And on whose authority are you basing this absurd claim?

[Delete] @Baden

Your dead because no one uses black and white photo in this millennia. — René Descartes

Bullshit. 1) you don't know who I am, and 2) you don't have a grasp of the aesthetic potential of grayscale.

[Delete] @Baden

You can talk to God and get away with it, but it is decidedly more worrisome when God starts talking to you.

How do you know it was God? You might have been hallucinating.

I'm a clueless home-schooler; you need to expand on what you mean.

Don't be sorry; I was going along with the fun you were having.

you don't know who I am — Noble Dust

René has a conversational relationship with god, so maybe he does know who you are. And grayscale is good.

[Delete] @Baden

For instance, when I said "you don't know who I am", I was referring to my avatar itself. Maybe too subtle for such an exchange....

Wait, what are you suggesting about my identity? I'm "dying" to know.

I guess I'll take this opportunity to smoke a cigarette...

There are people who believe the mind is a non-physical thing, not really coextensive with the brain. They think the mind is immaterial. If the mind is immaterial, then it could go on existing after death. And if it did go on existing after death, with the anchoring organism rotting in the ground, it would presumably be without any means for adding new information. Thus, it would be stuck with whatever it had on hand when the associated organism dropped dead.

I guess I'll take this opportunity to smoke a cigarette... — Noble Dust

Good idea. Enjoy it, because you won't be able to smoke in the near total vacuum of space. How much do your cigarettes cost? Apparently you have been forced to smoke outside. Too bad. I always enjoyed writing and smoking in the house. But that was... 23 years ago.

Hold on, be right back *heavy drag*

[Delete] @Baden

[Delete] @Baden

According to your principal I should stuff my mouth with as much cake as possible so that I can remember — René Descartes

It would depend on how good the cake was. If it was a day old discount store cake, no -- just taste it for politeness sake. If it was a really good cake, then eat more. But nausea isn't something you'll want to have a lot of memories of, and there are enough nauseating people, places, and things for one to encounter, so just don't over do it.

[Delete] @Baden

Bad memories are not good to have. Mistakes will happen; avoid the ones that you can. Politeness will produce more good memories than bad ones. If you spurn the day-old discount store cake, the purchaser might shove it in your face--literally -- might be a bad memory.

You won't have 1000 years of boredom if you stock up on things to think about, rethink, mull over, remember fondly, recite, etc.

You understand, I hope, that this thread IS a joke. It was posted in The Lounge.

But the bit about non-physically anchored minds plugs into the joke. There are all kinds of serious threads speculating about God, the soul, life after death, other universes... all topics about which we know nothing and about which we probably should not be chattering away about as if they were certainties.

But it is also true, and in line with having a good life that is worth living, that we should seek out good, rich experiences. Of course: sometimes we have to clean the oven, rake up all the leaves in the yard, mow the grass, do laundry, and other such boring jobs--never mind the brightly lit hells of the modern office park. But when we can, we should opt for better.

A lot of the time when I was working and dealing with life as we know it, I had neither the time nor the energy to opt for much of anything. Then when I retired, I found I finally had the time to read more books, listen to more music, enjoy time passing.

Happy Birthday. Which number was it? Chocolate cake?

What happens is that you become a disembodied mind drifting invisibly somewhere in the dim, — Bitter Crank

What we call in the UK: bollocks.

Baloney is what I call the idea of disembodied minds floating around like brains in a swimming pool.

What is the upshot of this situation? — Bitter Crank

Sounds like I'd be quite comfortable with this, granted the practice of meditation :P

This title is great, lmao

Yes me too, but somewhat less vacuous than your suggestion.

Christ, it was a joke! How much more vacuous did you want it?

This title is great, lmao — MindForged

Glad you liked it.



Oh definitely, you are a dead wringer / dead ringer for the 1000 year post-mortem meditation milieu. You're well read, you know programming languages (you can code for a couple of centuries), you have lots of opinions to sharpen, and so on. You are somewhat deficient in sexual experiences, however. At some point before the flying fickle finger of fate finds you, and while you are still able, you should spend a couple of weeks in a non-stop orgy. You should also come to the United States for a couple of years so that you can be totally appalled and amazed by American culture. That will give you a lot to chew on, too.

BTW, it's "dead ringer" not "dead wringer". What is a dead ringer?

A ringer is a horse substituted for another of similar appearance in order to defraud the bookies. This word originated in the US horse-racing fraternity at the end of the 19th century. The word is defined for us in a copy of the Manitoba Free Press from October 1882:

The "dead" part means exact. Don't ask me way, but like "dead center" -- or precisely in the center. On the other hand, "dead line" has always had more ambiguous and ominous meanings, as in "if your toes aren't on the line by 5:00 pm, you'll be dead". In other words, late = dead. But that isn't what it means in dead ringer. It intensifies "ringer" which is a duplicate; in other words, an exact duplicate, even though that is redundant, because a duplicate is presumably exact, or we would call it similar. If one horse was all white and its ringer had a black star on it's forehead, or a short black ankle, that would not be a very exact duplicate.

I will be spending a lot of time during my 1000 year stint mulling over matters like these.

Sounds like Nietzsche's eternal return of the same.

Bitter Crank is being at least semi-serious here, and obviously means his details allegorically, and so I'll comment:

What happens is that you become a disembodied mind — Bitter Crank

I've been saying that, at the end of lives, there's no memory that there ever was, or could be such things as body, worldly life, identity, time or events.

drifting invisibly somewhere in the dim, dusty, dark matter-cluttered cosmos

Oh, drifting around in this physical universe with the dust and other matter? We can take that as comedic allegory.

The contents of your once embodied mind survive death

There can be no experience of a time when there's no experience. Only your survivors will experience the time after your complete shutdown.

, and whatever was there at the moment of death is all you will have for the 1000 year duration of your disembodied existence.

The "1000 years" is more comedic allegory, justified by the fact that shutdown is a gradual process. But, at the end of lives, it's misleading to imply that there's anything like waking consciousness for very long. It soon becomes just sleep.

But few would agree that the moment of death determines your subsequent experience. It's the general course of your overall life that makes the difference. But, below, Bitter Crank says that too.

What is the upshot of this situation?

Whatever you had when you died is the cud you will be chewing on for the duration (which is 1000 very, very slowly passing years, after which you abruptly dissipate.

Dissipation will be gradual, in the sense that your sleep will become deep-sleep, which will become ever deeper.

I don't know how long will be the subjective duration of your waking consciousness during the death process. Easterners speak of heavens and hells before reincarnation. Maybe, for the extremely negatively deserving, a hell could have very long subjective duration. I wouldn't want to even try to guess how long ...likewise a heaven for the extremely positively-deserving.

I don't claim to know about the heavens and hells (so no need to challenge me on that), except that they sound a lot like what the near-death experiences (NDEs) report the beginning of.

(because god is slightly merciful)

Atheists talk about God more than anyone else does.

...no heaven, no hell

...you hope.

Good luck, Crank :D

, just whatever was between you ears when you dropped dead.

..and you're sure that, for you, there isn't any hell in there?

I advise this:

Get busy and start reading as much as you can! Listen to as much music as possible, see as many movies, have as much sex, eat as many delicious foods, etc. as you can. in other words, load up with as much baggage as you can hold because you will be taking it with you. If you have filled your mind with crap, then that is what you are going to be thinking about for 1000 years.

There are no bookstores, media outlets, fine restaurants (or bad ones either), or sex organs after death. You will not be able to fill the tank once you are dead. No conversations allowed, either. (No mouths to speak, no ears to hear, no telepathy either, just in case you thought you'd be able to tap into somebody else's supply.)

All perfectly good advice (...if given the benefit of the doubt and interpreted favorably).

...except that it sounds like gung-ho hedonism, rather than the Kama and Dharma referred to by the Hindus. Even pursuit of one's own satisfaction and enjoyments should be done yogically, moderately, controlledly and self-honestly. Not just "Spill wine", and "Party like hell", etc.

Basically, there's no purpose or meaning in life. As the Hindus say, it's just for play, "Lila".

But, secondarily (that's my impression) , because others' lives are important to them too, you want to live right, in regards to your relation with other living beings.That right-living is called "Dharma" by Hindus. In general, It's self-responsibility and self-honesty.

According to their tradition, a life should be sufficient in both of those regards--1) Play, free enjoyment, openness to life, and exploration; and also 2) Ethical, non-harmful, right-living. In other words, live and let live.

...instead of accumulating longing, dis-satisfaction, regret and guilt.

Those two considerations are the Hindu purusharthas of Kama and Dharma. It's my impression that the former is primary and the latter is secondary, deriving its importance from other beings' lives being important too.

The matter of whether, at the end of this life, a person will reach the end of lives that we've both been referring to, or instead will experience reincarnation, is a whole other topic. For the purpose of this discussion, I've accepted the assumption that there isn't reincarnation. But Bitter Crank can't be sure of that.

I suggest that there's probably reincarnation, because it's metaphysically-implied.

If so, it's unlikely that anyone at these forums will reach the end-of-lives at the end of this life.

If there's reincarnation, then perfection of one's lifestyle (as described above), over (finitely) many lifetimes, will inevitably eventually result in life-completion, and the end-of-lives.

That suggestion that there might be, or probably is, reincarnation, is very unfashionable here at these forums.

For that reason, to argue that issue would be a distraction for this topic, and that's why I've assumed, in this post, that the end of lives will occur at the end of this life.

Michael Ossipoff