So, I am interested in other people's thoughts on the question of what becomes of consciousness at death? — Jack Cummins

I think we are 'non-conscious' after our death. I call it 'non-consciousness' because their is no meaning to consciousness in the realm of non-consciousness. It is different from unconsciousness because when we say somebody is unconscious we imply that their is a possibility of consciousness in this realm.

I can't help but see that the universe is comprised of a union of opposites, namely the principle of duality. you can pretty much break down the universe into what exists and what doesn't, and there needs to be a fine balance of both in order for there to even be the working, functioning, living universe as a whole. Then, what created this harmonious balance? I think that is a secret among secrets. For if known then whatever entity in the Universe (be it man or something else) would be able to divide this undivided universe of ours and create their own potential Universes. — Thinking

I think opposites exist but they are just the extremes of a gradient. Just like the colors that appear between black and white I think there are intermediates our human brain can't grasp. We have to remind ourselves that although we may perceive the extremes of a gradient that doesn't mean the things in between do not exist.

Under my below definitions, for example, a virus is alive and takes actions towards a goal. So, if you do not regard a virus as a living being making intentional actions then you have to point out exactly where/how my definition is flawed, and argue why a virus is inanimate matter, not making selective decisions to make an action or not. — Sir Philo Sophia

Virus is considered non-living(although not completely) totally on a biological basis. It is because the lack of cytoplasm, lack of cell division etc.. They have been described as "organisms at the edge of life".

My view on the subject is that all power has a corrupting influence and that every individual has a certain level of resistance to such influence, which they can change throughout their life. The reason absolute power corrupts absolutely is that it would require an infinite level of resistance to corruption to not be corrupted. Basically, you would have to be omnibenevolent to handle being omnipoten — Kayecta

You are right though, power does expose how corrupt someone is — Kayecta

I think that just as every individual has a certain level of resistance to power they also have a 'Will to power'. And what if the thing which makes us corrupt is the accessibility to power.

There are of course elements of introversion that may hamper a person's progress. Sometimes we can be observers instead of participants in life and Extroverts seem to naturally win... — Corinne

When we differ so greatly in our personalities, we also differ greatly in our goals and values. For an extreme introvert , just living a peaceful life and not socializing might be his only aim and he may achieve it. All I am saying is that all extroverts or introverts do not have a same goal.

It was probably already changed by a moderator. — Noble Dust

Is that possible?

Did you change the name of this thread? — Noble Dust

No I realised this just now.Can it be changed by any moderators.

It's highly likely that I don't fall within the 99th percentile of young adults but as one I too didn't "fully fathom that [me]it [was]is in a state known as living and there will be a state known as death". Does that mean it would've been okay for someone to have killed me? By the way, as a young child did you ever remember an occasion where you did "fully fathom that [you]it is in a state known as living and [that] there will be a state known as death"? — TheMadFool

Good point:chin: But even when we are young we know that there is something known as death and life . The first case about young adult you raised is interesting but I think I do not have an answer for that.

Too this brings us back to the point I was making, to wit, we don't judge a person's worth, here right to life, by what s/he can or can't "fathom". Does anyone know the meaning of life? No. Should we then leave no stone unturned to bump people off? — TheMadFool

By fathom I didn't mean that you have to know the meaning of life but just acknowledging that you are in a state known as 'living'.

How does all this relate to the issue at hand? Well, a painless death, if offered as a choice, is to be grasped, with both hands and your pearly white teeth, and held onto for dear "life". Nevertheless, to my reckoning, it can't be employed to justify killing infants because in that case the choice isn't between a painful death and a painlese death but between life and death albeit painless — TheMadFool

But does losing life matter to the infant?It just does not fully fathom that it is in a state known as living and there will be a state known as death.Does the infant lose anything by dying?:brow:

So, the issue was never about whether a fetus is a person or not. It was only a matter of whether a woman wanted children or not. There is no objective sense in which a fetus could be a person; a fetus' personhood depends on nothing substantive but on the whims and fancies of women. — TheMadFool

Yeah and giving freedom of choice to the mother is the aim of pro abortion:smile: .

Besides, suppose you have a baby and I kill it, explaining that it's destined to become a bad person. What kind of insanity would that be? Wouldn't it make more sense, if you could affect the past, to act as minimally as you could? Get Hitler admitted to art school, mission accomplished, no bloodshed. Or get the Allied powers to adopt less punitive measures at the Treaty of Versailles. That would actually make some historical sense. You can't just go killing people's babies. Where would it stop? Some of the Antifa types would gladly kill your baby if you wear the wrong colored hat, and they'd feel very self-righteous about it. — fishfry

Yeah I agree,I was concerned with the killing part of the video but i was intrigued by only his abscence weather even if he was alive as a good person:smile:.

I doon't know how accurate this information is but I've heard of parents who want children talk to their fetuses, make them listen to music, etc. What does this tell you? Is personhood in re fetuses just a matter of whether you want children or not?? — TheMadFool

I think that is the case. But from the moment the thing in the uterus can be called a fetus it entails the entitlement to Fetal rights.

Personhood — TheMadFool

Philosopher Thomas I. White argues that the criteria for a person are as follows: (1) is alive, (2) is aware, (3) feels positive and negative sensations, (4) has emotions, (5) has a sense of self, (6) controls its own behaviour, (7) recognises other persons and treats them appropriately, and (8) has a variety of sophisticated cognitive abilities. While many of White's criteria are somewhat anthropocentric, some animals such as dolphins would still be considered persons.[16] Some animal rights groups have also championed recognition for animals as "persons".[17]

In this case the fetus doesn't qualify as a person but:

A person is recognized by law as such, not because they are human, but because rights and duties are ascribed to them. The person is the legal subject or substance of which the rights and duties are attributes. An individual human being considered to be having such attributes is what lawyers call a "natural person."


In this case the fetus can qualify as a person. I am in a state of cognitive dissonance and I think I have to put more effort to figure it out.

Dying is a physical sensation, it leads to death. Both are undesirable fearsome/fearful states to be in. — TheMadFool

When you say somebody is dying is that person experiencing death in itself. They are experiencing the feeling that they are close to death but still not engulfed by it. I can accept that we will never know whether there is a feeling that is peculiar to death or if there is none unless we experience it.

ake into account the fact that inanimate objects like a rock or an animal are missing something crucial - personhood — TheMadFool

Can you give the manifestations of this personhood by which we can say that an entity has the quality personhood i.e that some entity is eligible for personhood.

As biology and medicine informs us physical pain is all about maintaing health/preventing or avoiding injury. In other words pain is the body's way of avoiding death. In effect then you can't treat death and suffering as two different things - pain is about death.

See what this leads to?

There can't be such a thing as painless death for death is the biggest pain there is. — TheMadFool

But death is not a physical sensation it is the loss of all capability to sense things around you anymore.

Is it permissible to ensure the safety of X but not that of Y based solely on the fact that X has knowledge of the law but Y doesn't? Is it ok to kill an infant because it doesn't comprehend death? :chin: — TheMadFool

I think comprehending death is different from understanding that there is law that protects you.Even if X does not know about that law he will still have a fear of death because he is old enough to process that information in his mind and he will still fear nonexistence.But an infant does not care about it in the sense that it cannot recognize itself as living because it does not know that there is also nonliving(nonexistence).

We can say, "It was yellow. It is blue." but are we really talking about the same "it" in both those sentences? Wouldn't their difference in color be the defining mark that would make them different entities? — SaugB

The 'it' in your t-shirt case might refer to the t-shirt.I think they can't be different entities because only their color changed but their essence of being the same t-shirt is not lost.

When we view the human body, metabolism occurs to keep us from dying.In other worlds metabolism(change) is helping us to live(constant).I think the flux is necessary to maintain the uniformness of the universe.

COVID is the worst thing since WWII. Right? — Michael

On a global scale, yes but with respect to individual countries it might not be the worst thing.

But even when we think that it is broken up and not completely annihilated, it is still hard to see how it participates in a flow of becoming as one single thing, which it has to be, because the entity that was yellow was one single thing and the entity it becomes, ie, a red entity, is also one single thing. So, it is one entity when it is yellow, and unless it breaks up when it is orange, and then reassembles to become red, it is difficult to see how yellow becomes red via any process. — SaugB

If you are asking how it happens, then it it is difference in energies of electro-magnetic waves that cause colors to change.I think you are also viewing red as a final stage but it can also be a transitory stage. Everything is ever changing.
As Heraclitus said: "You cannot step into the same river twice."

Rather, I think it is fragile, it is broken up and annihilated in the flow of becoming. — SaugB

I agree that the traversed substance is broken up but I do not think it is annihilated. I think yellow traverses another thing to become orange and so on. So it is not annihilated but transformed i.e the 'orangeness' of red is still there.

But if you consider yellow as the initial stage and orange as the final stage then there are still transitory phases present. Then we cannot even consider orange as a fixed state.

Besides, even under religious pretext, there's other avenues. Reincarnation. Somewhere bad. Or very unfortunate.

I agree dude just we're kind of not following explicit logic at this point. Which is a no-no here — Outlander

I agree.

Video in OP, yes. — Outlander

He gives the example of a mafia don who had done bad things but he himself died a peaceful death.He goes on to ask the interlocutor that was it fair for him to die a peaceful death whereas the people affected by him become miserable.
He concludes by saying that for justice to be served heaven and hell should exist.

"Because someone must or should be punished, he or she WILL be punished." That is simply not true. Lots of things that should be done do not get done. That's where the fallacy in his logical line of reasoning fails. — god must be atheist

You can see his other videos where I find similar fallacies.

I feel so down today yesterday, the day before, the weeks and months and years before too. I feel like I have wasted my youth. I am 25 and never did anything fun till now. I have always been obedient to my parents, a good boy, anti-social, a hardworker.. and now my youth is over. I never had a gf, never enjoyed anything, never had fun.. Even in my college, i never found the time to have fun with friends. And i feel like I have wasted my Life. I don't see any way to get the things I want in life. I have almost given up.. — Desperado

If you are feeling down and want to feel happy then contemplate about yourself.This helps a lot in finding what is the thing that holds you back.Unless you experience anxiety,frustration and even the urge to kill yourself you haven't lived the world completely so those emotions too are valuable.Don't go and search on google for motivation quotes and get that half hour adrenaline rush ,it is of no use.Finally everyone wants a good life but only some people make the effort for it,so it doesn't matter how much you have messed up you can always be happy:smile:

Now I didn't watch the video, feel free or rather please expand on the relevant points of it. But, from what I'm interpreting, this is largely what I believe in just not exclusive to justice or any lone concept. — Outlander

The first one or the second one?

It was fun discussing it with you.Thank you:smile:

You're a Hindu, right?

There is no such thing as alms or sacrifice or offering. There is neither fruit nor result of good or evil deeds. A human being is built up of four elements. When he dies the earthly in him returns and relapses to the earth, the fluid to the water, the heat to the fire, the wind to the air, and his faculties pass into space. The four bearers, on the bier as a fifth, take his dead body away; till they reach the burning ground, men utter forth eulogies, but there his bones are bleached, and his offerings end in ashes. It is a doctrine of fools, this talk of gifts. It is an empty lie, mere idle talk, when men say there is profit herein. Fools and wise alike, on the dissolution of the body, are cut off, annihilated, and after death they are not
— Ajita Kesakambali

Ajita Kesakambali — TheMadFool

Thanks for sharing never knew about him or Indian materialism.But I think ajita was more inspired by Buddhist school of thought.

could indifference be an expression of free will and indifference is defined as not being affected by anything i.e. we're free of the web of causation. :chin: — TheMadFool

Some people do heinous crimes but die a peaceful death and vice versa.I think that is free will but most people are disturbed by the idea that they are better off/worse off than us in spite of doing such crimes/virtue so they convince themselves that God is going to punish/reward them after they die.

n other words, people identify Allah with mercy in a very deep sense. This doesn't square with Mr. Zakir Naik's claim that Hell and Heaven should exist so that justice can be carried out and I have a feeling that by justice, Mr. Zakir Naik is referring to reward/punishment. — TheMadFool

This is far from your question but resonates with it.This video seems most absurd to me.The analogy makes me laugh
IF I'M DESTINED TO COMMIT A SIN WHY AM I PUNISHED FOR THAT? BY DR ZAKIR NAIK

So, given a choice between preventing Hitler's parents from meeting and stopping his birth OR killing the infant Hitler, you would choose...??? :chin: — TheMadFool

I personally don't know.I can only speculate about the consequences ,the world might have been better or worse.

By the same token then if you killed infant Hitler, you would've done something "good". People should be united in their approval of your act. Yet, this doesn't seem to be the case. There's an asymmetry here that bothers me. — TheMadFool

But the comment section of that video seemed happy .That is not that many people but nevertheless I was surprised at their reaction.

God, the merciful wouldn't do that, right? — TheMadFool

Depends on which God you are talking about.I am a Hindu ,in Hindusim there is no clear description or evidence of hell(but hell is mentioned in Mahabharata).God in Hinduism will not grant you wishes or do you harm,it is your actions that will(the infamous Karma).Hinduism is polytheistic and and advocate of many-births theorem.You will just be trapped in 'Samsara'(The everyday world) unless you attain 'Moksha'(salvation).Hinduism considers the world an-adi(no beginning)and an-anta(no ending).

But in Christianity and Islam there is a heaven and a hell .There is genesis and apocalypse.And finally there is the Judgement Day.

I have a hunch that people won't mind preventing Hitler's parents from meeting but will balk at the idea of actually killing an infant, Hitler or not. I could be wrong but if I'm not, what gives? After all, the end result - Hitler's nonexistence - is identical. :chin: — TheMadFool

I think people are not balking here to kill the infant(i doubt if they will be able to do it if give a chance) because of the fact that they know more about Hitler than his parents and he is doer of the things people hate him for.

Enlighten us. I'm all ears. :smile: — TheMadFool

He says that hell should exist only to punish people like Hitler because no one punishes people like him on earth and they die a peaceful death whereas people affected by them become miserable.That is, to serve justice.Only on the assumption that there is justice somewhere in this universe beyond our minds and a benevolent deity is working hard to serve justice.I think the universe is not unjust or just towards us,"It is just indifferent"

That doesn't do much good for anyone trying to prove the existence of God. Heaven and Hell represent our heart-felt hopes and our deepest fears respectively and both are instantiated on this dear planet of ours - look at the horrendous ways some of our brethren have been tortured to death (hell) and only remind yourselves of how many live in the lap of luxury (hell). Heaven and Hell are real, yesbut, does this mean there's a soul, a god, no. :chin: — TheMadFool

He has got a huge fan base and the mistake in his argument is clearly stands out.Why can't nobody see it?

Anyhow, my understanding of the whole topic would rightfully be called either non-proof or circular logic of the same effect. — Outlander

I think his whole "proof' is based on the presupposition that there is a separate existence of justice beyond our minds.

Perhaps you can tell me what 3017 means by various things he writes; he himself refuses to oblige. — tim wood

I have nothing against you or him. I have liked yours and amen's in some other threads.I think it isn't wrong to put your thoughts here even if they seem absurd.

The temptation to belittle others is the trap of a budding intellect, because it gives you the illusion of power and superiority your mind craves. Resist it. It will make you intellectually lazy as you seek "easy marks" to fuel that illusion, a terrible human being to be around, and ultimately, miserable. There is no shame in realizing you have fallen for this trap, only shame on continuing along that path." — 3017amen

:clap:

ey 3017, go crouch down next to a fire hydrant and report back to us on which the dogs choose. — tim wood

I'm afraid all that you and yours are worth is f*** you! And barely that. And I can remove the asterisks too.
— tim wood

It will seem harsh, but given your style of discussion, it is actually just right: Fuck you, stupid!
— tim wood

Fuck you, 3017.
— tim wood — 3017amen

It is somewhat childish to do this on a philosophy forum.

I'm not following that. Having a sense of final purpose confers no biological survival advantages. What's your point in wondering about purpose? — 3017amen

I am not talking about a meaning or anything of that sort .When we see this from a big scale we cannot see the final purpose that is achieved by atoms splitting or why entropy is always increasing.

Okay, well, there could be a "Multiverse" too... . — 3017amen

Yes it can be anything but any entity higher and more refined than us can be considered as God.