. That's the beauty of it.

[MotherCossack]

and it is the ones left behind who feel the pain.
dead folk dont miss us, after all. do they.
but we sure as hell miss them .
[unless they are evil despots or capitalist scum or bankers]

[GoddessCleoLover]

Thus the attraction of the notion of an afterlife, which certain religions fully exploit.

[MotherCossack]

and another thing....
why do we spend such a huge ,huge amount on burying these newly vacated human shells.
it is mind-blowingly out of all proportion to anything i can think of.
spending more on burying the carcass than many working people spent, on anything, in their lives.????????????????????????????

[GoddessCleoLover]

The funeral industry has sold us on the notion that an expensive funeral is the way to show our loved for the deceased.

[Ravachol]

I could post a long rambling story about the meaning of consciousness, identity, existence and what not.

But what I always find bitter is people being obsessed with whether or not there's life after death, while I'm far more worried there's not much of a life before it either...

[GoddessCleoLover]

Touche.

[Ele'ill]

But what I always find bitter is people being obsessed with whether or not there's life after death, while I'm far more worried there's not much of a life before it either...

That's why they're obsessed with a life after death.

[Ravachol]

That's why they're obsessed with a life after death.

Yes. I've noticed that people who genuinely believe in an afterlife (whether they are religious or not) are far more passive, submissive and accepting of their conditions and the shit that gets thrown their way than those who do not. Especially when the entrance to that afterlife is coupled to a set of social rules elevating this kind of behavior to a moral imperative.

Perhaps it's the fact that those who believe in an afterlife lack a sense of urgency, "there's always the kingdom of god, the pie in the sky". Perhaps it works both ways, shit conditions and the impossibility to do anything about it sure makes believing things will get better 'eventually' seem more attractive.

On the other hand, the same mechanic can be seen active within Capitalist 'work ethic', with 'old age' and 'deserved retirement' replacing afterlife and being crushed by the gears day in, day out being the 'fair price' one has to endure to get there. It's a fundamentally christian mechanic to have to suffer before joy is acceptable. There can be no bread without broken hands, no afterlife without a life of suffering.

[The Stalinator]

and another thing....
why do we spend such a huge ,huge amount on burying these newly vacated human shells.
it is mind-blowingly out of all proportion to anything i can think of.
spending more on burying the carcass than many working people spent, on anything, in their lives.????????????????????????????

I would have to agree... it's a corpse, it doesn't care what you do with it. We are not holding a funeral for my grandmother. We're going to have a memorial instead. Less bullshit. She never liked bullshit.

I don't like the thought of my body bloating up and turning green, black and red, so perhaps I will be cremated after the scientists are done with my wrinkled old (or perhaps young) skin sack. However, I have always wanted to be dug up a couple hundred thousand years from now as a fossil, so others could learn from me even that far in the future -- so maybe I will have to suck it up and let myself be buried.

[eric922]

Well you can look at this in the most simple fashion possible.

Basically, there are only two theoretical possibilities.
1. You are your physical, human, animal, body. When you die your heart stops pumping blood to your brain, your brain becomes deprived of oxygen, and your organs stop functioning. This is physical death. It can be relatively painless (such as 'having your breath go out in your sleep') or it can be immensely painful (such as being shot in the liver and not having any anesthetic). Regardless, it is a biological phenomenon which awaits us all.

What does this give you? A nice, neat, package of explanation in regards to the physical functioning of your death. But you probably want more - you probably want to know what happens to you (not just your body). See below.

2. You are your physical, human, animal, body, but you posit something metaphysical beyond this (a 'soul' or whatever you want - the notion of reincarnation falls in this category as well as it posits a link between lives which is metaphysical). Now once you posit this phenomenon, you have a whole host of problems:
- You have to explain what it is
- You have to explain where it goes
- You have to explain why it's there
- You have to explain who has one and who doesn't
- Etc...
So, you have some choices. You can read up on any number of ideas which explore and advance this notion, and there are many, from christianity to zen buddhism to scientology. You can then choose one to believe in and adopt it's explanations, etc...
What does this give you? An answer. It's not a proven answer, and most likely not true, but it's an answer none-the-less and it may be just what you need.

Now, I am not advocating that you become religious. Quite the contrary - in fact, I am advocating that you abandon the idea that you exist as you know it. I am advocating the idea that "the self" / "the ego" / "the mind" / "I" / "consciousness" / "MotherCossack" / "[your actual name]" is nothing more than a linguistic tool that our animal bodies use to facilitate communication and survival. I am further advocating the idea that this tool has taken on a 'life of it's own' and over the course of many years has brought us to the faulty belief that it exists independently of our bodies.

If you are willing to accept my premise, then death is absolutely nothing to worry about. "You" do not need to worry about what happens to "you" because that question itself is faulty and worthless (i.e. it has no answer). You cannot possibly know what happens to you after you die because:
a) there is no you
b) there is no you to die
c) there is no you live on after you die
Please understand that this is not buddhism (the notion that the ego is an illusion and must be eliminated in order to achieve nirvana). I do not posit a nirvana. I do not posit a heaven. I posit nothing.

I merely claim that we are animals like all other creatures on this planet. We are smart animals with big brains, and in our big brains we developed a way to communicate (language) which is unique and incredibly useful. Over time this language gave rise to an idea which took hold so well that we now believe it exists independently of our bodies, which it does not. This is the idea of the self. It doesn't exist in physical reality. It is an idea.

There is no such actual thing as the self. Accept this and death is a non-issue. It is merely the ship we all must sail, and where it goes is irrelevant; the question is how we approach the ship. With fear? Or with calm assurance that we have done our best with our time?

- August
August, just wondering have you ever studied Buddhism? I'm just asking, because your ideas some similar to Buddhism in some respects. Especially, in regards to the idea that there is no real "self." That is a very Buddhist concept, it ties into their view of rebirth, where unlike Hinduism, your soul isn't reincarnated, because you don't have a soul. Sorry, if I'm not very clear, I've never quite been able to grasp the Buddhist concept of rebirth without a soul or self, but I just thought I'd share the similarities I noticed. Very interesting post, regardless.

[Prometeo liberado]

Hi, I'm here for the group hug?

[kuriousoranj]

I'm not a Philosopher, so this is probably a rather basic understanding of "life" and "death", but here goes. I believe in the absolute unity of all, and thus, have always found "death" to be a rather selfish concept. Upon realising that the only thing lost at "death" is personal consciousness, and that everything we hold dear about "ourselves", is only useful if it transcends that inner understanding, it becomes clear that "self" is only that which is reflected back to us, and, more importantly onto others. Anything of any worth to your real self, to you as "all", continues whether you have the personal capacity to comprehend it or not.

I've always enjoyed this from James Baldwins The Fire Next Time:

Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death----ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us... It is the responsibility of free men to trust and to celebrate what is constant----birth, struggle, and death are constant, and so is love, though we may not always think so----and to apprehend the nature of change, to be able and willing to change. I speak of change not on the surface but in the depths----change in the sense of renewal. But renewal becomes impossible if one supposes things to be constant that are not----safety, for example, or money, or power. One clings then to chimeras, by which one can only be betrayed, and the entire hope----the entire possibility----of freedom disappears.
James Baldwin

[dodger]

Hi, I'm here for the group hug?



Liar, jbeard, you're here for the same reason all of us are................



WAITING FOR THE WILL TO BE READ !!!

[artanis17]

Dying is really stupid... Why could not we live forever ? I don't want to be lost in eternal void :D

[Prometeo liberado]

Liar, jbeard, you're here for the same reason all of us are................



WAITING FOR THE WILL TO BE READ !!!
I'm that guy sitting in the back while the will is being read "...wonderful human being, we all loved her, never had a bad thing to say....Wait, What?...Never mentioned me once? She didn't leave me...wait read again..mistake maybe? I get nothing!?...She was a mean vindictive person! *****!"

[MotherCossack]

I could post a long rambling story about the meaning of consciousness, identity, existence and what not.

But what I always find bitter is people being obsessed with whether or not there's life after death, while I'm far more worried there's not much of a life before it either...

now that is a very good point!
but the truth is if we fabricate a life that will begin when we die, in a mystical far away place that we have no control over, then it means we dont have to bother making the effort to improve this life, the tangible, real one, with real highs and real lows and life size obstacles that are solid and real.
It is hard to make changes in this real life... far easier to pass the buck and wait for the promise of eternal life and promises made by shady, unseen, metaphorical beings who we place such immense trust in and give such power away to.
Madness... when it is now that we have to act...it is in this life that we are alive and capable of controlling our own destiny.
It makes me wonder .... the one who came up with the idea of the afterlife did more to obstruct and derail all subsequent attempts, by those who might have wanted a better, fairer real life here and now, than a selection of mediocre conservatives with not an original thought between them.

We dont condone or even allow women to leap onto the burning pyre of their dead husbands, we all know it is insane....
we dont support the belief that if you blow yourself up and take a shitload of the infidel with you, then you are guaranteed a splendid seat in the celestial heavens.

i know that believing in life after death is somewhat less destructive [and not illegal] than these examples... but the actual logic behind them all is at least along similar lines .

Enuff of this dense stuff...
my brain is gonna drain
it all jumps in and out of my head like popcorn
sizzling, trembling and ready to blow.

[MotherCossack]

Dying is really stupid... Why could not we live forever ? I don't want to be lost in eternal void :D
that is cute and absolutely reasonable.
i am with you but a little weary....
we shall see...

[MotherCossack]

went to visit my other granddad today.
he is clinging to life [not entirely willingly i have to say... but thats life... it takes no account of any thing and ignores the sands of time... by my reckoning.]
he will be 99 in 2weeks.
what a thing... 98 and 3/4
i wonder what it feels like....
i mean he had to move into a home last year....
he knows and i know, i know he knows and he knows i know .........when you move in there.....there is only one way you move out.........

[Philosopher Jay]

I like what Epicurus said, "When we are here, death is not and when death is here, we are not."

We imagine that we will experience death, but we only experience the death of others.

Envisioning death as a black void or the flash of a television screen going off is a bit depressing. I imagine it as the lowest point of a wave cycle. Since many things in the universe seem to be waves perhaps in some sense we are too.

This viewpoint rejects Judgement after death and any trip to Disneyland or to the depths of Tartarus. It also rejects reincarnation.

It leaves death as the ending it is and the mystery it is.

[MotherCossack]

I would have to agree... it's a corpse, it doesn't care what you do with it. We are not holding a funeral for my grandmother. We're going to have a memorial instead. Less bullshit. She never liked bullshit.

I don't like the thought of my body bloating up and turning green, black and red, so perhaps I will be cremated after the scientists are done with my wrinkled old (or perhaps young) skin sack. However, I have always wanted to be dug up a couple hundred thousand years from now as a fossil, so others could learn from me even that far in the future -- so maybe I will have to suck it up and let myself be buried.

I know what you mean...
I always used to think the opposite... that i would not like to be burned and reduced to nothing but dust.....
But, of late, i have been confronted with the matter up close and personal... and find myself wondering... was it because a bit of me worried that they might make a mistake, burn me alive... or some such nonsense.
Because now that i have seen death... head on ... in the parlour.... now i see clearly.... there can be no such mistake...
DEATH...... DEATH screams on arrival ... it wails "I AM HERE... THIS ONE IS MINE!"
there can never be such a mistake.
when you die... you leave... the body that remains is nothing but a pile of dead skin and bones... nothing more.

I did not believe it myself.,.. when people told me what to expect...when i went to the chapel of rest...
They tried to warn me...
But until you see for yourself.... you can never imagine....
Such an overwhelming absence of life....
I could scarely believe the figure lying upon the silky lining of the coffin had ever been my lively, animated granddad.
It was as if a waxwork replica had been made... it truly seemed incomprehensible that such an object had been him.
It looked like no life could ever have existed in it.
It seemed that more than just death had happened to it.
I now understand that you can not say goodbye to a dead body. you can only facillitate the sinking in of the fact that they are dead .
it is still very, very hard.
i love you granddad. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
you were a well cool diamond geaserxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


so... like you, i would rather not rot in the cold, wet, dirty ground.... but i too fancy having the last word... by being excavated and speaking to those in the distant future.....
hmmmm!? what to do......? [actually my remains might give rise to some very innaccurate assumptions by those in the future... but, hey... what the hell......]

[Lynx]

Life is for the living. If you don't want to die, don't live.

[Ele'ill]

so... like you, i would rather not rot in the cold, wet, dirty ground.... but i too fancy having the last word by being resurrected and speaking to those in the distant future.....


No, rot. Become the meadows, crickets and cicadas. Those in the distant future will hear you and understand.

[MotherCossack]

i am reading my post.... i did not mean resurrected i meant excavated... big difference... i have to change it

[MotherCossack]

That's better.... now i dont sound like i have delusions of grandeur on a biblical scale!

Although i still see a picture in my minds eye of my granddad in that coffin... under all that earth... and imagine how it feels... as if he is still there. [in his rotting body, i mean... ]
i was wondering... what would the process be like....how long....

I figured that his suit [and the paper message i placed in his breast pocket.] would be more or less ok until the actual coffin rots.... i have no idea how long that will take... i suppose it depends a lot on what sort of ground it was buried in.... looked pretty boggy and soft to me.
The body will probably decompose quite quickly... again i have no idea how long that takes... i assume it is a bit longer in winter, because of the cold.... and it, the corpse, didn't look particlarily full of fluids... in fact might have been quite dry as he had been on strong medication to reduce fluid build-up. so it will probably go quite slowly....

Anyway... hark at me... it is strange how i can feel so sad....so so painfully sad and want him back so,so much......my youngest daughter mentioned him only this morning and i was overwhelmed with grief... all of a sudden....it was horrible.

Yet i find discussing the particulars of his decomposing body quite bearable....
almost interesting... i suppose the flesh dissapears quickly... then the wood preserves the cloth and bones for a bit.... so next question i have is how long would your average coffin last.....?
Again i suppose it is climate... composition of soil... and quality of timber.....i should try to find out....

[All to help me decide whether or not i shall be buried or cremated]

[mykittyhasaboner]

i refuse to accept death as an inevitability.

[Decolonize The Left]

August, just wondering have you ever studied Buddhism? I'm just asking, because your ideas some similar to Buddhism in some respects. Especially, in regards to the idea that there is no real "self." That is a very Buddhist concept, it ties into their view of rebirth, where unlike Hinduism, your soul isn't reincarnated, because you don't have a soul. Sorry, if I'm not very clear, I've never quite been able to grasp the Buddhist concept of rebirth without a soul or self, but I just thought I'd share the similarities I noticed. Very interesting post, regardless.

Yes I have studied Buddhism. I'll touch on it briefly in saying that there are several aspects of Buddhist philosophy which I find to be healthy and productive. Unfortunately, I find that many Buddhists fall into the same trap as most religious people and believe in their faith above and beyond reason. In short, they take themselves way too seriously.

The similarities between my understanding of the human condition and the Buddhist portrayal of such only intertwine in the notion that we both reject the idea of the 'self' as anything concrete. The Buddhist says that the self is the ego, something to be overcome in order to move towards inner peace and relieve the suffering of human existence.

I say that the self is a necessary illusion which we must have in order to interact as a socio-cultural species, but one which we must never take too seriously as it will inevitably bring us much pain as a result.

- August

[Decolonize The Left]

i refuse to accept death as an inevitability.

How all-too-human of you.

- August

[mykittyhasaboner]

How all-too-human of you.

- August

Never read that book, if that's what your referring to, so i'm not quite sure what that means.

i'm not sure about what kind of scientific support exists for my opinion that death is not necessarily inevitable, but my opinion remains the same. If there is a way to preserve our consciousness beyond the limits of our physical body (or extend said limits) then i see no reason why one shouldn't do so.

The social relations of this society prevent meaningful research in life extension, and elimination of preventable death. If we overcome such antagonisms then why not attempt to reach immortality?

[Decolonize The Left]

Never read that book, if that's what your referring to, so i'm not quite sure what that means.

i'm not sure about what kind of scientific support exists for my opinion that death is not necessarily inevitable, but my opinion remains the same. If there is a way to preserve our consciousness beyond the limits of our physical body (or extend said limits) then i see no reason why one shouldn't do so.

No, because "consciousness" is not an actual thing. It is a linguistic term used to describe the active functioning of our brain - an active functioning which is completely dependent upon the sense input of the human body. So "you" couldn't be "conscious" in something "else" because "you", your "consciousness", and your body are all one and the same.

So you are nothing more than a locus of sense-making ability. And you being this locus with linguistic capabilities, you have (naturally) extended your ideas of this locus into something other than what it actually is - your body. This is why you think you are something (consciousness) above and beyond your body (i.e. your life).


The social relations of this society prevent meaningful research in life extension, and elimination of preventable death. If we overcome such antagonisms then why not attempt to reach immortality?

There is no such thing as "immortality." When you consider that the universe will end in the temperature reaching absolute zero, which means that atomic movement is impossible, how do you think something so small and pathetic as "human immortality" figures in?

- August

[Enragé]

you already know what it is like to be dead, its the same as before you were born
- Seneca

[MotherCossack]

i seem to have an insatiable need to try and discover the undiscoverable.
we exist as animals, each of us with only a fleeting glimpse of an infinitely tiny bit of the universe.
our consciousness is contained within our heads and we can not escape that . so all these questions that we ask ourselves .. are not answerable, not by us anyway.
maybe we would rather ignore that which is within our reach and can affect, and would rather ponder intangibles of a hypothetical nature.

[Ele'ill]

Death is a social construct.

[Lynx]

I suppose total amnesia could be a form of death - the death of your identity.

Or to observe a loved one succumb to dementia.

[Saviorself]

In my younger years I used to lay awake at night and contemplate my own morality, I remember how much it would suck to be dead as I would be missing out on all the great stuff that makes life so enjoyable. Then I started to think about what being dead would be like and, as an atheist from birth, I could only imagine nothingness. I further assumed that being dead would be no different from before I was born and I certainly don't remember thinking how much it sucked since I hadn't been born yet. Since then, the thought of my own death hasn't bothered me. And the way I figure it, there is no sense in fearing something that can't be stopped anyway. So I enjoy the life I have while I have it; the only guarantee in life is that we will all die eventually.

[Buttress]

The greatest gift and simultaneous curse of consciousness is that of infinite subjective existence. Never truly beginning, never truly ending. But what mechanism drives this eternal sense of being? An infinite array of universes, perhaps, or an infinitely cyclic universe. Or perhaps a universe that can last long enough for the complete recreation of a certain conscious being of whom you would be lucky (or unlucky) enough to be.

But there are problems with an infinite universe, such as entropic heat death - an ever-expanding, ever-thinning universe. Perhaps however, there are exceptions to this possibility only perceptible by a single conscious entity - you.

Consciousness is a paradox; simultaneously being a vague construct of many elements joined together in a certain working way, but simultaneously able to observe the universe and its place within it, seeing potentially every causal possibility that furthers its existence.

[MotherCossack]

The greatest gift and simultaneous curse of consciousness is that of infinite subjective existence. Never truly beginning, never truly ending. But what mechanism drives this eternal sense of being? An infinite array of universes, perhaps, or an infinitely cyclic universe. Or perhaps a universe that can last long enough for the complete recreation of a certain conscious being of whom you would be lucky (or unlucky) enough to be.

But there are problems with an infinite universe, such as entropic heat death - an ever-expanding, ever-thinning universe. Perhaps however, there are exceptions to this possibility only perceptible by a single conscious entity - you.

Consciousness is a paradox; simultaneously being a vague construct of many elements joined together in a certain working way, but simultaneously able to observe the universe and its place within it, seeing potentially every causal possibility that furthers its existence.

now we are getting to the nitty gritty......

awh... wait.... nah.... shit... the whole thing just fell out of my head ....again.

i know that i find this kind of physical, or is it technical, philosophy:
1/ infinitely and extraordinarily interesting. it is a wonder to behold alright.
2/ strangely , the whole thing is tricky to keep hold of... i find that it just sort of slithers out of my earholes if i dont concentrate... maybe, being one in possession of a modest brain.... i simply dont have the space/capacity for such whopping, stellar sized ponderings.

one thing i am sure of... dont know about the rest of you....i hate the certainty that whatever happens.... we can never know the answers to 99.9 of the questions that i want to know, about the universe, us in it, us and it, whats at the edge.......of both the universe and life itself... [before birth and after death is what i mean].
well i know , pretty much, what happens to dead people...so really it is down to the wonders of an ever expanding [into what]
universe....an incredibly long time and much expansion until everything is so far apart there will definitely no inter galactical mobile phone reception...and hey what then.... do we get ripped apart.... turn into a universe sized black hole....
shit!
i am a dumb bum!
mother cossack ... you me old china... are way off thread... you should bloody know you started it.... remember....

-o-n- --b-e-i-n-g- -d-e-a-d- !!!! not 'on being a universe fancier.'
SORRY... MUST GET ...MORE... SLEEP.....

[Buttress]

I doubt we ever will "know" the truth behind our universe(s), but it's certainly fun (and humbling) to ponder :)

[The Jay]

If you're interested in cosmology check out Steven Hawkings books.

[Decolonize The Left]

The greatest gift and simultaneous curse of consciousness is that of infinite subjective existence. Never truly beginning, never truly ending. But what mechanism drives this eternal sense of being? An infinite array of universes, perhaps, or an infinitely cyclic universe. Or perhaps a universe that can last long enough for the complete recreation of a certain conscious being of whom you would be lucky (or unlucky) enough to be.

But there are problems with an infinite universe, such as entropic heat death - an ever-expanding, ever-thinning universe. Perhaps however, there are exceptions to this possibility only perceptible by a single conscious entity - you.

Consciousness is a paradox; simultaneously being a vague construct of many elements joined together in a certain working way, but simultaneously able to observe the universe and its place within it, seeing potentially every causal possibility that furthers its existence.

I'm sorry, but this reads like total metaphysical nonsense.

It appears as though you have made the mistake of attributing to a phenomenon the characteristics of a physical and tangible thing. In doing so, you seek to quantify and qualify this phenomenon, and since you cannot do this, you are forced to invent explanations which make little sense.

"Consciousness" isn't a thing - there is "being conscious," but there is no such thing as consciousness.

- August

[Guy Incognito]

An interesting thing to think about is what's shown in the movie Jacob's Ladder. Basically that when we die, due to time's relative nature, it could seem as if you relive your life in what seems like realtime, or even continue it, in a dreamlike state for those few seconds. I vaguely remember scientists talking about an increase in electrical activity in the brain in the moments before death (though this could have been a dream).
Or to further expound on that concept of reliving your life, think about Deja Vu. Who's to say we're not already dead, and just dealing with our memories in those last seconds (such as things you've seen before, but in places you've never been)?

[Ele'ill]

I know that isn't true because I've died a few times now.

[Buttress]

I'm sorry, but this reads like total metaphysical nonsense.

It appears as though you have made the mistake of attributing to a phenomenon the characteristics of a physical and tangible thing. In doing so, you seek to quantify and qualify this phenomenon, and since you cannot do this, you are forced to invent explanations which make little sense.

"Consciousness" isn't a thing - there is "being conscious," but there is no such thing as consciousness.

- August

No there is no such "thing" as consciousness, and I conceded that in my post. Rather consciousness arises out of a particular construct of elements (say for example neurons in a brain). Consciousness is a phenomenon that may not be tangible but is still very real.

As for the metaphysical nature of my post, yeah it is pretty out there. It is merely a hypothetical, if indeed reality is structured into an infinite array of parallel universes for example. There is a term coined for this hypothesis: "Quantum Immortality". However we can never truly be sure of whether it is "true" or not :P

[Decolonize The Left]

No there is no such "thing" as consciousness, and I conceded that in my post. Rather consciousness arises out of a particular construct of elements (say for example neurons in a brain). Consciousness is a phenomenon that may not be tangible but is still very real.

Consciousness is not a phenomenon at all, it isn't a thing. And you can't claim that consciousness isn't a thing, then say that "it arises out of a particular construct of elements." Because if it isn't a thing, "it" cannot rise out of anything as "it" cannot rise at all because "it" doesn't exist.

One can be "conscious," as in:
"Doctor, this woman is conscious. That man over there is unconscious."

One cannot be, explain, or quantify, "consciousness." It is a meaningless term which emerged because we wanted to extend a physical state (being conscious) into an idea (consciousness).


As for the metaphysical nature of my post, yeah it is pretty out there. It is merely a hypothetical, if indeed reality is structured into an infinite array of parallel universes for example. There is a term coined for this hypothesis: "Quantum Immortality". However we can never truly be sure of whether it is "true" or not :P

The way in which we perceive reality, or the physicality of our universe and the theoretical possibilities of others (I have no gripes with theoretical physics) has nothing to do with my argument.

- August

[Nox]

If I was going to commit suicide, I'd get a load of credit cards and a huge bank loan, spend it all on loads of shit and then enjoy my last few months.

[Rafiq]

Guy incognito, that's extremely stupid. To think everything around you is a product of your dream is egotistic, no?

Am I a product of your dreams? Here comes the limitations of the "we're all in a dream" nonsense: other people, recorded and proven history. The brain ceases to function after death. Dreams are a product of the brain.

[Ostrinski]

I'm always surprised at how long some threads last. This is one of those threads. Six pages discussing what it is to die.

[sithsaber]

Existence is immense and beyond the understanding of mere mortals. It is arrogance that compels some to believe that this life is all there is. There are things that trivialities such as science and logic cannot explain, and beings so horrifying that the mere mention of their names drive civilizations to madness.Beyond the gates of infinity lies a reality so massive, and so awe inspiring that

[Buttress]

Consciousness is not a phenomenon at all, it isn't a thing. And you can't claim that consciousness isn't a thing, then say that "it arises out of a particular construct of elements." Because if it isn't a thing, "it" cannot rise out of anything as "it" cannot rise at all because "it" doesn't exist.

One can be "conscious," as in:
"Doctor, this woman is conscious. That man over there is unconscious."

One cannot be, explain, or quantify, "consciousness." It is a meaningless term which emerged because we wanted to extend a physical state (being conscious) into an idea (consciousness).

Well "it" must arise from somewhere, as it is observable that one can be conscious and unconscious. What is consciousness? It is the phenomenon of being conscious, a state of wakefulness and awareness. Only some forms of life can be described as having consciousness, so it must have something to do with the complexity of the brain. How is "consciousness" a meaningless term when it describes a state in which is easily observable (by our conscious minds).

[MotherCossack]

I'm always surprised at how long some threads last. This is one of those threads. Six pages discussing what it is to die.

indeed.
the notion of death and 'we all die' it is mightily compelling.
out of all the elements in life, all the many, many different experiences that contribute... in many, many ways....
there is only one certainty in life.......DEATH.

let us say... life is a big hall... we arrive and stand at one end , everyone is watching the single door at the end of the hall. we all have to go through the door at some time....
it is natural to try to imagine what awaits us...
and ... best of all.... no one will be able to prove us wrong.

[dodger]

If I was going to commit suicide, I'd get a load of credit cards and a huge bank loan, spend it all on loads of shit and then enjoy my last few months.

LIVE LIKE AN ANARCHIST--DIE LIKE A CAPITALIST?

WE HAVE BEEN LIVING LIKE THAT SINCE THE 70'S- it's the longest suicide in history. Sub-prime-expiration. Well not an entirely new idea Nox, but it has its attractions.

[Nox]

LIVE LIKE AN ANARCHIST--DIE LIKE A CAPITALIST?

WE HAVE BEEN LIVING LIKE THAT SINCE THE 70'S- it's the longest suicide in history. Sub-prime-expiration. Well not an entirely new idea Nox, but it has its attractions.

It would mainly be to fuck over the banks. Because obviously they can't any money from me if I'm dead ;)

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

It would mainly be to fuck over the banks. Because obviously they can't any money from me if I'm dead ;)

Do they go after relatives/parents/etc? If they don't already, they might start doing that, knowing how they are; bills must be paid, they'll say, and stop at nothing.

[Decolonize The Left]

Well "it" must arise from somewhere, as it is observable that one can be conscious and unconscious.

No, "it" is not observable at all.
"Conscious" is a state:
"He is conscious right now having emerged from surgery." (state)
A synonym:
"She is conscious of the plight of the panda." (synonym for "aware")



What is consciousness?

A meaningless term. See below.


It is the phenomenon of being conscious, a state of wakefulness and awareness.

2 problems:
1) Redundant. "The phenomenon of being conscious" is a redundant phrase. "Being conscious" is a phenomenon already in that it is a happening - no need to restate the fact.
2) There is no need for the -ness at the end of the terms.
Aware.
Wakeful.
Conscious.

I am all of these.

I do not "possess" awareness, wakefulness, or consciousness. These are linguistic terms which are used for specific purposes within language. They are not actual things.


Only some forms of life can be described as having consciousness, so it must have something to do with the complexity of the brain. How is "consciousness" a meaningless term when it describes a state in which is easily observable (by our conscious minds).

See above.

- August

[ChrisK]

Well "it" must arise from somewhere, as it is observable that one can be conscious and unconscious. What is consciousness? It is the phenomenon of being conscious, a state of wakefulness and awareness. Only some forms of life can be described as having consciousness, so it must have something to do with the complexity of the brain. How is "consciousness" a meaningless term when it describes a state in which is easily observable (by our conscious minds).

Adding onto AugustWest's excellent point, what you are doing is abstracting from a perfectly ordinary term "conscious" and treating in like an object. Rather, your use of the term is meaningless because it is quite literally an illegitimate extension of a term.

"Conscious" has two uses in language:

Medical- AugustWest has covered this one.
Metaphorical- As in "I wasn't conscious when I was driving."


When the metaphorical usage of this term is misused, it looks like a mental object that can arise from the mind. Rather, it is a meaningless term that ought to be dissolved back into ordinary language.

Here is a link to an excellent article by PMS Hacker that goes into a much more substantial critique of this notion.
http://info.sjc.ox.ac.uk/scr/hacker/docs/ConsciousnessAChallenge.pdf

[MotherCossack]

indeed.
the notion of death and 'we all die' it is mightily compelling.
out of all the elements in life, all the many, many different experiences that contribute... in many, many ways....
there is only one certainty in life.......DEATH.

let us say... life is a big hall... we arrive and stand at one end , everyone is watching the single door at the end of the hall. we all have to go through the door at some time....
it is natural to try to imagine what awaits us...
and ... best of all.... no one will be able to prove us wrong.

am i mad?
i cant make head or tail out of this nonsense....
what am i like?

actually i think i was trying to say... there is only one exit from this big room... and we cant stay here for too long.... so we all have to go through the same huge door.... no-one comes back... so we have no idea what goes on through there... being only human we all get increasingly curious/ trepidatious/ pre-occupied and some hate the idea,

some quite like the notion.... we have no choice... on this one...it happens...
and we never know until we die.. what is through the door

i am begining to think that the whole thing is just a little bit too big for my brain to process....despite all these philosophical rev-leftian meanderings, on which i have really tried to focus and make sense of, i feel exactly as lost and bewildered as i did when my granddad died in january...i have just got used to the idea, a bit anyway, now.

[Buttress]

Adding onto AugustWest's excellent point, what you are doing is abstracting from a perfectly ordinary term "conscious" and treating in like an object. Rather, your use of the term is meaningless because it is quite literally an illegitimate extension of a term.

"Conscious" has two uses in language:

Medical- AugustWest has covered this one.
Metaphorical- As in "I wasn't conscious when I was driving."


When the metaphorical usage of this term is misused, it looks like a mental object that can arise from the mind. Rather, it is a meaningless term that ought to be dissolved back into ordinary language.

Here is a link to an excellent article by PMS Hacker that goes into a much more substantial critique of this notion.
http://info.sjc.ox.ac.uk/scr/hacker/docs/ConsciousnessAChallenge.pdf

Well, I read that article and though it makes some interesting points, I'm still unsure of what exactly they are arguing about. Consciousness seems to be more about the capability of being conscious and unconscious, these are two states of the mind that are perfectly observable. If I am unconscious, I do not reflect internally (through thought) if I am in pain, but the brain and body reacts anyway, without the "me" being aware of it. If I am conscious, there is an additional response to pain, a reflection by internal thought. I define consciousness similarly to sentience. I don't believe it is an object that arises from the mind, but rather a capability that arises from a computing system of adequate complexity.

But then, I may have misinterpreted the article.

[Aflameoffreedom]

I have almost succeeded in taking my life on multiple occasions, I have OCD, with obsessive suicidal ideation. I lived in constant fear of death, and thought about it every other second of every day. I went through hospitalization for weeks, years of therapy, love, love, a duty to fight social injustice, and the right medication helped me to move past everything. What do I think of death? there is no afterlife, it is the end, no more thoughts, nothingness. What I think of living is however far more important, I still believe we can live forever. Only through our descendants, through memory, can we live on on Earth. Forever only lasts till the last human is dead. Even if you don't aspire to immortality, live your life in a way that will make every person that truly knew you, never forget you... What I can think of saying to you is to enjoy the journey of life and do not dwell on the destination because every breath can be a meaningful experience until that last one that we think such an important thing will happen afterwards, and love every second of your struggle. Happiness isn't in the future, or in the past, it is the present... 'My life’s true meaning seems to be to just live it

To destroy create grow burn and have life to give it

To live without fear of death’s visit

I don’t have a say on when it is with my life I’ll have to pay

But what I can choose is the way I live until that fateful day'

[MotherCossack]

I have almost succeeded in taking my life on multiple occasions, I have OCD, with obsessive suicidal ideation. I lived in constant fear of death, and thought about it every other second of every day. I went through hospitalization for weeks, years of therapy, love, love, a duty to fight social injustice, and the right medication helped me to move past everything. What do I think of death? there is no afterlife, it is the end, no more thoughts, nothingness. What I think of living is however far more important, I still believe we can live forever. Only through our descendants, through memory, can we live on on Earth. Forever only lasts till the last human is dead. Even if you don't aspire to immortality, live your life in a way that will make every person that truly knew you, never forget you... What I can think of saying to you is to enjoy the journey of life and do not dwell on the destination because every breath can be a meaningful experience until that last one that we think such an important thing will happen afterwards, and love every second of your struggle. Happiness isn't in the future, or in the past, it is the present... 'My life’s true meaning seems to be to just live it

To destroy create grow burn and have life to give it

To live without fear of death’s visit

I don’t have a say on when it is with my life I’ll have to pay

But what I can choose is the way I live until that fateful day'

this works for me...
what you describe, very elequently, is not anything i have not felt to some degree, at some time.
does that mean we are not entirely alone then?
of course we are not alone ... but are we on our own... it feels, to me , like the more people i know , the more lonely i get.
so .... however hard i try... getting close and doing the human thing... the more isolated i feel.... the more lonely i feel.
i do aspire to know many people ... i try to build relationships that will ensure that i am remembered...
but so soon i feel a deathly inertia that paralyses me... i become withdrawn and feel a terrible lethargy which inevitably clouds my judgement and obscures the path in front and behind me.
does anyone else suffer a similar destructive tendency. i am an unwilling but habitual sabateur.

[Aflameoffreedom]

Comrade there are too many things in the world that must be destroyed other than using our energy to destroy ourselves in the frustration of life, like the hierarchical systems and its pawns and people who are raping the planet to no return in the name of profit as well as injecting so much tormenting pain and struggle into us. Destruction keeps you young but it must be the type that is doing so to create a new fresh canvas for creation.
I know the feeling too of knowing more people than feeling more alone, but it is true that happiness is only real when shared, also that misery really enjoys company. I suggest you find something that makes you alone, makes you the individual you are but connects you at the same time to people all over the world with a common medium for releasing pain... Draw, paint, write, sing, scream, film, build, demolish, laugh, act, share what you've done on the internet, in books, anywhere and everywhere because you never know how close to other people you are and how much of a connection we all share until you never stop looking. There is nothing good to come out of dwelling on the thoughts that we die so terribly alone, we alll die, but not all of us live! you can live alone or with others and I say to continue to reach out to others or cherish the people in your life already because its funny how other lonely people facing the same fears as you reveal themselves to you.
Through your suffering I hope you grow, turn everything you endure into something that makes you stronger and wiser. Everything I've said is only in suggestion friend, best wishes to you.

[MotherCossack]

If I was going to commit suicide, I'd get a load of credit cards and a huge bank loan, spend it all on loads of shit and then enjoy my last few months.

done that....
trouble is i never got round to the dying bit....
or decided against it...
or failed at it....
actually... i did all three, on different occasions.
but i was younger then and much more volatile!

[MotherCossack]

i hate it when you find yourself dwelling on the idea of it and considering the possibility of it....

[MrCool]

I'd hate to life forever. After you've done every possible thing multiple times, life gets repeative, without a possibility of experiencing something new.

[Positivist]

You cannot fear death for it only hurts you. Live! That is the sole remedy. As many before have mentioned committee yourself to projects of all sorts (political, artistic, scientific) and love. The latter may sound weak but it is true. Life without love is a slow descent into death.

[Book O'Dead]

have recently been forced to confront my mortality...and am struggling with the absolute.......we all die.
after birth.... it is the only thing we can all be certain of... death happens to everyone.

Birth happens to everyone. With alarming frequency and regularity. In fact, in some places the birth rate far outpaces the death rate which is not always a bad thing. But this phenomenon bothers some people. The Hindus, for instance, think that all this birth and re-birth is a bad thing, but I disagree.

As Monty Python correctly pointed out: "Always Look On The Bright Side of Life":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ

[homegrown terror]

i know that, so long as i persevere honorably against any challenge life offers me, fulfill my responsibilities to those i love, and bring glory to my name, one day i'll dine in Valhalla with the gods and heroes. dying isn't a fear for me.

[Tenka]

I'd hate to life forever. After you've done every possible thing multiple times, life gets repeative, without a possibility of experiencing something new.

I doubt people who say this can even think of 1/1,000,000 of the possible things there are to do, that they'll certainly never get to do in their short lifespans even if they thought of them.
Though I guess one could always "opt out" of life in our future socialist utopia of biologically immortal super-humans!

[Book O'Dead]

i know that, so long as i persevere honorably against any challenge life offers me, fulfill my responsibilities to those i love, and bring glory to my name, one day i'll dine in Valhalla with the gods and heroes. dying isn't a fear for me.

And leave the nukes at home. Okay, O mighty Thor?