Frank Apisa wrote:coluber2001 wrote: JL says there is no self to die. This is true, of course...
It certainly is true that
JL says there is no self to die...but I suspect that is not what you meant here. If I am correct that you were saying that you agree "there is no self to die"...then I would ask you what I have asked JL often: How do you know that...or is it just a guess?
Same question goes for all that "illusion" stuff that followed this comment.
Why are you folks so sure your guesses are REALITY...that you would actually write: "This is true, of course...?"
Do you guess that a symphony of Beethoven or Mahler is wonderful, or do you have to listen to it? There are probably millions that have heard and respect the names of Beethoven and Mahler and millions more that dismiss them out of hand, neither groups ever having listened to them. And their opinions don't amount to diddly-squat. Many more analyze their music, and that's fine, but, in the end, talking about it or thinking about it isn't it; you have to actually listen to the music.
blueSky wrote:Most cells of stomach lining die in 5 days and are replaced by new ones. We get a new skin once a month, a new liver in 6 weeks and a brand new skeleton in 3 months. Death is happening to all our cells while ‘we’ still live on. We ourselves are cells of a bigger national organism. We will die, but the nation that has lived on for 100 of years will continue to live ahead. Then there have been deaths of such nations too. And so on…
Perhaps, the smaller and narrower is the consciousness; more vivid is the experience of death. In a way death is synonym for pettiness. If ‘who you are’ can expand a lot…to truly include concern for everything, the span of such life experience can dramatically expand… to eternity… theoretically.
Yes, there are many types of death, and I like the way you point this out.
The death of egocentrism is something like the death of nationalism, they're both identities that we have to drop to grow. We "expand" to eternity not by growing enormous brains as in science fiction films, but by seeing through the illusions of our identities. Th intellect, no matter how big it grows, cannot see through the illusion because it is the intellect that creates and sustains our ego identity with illusions, and as that ego identity is perceived by us as life, the end of it is perceived as death. So we're asking the intellect to destroy it's own illusion, and that's like asking it to commit suicide.
There has to be some jump, a radical jump in consciousness, and it's possible for virtually everybody to make this jump.
coluber2001 wrote:Frank Apisa wrote:coluber2001 wrote: JL says there is no self to die. This is true, of course...
It certainly is true that
JL says there is no self to die...but I suspect that is not what you meant here. If I am correct that you were saying that you agree "there is no self to die"...then I would ask you what I have asked JL often: How do you know that...or is it just a guess?
Same question goes for all that "illusion" stuff that followed this comment.
Why are you folks so sure your guesses are REALITY...that you would actually write: "This is true, of course...?"
Do you guess that a symphony of Beethoven or Mahler is wonderful, or do you have to listen to it? There are probably millions that have heard and respect the names of Beethoven and Mahler and millions more that dismiss them out of hand, neither groups ever having listened to them. And their opinions don't amount to diddly-squat. Many more analyze their music, and that's fine, but, in the end, talking about it or thinking about it isn't it; you have to actually listen to the music.
Yeah...that's what the Christians I debate tell me also!
Gimme a break!
I feel, if we are to debate anything here, it must be in a dualistic manner. And therefor, the question begs to be asked: What is life?
Going with the flow of some things I've read here: One big countdown to death. But let's look it in a 'scientific' manner, shall we?
First, the dictionary:
life
Audio pronunciation of "life" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (lf)
n. pl. lives (lvz)
1.
1. The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.
2. The characteristic state or condition of a living organism.
2. Living organisms considered as a group: plant life; marine life.
3. A living being, especially a person: an earthquake that claimed hundreds of lives.
4. The physical, mental, and spiritual experiences that constitute existence: the artistic life of a writer.
5.
1. The interval of time between birth and death: She led a good, long life.
2. The interval of time between one's birth and the present: has had hay fever all his life.
3. A particular segment of one's life: my adolescent life.
4. The period from an occurrence until death: elected for life; paralyzed for life.
5. Slang. A sentence of imprisonment lasting till death.
6. The time for which something exists or functions: the useful life of a car.
7. A spiritual state regarded as a transcending of corporeal death.
8. An account of a person's life; a biography.
9. Human existence, relationships, or activity in general: real life; everyday life.
10.
1. A manner of living: led a hard life.
2. A specific, characteristic manner of existence. Used of inanimate objects: "Great institutions seem to have a life of their own, independent of those who run them" (New Republic).
3. The activities and interests of a particular area or realm: musical life in New York.
11.
1. A source of vitality; an animating force: She's the life of the show.
2. Liveliness or vitality; animation: a face that is full of life.
12.
1. Something that actually exists regarded as a subject for an artist: painted from life.
2. Actual environment or reality; nature.
Continuing with an introduction to biology:
Living things have a variety of common characteristics.
* Organization. Living things exhibit a high level of organization, with multicellular organisms being subdivided into cells, and cells into organelles, and organelles into molecules, etc.
* Homeostasis. Homeostasis is the maintenance of a constant (yet also dynamic) internal environment in terms of temperature, pH, water concentrations, etc. Much of our own metabolic energy goes toward keeping within our own homeostatic limits. If you run a high fever for long enough, the increased temperature will damage certain organs and impair your proper functioning. Swallowing of common household chemicals, many of which are outside the pH (acid/base) levels we can tolerate, will likewise negatively impact the human body's homeostatic regime. Muscular activity generates heat as a waste product. This heat is removed from our bodies by sweating. Some of this heat is used by warm-blooded animals, mammals and birds, to maintain their internal temperatures.
* Adaptation. Living things are suited to their mode of existence. Charles Darwin began the recognition of the marvellous adaptations all life has that allow those organisms to exist in their environment.
* Reproduction and heredity. Since all cells come from existing cells, they must have some way of reproducing, whether that involves asexual (no recombination of genetic material) or sexual (recombination of genetic material). Most living things use the chemical DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) as the physical carrier of inheritance and the genetic information. Some organisms, such as retroviruses (of which HIV is a member), use RNA (ribonucleic acid) as the carrier. The variation that Darwin and Wallace recognized as the wellspring of evolution and adaptation, is greatly increased by sexual reproduction.
* Growth and development. Even single-celled organisms grow. When first formed by cell division, they are small, and must grow and develop into mature cells. Multicellular organisms pass through a more complicated process of differentiation and organogenesis (because they have so many more cells to develop).
* Energy acquisition and release. One view of life is that it is a struggle to acquire energy (from sunlight, inorganic chemicals, or another organism), and release it in the process of forming ATP (adenosine triphosphate).
* Detection and response to stimuli (both internal and external).
* Interactions. Living things interact with their environment as well as each other. Organisms obtain raw materials and energy from the environment or another organism. The various types of symbioses (organismal interactions with each other) are examples of this.
So all buddhism aside, we slowly begin to live and in doing so, we decay slowly until we are dead. A long and relative process.
Change is the only constant, this does not exclude things from being. This simply implies they are never the same and that there are no absolutes. Just because they're complex doesn't mean they're any less real.
Refute. PLEASE
Frank Apisa wrote:coluber2001 wrote:Frank Apisa wrote:coluber2001 wrote: JL says there is no self to die. This is true, of course...
It certainly is true that
JL says there is no self to die...but I suspect that is not what you meant here. If I am correct that you were saying that you agree "there is no self to die"...then I would ask you what I have asked JL often: How do you know that...or is it just a guess?
Same question goes for all that "illusion" stuff that followed this comment.
Why are you folks so sure your guesses are REALITY...that you would actually write: "This is true, of course...?"
Do you guess that a symphony of Beethoven or Mahler is wonderful, or do you have to listen to it? There are probably millions that have heard and respect the names of Beethoven and Mahler and millions more that dismiss them out of hand, neither groups ever having listened to them. And their opinions don't amount to diddly-squat. Many more analyze their music, and that's fine, but, in the end, talking about it or thinking about it isn't it; you have to actually listen to the music.
Yeah...that's what the Christians I debate tell me also!
Gimme a break!
Wow! I didn't think I had anything in common with Christians, atheists, or agnostics. This nice to know. I always knew there were a few Christian mystics around, but I thought that most of them were literalists. The literalists here are analogous to the people I mentioned who talk about music but never listen to it.
Hm...v e r y i n t e r e s t i n g!
Is there anything else I should know about death before I die? I wanna die "educated" - not like a moron who doesn't know what he's in for! What I know at least for now is when the time comes to tip your hat for the last time and leisure allows is to listen to Bruckner's 8th symphony and fade away at the end of the 3rd movement. I'll try not to make it into the 4th; it sounds too much like the Last Judgement and I don't want a preview! In the meantime I must train my illusions to respect my wishes!
Re: What is death?
nipok wrote: Once your mind attached to the observation your own emotions about what you observe and how you want to make that observation fit into your life, how you interpret that observation because of your personality, intelligence, relationship to that being observed etc, etc, then it become what in most cases we are calling a perception.
Religious Bovine Dung
The remainder of the post that contains the unintelligible utterance above actually makes sense. As far as the paragraph above I hope the rest of you can find the humor in it, made me laugh for quite a while. The paragraph above was just a lead in to the rest of my post so the fact that it is gibberish has little bearing on the point I was trying to make. Most of my posts I think you would agree are lucid but the paragraph above proves my hypothesis that Kettle One and Keyboards don't mix.
Not Too Swift
An excellent taste. But I would prefer to go, with the end of the Adagio.
Ah! that is true! Not wise to keep God waiting. I re-choose Mozart's "Masonic Funeral Music" one of the...and here I don't mind applying the word...metaphysical sound tapestries I know. Besides what could be MORE appropriate - before and perhaps also after?
Not too swift;
Another good choice. But too tragic, don't you think. Anyway, I am sure you will die happy.
How glorious it would be to have the clarity of mind in our last moments to enjoy the music of our choice. Yesterday I was watching a rehearsal of Beethoven's G Major, Op.58th, piano concerto. This thread came to mind during the slow portion of the second movement (Andante con moto).
death is when we are out of the sight and minds of anyone we knew.
Bryxamus, that's a good definition of SOCIAL death. Many people are, according to this notion, dead before they die.
JL, you and Thoreau share the same philosophy. The following poem says a lot to me:
72. "Death be not proud, though some have called thee"
DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, 5
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, 10
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
John Donne
When someone I care about loses someone significant within their family or community, I can sympathize deeply with their loss. It also connects me to those whose losses have been very significant to me. I think that is called empathy.
Shepaints, I've always thought that empathy is the ability to take the position of another person, to at least put oneself in their shoes, if not their heads. Do you think that if you've never lost anyone that you can empathize with another's loss as much as if you have also experienced such a loss. And if the latter is the case, are you taking their position or simply reliving your own loss?
...the ultimate experience beyond which there are no others.
