[SpectralJulianIsNotDead]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

I took this from another thread

I have always had this theory.

HUmans perception of the flow of time can be altered by many many things, frfrom personal body chemistry to drugs to meditation etc.

when one is happy and enjoying something time flies, and when one is suffering or bored time trickles.

well, I think that all of mystical teaching and religious teaching and wisdom is always guided to having the individual lead a good life so that they feel certain that they will go to a "heaven" f some sort, or achieve nirvana or enlightenment etc.
opposite of that is the instruction and indoctrination that if life is led badly, and without shame or forgiveness or redemption, then you will either go to a "hell" or just be forbiden from the grace of god or enlightenment or nirvana, whatever the individual teaching is does not matter.

Having said this, the statements "on earth as it is in heaven" makes sense. The afterlife is what you believe it will be, but not because it is real and actual, but because as you die, as your life is extinguished, time dilates in an exponentially increasing manner, so the last thought of a human as they pass is extended infninitely.

a person who believes in heaven and honestly feels they have led a good life can die without fear, without doubts weighing on their conscience. This "bliss" is experienced exponentially as everlasting grace, or oneness with god/universe, or entering heaven, or achieving nirvana.

If one believs, as the Hebrew fatih does, that after death comes an eternal dreamles slumber, then as one dies,one expects to do this and the death becomes an infnite falling into sleep, which for most people is quite pleasant, if not ecstatic.

If one believes that they have not achieved redemption, or if they know that they ave led a wicked life, with miore bad than good, and are weighed by guilt and such feelings, negative feelings, or anger, etc., then the last seconds of life are an exponetial infinity of that emotion, thereby feeling like eternal "hell" or eternal damnation or eternal separation from the grace of a god or gods.

this would probably apply to death by disease, or in old age, or by accident as in "life flashing before your eyes" as well, and if that life is joyous, with minimal harm aimed at anyone with maximum good directed at the world and at people then....


i don;t know how else to put it. I have thought about it a lot. i think i will write it all down.

If one believes in reincarnation do they get reincarnated into a world of their own mind? Maybe that is what we inhabit. Someone's dying seconds that they reincarnate infinitely into.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by SpectralJulianIsNotDead

If one believes in reincarnation do they get reincarnated into a world of their own mind? Maybe that is what we inhabit. Someone's dying seconds that they reincarnate infinitely into.

you've smoked a lot of pot tonight haven't you?

[Cantankerous]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

but, my friend, we are continually trapped in the past. our perception of life is trapped in memory, we live a split second behind reality for ever. we only know what we remember, we have no actual perception of the present, as we must process and feel it, interpret it which takes an amount of time and traps us to live perpetually in the past, in our memories. so if this is true, your conclusion, then it is not that human beings are experiencing life at death until the last moment, we dont experience anything to the last second, we are always a microsecond behind... so such an experience would in fact either have to not be possible, or would be in fact glimpsing at an afterlife, feeling the split second of death, a microsecond after the fact...

i actually agree completely. it makes perfect sense.

the afterlife bit though...i just don't know. just like i don't know if there is any kind of higher power or deity...i don't really think about it. it kind of freaks me out thinking about how much the human race will never know for sure during life. it's all a question of faith really.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

i actually agree completely. it makes perfect sense.

does it?

how????

[Cantankerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

does it?

how????

i don't think you can percieve "now" in a literal sense, but rather only what happened a moment before. you can only percieve time as having passed. i don't know. it makes sense and i know what i'm trying to communicate but i can't seem to get it out how i'd like to.

[m1rr0r dash]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

you've smoked a lot of pot tonight haven't you?

...or maybe not enough belladonna.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

i don't think you can percieve "now" in a literal sense, but rather only what happened a moment before. you can only percieve time as having passed. i don't know. it makes sense and i know what i'm trying to communicate but i can't seem to get it out how i'd like to.

oh the first part more or less makes sene but i dont agree.

i dont think reality requires interpretation-- quite the contrary-- it's the interpretation that takes you away from the direct experience of it.

and then again thought what does he mean by"reality"-- something outside our own perception of it? some hypothetical thing to which we have no access then? if that is the case, the issue of time passing is more or less irrelevant.

[Cantankerous]

time passing is inevitable regardless of how you may percieve or interperet it. reality is also an inevitability -- it is something that you literally cannot escape from and is something that one experiences constantly, no matter how far they've got their head up their ass or how far gone they may appear. whether you're "in the moment" or not, the moment is still there. that two hours you spent spaced out on the couch still passed at the same rate that it always had, whether you felt it or not.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

time passing is inevitable regardless of how you may percieve or interperet it. reality is also an inevitability -- it is something that you literally cannot escape from and is something that one experiences constantly, no matter how far they've got their head up their ass or how far gone they may appear. whether you're "in the moment" or not, the moment is still there. that two hours you spent spaced out on the couch still passed at the same rate that it always had, whether you felt it or not.

yeah but he was saying we're always a step behind the curve cos we gotta interpret first-- i disagree there, you see? i dont believe in this "trap of memory" balls.

the other thing-- if there is an "out there" that is "the real"-- that's another question, but he didn't touch on that. i added that just to entagle things.

[Cantankerous]

i do believe we're trapped in memory -- everything we do requires it. even to just type this i have to remember proper wording and spelling and all that bullshit to properly communicate my ideas.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

i do believe we're trapped in memory -- everything we do requires it. even to just type this i have to remember proper wording and spelling and all that bullshit to properly communicate my ideas.

yes but that's only 1 type of consciousness.

the pandemonium model of the brain however postulate competition between many types of input/proceses. we are perfectly capable of preverbal/mammal/reptilian consciousness.

put your hand on a flame if you don't believe me. before you even think the pain is there.

idealists like suchfriends put too much emphasis on the "i" which they equate with "spirit" and forget the body.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by m1rr0r dash

...or maybe not enough belladonna.

the lady of the rocks, the lady of situations?

[Cantankerous]

i am an idealist. i don't think in terms of reality. i think about doing things all the time that i could perfectly well bring into fruition, but i never do them.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

i am an idealist. i don't think in terms of reality. i think about doing things all the time that i could perfectly well bring into fruition, but i never do them.

i didnt mean idealist in this sense (striving after an ideal) but philosophically, as in idealism vs materialism, "spirit" vs. matter.

religions are all forms of idealism as they preach the importance of "spirit" (consciousness) over matter. hence the notion of disembodied conciousness in the afterlife.

materialism, grossly speaking, says that consciousness is an emergent property of matter-- we aren't "ghosts in the machine" but conscious bodies.

[Cantankerous]

now that youve made that post i don't know how real anything is or where anything fits in. where do you draw the line between spirit and matter? there are people who say theyve seen a ghost, which is classified as spirit but if you can see it, it takes up space, so is therefore matter?
if nothing can be created or destroyed, are new humans made up of dead ones? that would bring up the subject of reincarnation

jesus i need to sit down somewhere and consider this.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

now that youve made that post i don't know how real anything is or where anything fits in. where do you draw the line between spirit and matter? there are people who say theyve seen a ghost, which is classified as spirit but if you can see it, it takes up space, so is therefore matter?
if nothing can be created or destroyed, are new humans made up of dead ones? that would bring up the subject of reincarnation

jesus i need to sit down somewhere and consider this.

i don't draw such a line, i don't agree with the basic asumption that would require that line.

i think consciousness arises from the body. but the body of course i see as something more complex than your average josE. when i say for example that the earth is my body i don't mean it in a hippie sene, i mean it in the way that it is in fact my extended body, that i am not evolved separate from it and i come from it. in that sense my consciousness comes from a larger body-- and eons of evolution. i disagree wholly with christians notions of the "individual" souls, etc.

also when you say nothing is created nor destroyed, that applies to energy, not matter (think nuclear reactions, where matter is effectively destroyed into energy)-- however, there is a 3rd wheel in the cosmos which is information, order, intelligence-- the way matter & energy are arranged and i consider that a form of matter as well. gets a bit trickier... you can't apply 1st law of thermodynamics in such broad fashion. conservation of energy refers to energy that is all. fictions such as "spirits" are not subject to them except in the sense that these "ideas" consume energy in the brains that churn them.

[!@#$%!]

ps- and yes what "real" is-- is what i was questioning in part 2 of my response, the whole "time is irrelevant" thing because if we can't access reality via perception, can we speak of "reality" at all as if it's something we actually know? because when suchfriends says "we can't know" he implies a posible "knowing". me on the other hand, i plead total ignorance.

[pbradley]

Oh lordy, the mind/body dilemma. Yay. Symbols reppin the Aristotle (though I doubt if this works as a response), Tank sounding like she needs to read some Descartes...

[krastian]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Life is art in every sense. As Pollock was fond of saying, "Art and life are one...inseparable." It can be good art or bad depending on what you make of your life. And success rarely leads to good art just as the Bible reminds about the rich man's chances of getting into heaven are about the same as a camel passing through the eye of a needle. Humans are fairly obstinate and usually require suffering to live an artful life. Thus, many religions (over?)emphasize the importance of an ascetic lifestyle.

If life is art, then what is art? For as much as has been written over the ages by philosophers and critics concering aesthetics, no one has a comprehensive definition really. My definition of art is meditation or prayer; it's about the the arduous process of perfecting the will no matter what your vocation and evolving consciousness in yourself and those you relate. The lifelong relationship between a cognitive spirit and Eternal Truth finds its expression in artistic endeavour. Even science, even sports can be artistic. The object d'art itself is a manifestation of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious contents in the artist's mind and a symbol for Socratic self-discovery. In Picasso's words: "Art is a lie, but a lie that leads us to the truth."

__________________
"Music is my religion. There'll be music in the hereafter too." - Jimi Hendrix

Yes!! Great post!!

[krastian]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Life is art in every sense. As Pollock was fond of saying, "Art and life are one...inseparable." It can be good art or bad depending on what you make of your life. And success rarely leads to good art just as the Bible reminds about the rich man's chances of getting into heaven are about the same as a camel passing through the eye of a needle. Humans are fairly obstinate and usually require suffering to live an artful life. Thus, many religions (over?)emphasize the importance of an ascetic lifestyle.

If life is art, then what is art? For as much as has been written over the ages by philosophers and critics concering aesthetics, no one has a comprehensive definition really. My definition of art is meditation or prayer; it's about the the arduous process of perfecting the will no matter what your vocation and evolving consciousness in yourself and those you relate. The lifelong relationship between a cognitive spirit and Eternal Truth finds its expression in artistic endeavour. Even science, even sports can be artistic. The object d'art itself is a manifestation of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious contents in the artist's mind and a symbol for Socratic self-discovery. In Picasso's words: "Art is a lie, but a lie that leads us to the truth."

__________________
"Music is my religion. There'll be music in the hereafter too." - Jimi Hendrix

Yes!! Great post!!