One final question

Echi, under some circumstances, some thought processes can be quelled to some degree. I don't consider that to be very revolutionary or insightful or novel. Do you?

It happens when you sleep, under general anaesthetic, when you relax, when you get knocked out in a fight, from high blood loss, etc.

Chumly--
It is helpful to know the mind... to know what it is, what it does. The important thing is not to stop all thinking but to be aware of all thoughts. This awareness cannot be gained if the person is asleep, knocked-out, or otherwise unconscious.

An axiom? If so how do you substantiate it?How you propose to demonstrate the feasibility of this premise?How do you know this? For example I have awareness of my, and in my dreams.

Do you not agree that irrational fear is a result of ignorance?

The logical fallacy "avoiding the question". This fallacy is committed when someone's answer doesn't really respond to the question asked:

Question: Would the Oakland Athletics be in first place if they were to win tomorrow's game?
Answer: What makes you think they'll ever win tomorrow's game?

My first thought to your question was "Can I have another five minutes?"

But, seriously, I don't know that I could choose just one question.
There are a few obvious ones:

Did I give enough love?
Did I learn everything I was meant to?
Did my existence leave a lasting mark on this world?


but I don't know that I'd want to know the exact time/day/hour of my demise. Even if I could.

I prefer to enjoy this journey for as long as I can.
And focusing on that demise could possibly hinder my appreciation of this life now.

just my 2 cents worth.

I did not answer your question because I do not understand it. Also, I was trying to explain myself better because it seemed you didn't understand me, either.
You asked me to substantiate an axiom? I don't understand. Do you consider my statement to be an axiom or not?

OK, I wanted to know if you felt it was an axiom, and if you did, how you came to that conclusion.OKI did not ask you to "substantiate an axiom" I asked you if you thought it *was* an axiom. Then I asked how you came to that conclusion i.e. to substantiate.

As to your question "Do you consider my statement to be an axiom or not?". I can envision times when it may be helpful, I can envision times when it may be harmful, and I can envision times when it would not matter. So no I do not consider your statement to be an axiom.

Today was like no other day for John. Today was the last day he would be alive. Today was the proverbial moment of truth for him, and his wife Stephanie. This is the day that John asked himself one final question.

John's Final Question

John sprang up and sat on the side of the bed. It was 4:09 AM and he had beaten the alarm clock again at its own game. He had managed to turn it off before its maddening scream which was set to go off at 4:30 AM even though he had only slept for about three hours. As he stared through the darkness at the wall in front of him imagining he was looking at a scene from the Painted Desert in Arizona, he got the feeling that something was different today. Something was wrong.

There was a ghastly sensation of indigestion, probably from the Chinese food he ate the previous night, and a sharp pain running through his left arm. For the first time in many years, he turned to Stephanie and said, "I don't think I will be going to work today honey". She stirred from her sleep, told him it was alright and he should just stay home and relax today. The pain didn't subside, however, and the antacid remedy just didn't seem to help. Around 9 o'clock in the morning after breakfast, Stephanie noticed his discomfort and suggested that they go to the hospital. "No", he replied tersely. "We have to take the car to be serviced and I just have too many things to do for school this afternoon", he said in his usual, Spartan manner of conversation.

How ironic that John was so preoccupied as not to notice that this was indeed his last few hours of life. How ridiculous it would be to even bring such a possibility into conscious thought, what with all the things he had to do today. Struggling to finish the chores at hand, John managed to retrieve the car from the service shop and returned home around two o'clock that afternoon. By this time, Stephanie was acutely aware of the discomfort he was experiencing. She pleaded, begged and finally convinced him that they should go to the hospital emergency room. He agreed but not before taking a shower. Can't afford to have anyone examine me without having taken a bath, he thought to himself.

They arrived at the emergency room around 4:30 PM and, for some reason that John was unaware of, were rushed into the ward immediately. It took all of thirty seconds, after the ECG recorded the first traces of John's tired heart, for five ER physicians to rush to his bedside. They administered morphine and an anticoagulant derived from snake venom costing around 3000 dollars a pint. A few minutes later, all of his old cuts and scraps began bleeding again as if they had just happened only moments before. "Don't let his smile and his jokes fool you", they said to Stephanie. "He is very, very serious. He could suffer a massive coronary and die. We will have to monitor him continuously for the next 24 hours", the doctors admonished Stephanie.

She was devastated. How could this be happening? He is only forty years old, she thought to herself. Stephanie walked toward John lying on the ER gurney with a look of desperation. John, true to character, grabbed her hand and looked into her eyes and said, "Stop it! There is nothing you can do! You cannot stop this any more than you can hold back the ocean tide." And that was the first time he understood what death was all about. You can't hold it back. It is an inexorable force of nature.

And the tide kept rolling in and John could not hold it back any longer. At 9:34 PM, his heart started to beat erratically and he was overcome by a feeling of fear and panic. He grabbed onto the sides of the bed as if to avoid being swept away. He was fighting for his life against an unseen foe and tried to keep his heart beating; as if sheer will alone would prevent the anomaly from taking its course. Then he let go of his grasp and began to surrender his anxiety and dread as his heart began taking longer and longer between beats. There was a sense of euphoria and the onset of what seemed to be an optical hallucination. Flakey brain chemistry, he thought to himself.

He saw the lines between people. Lines made of light between him and Stephanie, the doctors, nurses and other patients in the ER. Lines connecting everyone together into an ethereal tapestry that, as his awareness of this strange phenomenon grew, extended beyond the emergency room and into the surrounding wards, the neighborhood, the city, the country, and around this great blue planet we have come to call home. For the first time in his life, he didn't feel alone any more; he was part of everyone else. Those he loved and those he hated, the saints and the sinners, the best of us and the worst of us.

His heart stopped beating at 9:37 PM as Stephanie held his hand and wept softly. John felt her strength and compassion and was glad he had the chance, once, to be alive and to have found such a dear heart. The room was beset by a blizzard as everything started to disappear into a bright whiteout. Seemingly all at once, he saw all the things he had done in his life, all the places he had been, all those he had met, even those he had long forgotten. Then, moving ever faster through a twisting vortex, he suddenly found himself floating over his body and saw Stephanie keeping watch over his lifeless remains. In the corner of the emergency room, he saw a ray of intense light beaming down through the ceiling. He started to float toward the source of light and turned to look at Stephanie one last time. He felt sad he was leaving behind all those still living because he knew that they had to continue their journey while he was going home.

His last conscious thought as John was this one final question. "Do they know how much I love them?", and then he went home.

THIS POINT OF 'WHAT WOULD BE YOUR LAST QUESTION?' REMINDS ME OF THE KATHA UPANISHAD AND NACIKETA'S THIRD WISH TO YAMA (THE god OF DEATH): HIS THIRD WISH IS FOR AN EXPLANANTION OF WHETHER AFTER DEATH A PERSON IS STILL AN INDIVIDUAL PERSON OR NOT

Chumly--
Yes, I suppose I do consider this to be an axiom since the alternative is ignorance. Ignorance can lead to all sorts of feelings and ideas that we deem negative and none (that I am aware of) that are positive or helpful.
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I am really not trying to avoid addressing any subject. If anyone were to read through all of my posts they would see that I can easily change my mind on something when it is made clear that my position is incorrect.
If you ever think I am avoiding something then you are probably giving me too much credit; it may just be that I'm a little slow.

Death is an act of ultimate surrender. You give back everything you had in life, even your identity. It doesn't matter any more.

I am no super-whiz either and lots gets lost in translation. I would agree that all things being equal, more often than not, it may be better to know than not know about the mind.

Examples of where knowing the mind might be negative however:

Let's say you want to be a first class world famous artist / jet fighter jock / astronaut / athlete etc., but if you knew your mind well enough, you would know you do not have the faculties for the task. So in fact you are sustaining this as a sort of fantasy, yet this falsehood provides a series of benefits that might be lost if you knew you mind better.

Pretty much any belief or fantasy which is not based firmly on reality / likelihood in which you fool yourself into believing, and yet has a net positive effect on you.

Children are particularly prone to not knowing their minds, and sustaining falsehoods about their minds, yet these falsehoods may have a net positive effect which might be lost if they knew their mind better.

Chumly--
How might sustaining fantasy and falsehood have a positive effect?
I'm having trouble seeing how knowing the mind might be negative.

Sustaining fantasy and falsehood might have a positive effect in a similar way to how prayer might. By the process of belief you inspire yourself to greater things than you might otherwise. The 10 year old who believes he will be an astronaut becomes a science teacher. The young girl who believes she is a horse and galloping around the playground buys a farms and raises horses. Have you ever seen The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, great movie.

Walter Mitty, a daydreaming comic book writer with an overprotective mother, likes to imagine himself as a hero experiencing great adventures. His dream becomes true when he accidentally meets a mysterious woman who hands him a little black book. According to her it contains the locations of the Dutch crown jewels hidden since World War II.

Chumly--

I think the fantasy part of prayer only serves to water it down (false concepts of God, unreasonable expectations). The kid who grows up to be a science teacher might have been even more fulfilled had he grown up wanting to be a science teacher. And the young girl who really believes she is a horse... well, she sounds like a bit of a nutter, to me.
Sure, there can be positive effects resulting from fantasy and ignorance, but how much more positive and inspiring if based on truth?

I suggest that prayer manifests itself wholly as fantasy, and yet may still have real world benefit as a motivator for some. Check out Walt Disney or Kellogg.That young girl now owns one of the most successful horse farm in BC and she still looks hot, I should have nabbed her, but we were both way too young, we could be riding bareback right now <sigh>

I would again say these 'unrealistic dreams' from not knowing our minds is precisely what drives man forward, and without which we might be more akin to automatons or plants. It's the journey not the destination.

Right. No one can. So it is not sustaining fantasy and falsehood for the boy to believe he will become an astronaut. Maybe he will.
I agree, it can be very helpful to have ideals. But trying to fulfill 'unrealistic dreams' is a recipe for hardship and sorrow.

Why don't you just trot out there and throw a lasso around her neck? Maybe she still likes to play horsey.

You seem to believe that humans are innately boring, or something. Imagination is wonderful and can help us to progress. (What constitutes progress, we may also disagree about, however.) One's imagination is not necessarily made any greater because of 'unrealistic dreams'. I still fail to see the advantage in mistaking a fantasy for reality.

Hi echi,
It was very interesting, I am not sure I can add much more, thanks!

...later, dude.