I will not die it's the world that will end


RobinReborn

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@Greg, Existence clearly continues after death, your body does not dissappear nor does anything you've produced within your lifetime, it's simply your consciousness which terminates. If you write an autobiography, you will exist in the conscious of the people who read your autobiography. Clearly there's a difference between that and being conscious but it's something to consider for people who value their existence more than their consciousness.

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@Greg, Existence clearly continues after death, your body does not dissappear nor does anything you've produced within your lifetime, it's simply your consciousness which terminates. If you write an autobiography, you will exist in the conscious of the people who read your autobiography. Clearly there's a difference between that and being conscious but it's something to consider for people who value their existence more than their consciousness.

Define existence please.

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I just found this several day-old thread. It appears not under "New Content" for me; maybe now it will. I had to go to the front page under "New Topics." I can't say any longer it has something to do with my browser cache. Obviously it's a conspiracy.

--Brant

now to catch up

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Existence after death (as a living organism though not, e.g. as a body) is a contradiction in terms, out of bounds for anybody.

A legacy or reputation or history is not subject to this limitation.

How people are subjectively perceived by others does persist, and can even morph with the constantly accumulating perspective of time.

One example is Ayn Rand's prediction of the consequences of the liberal socialist state with it's parasitic benefits moochers and public sector looters who service them.

On that count alone, she's assumed the status of a prophet! :laugh:

Greg.

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@Selene Existence is the totality of an object or entities perception by all other objects or entities.

@Greg pretty sure I do know that. There are weird exceptions like comas, and science may yet figure out how to revive people after they've died but consciousness requires action. Even a sleeping body must breathe, have a heart beat and an active brain.

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...it's simply your consciousness which terminates.

You don't know that.

Greg

It's worth assuming. That way you can give maximum focus to your life here and now. If consciousness survives death--what are all those brain cells for?--it sure doesn't survive rebirth, if re-incarnation is part of a life and death circle/cycle. I don't remember my life as a stableboy in medieval England (but I'm told it wasn't so great) or as one of those little princes murdered by Richard III or as a Viking warrior or a caveman getting eaten by a cave bear. At least I wasn't some whore. It was all masculine. Searching the archives reveals no female which tells me it's likely all imaginary bullshit. That leaves make a mind and consciousness on earth for the ever-lasting eternity to come or there's nothing to come for when I die my world dies.

--Brant

That's the way to do it!

the conceit of conceptual consciousness is life transcendence or the masses cannot be kept in line under any state and/or religion rubric which, for the statists, best go hand in hand and the basic religious rubric of the United States is Protestant individualism as derived from the English-Church of England model wrestled from the Catholic Church in a titanic struggle instigated by a man who couldn't father boys (hello!, Elizabeth I)

"How many divisions does the Pope have?" (Stalin)

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@Selene Existence is the totality of an object or entities perception by all other objects or entities.

Is existence a property of individuals? Per your definition.

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It's worth assuming. That way you can give maximum focus to your life here and now.

I'm not so sure there's a wrong answer here either way as long as we are aspiring to be better men. :smile:

For me, seeing my life unfold within a larger moral context is what gives it meaning.

Greg.

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It's worth assuming. That way you can give maximum focus to your life here and now.

I'm not so sure there's a wrong answer here either way as long as we are aspiring to be better men. :smile:

I'd try Viagara, but $10 a pop is too much unless she pays for it.

--Brant

seek immediate medical attention after 4 hours--WTF will happen if the triage nurse doesn't think it's a big deal?

(are we having the same conversation?)

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@Selene, I must admit I haven't thought much about all these ontological concepts. I go with what Ayn Rand said and my intuition... but existence is a property of everything. The one special case is thoughts, consciousness can create things which probably cannot be created in this world.

@ moralist if we believe in anything without evidence we run the risk of being wrong. If we believe that something happens after our deaths than we value our own lives less because we are hoping that something better will come after death.

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@Selene, I must admit I haven't thought much about all these ontological concepts. I go with what Ayn Rand said and my intuition... but existence is a property of everything. The one special case is thoughts, consciousness can create things which probably cannot be created in this world.

@ moralist if we believe in anything without evidence we run the risk of being wrong. If we believe that something happens after our deaths than we value our own lives less because we are hoping that something better will come after death.

What consciousness creates is a property of consciousness only until acted upon in some way. Writing down an idea, for instance transfers what is going on (electrically?) in the brain to markings on a page. I don't see any reason to be wrapped up in the relationship between mind's mussings and matter, or simply between mind and matter or thinking and matter--or things to think about. It's all axiom-land stuff. Reality and reason. Do you have any other interests, say in ethics and politics? Rand told Synder it was of no importance for their discussions if he had read ITOE.

Risk and living are two things not dividable though the ratio between the two is naturally dynamic and variable and usually somewhat adjustable.

--Brant

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@ moralist if we believe in anything without evidence we run the risk of being wrong. If we believe that something happens after our deaths than we value our own lives less because we are hoping that something better will come after death.

That's sound logic. I don't engage in empty wishful thinking either. I know we continue to exist after death.

Greg

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"She had often quote the saying: 'It is not I who will die, it is the world that will end.' Her world was coming to an end." -Barbara Branden. THE PASSION OF AYN RAND, pg. 403

James Day interview:

James Day: "How do you, as an Objectivist, feel about death?"

Ayn Rand: "It doesn't concern me in the least, because I won't be here to know it. The worst thing about death, and what I regard as the most horrible human tragedy, is to lose someone you love. That is terribly hard. But your own death? If you're finished, you're finished. My purpose is not to worry about death but to live life now, here on earth."

From a Peikoff podcast: Episode 53 (06:54)

"'Ayn Rand once said that her view on death was something she had heard from a poet whose name she could not remember.' (The poet, by the way, is Badger Clark, and the poem was called "The Westener.") 'And the line she quoted was, "The world will end the day I die."

The best of this quote as I see it, by Rand and in others' forms, is the calm matter-of-fact acceptance in it. No bravado and sentimentality, or wishing for longer life and clinging on, only facing the ultimate fact: that the instant will arrive, when - pouf - the light goes out.

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Ah... her world. :smile:

Makes perfect sense now in context.

This world is constantly coming to an end... because each of our worlds end when we do.

Greg

I find it a bit difficult to resolve Objectivism with the idea that everybody has their own world. There is one Objective reality, which we all perceive differently. The death of somebody doesn't cause anything in that reality to change except the consciousness of that person...

That everybody has their "own world" is a given. It's an autonomous base point of consciousness which can be shared with others in all the many but limited ways, but not transferred fully to anyone. There is no contradiction, but rather a correspondence, with there existing one objective reality 'out there'. In this, is not only the justification for rational selfishness, but also its absolute necessity (I think). To say that we "all perceive reality differently" does make nonsense of objectivity and Objectivism, don't you think? Despite that we notice it can and does happen in the observation and thought of many people.

Knowledge and value have objective standards. Is this deniable? Value, for one, has its generic component and also its many specific, personal, variants.

One objective value (e.g.) is romantic love; another, creative productiveness. You may love Jane, and meeting your talent and deep interest, take a profession in finance, say. I will love Sue and follow my passion into marine biology. Those specific choices are not, cannot be, "subjective", but assuming our commitment to rationality, as objective as it gets.

(Greg, well said, your thought above. Your cleft between objective reality and our "subjective" selves, will still get my argument though :smile:).

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@ Brant, this is in the Metaphysics board for a reason. Consciousness is always there because there is always something acting on it, even if it's just gravity.

@Greg/moralist Really? You know we exist after we die? Care to explain why? I am somewhat hesitant to even ask because every discussion I've had about that has been long, convoluted and full of assumptions I don't agree with.

@Tony I think you've inverted reality. Everybody has their own consciousness, but we all perceive reality differently. This might be due to genetics (some people are colorblind) or environment (some people can understand Chinese, others can't). Even the consciousness of two identical twins staring at the same picture would be slightly different because they'd have to be looking at it from different angles. To deny subjective choice exists is to deny free will.

PS RSA huh? How do you like having money named after your favorite author?

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Sorry. I'm seldom aware of what board unless it's Humor. I didn't even know OL had a metaphysics board. I do not understand philosophical passion for metaphysics, but I can't argue with sincere interest and passion.

--Brant

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@Greg/moralist Really? You know we exist after we die?

Yes.

Care to explain why?
Sure. Personal experience.
I am somewhat hesitant to even ask because every discussion I've had about that has been long, convoluted and full of assumptions I don't agree with.
No discussion is possible. Experience is non-transferable to others so there is no way anyone else could be convinced. You're totally on your own to figure out things for yourself.
Greg
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@Tony I think you've inverted reality. Everybody has their own consciousness, but we all perceive reality differently. This might be due to genetics (some people are colorblind) or environment (some people can understand Chinese, others can't). Even the consciousness of two identical twins staring at the same picture would be slightly different because they'd have to be looking at it from different angles. To deny subjective choice exists is to deny free will.

PS RSA huh? How do you like having money named after your favorite author?

Perceiving reality "differently" by various consciounesses means perceiving it in disconnected entities, or -often- bending it to what one wishes it to be, iow, primacy of consciousness. I rather think you are confusing all this with 'aspects' of existence, varying hugely in kind and degree, which are each person's starting point of identification. I have hold of the toenail on an elephant's foot, you have the tip of his tail, but we can agree that the entire thing, we may not have grasped yet, is 'an elephant'. Can we?

To deny _individual_ choice exists is to deny free will. Not "subjective".

Robin, you might be the first to have remarked here that S. African currency shares Rand's name. It came into being in the early 60's when RSA broke from UK and the British Pound, and was initially based on two to the Pound. Nothing to boast about, monetarily - in the 70's it was on par with the Dollar, and for a while a little stronger. Now it's fluctuating at over 12 to the dollar and 19 to the pound... ("Rand" is "reef" in Afrikaans, taken from Gold Reef, still pronounced "Rahnt" by some people).

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@ Brant, that's fine, I wouldn't say I have a passion for metaphysics but rather an intense (and sometimes cautious) curiosity. I also believe that philosophy is organized hierarchically. That is Ethics is derived from Epistemology which is derived from Metaphysics, so in a sense Metaphysics is the most important part of philosophy.

@Greg, I kinda thought this would happen. I think experience is transferable. If you can't explain or justify your experience to somebody else you might be having a hallucination.

@Tony Different perceptions of reality doesn't imply disconnection, it just implies that everybody's perceptual system is slightly different. One person may be deaf but have 20:20 vision, another person may be blind but have perfect pitch. For your elephant example, we might be able to agree it's an elephant but that depends on us being able to communicate together effectively and both of us knowing about elephant anatomy and not confusing it with a similar animal.

I'm still not sure how you can deny subjective choice exist, people have emotions and they often overpower reason. Isn't preference for a certain type of food subjective? That is to say it's based on somebody's genetics and culture?

I actually know the history of the South African currency, some of the younger folks call the currency 'Randelas' because Nelson Mandela's face is on all of the bills. I have a long, strange history with that country though I was born in the USA. I know some people who have left and try to portray their escape to the US as similar to the productive people escaping to Galt's Gulch. Why have you stayed in South Africa?

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@Greg, I kinda thought this would happen. I think experience is transferable.

Well, there's where our two views diverge.

As I see it, believing the lie that experience can be transferred to others leads to other mistaken assumptions that lead to other futile useless arguments which resolve nothing.

Views NEVER change... unless the objective reality of life experience changes them

There simply is no way to understand what another person experiences about life and death unless you had a similar experience yourself to which you could relate.

If you can't explain or justify your experience to somebody else you might be having a hallucination.

There's no need to explain or to justify to anyone else. It's totally normal that you believe someone else's experience is a hallucination, and you should believe that until you find out for yourself so that you don't get duped.

It's stupid to be convinced by someone else of something you don't know to be true by your own experience...

...and this is why I hold the view that experience is non-transferrable.

Greg

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I never heard of the idea or ever had the idea of a transferable experience until now. It makes no sense. I have literally felt love coming at me from another person who was a good six feet away. That's as close as it gets. I don't think commonality of emotion is what you guys are talking about. One person feels love toward another and the other feels it coming. I felt the love but I wasn't projecting any back. Two different experiences of love.

--Brant

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@Tony Different perceptions of reality doesn't imply disconnection, it just implies that everybody's perceptual system is slightly different. One person may be deaf but have 20:20 vision, another person may be blind but have perfect pitch. For your elephant example, we might be able to agree it's an elephant but that depends on us being able to communicate together effectively and both of us knowing about elephant anatomy and not confusing it with a similar animal.

I'm still not sure how you can deny subjective choice exist, people have emotions and they often overpower reason. Isn't preference for a certain type of food subjective? That is to say it's based on somebody's genetics and culture?

Not attributing it to you, but there does exist the perception that consciousness (the "brain" they name it) is (and must be) a perfectly precise measuring instrument - or else, unreliable, then - "subjective". Even more, that 'reality' shoots by us so fast that, blink, and you miss it. Man's senses, the foundation of his knowledge and concept formation are all-important. Kelley's 'Evidence of the Senses' which comes with excellent reviews by Objectivists and non-Oists explains it well, I believe.

My two bits' worth is that we seldom perceive reality in a flash, in a single instant. It's always 'there' around us, to be examined, considered and re-considered, in actuality and from one's memory banks. From that data stream one builds up an inductive experience, which has to be sorted into alike and unalike categories to be knowledge. One doesn't have to walk around a house to know that it has other facades than just the one which you happen to see from one vantage point. One's own language, culture, locality, etc., imply the existence of others, possessed by other individuals elsewhere. All, instances of the one reality, the same 'elephant'.

If a sense like our vision isn't 20-20 - which it seldom is - we learn automatically (and consciously) to adjust and adapt to its limitations, also to compare the sight data with our other senses. There are many examples of blind or deaf people who develop highly sensitive alternative senses, and go on to acquire high concepts of reality, notwithstanding their handicap.

(Quite a hero to me is Helen Keller, who said: "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature". By a fully blind woman - who showed herself more rational than many sighted people. How could she know this truth? By paying extreme attention with full commitment of her mind, I'd guess).

Yes, "subjective" means, largely, employing one's emotions, feelings and fancies to identify and judge existents according to what one desires them to be, so I agree that "subjective choice" is common. I'm certainly not saying that everybody is objective or attempts to be.

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