I'm not speaking 'historically'. I'm talking about a bare underlying idea that runs through some parts of these different philosophies. Like I said in another post, there are going to be many differences in the details, but I think there's something there that is worth considering, and makes sense to me. Going on about identity after death is a red herring as to what I'm talking about. It has nothing to do with it and that wasn't what I was referring to. Whether people had those anxieties or not has little to no bearing on my idea. — WhiskeyWhiskers

What is the purpose of your idea then? What does it aim to do? If it's just to inform us that existence keeps on existing, and other people will keep being born and feeling that they are an "I" just like we did, sure, but that's just trivially true.

The point isn't that "existence keeps on existing". That's the most superficial interpretation of it, look deeper. There's clearly something which my friend, Watts, and myself saw that you haven't. The issue is not with us.

Edit: "other people will keep being born and feeling that they are an "I" just like we did". Refer to my previous post about this sort of line.

Like Socrates, I think it is better to hope in an afterlife - and hope is the most we can have in this life. We're going to die anyway, might as well die with hope and gladness in our hearts.

Socrates last words:

I owe a cock to the saviour Asclepius”

According to Nietzsche this was not hope, it was resentment. Life is an illness and death its cure. From The Gay Science, The Dying Socrates:

Is it possible that a man like him, who had lived cheerfully and like a soldier in the sight of everyone, should have been a pessimist? He had merely kept a cheerful mien while concealing all his life long his ultimate judgment, his inmost feeling. Socrates, Socrates suffered life! And then he still revenged himself – with this veiled, gruesome, pious, and blasphemous saying. Did a Socrates need such revenge? Did his overrich virtue lack an ounce of magnanimity? – Alas, my friends, we must overcome even the Greeks! (340)

Look what Watts is saying is true in a very abstract sense. But it's not in any way true that "the real me" or "the real you" is the whole of existence. Sure the whole of existence is our ground - that which gives rise to the movement we call us. But how do we go from here to ignoring our particular existence? We clearly don't exist as "the whole of existence" - we exist as us. I don't have access to what you're thinking for example - regardless of how hard I try. I am "forced" to exist as me, and as no one else until I die. As Voltaire's Candide replied: "Yes, but we must still cultivate our garden" . The fact that I am the whole of existence changed absolutely nothing. All the problems and issues of life are left intact, exactly as they were prior to this gnosis.

Nietzsche's interpretation is clearly not the one that Plato suggests in Phaedo though. Socrates wanted to ask the gods to aid him in his journey from this world to the next world. Hence the Asclepius comment, which referred to the God of healing and medicine.

In reference to what WhiskeyWhiskers is saying, it can be described in a different way by analogy.

If one imagines that when a being is reborn, the body of the baby they become is rather like a suit of clothes(a vehicle of incarnation). During the beings life they attach experiences to the suit like badges, or stylistic details. These badges are like the personality of the being shaped by experience and learning. When the being dies they leave behind the suit and get a new one and in the next life they attach new badges. The being has not changed, it is the same person, but wearing a different suit. All the suits are the same to begin with and all beings are the same, that is you, or me. It is only the badges of the personality where there is variation.

If one imagines that when a being is reborn, the body of the baby they become is rather like a suit of clothes(a vehicle of incarnation). During the beings life they attach experiences to the suit like badges, or stylistic details. These badges are like the personality of the being shaped by experience and learning. When the being dies they leave behind the suit and get a new one and in the next life they attach new badges. The being has not changed, it is the same person, but wearing a different suit. All the suits are the same to begin with and all beings are the same, that is you, or me. It is only the badges of the personality where there is variation. — Punshhh

Okay - but I find the idea that all these beings are the same, there is no difference between them, highly suspect. In what sense does a being change suit if it brings nothing with it into the next suit? If that's the case, this is pragmatically equivalent to there being just the suit with no being.

I know you like philosophy to be practical for it to be of value, but there are (whether 'useful' or not) ways of thinking about philosophy that do not adhere to such a strict definition. To me, philosophy need not tell us what to do, only show us how to think about ourselves and our place in the world. You might (or might not) say it's not real philosophy, but there we'll have to agree to disagree. I dunno what else to say, you state your opinions in opposition to mine and add a truth tag to them. You seem to not disagree all that much with what I'm saying, as I'll explain in a minute, except you disregard it because it doesn't do away with any problems in life. I don't know how to go from here to ignoring our particular existence, but from what I've read on ego death it is possible in some brain states (typically through brain damage, which doesn't exactly sound achievable through any path of 'enlightenment'). Nor is that any kind of refutation to what I'm saying; if anything it can seen as being consistent with it because, like you say, we can't not feel like an 'I' because it's the core of who we feel ourselves to be (unless forcibly removed, as mentioned) as my larger post more or less said. We are forced to exist as us (separate from nature). That's the fall. Enlightenment might not be possible, but I'm ok with that aspect of the philosophy.

I was only expanding on what Watts said because he's being talked about without people knowing all that much about his philosophy. Take from my other extrapolations what you will, if anything.

Okay thanks for clarifying. I do think philosophy should be practical - hence why many such considerations I feel are not so significant when we really get busy living!

This is a good way of looking at it. At the risk of sounding less helpful, it's like perpetual reincarnation, except there is nothing carried over from one life to the next that could be considered that same person (because the person dies with the body). After you die, there's another in the succession of first person personal experiences. The same sort of experience as when you were born. After you die, other people are born.

At the risk of sounding less helpful, it's like perpetual reincarnation, except there is nothing carried over from one life to the next that could be considered that same person (because the person dies with the body). After you die, there's another in the succession of first person personal experiences. The same sort of experience as when you were born. After you die, other people are born. — WhiskeyWhiskers

In other words: you die, and that's that >:O

Nailed it. Dunno what took me so long (Y)

LOL - you know actually I think that this type of answer (the one I quoted previously) is the politically correct one in today's world. We don't want to tell the poor guy he's going to die, all his hopes and dreams, the things he liked, etc. are going to vanish - so we tell him he will reincarnate except that nothing will carry over during that reincarnation >:O - let's hope he doesn't ask what reincarnates!

But who has died, was it the badges of personality, was it the I that never changes?if the former, I would argue that that wasn't the person anyway, just a mask being worn by the I. If the later, how can it die? it is still alive in the next person to be born, or those that are still alive in bodies.

Weirdly enough the idea of "you die, and that's that" was quite comforting to believe, until my friend and Watts ruined that one for me :P



Watts would agree with you that it was the mask being worn by the I. I think he's even used that phraseology before to make a similar point. If you accept his idea, it does beg the question of what, exactly, it means to die at all. It would be like the universe closing one aperture through which it knows itself only to open another. I think Carl Sagan said something similar.

I think of it as The Fall from God (or the universe, in the ancient Greek sense as per the Stoics, a thought I'm sure you can appreciate). "Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself" (Rust Cohle from True Detective, but pessimistic theory in general) and to get back to living in accordance with nature one has to lose their sense of self, thereby 'delimiting' it so that we become once again immanent with all creation - realising that The Real You is "something that the whole universe is doing in the same way a wave is something the whole ocean is doing". Otherwise you'll stay pretending that you're just a 'poor little me', as Watt's puts it. — WhiskeyWhiskers

I don't think the ancient Stoics thought there had been any kind of "Fall" in the sense Christianity, for example, conceives it. Humanity wasn't inherently defective by virtue of some failing. There simply were those who lived according to nature and those who did not. Those who did not were ignorant, fearful, irrational, discontented and often immoral. They were themselves responsible for that state, yes, because they concerned themselves with things not in their control. But they were not inherently defective in the sense we supposedly are according to Christianity (at least that Christianity with which I'm familiar) courtesy of Adam and Eve, until we're saved by God.

As for death, the Stoics thought our individual selves would ultimately be dissolved, as it were, in union with the Divine Reason. Some claim that Seneca and the Roman Stoics came to believe an individual's personality survived after death; I'm not sure that's the case, though.

While the Stoics felt we all partake in the Divine, and, I think, that the Stoic Sage (the ideal Stoic) could become "like the gods" as I believe Epictetus put it, I question whether they would maintain that we can be said to survive in others because we're really everyone and everything. So I don't know if they accepted any concept like the "Real You." The fact that all is interconnected and the universe is matter directed by a Divine Intelligence which is itself immanent in nature and internal to it ,as a unique kind of material (sometimes called a fire or breath), doesn't mean that we're all one.

Weirdly enough the idea of "you die, and that's that" was quite comforting to believe, until my friend and Watts ruined that one for me :P — WhiskeyWhiskers

The reincarnation one is more, or less comfortable to believe then? :P


I concur Sir.

“Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?”

-Emil Cioran

What I'm spinning is made up of a few threads from many different philosophies. I understand I need to be careful of what I'm saying here, because reading back I can see how some things I've said don't quite reflect my intentions. I was trying to tie together the idea of The Fall with the idea that God is equivalent to nature, meaning that, in returning to God in the Kingdom of Heaven, you also at the same time return to nature, hence 'in accordance' with it. I understand that The Fall means we are each born with original sin, but if you merge the two further you get a slightly different reading. Bear with me.

The Fall began in the Garden of Eden after we (collectively) obtained knowledge of good and evil and lost our obedience to 'God'. God, understood in Stoic terms, is nature, the logos, or universal reason. Stoic doctrine holds that, by living in accordance with nature, we are living according to universal reason. Part of my 'thesis' is that this knowledge of good and evil (in the Christian sense) that expelled us from the Garden/separated us from God (nature) is the mistaken view that good and evil exist in the external world, when in fact, they do not (the Stoic sense). "It is not things that trouble us, but our judgement about things". I won't spend too long on the Stoic idea of externals being neither good or bad because I'm sure it's one with which you are well acquainted.
"It is human beings who, thanks to their freedom, introduce trouble and worry into the world" (*The Inner Citadel*, Pierre Hadot, p. 107). Freedom here, in my understanding, is the same freedom of will that, in the Christian sense, allows us to choose to either obey or disobey God (nature, or universal reason). God "created humankind in the beginning, and he left them in the power of their own free choice" (Ecclesiasticus 15:14). "Nature created and aspect of nature separate from itself" (pessimistic theory), by endowing us with a sense of free will and a self. It is this same sense of self, which is a necessary condition for free will, that makes us think we're separate from everything outside our bodies, and Zapffe would agree. But we should realise that "we are something the whole universe is doing, in the same way that a wave is something the whole ocean is doing" (Watts).
Self-consciousness 'Others' every thing that we do not feel to be a part of us when we interact with the world, which is to say, everything else. It is the very thing that makes a sharp distinction between us and the universe. There is 'us', and there is 'not-us'. As Watts also said, "we speak of coming into this world, we didn't; we came out of it". The world 'peoples'. The process of 'waking up', of finding out who you really are, is the discovery of The Real You.
Hadot talks about 'delimiting the self'. "The first step to delimitation of the ego consists in recognising that, of the being which I am, neither the body, nor the vital breath which animates it, is mine in the proper sense of the term [...] because they are imposed on me by Destiny, independently of my will." It is not a stretch at all to claim that God/nature imposed this 'vital breath' or 'Divine Intelligence', as you put it, on a material body. I understand that as being made in the "image of God" from Christian theology or the "divine spark" in the Gnostic sense. The parallels are all there, as I said I think they require a unifying theory to tie these small threads from the larger schools of thought together.
Hadot goes on to say, "Marcus describes in a quite remarkable way, the different circles which surround the ego or the 'I', as well as the exercise which consists in rejecting them one by one, as something foreign to my self." This is in XII;3. The first circle is "the others", the second is the past and future, i.e. self-consciousness under time as I already mentioned in my first post in this thread as relating to general pessimistic theory, and the third is "constituted by the domain involuntary emotions [in the sense that we did not control them, not in the sense that they can't be controlled], these are caused by impressions received by the body". Hadots general thesis with regards to Stoicism is one which I largely agree with, and he goes into the various "spiritual exercises" alluded to in the meditations, and drawn on from Epictetus, for living according to nature (the discipline of desire, action, and judgement). There's quite a great deal more said by Hadot on the subject, and if you haven't already then I highly recommend his work on the meditations of Marcus Aurelius - though it is certainly more coherent, scholarly, and related to Stoicism than what I've said. The rest of what he has to say doesn't correlate exactly with my thesis (it just becomes less relevant), but I would depart here somewhat onto the accounts given of ego death generally and how that ties back in with Watts' idea of The Real You.

I'll leave it there for now, but there's more that can be said I think. I hope I've managed to show where I was coming from by drawing a common thread through many different areas of thought. I can see there are definitely parallels with many of these ideas, which is hardly surprising given that they all emerged from intermingled cultures roughly around the same time period. I said in a previous thread there will be differences in the details, and large parts will not be relevant, but I do think that philosophies that propose a higher or altered state of mind are all trying to get at a common experience we can all share, and our sense of self is something extremely peculiar and troubling to us indeed. But who knows. I haven't even mentioned how Buddhism could tie in with all this, and I think it certainly does.

Watts would agree with you that it was the mask being worn by the I. I think he's even used that phraseology before to make a similar point. If you accept his idea, it does beg the question of what, exactly, it means to die at all. It would be like the universe closing one aperture through which it knows itself only to open another. — WhiskeyWhiskers

This is how I see it. That which all apertures have in common is therefore deathless. "Mask" dies. Mask is beautiful. It provides for the massive variety of personalities. But masks/snowflakes keep falling to replace those that melt on the street. A bitter and defensive identification of the "deep I" with its mask simultaneously gives death its sting and takes from life a vision of its massive fecundity. "Do you want to fix the world? I don't think it can be done." As I see it, it's not about condemning any particular mask (including anti-pride or anti-egoism talk, itself an egoistic mask), but simply a matter of being (partially sometimes and completely at others) liberated from identification with 'mask.'

I was trying to tie together the idea of The Fall with the idea that God is equivalent to nature, meaning that, in returning to God in the Kingdom of Heaven, you also at the same time return to nature, hence 'in accordance' with it. I understand that The Fall means we are each born with original sin, but if you merge the two further you get a slightly different reading. Bear with me. — WhiskeyWhiskers

I like this. We can frame the original sin as the belief in sin itself (knowledge of good and evil). I associate this "belief in sin" with sitting in opposition to God/Nature/Life as its judge. From this perspective, most religion is the fruit of the forbidden tree. You can find this in Blake who contrasted (for him) true religion (creativity and forgiveness) with false (self-righteousness and accusation.) This tension runs right down the middle of Christianity.

I'd probably use "world" for "nature" to stress the interpersonal aspect of the Fall. (Ever read Camus' The Fall? Great stuff.)

The Fall began in the Garden of Eden after we (collectively) obtained knowledge of good and evil and lost our obedience to 'God'. God, understood in Stoic terms, is nature, the logos, or universal reason. Stoic doctrine holds that, by living in accordance with nature, we are living according to universal reason. Part of my 'thesis' is that this knowledge of good and evil (in the Christian sense) that expelled us from the Garden/separated us from God (nature) is the mistaken view that good and evil exist in the external world, when in fact, they do not (the Stoic sense). "It is not things that trouble us, but our judgement about things". — WhiskeyWhiskers

This for me ties in with a reading of Job, which is a vision of God/Life/Nature as unjust, unfair --and yet to be affirmed nevertheless. I like we can also link living in accordance with nature or universal to the notion of ordinary mind or creative play. If we get out of the way of our guts, we can take real pleasure and interest in the things of the world. Absorption obliterates the anguished knowledge/assertion of good and evil. We can live beyond such aggressive abstractions, at least at our higher moments.

Christianity assimilated a good deal of Stoicism and other pagan philosophies and religions popular in the Roman Empire, and there are of course similarities between them as a result. But I think what you're attempting requires too radical a reinterpretation of Christian doctrine, if I understand you correctly.

Pantheism, Stoic or otherwise, is and has for centuries been heresy as least as far as Catholic Christianity is concerned. Christianity requires a transcendent personal God, and rejects pantheism as a result. It views pantheism as limiting God to the material, changing, and therefore imperfect universe, and as negating the need for Jesus' mission, his sacrifice and salvation.

Our Fall according to Catholic Christianity is the result of the Adam and Eve's disobedience of God's commands (after temptation by the Devil). It's by that act that sin was introduced into the world, and that sin taints all of us. So, the world became evil as a result of this original sin. We're responsible for the evil of the world. It isn't merely that evil is external to us; we caused the evil to begin with. It's fundamental to Christianity that we and the world are sinful, and we're responsible for that state of affairs.

Since the Christian God is clearly not nature, and nature is necessarily inferior to the Christian God and even sinful, living according to nature is definitely not something a Christian would or should do. I don't think there's much of a common thread there.

But, C, why not explore something like a synthesis for personal use? Why be bound by previous uses of strings of marks and noises? We stand as readers above various systems, contemplated side by side. It seems quite natural to see how we can read each of them in the light of the others and find something valuable and new in a curated set of analogies. Why not creative misreading that seeks to salvage an otherwise obsolete tradition or text?

On the contrary, to ask that is perfectly fine. The world left to future generations is an important question. Who will be and the environment which is left for them is a key ethical question.

Awareness if death only scares the traditionalist because it takes away the necessity of their way of life. Future generations have a different identity to you. On going culture and tradition is ultimately in their hands. They may well choose to abandon the tradtion you love much. One's one identity ceases to be the master of the world. Other people continue, not your own identity.

To say nothing caries over is utterly false and is not argued here. Plenty of stuff carries over, it is just not you. Telling someone their hopes and dreams vanish is exactly what "You're gone" does.


The insistence otherwise is a selfish act-- where one covets their life so much, that they do not accept their end and the existence of other people. They try to say they aren't really dead, that they have been reincarnated within the lives of others. It's fear of death which has someone claiming the dreams of other people are their own.

Awareness if death only scares the traditionalist because it takes away the necessity of their way of life. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Doesn't scare me. I have good hope and faith in the Divine. As Socrates said, either it's sleep, or it's a continuation. I hope it's a continuation, and I pray to die hoping so - for it is better to hope for the best and be deceived than to hope for nothing and be correct ;)

Having said that, I would obviously face some anxiety if I was to know I would die soon - I mean I want to live, I think there's a lot of good things I can do on this Earth. But some things are not under our control - so I can't do much about that. The time that has been granted me has been granted, that which hasn't been granted, hasn't. One must obey.

Awareness if death only scares the traditionalist because it takes away the necessity of their way of life. Future generations have a different identity to you. On going culture and tradition is ultimately in their hands. They may well choose to abandon the tradtion you love much. One's one identity ceases to be the master of the world. Other people continue, not your own identity. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I would hope they maintain the order that is required for them to achieve fulfilment here on Earth. But as soon as I exit this world, I exit it - it doesn't concern me in a direct way.

The insistence otherwise is a selfish act-- where one covets their life so much, that they do not accept their end and the existence of other people. They try to say they aren't really dead, that they have been reincarnated within the lives of others. It's fear of death which has someone claiming the dreams of other people are their own. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I agree.

Why not creative misreading that seeks to salvage an otherwise obsolete tradition or text? — Hoo

Personally I don't think Stoicism is "obsolete" :)

Misreading ancient works that were written in and for times and contexts we cannot adequately understand cannot be avoided. If the misreading is not creative, then the work will be rendered obsolete.

By all means, explore. But why misread?

That's a pretty clearly falsehood. You don't merely hope for a continuation. I do that too-- despite being an hard atheist who doesn't think there is going to be a continuation. To continue living a wonderful life would be great.

You think your belief will get you a continuation. It's an act which eliminates the possibility of death for yourself. In that belief, you have supposedly entered a state which guarantees a continuation. Such a belief has no such effectiveness. One might continue just as well or better by thinking their was only death and hoping for it. With respect to continuation, being deceived could work fine.

The question of deception is one your own mind's fears. Not because it is contrary to continuation, but rather because you fear a world where you have no power over death. If you were stuck in a world without means to guarantee a continuation, it would be the worst. There would be no action you migh take to get life. You really would be at the mercy of death