If your roller coaster car as past the zero slope zone and you're headed downward, I don't know if aversion is still part of it. Maybe if a person has unfinished business? If they never learned to live? So they're still looking for a chance at authenticity (as if they would take it if you handed it to them.)

I see a lot of people die. Even old people are sometimes afraid if their minds are still there. I figure some people have so much love for life that they cling to it till the very end. That's kind of cool. — frank

Nice. Food for thought.

If one ceases to exist on death, then there is no "what it is like" to be dead. Hence fear of being dead is irrational. — Banno

Indeed. Irrational fears often have the biggest hold on us.

When I've worked with people dying and in palliative care, it used to surprise me how often it is religious folk who are most scared. It's said that faith provides comfort, but often it seems to provide discomfort along with apocalyptical, haunted visions.

Maybe. Most people are about 98% irrational. — frank

Most people are 98% dead....

Sorry, a cheap shot I couldn't resist.

Yes! Especially the Cohen (as he was dying himself).

Your post is helping me work this out. The earliest lecture/draft of Being and Time has everyday or inauthentic running like a rat in the wheel of a clock that tells everyone's and therefore nobody's time. If we look at how Heidegger and Derrida and Emerson lived, they had to mean something like the joy of courageous creativity. But I think it's more than fair to include joking with the wife over coffee about the pets. To obsess over fame or getting paid would, as I see it, put us back in that clock, insisting that we are machines for converting time into social capital. It may be the case that those who live carelessly 'accidentally' sometimes create such capital. But when I hear great music for instance, I experience it as a gift and not a request. If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all. — green flag

That's a very nice formulation. I suspect the joy of courageous creativity helps people to bear some of life's greatest burdens. What's your take on the desire to make one's mark in the world - not necessarily to be recognized, but to leave a legacy, even if no one knows it was you?

I think this is my favorite song about death.... yes I know, Bill Shatner. I always laugh at this.

So when I say to myself "Death is nothing to us" I mean to remind myself that my fears are temporal. It's natural to fear death, and it is good to remember that this fear isn't a real thing you can defeat. For some of us that part is not so easy to accept. — Moliere

I think that's fair. I understand fear in the process (the messiness) of dying. But being dead seems like a doddle...

I recall a colleague telling me that her father had died aged 96. 'It was such a surprise,' she said. I thought the surprise was it took so long for him to go...

I just ate a Milky Way bar. — T Clark

Nice. Interesting survey.

Are people afraid of being dead or are they afraid of dying? — BC

The latter I would have thought.

Therefore, press on with diligence. — BC

Almost sounds Stoic.

This is possibly (?) the freedom or self-becoming Heidegger and Derrida had in mind. — green flag

I wondered about that when I read it back to myself.

If I stop desperately trying to identify with some lasting and indestructible -- conceived as the only way something can be 'truly' real -- then time becomes mine in a new way. — green flag

That's good.

I quite smoking decades ago; I drink very little; I never used recreational drugs beyond a few joints (total); I exercise within my diminished capacity. — BC

Me too. No booze or smoking for many years. I walk through city streets for exercise but stay away from the country - I am immune to landscapes.

the acceptance of death is precisely that liberation from dread? — green flag

Maybe. What I do find startling as I get older is the rush of time going by. I have ties older than some of the kids who work for me. It's remarkable how little and how much you can do in one life.

This should give you some sense why. — Fooloso4

Hmmm... I find the histrionic narcissism repellant. 'I... I... I... me... me... me... blood... courage... goblins...

reified romanticism. — schopenhauer1

I like that.

Thank you for taking the trouble to do this. Do you personally find the idea of eternal recurrence compelling? I think translator Walter Kauffman might have been on to something about Nietzsche's work being "easier to read but harder to understand than those of almost any other thinker.” I had a go at the new translation of On the Genealogy of Morality by Clark and Swensen but just find it turgid and dull, even with those flashes of mordant humour.

Dickens also used to laugh as he wrote, and he even did all the voices of his characters out loud as he penned their dialogue. I would give anything to hear that... I imagine Shakespeare doing similarly - smart actors make great writers.

I love how we can go from Heidegger's notions of chatter to putative supplies of bananas and peanutbutter in the same thread...

Sure. These stories do interest me. Speculating wildly now, but can we be certain, even if we accept a different account of metaphysics, that past lives is the only explanation? Could it not also be argued that random images from universal mind can be thrown out in small snatches or loops to which some people have access? For all we know there were 100 children who shared the same snatches of alternate life experiences. I mean, once we enlarge our metaphysical speculations, we can go in so many potential directions, why constrain it to preconceived past-life accounts?

Now don't spoil it Mr Flag... I was enjoying my achievements. And yes, it does mean I was also responsible for Pol Pot and Hitler and that sitcom, Friends... And you...

I put anecdotes and compilations of anecdotes under 'That's Interesting But...'

I'd be curious to see some independent investigation on this one. I spent my 20's with people who channeled past lives and saw ghosts, and some of the accounts were impressive but never amounted to a paradigm shift from me. I can't make any claims either way about such anecdotes, but if I get time I'll see what reputable skeptics have made of it all, if anything. I suspect that this subject and the kinds of claims made are very hard to investigate. And even if many accounts are accurate, there could be a range of mundane explanations for many of them. But who knows? They are interesting, but...

When they talk about the great green flag, they'll really being talking about themselves. — green flag

As long as you get the money and the girls, what will it matter? :cool:

That sounds tantalizing. I'll look forward to it.

I think it's about saying "yes" to all of life, both the good and bad, recognizing that the two are inextricable. Amor fati. — frank

That works. Thanks.

Thanks, yes, I kind of got this from the initial thought experiment. Not sure I'd do it all again. Let alone for ever. You?

Naïve question: in essence what is Nietzsche hoping his readers will gain from ER? What is the point of it? I can grasp its introductory use as a kind of thought experiment, but what else is there to this idea?

Then you appear to be stuck. Sorry.

Interesting and I feel for you. It sounds exhausting. Also sounds like there's a lot to unpack here but that's beyond the scope of this kind of site. Dare I suggest counselling?

Perhaps one solution for this is to accept life may be solipsistic but you can still be happy or unhappy, even if it is a type of dream. Maybe you can make it a lucid dream. Make it fun, embrace the appearance of reality and the beauty in the 'phoney' details, enjoy the ride, give it your best. But don't try too hard.

Thanks for clarifying. I guess it is just one of those fears that you either have or don't have. Is there something which helps manage it?

:joke: :cool:

Solipsism doesn't sound that bad to me. It means I wrote all of Beethoven's string quartets, directed all the great movies, and was the seminal (and only) figure in the development of Quantum Physics. I had no idea I had that sort of range. :wink:

However, underneath all of the unnecessary complex verbiage and syntax, there are sometimes very important points. — Ø implies everything

I make no argument against the texts themselves, the problem sits with me as an inadequate reader of such texts - for reasons of capacity and temperament.

But to think that the universe exists only in my mind, just affects me a certain way. — Darkneos

What is it about solipsism that affects you?

I saw this some time ago - it's astonishing. Courage... Ardono... truth as a way of life... small 't' truth... you can't fully grasp the way the world is... philosophy needs to go to school with the musicians... Curtis Mayfield and Beethoven... - To paraphrase Marlene Dietrich on Orson Welles, after listening to this, I feel like a plant which has just been watered.

That said - I love your contributions and the focus and scholarship you bring to the discussions. :up:

I do undertand your position and believe I have, if you'll forgive me, a reasonable, intuitive grasp of your perspective.

But I have no personal intuitions of any of what you describe, despite years of exposure to everything from Alan Watts, Suzuki, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Jung and Gnosticism and many other old favourites.

But these things are very deep, hard to fathom, so they're expressed in the language of signs and symbols - you can't simply spell them out or describe them, as they require a complete re-organisation of the personality in order to understand - hence my earlier reference to 'realisation' or 'self-realisation' — Wayfarer

There's no question that such esoterica is vague and lends itself to multiple interpretive expressions. I'm not crazy about following such signs and symbols around the world, like some mystical equivalent to a storm chaser.

I guess I take the view that this material appeals to some and not to others. And it doesn't much matter, except in academia or amongst the cognoscenti and in some corners of places like this. If there is a transcendent ultimate concern, it will take care of itself and doesn't need us.

But I've said before I think your position has aesthetic foundations. You appear to have a view that there has been a kind of fall (paradise lost?) - that the numinous and integrated has been displaced by an ugly, modernist, secular, scientistic worldview, which has led us to nihilism and disenchantment. The evidence being our current, divided world and the coarseness of public discourse. I would argue the world was coarse and divided and broken even when spiritual traditions meant life and the numinous was not scoffed at, and before modernism was a glint in TS Elliot's eye. My take is that traditions of higher awareness may lead us to the crass and the ugly, every bit as swiftly as any other type of belief system.

We stand on either sides of the river making similar arguments, but for opposite reasons.

:up:

The way I see it, the problem with faith is located in its instantiation. Faith in what? In Yahweh and the associated scriptures? In Allah and sharia? Is this kind of faith an intuition? It seems a lot more than this. The intuition always seems to run away with itself.

I wonder if relgious faith is comparable to moral intuitions. We have no choice but to live in community with others, having moral intuitions are practical and unavoidable (unless you are a sociopath). The intuition that there's an invisible 'magic' creator thing, versus an intuition located in community behaviour seem quite different. Can you say more about the similarity to make the connection for me?

Faith is almost never left merely at, 'I intuit there is some kind of deity and I will leave it there'. It is mostly faith in a particular god with a particular set of instructions. And that's where the problem begins when that faith is foundational to mysogyny, homophobia, racism, anti-abortion and anti-birth control, etc.

I come from outside philosophy and am here mainly to understand what others believe and why and to have conversations which might enlarge my perspective. Initially I came to see what I may have missed by not privileging philosophy in my life.

I have not privileged philosophy because I find the works mostly unappealing to read (I have tasted a lot of it) and don't believe I have innate capacity to develop useful readings of the texts.

Since most of us are not Kant or Wittgenstein, we are likely limited in our capacity to do original thinking and are relegated to acquiring a kind of history of ideas, with some allegiances to what others have thought before us.

I've said before - Humans seem to be machines for making meaning - drawing connections and telling stories. Hence, culture, art, entertainment, religion, literature, philosophy, science, etc, etc. We can't help ourselves. It's our thing. Some of us like our stories to be metanarratives - foundational and transcendent. Some of us (me) are happy with tentative accounts, subject to constant revision.

There appear to me so many dimensions to philosophy I don't think we can say what exactly it is let alone how we need to think to do it well. Is philosophy thinking about thinking? Is it being able to regurgitate and parse phrases from a cannon? Is it original thinking? Is it clarifying what the questions are and not worrying too much about the answers? Is it language? Is it ultimately about epistemology?

Question - if you can think philosophically (assuming we can nail down what this means) does that make you a philosopher or just someone who thinks philosophically?

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. Are you referencing Jung's theory of individuation (which is generally a benign construction)? I don't think people are much different now to when I was young 40 years ago. They are still socialised into belief systems, belong to communities, and have interests and concerns. In many instances, how these are organised is different owing to technology.

An older Australian Aboriginal activist here noted that people are no more bigoted today than they were 50 years ago, they are just better organised. It's much easier these days to find communities and subcultures than it used to be. I remember vividly community concern in the 1970's about the cult of individualism and the 'me generation'. I remember individualism being a concern again in the 1980's. My grandma told me that there was community concern about the cult of individualism in the 1920's.

The persistence of community and ongoing interdependence amongst citizens continues.

The majority of people in the West seem to have been gathered under science and mathematics as their new religion (even if they barely understand it) — Ø implies everything

Which may simply be people saying they prefer reason to superstition. Zeitgeist. Incomplete understanding is not unusual within communities. It's certainly true in religious communities, and it is true in political communities. Just because people share a belief system doesn't mean they understand it. Often it is about a preference to belong, which presents itself through various interrelationships, including kinship, friendship, locality, environment and education.

This however, is not incompatible with the possibility of individuation. You are not just part of one group; you are a part of many, and this intersectionality gives rise to individuality even under an assignment of identity via group membership. — Ø implies everything

I am not sure what this implies.

Tom Storm, the degree of faith in such movements is very little. Such movements can be blamed more on religion more than faith. I don't think that someone will have faith that "gay people are bad". — Raef Kandil

Faith is always about something - it doesn't stop at god, it incorporates what god wants. Having spent time discussing belief with South African Christians, I can tell you that they were people of sincere faith. Their faith told them that gays were anathema, that women were second class citizens and that racism was god's will. The problem with faith is that it can justify anything and if your belief in god comes to you without evidence, then what that god wants you to do and think comes equally unfounded.

But I have also seen this in action in some elements of the Baptist church (the tradition I grew up in) and in the conservative arms of Catholic faith.

You can't isolate faith as stopping once you decide god is real - almost always included in the leap of faith is the particular god with its commands and requirements.

Thus "faith" as applied to an expectation/trust/belief in an outcome, can be supported by empirical evidence.

Let's not confuse "faith" in things with only religion alone. Faith = trust. You can have faith in any belief. It may or may not stand up to ridicule/scrutiny. — Benj96

For me faith is belief without good evidence. I would rarely use the word outside of religious context. I do not have faith that a chair will accommodate my weight or that a plane I fly in will not crash. I would call this having a reasonable expectation. As you have pointed out, these are things for which there is evidence, which is not how faith in the religious context works. As per Hebrews 11: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. I don't have faith in any beliefs, I hold beliefs with degrees of confidence.

The real problem with faith is that that it is possible to justify anything using an appeal to faith, from the Christian apartheid of South Africa, to anti-gay activists who hold their bigotries on faith.

It's solidarity that's the problem. Hence the main focus of any institution of power is to divide. — Isaac

Wise words.

Ought to inspire one to seek mokṣa, — Wayfarer

He never had the moxie for moska. I find that much Nietzsche reads like black comedy - possibly apropos given the Dionysian revels from which comedy traditions originally sprang.

It is a well-known fact that people who go through suicide attempts come closer to God and you can use a simple Google search to check. I am curious to know the process by which you surpass such issues as death and unfairness in the world. Unless you mean drinking a lot of wine which is not a solution. It is just a way to numb your senses enough not to realise there is a problem. — Raef Kandil

I've worked in the area of suicide prevention and have supported many suicidal people over decades and have not often seen this. But it is the case that sometimes distressed and unhappy people need to find comfort in a belief or a galvanizing idea to help them through difficult times. This belief might be religious but it could also be a hope for family reconciliation, renewed involvement in a hobby or in education or a sport.

I think the problem you describe probably starts with the presuppositions you hold. I don't consider death a preoccupation or concern, so it holds no special fascination for me. Unfairness? Well you can help disadvantaged communities to tackle unfairness through work or volunteering. The things you can't control may be best understood through a more Stoic philosophical response.

We can only accept such things as fate and death by submitting to higher powers. Call it what you want, it doesn't matter. It is the same thing and there is no way around it. — Raef Kandil

Until you can demonstrate this in an actual argument this is just an empty assertion.

I have never considered a higher power at any point and never had a problem with death, I have no idea with you mean by 'fate' but if you mean 'whatever happens to us' then I 've never had an issue with that either.