Life and death

[Yoshi525]

"Chi", "lifeforce" and "energy" are just ambiguous phrases describing complex concepts like muscle tension, health and neuro-electric signals. They're very much physical and there's nothing magical in it at all.

I agree in a sense. Yes, such concepts can be explained in terms of biological function. This doesn't really mean that one can't regard these things as spiritual however. For example take a 'near-death experience'. You can explain it in terms of neurochemistry but that does not answer why it is occurring and what, if anything this signifies. You are attributing a mechanism to a process - this does not, in itself make the process devoid of purpose. Unless you are a nihilist of course.

It's very easy to remove meaning from things when you can explain how they are occurring. Humans have a fetish for the unknown and we tend to give unknown occurrences higher priority than those we
can understand. This isn't necessarily a good, or a correct thing to do.

Personally i believe there is a lot more to the Cosmos than we can or will ever begin to fathom. There are things going on which affect us but we either do not notice or do not understand. My best guess
is that you probably are right and in the cases of things like Chi there really is no meaning, other than that which we give it. The same probably goes for death, i would hazard that when we die that is it.

Human attributed meaning can be very significant however. Whilst presumably not objective, (Unless your into solipsism and all that jazz) there can be no doubt that to those who practice Chi, it means an awful lot and probably has a significant impact on their mental and physical well being. Lots of things we call meaningful or purposeful only really have a meaning or purpose we have given them; this doesn't make them any less significant to us in this life however.

I don't pretend to know the answers to these questions; all i can do is spaculate. i would agree with the 'live today, tomorrow you may be dead' philosophy spouted above. If you do that, within reason, you probably won't go too far wrong whatever the logos is.

 

[alec]

Personally i believe there is a lot more to the Cosmos than we can or will ever begin to fathom. There are things going on which affect us but we either do not notice or do not understand.

Last thing I heard: when you fart, you are actually trying to whistle hymns that can only be sung by angels.

Go figure.

 

[Makagulfazel]

Do you shit pot or something?

If only...

I agree with most of the people here - live life to the fullest. After this one, you become fossil fuel. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[aronsearle]

The answer = get drunk, get laid, stop caring

Sounds like some of you just have boring, pointless, hollow lives, of quick fix hedonism, maybe you also had a shit childhood, or whatever, you're bored of life.

Oh, how i "envy" you.

 

[horse]

well, of course an internet forum is the proper and adequate means to express ones view about the life-death thing, yes. the exchange of well-researched or at least well-argumented points of view regarding such substantial humane questions - is there a better place to participate on this than here? no way, good sir, there is not!

cthulhu - schmulu, emo - schmemo. those are things best thought over and "researched" soberly and perhaps from time to time talked about drunkenly. when it comes to thinking about those basic fabrics of what we call life and death, i still am an adept of the 18th and 19th century philosophers (no, i dont mean your u.s. "philosophers", you illiterate ducklings!) for the intellectual pleasure their writings gave me. hegel sucks dick in the writing department; the most joy can be drawn from schopenhauers and kants work, i mean, intellectual joy - of discovering paths of thinking, trying out new approaches, discarding certain ideas. sadly, their translations suck ass, the interpreters tend to mix up philosophical entities like there is no tomorrow. there are a lot of things that can be (broken down to swallowable tidbits) talked about, lengthy, drunkenly, and merrily.

but, after the 10th beer, you involuntarily take a large step away from actually hoping to catch a new strain of thought in "discussing" those things. you may substitute "10th beer" with any social interaction that could lead to such discussions. i am sincere that philosophy has no practical consequence in our daily lives, it is a great and challenging journey into the land of thought and perception. of course, every philosopher has written about practical philosophy and ethics, but thats rubbish. i dont TELL my car how its motor should work, i just use it and cope with its (inevitable) failure.

there is no good plan that survives the confrontation with reality. most people i know do as i do: work with what we have against what we call thge world, on a day-to-day basis. i know perfectly well, that we are very mortal, and there is no time to waste - but what "wasting your time" means, is utterly subjective, and i grant noone any right to tell me what is a waste and what is not. living life to the fullest is basically an imperative in my opinion, i am unsure if there are other lifespans to be had after our demise from this reality.

thanks for stealing some minutes off my home-office time on a very boring day! i somehow enjoyed writing this.

 

[welsh]

What do you think of life and death?

We have waited millions of years to live, and we get around 60-100 years to spend it, unless we die of sickness or accident. When we die, we stop living. Is life really that simple? Do we live once? I mean, waiting millions of years to live, die, and never live again. Do you think people get second life as someone else?

I mean, think about it. It is pretty scary. You die, and born as someone else, not remembering your last life.

Would you like to sleep until world ends when you die, or would you rather be born again as someone else in future?

It is the great existential question of human existence. What are our limits and the potential of the final point. Whether you believe in reincarnation or heaven or some other form of life after death (valkaryies in Valhalla?) these are all driven by the awareness of our own limitations in perception and duration.

But you have to also ask that these questions just reveal our own insecurities and reluctance the limits of our biology, or that we are merely momentary blips on evolutionary time.

That said, it might be better considering these issues if you're taking a bong hit.

 

[Pablosdog]

Really, the tired cliche of "what you do matters" is a really true statement. Every little thing, no matter how miniscule, rather it be a positive thing(trying to cure the ridiculous amount of diseases, or getting a console heavy gamer into playing fallout 2. Or a negative one(like creating a sentient cloud that absorbs humans and turns them into clones of denis leary) Really it's the mark you leave behind, no pseudo afterlife or metaphysical nonsense will change that. You bring the end of the world, hell, that shows you've left your mark more than any statue. People will remember Stalin before they remember the man who saved a family from a burning building.

 

[aronsearle]

Ultimatly everything you do, are, and think are forgotten, deleted.

So no, nothing you do matters.

/emo

 

[xdarkyrex]

yes.

 

[alec]

This is exactly what a Massachusetts physician named Duncan MacDougall did, beginning in 1901, using a tricked-out industrial silk scale. His post at a tuberculosis sanatorium provided MacDougall with a steady source of study subjects. He weighed six men as they died, and there was, he said in a series of articles in American Medicine, always a down-tick of the needle. However, only one of his trials went off without a significant hitch. Twice the authorities barged into the room and tried to stop the proceedings. Oafish accomplices jostled the scale. Subjects died as the scale was being zeroed. And so MacDougall's claimed proof - that the soul exists, and that it weighs about 20 grams - is really no more than anecdote.

Ninety-some years later, a sheep rancher in Bend, Oregon, tried to replicate MacDougall's work. When a local hospital rebuffed his solicitation for terminal patients, Lewis Hollander Jr turned to his flock. Interestingly, he found that sheep momentarily gain a small amount of weight at the moment they die. Suggesting that the answer to the question "What happens when we die?" might in fact be: "Our souls go into sheep."

http://www.newscientist.com/channel...big-questions-what-happens-after-you-die.html

 

[maximaz]

It's whatever you call it. Life oculd be creation and a mirable or a freak accident of whatever.

Explanations like "it happens because this and that makes it happen" are no explanations at all though. The question. is WHY it happens. There may be evolution but why is it there? Why is there a force making sure living beings adapt to difficulties and survive. Why do the complex processes keep going keeping animals alive? Know what im saying?

 

[generalissimofurioso]

I say that we should answer the meaning of life by firing all of Earth's nuclear arsenal out from every possible direction into the vast reaches of space.

It wouldn't do much, but it'd be cool.