Cessation of Existence & Afterlives.

Now that I've read it, he might have made a passing mention.

Probably one of the coolest things I've read.

edited 29th Apr '12 4:46:09 AM by IraTheSquire

It's an old idea that's been around a lot longer than that story.

You know, I'll be really pissed if I end up dying peacibly and some asshole futurists bring me back to life 20 million years in the future with supertechnology thinking "Everyone that has ever lived shall now live forevaaaaa!" is a good philosophy :/

That would not be fun...in fact, I think my first instinct in that situation (once I realized what was going on) would probably be to kill myself.

I would like to think that I will be reincarnated and always be bound to those I love in some form. But if I am wrong, and there is only nothingness, I haven't lost anything.

The only afterlife I could lose in is the fundamentalist monothestic hell. Which in that case I hope to be strong enough to pull a Barkey.

I worry about a legacy but for a different reason. I have a kid. I don't want him to go about being a mini-me who loves his Momma beyond the boundries of reason.

I see it as I am personally enforcing my ideas of good and bad on another soul. If I do a good job, my son will grow to be an awesome man who either passively or directly injects more good in the world. But if I fail...

I am far more wary and vigiliant over what effect I could have neglecting this life than what waits me after I die.

I'd be positively thrilled if that were possible. It's a very intriguing concept, to say the least. To live in a time where such things would be possible would almost certainly be an enlightening experience. Of course, due to the inherent in-deterministic nature of the universe, it most likely will not be possible to reconstruct the minds of the long dead from available information.

Another prospect that I find interesting is the idea of so called "Quantum immortality", which arises from a thought experiment related to M-theory: If an infinite number of universes exist, and an infinite number of universes run entirely parallel to each other to a certain point, would "copies" of a person in such places be the same person? (If yes, then that would mean that nobody ever truly dies in their own timeline. Which could be either very bad or very good depending on how that happens.)

I'm a little scared to ask, but what is "Pulling a Barkey"?

Hopefully it's the contingency plan of if you die and find out that God is a tyrant, that cessation of existence or eternal torment is preferable to serving in chains.

edited 30th Apr '12 12:42:32 PM by Barkey

:) exactly. Such a god in my mind is unworthy of worship and my respect. I have no problems telling them so either.

You had to be reading this thread for a bit to catch that one.

edited 30th Apr '12 1:25:11 PM by Gabrael

Bear with me for a second, because this is not going to make much sense until the end.

So, one day a few months ago I went down to the basement to do laundry, and going downstairs I turned on the light. While down there I was thinking about this kind of thing and basically being afraid that since eventually I cease to exist nothing I do matters. And then I came upstairs and turned off the light, and it all made sense to me.

Why? Because I realized that even though the light wasn't there any more, it's silly to say it was pointless. It had a point when I was downstairs, and it will have always had a point.

(Also I saw this quote by Nietzche somewhere:

So, since then I've been fairly comfortable with the idea of dying. I'd still like to live as long as possible, of course, but I'm not terrified at the idea of not existing any more.

Works for me.

Exactly. As long as it meant something to you, nothing else matters.

And what if my own existence means the most to me? Maybe its just a side effect of me being young but I just can't understand how people could accept such a thing.

Hell, at a party for my nephew I noticed how much older my family had gotten since we had a big outing and it just bummed me.

I hate aging and time.

And I guess my desire for an afterlife would mean that these people I care about don't truly go away.

I'm 23.

Then I just fear it all ending since there is so much I want to do that I cant do in real life.

Wow, I had you down as older, but then I'm 22 and can see where you're coming from.

I'm 27~

28 this year.

I don't act my age. Shut up.

I neither look nor act my age. But then again, I have experienced a lot in my quarter of a century. This experience only causes me to keep raising the bar for myself and my goals as I continue on.

If you are under 80, you are still young enough to have not seen anything yet. If you are over 80, you've seen at least one wonder.

Live it up until the very last synapse fires. Otherwise that breath is worthless. At least that's what I keep telling myself...

I'm 20. I've been told that I act and think both as though I am older than I am and as though I am younger than I am. Often by the same people. I greatly fear death even though I believe in reincarnation. Because it's not "Me" that gets brought over. Merely my consciousness, bits of what was "Me" when I died, and my kamma.

edited 30th Apr '12 10:08:07 PM by Aondeug

That was always my objection to reincarnation. It's not really one's own rebirth, so much as it's the Life Recycling Act.

edited 30th Apr '12 10:09:40 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

It is one's own rebirth in the sense that there is no "You" beyond the stream of consciousness. Anatta is something that Buddhists are taught to come to terms with. To not think of you as this one person with a strict identity, but as a fluid being.

In a way you could view the many lives up to your Enlightenment as one long life. I wonder if that would be considered a proper view...I should ask the abbot next time I see him.

Also I'm highly amused that last post of mine was edited at 10:08.

edited 30th Apr '12 10:13:54 PM by Aondeug

My main contention with that is then, what's the difference between your "flow" and anyone else's flow? I mean, when you break it down like that, why not just go full on Collective Unconsciousness?

Also: for me, it woulda been 1:08

edited 30th Apr '12 10:18:17 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Because there is apparently some barrier between your consciousness and the consciousness of others. One bit of the soul seems to carry that and the kamma and is apparently passed down through all lives. I often wonder what that part is and if I can pin point it and see it for myself as the Buddha was apparently able to.

Existence seems to be a clusterfuck of multiple flowing cycles connected to and existing within other cycles. Yet separate from in the sense that they aren't all the same thing.

Nibbana is freedom from existence and its rules so that I suppose could be a total collective unconsciousness.

Though now I wonder if the idea of a collective unconsciousness is one that has been entertained at all by the Theravada as a possible answer to the rebirth conundrum.

Apart from all this I also believe in the existence of a panentheistic All God. So in a sense we are indeed all the exact same being. We're also the cup on my desk and the random cat shit in the sandbox outside. Because we're the All. Or more properly. The All is us. I keep the belief mostly because I've never been able to shake myself of it regardless of what reasoning I do. It's here to stay and doesn't seem to do much harm. Largely I ignore it though I do wonder at times if Nibbana is just becoming one with the All and if this can provide an explanation to the existence of things like kamma and rebirth.

Though this leads to the issue of...where did the All come from?

So then Tomu, you don't actually object to the afterlife part?

Mu.

In my mind, "life" exists within the construct of time. Divorced from perception, there is no time-ergo, there is no before and there is no after. "reality" is merely an aggregate of perceptions. Whether these perceptions can, collectively, be said to be one entity, many, or no entities or not is really just an issue of semantics to me.

edited 30th Apr '12 10:32:48 PM by TheyCallMeTomu