You can never die. Because you never existed in the first place. — Hippyhead
According to the theory, you can not be destroyed because, as a pattern, you don't exist. — Hippyhead
But things that exist cannot be destroyed either, as you stated — jamalrob
But you did claim that patterns are created, when you said that a wave was "a pattern created by energy applied to water". But surely something that can be created can be destroyed, no? — jamalrob
Einstein says that energy can't be either created or destroyed, so ok, yes on that one. But the water could conceivably be boiled away from every planet in the universe, the atomic structure could be dismantled entirely etc. Does this satisfy your question? — Hippyhead
I don't think so. — jamalrob
So according to you, it is not just matter and energy that exist, but matter and energy that has taken various forms, e.g., water? — jamalrob
What is the difference between a form and a pattern? What makes a water molecule different from a wave, such that one exists and the other doesn't? — jamalrob
You've mentioned "our definition" of existence a couple of times now, but this is far from a settled question in philosophy, and you haven't been explicit about it. — jamalrob
Why would anyone agree with a scheme in which matter and energy cannot be destroyed, but molecules can, but waves and people can't? — jamalrob
Anyway, let's say that we cannot die and waves cannot be destroyed. Where does that leave us? — jamalrob
What we value, in fact what we're actually talking about when we talk about death, destruction, and even existence, is the patterns. All you've done is redefine them. — jamalrob
Seem the same thing to me. — Hippyhead
I'm using the general man in the street definition, has weight and mass — Hippyhead
What we value is thought. — Hippyhead
So you agree that forms and patterns are the same thing, but you've said that forms of energy or matter can be destroyed, after saying that patterns cannot. — jamalrob
Anyway, to my knowledge there is no such philosophical position on existence as the one you mention. — jamalrob
My nitpicking is to try and make things clear and coherent — jamalrob
If by "we" you mean philosophers, yes sure, but when I said "we" I meant people, and people value more than mere thought. — jamalrob
I didn't say anything about forms — Hippyhead
C'mon, give me a little break, you're sinking in to automated rejectionism mode. — Hippyhead
Existence usually means 'to stand out'. Thus a thing exists if it stands out from its background. This would be why Schrodinger notes that as well as what exists there is 'the canvas on which they are painted'. For a Venn diagram a set does not exist unless it stands out from the blank piece of paper.
The waves 'exist' because they stand out. The ocean does not stand out but is what existents stand-out from. Existents are phenomenal, having only a dependent-existence, therefore are not truly real. What is truly real is the background but this does not exist in the sense of 'standing-out'. Thus nothing really exists. — FrancisRay
I think that what I'm saying, or at least tried to say, is that everything observable is patterns in energy, and that the patterns have no existence (weight and mass) of their own. And I'm certain I'm hardly the first person to say this, but am just expressing things already said many times in my own particular language. — Hippyhead
Why morn the end of the wave when the water and energy have gone nowhere? Yes, the pattern is gone, but it never existed in the first place. — Hippyhead
No, I really do think your definition of existence is wrong, and obviously so, and I don't think it's a popular view either in philosophy or on the street. — jamalrob
It is the universal cause of existence while itself existing not, for it is beyond all being’ (from his book On the Divine Names). This might seem like nonsense — FrancisRay
Ok then, please continue and share what you feel an appropriate definition would be — Hippyhead
Nobody says that only things with mass exist, I don't think — jamalrob
Because it's the wave that I observed, that I loved, that was part of my world, and that is gone. I don't give a shit about the water and energy. You see the problem? — jamalrob
Let's instead take seriously the position that people and waves and other such composite objects don't exist, that patterns in general don't exist. — jamalrob
Does it then follow that people don't die? — jamalrob
Surely what follows is that dying describes the destruction of a pattern — jamalrob
If this is right, then there is little comfort in knowing that nothing has ceased to exist — jamalrob
Yes, I do, would agree that such abstractions as we are exploring here will have limited emotional value. That said, I've been considering this for years, and for this nerd it does help create a different mental image than "when I die I lose everything".
There can be very practical implications of such a different mental image, to the degree it's possible to attain. As example, my mother died a very long hard death from Parkinsons because she wasn't a philosopher or religious, so she had nothing but the common "fight to the bitter end" philosophy to guide her. If they should tell me I have Parkinsons, I'm convinced my next step would be to get my affairs in order and then put a bullet in my brain. Part of this is a very ordinary fear of pain, and another part a sense that, um, the ocean is where I come from.
In agreement with your sentiment above I will remind you of the posts I shared above regarding how religions typically understand that this level of abstraction has limited practical use, and so they reach for other more accessible language. But philosophers tend to hate such language, so I am attempting to speak here in the local dialect, if you will. — Hippyhead
We have got all these atoms, and then we have the patterns that we discern among these atoms and four dimensions: space and time. Now the question is: Do the patterns have ontological significance? And for me the answer is: That's what ontology is. What other criterion could you ever use? What other reason could you ever have for your ontological presuppositions? — Dennett
I also seek the right attitudes for dealing with these things, but for me, metaphysics doesn't help. — jamalrob
Regarding my own death, often I think I would like to be a fighter to the bitter end, like your mother — jamalrob
think we can interpret this as saying that it's precisely the patterns that can be said to significantly exist, rather than matter without form. — jamalrob
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