Are We Alive?

The whole thing is an illusion

Re: Are We Alive?
extra medium

If the idea of "life" is consensual and all human beings able to think, think they are alive, then we are alive.
If all the human beings defined "life" as something inorganic, and "death" as a state of organic activity, then we all would be dead.

If all human beings believe they are alive, how could you know it is an illusion? And what would be the difference?
We are as we are. Call it life, death, illusion: that doesn't change what you are.

I yam what I yam and that's what I yam

Are we alive, or does it just seem like it?

Curious question.

How do you propose ever getting an answer to that question? You'd need to be outside life to know for sure, and until you have managed that the question is really irrelevant.

This life is all I know. What difference does it make wether it is real or an illution.

God could walk up to me one day and say: "Hey, do you know that you are not alive? It just seems like it."

I'd answer: "Well then, looks like we have something in common after all."

Extra medium, another very tricky one, difficult to know how to tackle it.

I tried to start a thread could 'Does pain exist?' to use ideas about 'experience' as a bit of a back-door way into this question, but no-one had any comments. (I'm seeing a pattern here, I must be the pub bore...).

I love your thoughts if you'd look it up.

No. we are all dead....

May we rest in peace!

Dead man,dead man
When will you arise
Cowbebs in your mind
Dust upon your eyes.

You shoulda heard that "eyes" that night in London.
Man-It scared me to death.
I've been jumping with life ever since.

Spendius

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.

{Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus}

Study as if you were to live for ever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.

{John Crozier}

I do.I definitely do.

hmmm...

Would you take this as an encouragement to throw away the books and not study at all,

or to live in the library?

My first reaction is: If I know I am going to live forever, I'll study the minimum amount...paralysis of analysis and all that. Killing something by studying it too much. I'll study just enough to stay out of pain and utter ignorance...because by living forever I'll eventually learn it all better--experientally and first hand...

It is amazing how silly statements reproduce.They are like amoebas and in a suitable nutrient bed they eventually reach the status of philosophy debates.

EM
Overdoing anything is almost certainly a road to perdition. I notice in your postings, which, I may add have extreme similarities to those of 'Old Spendius,' an overwhelming desire for personal safety. Please do not interpret my comments without giving me consideration for administering a great deal of thought to the same. I too am also in favour of self preservation, and yet I am willing to take what I consider to be calculable risks, accepting unknown levels of pain or discomfort in accordance with my desire to reach the only attainable answer to my curiosity. The unfortunate parts of our present existence are the frustrating lack of knowledge we endure.

I am familiar with your islands, although considerable years have passed since I last visited. The beautiful scenery was in the early stages of being butchered then. There was also a carbuncle of a man made giant pineapple, on an equally hideous metal tower in the Wakiki beach area, (if my memory serves me right.) Are you a native of the islands? I spoke with some natives who were quite content at having swapped their huts, for better built huts with the benefits of running water, electricity and waste disposal. As 'Old Spendius' mentions above, the similarities to amoeba's and their advancement under favourable conditions is apparent. Even to the use of the wheel.

The over-riding of the self-preservation instinct by ego ambitions is seen by most experts in the psychiatric field as insanity only mitigated by the lack of extreme measures that are taken to satisfy the ambition.Lesser measures are simply less insane.They might have less integrity as well.

Exactly Spendius, The Meek Will Inherit The Earth !

When The Strong Make It Safe For Them To Do So !

Silly boy. If some of what you call "the natives" here are amoebas, you must be a virus! A leech, doing nothing productive of your own, not even alive really, just sinking your barbs into the living and leeching off them.

I am an inhabitant of the Earth, Mathos.

As you are.

You really know zero about me.

I happen to live in Hawaii now. Since I have chosen to live here for a few years of my adult life, out of complete free will, as I seeing it one of the better places for my current purposes, you see fit to lay bizarre condescending assumptions on me?

And I will be leaving Hawaii to another locale of my choice soon...

Even though I am not a native of Hawaii, I do not appreciate your condescending tone of such, and have duly noted it.

I was born, raised and educated in the major cities of US, The Continent, and Asia. I happen to live in Hawaii now.

You assume way too much.

You know not of which you speak, so I will forgive you, this time.

Why do you ask, have been stuck on that island your entire life, and thereby only gained an education that has been weakened by too many years of intellectual in-breeding and incestousness?

There's German & Irish & Scottish & English & Italian & American Indian blood flowing in my veins, if that is what you are asking, sir. I try to draw on the best of all of their histories, culture, philosophy, and education.

I am American. Deal with it. Some of my ancestry even traces back to your dark islands.

Do not play with fire. You may get burned.

***

But do be a friend Mathos, and tell us your entire background, since you asked mine, and I did share it.

Are you a native of Britain? Have you lived there your entire life?

It appears so. Don't be so jealous. I've only been in Hawaii a few years.

Try not to be such a hater Mathos. Don't be so jealous. It really makes you look smaller. Each post in that vein makes you smaller and smaller...

How are the natives of your islands doing? I was there several years ago as you were in these islands. Its seemed that the poor natives were very unhappy and angry, and so very many of them, like you, have this silly inferiority/superiority complex.

How are those natives you live by over there? Are you a native of those islands over there in the cold dark gray?

Burning Man's 2005 Art Theme in the desert in the summer will be "Psyche: the Conscious, the Subconscious and the Unconscious".



http://www.burningman.com/

Cite please.

Laughable. I have spent years in places wild that I predict you cannot comprehend. I have seen tears running down grown men's faces, and I was looked to, to be the one to save them, and bring them from the jaws of death. For example.

You sound like a little boy now. You not of which you speak.

Stand down, your insignificance is twisting in the wind.

The insanity continues. A native of the British Isles calling Hawaii butchered and hideous?

With each post you lose credibility, sir.

Are we dead?