Death

[Ikku]

That would rule out the consciousness of everyone but myself, meaning you don't exist. Thanks to Descartes I can be sure that I myself exist but none of you. From your end though, you can only be sure of your own existence and not mine or anyone elses.

I don't tend to take that view because it seems too uncertain, so I just assume that you all exist as well.

[weedguru_animal]

Ikku could you please elaborate on the Descartes words which have helped you?

[Dr. Greenthumb]

I don't tend to take that view because it seems too uncertain, so I just assume that you all exist as well.

as a kid i always found it hard to picture a world going on all around me that I had no clue about. it was hard for me to imagine everyday people i saw on the street each had a regular life like me. as i grew i was able to wrap my head around but for a long time it confused me.

its like the question:
if a tree falls in the woods and there is no one there to hear it does it still make a noise.

[Weedguru Cusmar]

You see an airoplane fly across the sky, where it goes is in your mind.

[csem-it]

I myself believe that this world and this life is all we have and the notion that everything has a sole has really just been made up by us as a race so that we can feel a little more peaceful in our life here on earth.

It seems funny that the only time people mention afterlife and sole is when they feel that their life is not long enough i.e. thoughts on love and thoughts on death.

In a way primal survival instincts have driven us to believe in an afterlife. If you think/know you have an afterlife to go to then why be scared of dying?

[Ikku]

Ikku could you please elaborate on the Descartes words which have helped you?

I'm sure you've heard it, "Cogito ergo sum" or "Je pense, donc je suis", translated into English as "I think, therefore I am." You can be sure of the existence of your conscious being because you are at the receiving end of the perception. But everyone else might as well be autonomous, there is no way you can know for sure that anyone else thinks or in a way, exists.

And csem, that's what I've been trying to say. Survival instincts tell us to fear death (an animal that is afraid of death will do everything they can to evade it, think of the animal that chews its own limb off to escape a hunter's trap), and we try to eliminate this fear with visions of a life past our own. A bit silly really, but religion seems to be a way to escape our own problems.

[weedguru_animal]

it all depends what you mean by Soul. if you mean something akin to a unique spirit, a unique essence of being, an energy which both seperates and connects us to other Souls, then i must disagree....because i know there is much about me that is unique. I am aware of my soul, but I would call it more my Self...I believe every living creature has some kind of soul/spirit which is the only thing which completely sets them aside from all other creatures/life-forms.
we are not clones. no creatures are clones. some are regimentally genetically inclined to work like soldiers e.g. ants. but generally every essence has some form of individuality.
I have known hamsters with a stronger soul/spirit than what I find in the average human creature.
The self has bee gradually masked, abused, brushed away because capitalism has created societies in which the denizens look only outwards, rarely inwards, so they have no interest in the Self/spirit. they instead choose to accept the idea of a Spirit/Soul which is given to them by society.

The modern western civilizations have much in common with the Mayan system of priests and workers/slaves. the priests bred a race of humans who were totaly subservient yet physically able. the fear of punishment was enough to keep them in line and under he priest's spell. something did go wrong. whether it was another race who arrived on the scene or a revolution amongst the slaves/workers, it matters not now, everything was destroyed and we may never know exactly what was going on in those pyramid like temples...where men misbheaving workers would be drugged, then cut to pieces with white hot metal pikes heated in the great ovens. some dissidents were drugged then cooked alive in those same ovens....anyway there are parallals to draw betweenthe small amount we know of then, and the situation we see developing now. Priests and worker/slaves...

Self, Ego, soul, spirit, essence,,......are these words interchangeable when discussing this individual energy of which i speak?

[Ikku]

I wouldn't go so far to say that every single solitary organism had this energy (which I call consciousness, a mortal end of perception). Life in its processes is autonomous, looking at microscopic life, it is nothing but mechanical. As life becomes more complex you can start to see the development of character, but only in certain directions. Plant life is autonomous, it does not take in any information or act upon it but is bent to the will of its environment. Fish and such creatures do take in information in order to survive, but their brain is nothing more than a bundle of nerves that reacts to what it is given.

It is the animal life that makes decisions, that has thoughts and perhaps the emotions, these are the ones with a consciousness, with a "free will". Again it is Descartes, "I think therefore I am." It takes a certain cognitive capacity for something to have character and be unique.

In a way I agree with what you say animal, but I do not put everything in the same file for life. I think you have to be selective about what life has reached a higher level of thought to separate the life that just exists from the life that has its own direction.

I think I'm offtopic.

[csem-it]

I belive no-one and nothing is unique, everything in the world is just built up of genral things and personality building blocks. Your peronality and being is unique, yes, but it is made from non-unique personality traits.

i.e. a bottle and a window are different objects yet they are both made from sand and you could make either object with the exact same grains of sand. It just depends what you want to mold it into........

(If you don't like what I am saying, please just ignore me. I can talk such shit sometimes!)