/lit/ - Literature

>>12478053
50%

>>12478053
>do you know of any books that adressess this particular subject

Mishima's Sea of Fertility

>>12478073
Although The Temple of Dawn contains lengthy arguments in favour of the theory of reincarnation, Mishima's biographers note that he did not believe in it himself.

>>12478053
>chances of reincarnation after biological death

Zero. Why worry about something that is literally impossible?

>>12478158
How can you be so sure?

>>12478053
Muslim here and no I don't believe in reincarnation. We Muslims believe in the day of resurrection and an afterlife.

>>12478053
Hinduism and Buddhism will explain the nature of karma and samsara to you, and you can decided whether you believe in them. I'm sure there are modern books on reincarnation, but I'm not familiar with any. You can attempt a past-life regression too if you wish to see whether multiple existences may be a thing.

>>12478053
Look at what Hindu gives you and see what you make of it.

>>12478179
You're basically just dirtier jews.

Why would it matter if you don't keep your memories? You would have effectively ceased to exist.

>>12478053
There is an afterdeath.

>>12478053
According to Hinduism, you will keep reincarnating (as a human or some other creature) until you attain moksha, only then you will get out of this pitiful earthly life.

>>12478812
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha

>>12478812
How do they explain population growth?

>>12478822
aNiMal eXTinCTIoN

>>12478158
the most midwit thing i've seen all day

It depends on your view of consciousness? Are you a materialist?

It depends whether you believe in a soul, are you an eternalist?

I believe consciousness is not just an epiphenomena of a complex nervous system, but an aspect of reality, and "I" take part in it.

So all I can say is that I don't believe nothing happens after death.

After death 'you' will pass into what is colloquially known as the astral realm where you will slowly trash about in confusion until 'you' dissipate into nothingness. With enough practice, after death you can keep together the 'energies' that constitute the sense of self, but the vast majority of people will never amount to this.

>>12478053
>What I am scared of is the possibility of reincarnation and not actually staying dead for eternity after this life.
Why? Did you not live like you should have?

Death is literally the afterlife.

>Plato firmly believed in reincarnation and this was very important for the distinction he made between the nature of men and women. This was not the case for Aristotle, who saw the differences as biological. Plato discusses this matter with more detail in Timaeus, where he states that men have a superior soul than women (42a): "Humans have a twofold nature, the superior kind should be such as would from then on be called "man". He added, once again, that men who led bad lives shall be reborn as women (42b): "And if a person lived a good life throughout the due course of his time, he would at the end return to his dwelling place in his companion star, to live a life of happiness that agreed with his character. But if he failed in this, he would be born a second time, now as a woman."
this frightens me slightly

>>12478947
hot desu

>>12478053
Phaedo

when you die your energy is transferred to other, more powerful beings, your soul is contained in this energy

>>12478822
For a start, there's hundreds of trillions more living lifeforms on this planet than just the few billion smart apes we call "humans" (and I'm not talking about microbes and stuff either, I'm talking about ants, termites, bugs, worms, fish, etc.) It doesn't take a stretch to imagine that there's a 0.001% of them turning into a human when they die, which would still account for significant human population growth.

Secondly, we're not even certain we're alone in the universe. People born here could very easily come from other planets.

>>12478053
Do you distinctly remember anything useful or identifying from a past life?

If not, it doesn't seem to be a matter of practical concern.

>>12478053
Highly unlikely. It seems pretty obvious that ideas of cyclical, parallel and eternal existence are mostly championed by those whom -- unlike yourself -- are afraid of ceasing to exist. It's an understandable conceit, all things considered, but I think you have to be somewhat skeptical about explanations which rely heavily on the perpetually undefineable.

If you're really interested in such notions, perhaps look into simulation theory. I still don't think it's likely, but it's much more of a possibility than the mystical offerings (although some spiritual traditions do share similarities with sim theory here and there).

I don't think you have anything to worry about though.

>>12479953
>It seems pretty obvious that ideas of cyclical, parallel and eternal existence are mostly championed by those whom -- unlike yourself -- are afraid of ceasing to exist.

insipid armchair psychologizing, I was hurtled out of the void once, it can happen again

>>12480036
This. The movements of reasoning by these materialists is always an embarrassment to them. So you hold you to have once been "nothing", you acknowledge that you are yourself now here and alive, speaking about said nothingness from which you have came, but you claim it "unlikely" (on the basis of which statistics, exactly?) that this could not occur again? By an accident you came to be, and by certainty will you never come to be again? You could have had an infinity of past lives in an infinity of universes, and in every one you would make these same remarks.

>>12478053
"You" disappear forever the moment the electrochemical signals in your brain stop firing. This is an established fact at this point and there are still no satisfactory arguments for any kind of post-death existence (let alone any actual proof).

You have nothing to worry about

>>12480291
The logical conclusion of Newtonian thermodynamics is that the universe will recreate in a selfsame state to this one an infinite number of times (also cycling through infinite other possibilities) so fedoras are also wrong by their own standards of logic.

>>12480304
cultist. subjective death is impossible, if you cease to exist there is nothing to observe your incapacity to observe, ergo there is always an observer/Witness

immortality, in some capacity, is assured. you have everything to worry about.

>>12478053

He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

>>12480320
You got it. Consciousness is all there is, and is ultimately eternal. If the members of this thread were truly neutral, they'd actually look into realms like ghosts, past-life memories, children speaking of previous-existences, near-death-experiences, out-of-body experiences - I mean, you literally have SO MUCH you could actually be independently investigating - but alas, you already "know" yourself to be right, because you side with the Catholic Church of your era (wow, how wise of you! not a little sheeple, at all), and thereby think you don't even have to investigate anything further. Instead, enlighten more of us in this thread with your brilliant reasoning of how it is certain you once came from nothingness, but impossible you could do so again.

There is plenty of evidence for non-mortal existence, it merely cannot be found among the narratives parroted by the modern materialist Church, who of course needs to save face and ensure the masses are enslaved to THEIR conceptions of reality, lest they'll lose the immense control they have on our societies. And we certaintly can't have that now, can we?

>>12480374
>There is plenty of evidence for non-mortal existence

Give me one example

>>12480415
https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/resources/advice-to-parents-of-children-who-are-spontaneously-recalling-past-life-memories/

>>12480415
Your existence right now. This life is the afterlife of "your" previous one.

>>12478110
>Mishima's biographers note that he did not believe in it himself.
I would like to see how and why they drew that conclusion.

>>12478822
Why does every atom of consciousness have to be incarnate at the same time?

>>12479953
>are afraid of ceasing to exist
>>12478053
>I am scared of is the possibility of reincarnation and not actually staying dead for eternity after this life.

>>12479953
Are you fucking retarded or just illiterate?

>>12480304
>"You" disappear forever the moment the electrochemical signals in your brain stop firing. This is an established fact at this point

https://www.near-death.com/science/evidence/people-have-ndes-while-brain-dead.html
>This operation, nicknamed "standstill" by the doctors who perform it, required that Pam's body temperature be lowered to 60 degrees, her heartbeat and breathing stopped, her brain waves flattened, and the blood drained from her head. In everyday terms, she was put to death.

Would a spolipsist ever feel the need to tell people he is a solipsist?

>>12481247
to amuse himself

http://www.astralinfo.org/

Lets study projection of consciousness.

>>12481192
>In everyday terms

Okay, but by any actually meaningful scientific standards she wasn't dead.

>>12478798
This

>>12478053
youll find out soon enough.

>>12478913
delusional fag

>>12480310
No it isn't. Current data indicates the universe will become a cold and barren grave as it continues to expand indefinitely. Even black holes will evaporate eventually.

>>12480291
Perhaps it would be possible that given infinite eruptions of universes but non-infinite variables, all the same variables would eventually line up again... But since we can't glean anything outside our universe, there is no indication that this is the case. Even if it were, you would have no recollection of prior existence so it's cold comfort. Such a hypothesis isn't any indication of spiritual happenings either.

>>12481183
Trolling or wonderfully ironic. Thanks for the chuckle.

>>12478179
Were you the same guy from the thread about the OP wanting to fuck himself?

>>12480427
People delude themselves into all sorts of false realities. What makes this special?

>>12482655
>>12482655
Because it's a phenomena found universally around the world, regardless of culture, and features the same details as well, such as the statements made and the age-range when the children speak of it. "Delude themselves"? I don't think you understand - the children are the ones making the statements, and the parents are merely responding to it. Secondly, if you were a truly rational person, you would recognize that you have no basis to dismiss a realm which you have no knowledge of, and that you shouldn't be calling it a "false reality" or even consider it "improbable", since you have no such statistics. But your position is already taken, I assume. Typical.

>>12478053
You'll only be reincarnated if you live a life deluded by Maya. Contemplation is the way

I think that Being is consciousness, and that when we die, we next become aware in a consciousness. The goal of philosophy, and of religion, to me, is to somehow resolve ipseity with the Other that exists because of ipseity, and therefore halt living and death.

Here you go, OP. Also, for the Christians here, this makes the case for reincarnation fitting alongside Christianity.

>>12482775
Sounds exactly right

>>12482708
>Children don't make shit up
I have the same amount of evidence that we are judged when we die and go to heaven/hell. What makes you so sure about reincarnation when judgement after death is just as ubiquitous in all across of cultures?

>>12478168
Maybe I when die I wake up as your left ass-cheek, fully conscious. Improbable, yes but how can you be so sure?

>>12482859
I'm not "sure", I merely see no reason why it couldn't be true. Firstly, all things have an explanation. If children are universally claiming such things, unprompted, it is a phenomena like anything else, and must be examined like anything else pertaining to them. The question we ask is why such a phenomena occurs at all? The universality rules out the possibility for it to be cultural conceptions told to them by their parents - since it occurs in both the East and West, despite the latter's lack of belief in reincarnation. Secondly, it is a very simple question we are ultimately asking here: have I lived before? It is certain and undeniable that you are living at present - inhabiting a body, with all internal organs, external features, a functioning mind, a world of desires and tastes and loves and passions and whatever else - and it is either true or false that you have inhabited one at least once before (or more, but at least once is all we need for our argument). The fact that one is here now, speaking on the subject, means that it is "possible" to be alive, obviously. We ask now, whether there is reason to think it is possible to occur more than once. Whether there is a law which ordains it as such. And to investigate this avenue, we use the information before us. The children-phenomena mentioned is one such thing, the reports of past-life regressions which anyone can experience is another, the phenomena of ghosts another, the phenomena of OOBE's another, that of NDE's another. These together give us basis to consider it certainly possible. To anyone who desires further certainty, you'd have to likely pursue spirituality yourself and see if you can realize anything directly within yourself. Again, I won't use the term "certain", but just say that we can speak about these realms with the same, general confidence which science speaks about on more "worldly" phenomena.

>>12480291
I (other anon) find it unlikely under the physical laws that have been observed, and yes, maybe we are a fever dream from a god and all observations are meaningless. But in that case I can't prove anything else beyond I currently exist, so your mystery babble is equally unprovable.

>>12481138
Thanks, I'm absolutely enlightened.

>>12481247
If he or she wants to, It wouldn't change a thing.
.

>>12482941
>You can't disprove it
Worst argument in history.
Children universally have imaginary friends. Is that evidence that there are spirits floating around which only communicate with children? Or is it more reasonable to use Okham's razor and conclude that they have very active imaginations? Could NDEs be the result of DMT or some neurotransmitter released at death? I'm not saying reincarnation is impossible but there is about as much evidence for it as any other religious/spiritual phenomenon.

I can't believe /lit/fags even have the audacity to mock) /sci/fags. There's no Afterlife.

>>12483126
Thank you, penetrating insight, really gets those pistachios percolating.

>>12482963
epic

>>12482957
>there is no reason to assume the existence of anything beyond an observer, so your philosophy that places metaphysical primacy on the observer is nonsense

do you people even know what you're typing?

>>12482957
>>12483054
Firstly, as said, all things have explanations. The fact that children universally speak of imaginary friends must again have a basis for it, demanding elucidation. It is a very "specific" claim being made, which, alongside the "previous existences" one, must have an explanation for it. You have not addressed "why" such a specific type of account should leave their mouths, thinking that claiming it "imagined" means you've addressed the cause for it. It doesn't. Tell me why these phenomena, specifically, are what we observe from them, and it remaining constant over time and space.

That's not how Occam's Razor works, but you new athiests have already run it into the ground so there's no point trying to revive it from here. For you guys, OR means "whatever I consider most likely is what is most likely. Yet, as I said, you have no statistics to use such heuristics. By your own, rather-contradictory reasoning, you shouldn't even be existing right now. And yet, you are. By your own throws of logic, you should at the least be some disgusting, unintelligent, formless-sludge which a chaotic, unintelligent set of arbitrary physical laws have accidentally formed - and yet, you are a complete being, with a body, a mind, emotions, a voice, and so much else, all functioning in a beautiful harmony, reading these words on a screen another one of your kind invented, through a medium (language) whose nature you can't even yourself fathom.

There's really no point discussing with you guys - your conclusions are already made. Only when your precious scientific community tells you something do you believe it, and only once parapsychology becomes more accepted will you accept the realms they are presently making progress on. Both you and the religious alike are slaves to your respective institutions, unwilling to investigate these realms through your own reasoning. You could think independently, research more, and potentially come to new worldviews - but that would be too much effort, let's remain in our comfort zone and then claim ourselves finished with the subject.

I responded to both of you in one post to save time.

>>12482957
>mystery babble
literally nothing he said was anything like that you shameless ignoramus, stop embarassing yourself please. if your opinions on the subject are already set, then abandon this thread and go find something else to do. you are already right, what else have you to learn then?

>>12483054
>Is that evidence that there are spirits floating around which only communicate with children? Or is it more reasonable to use Okham's razor and conclude that they have very active imaginations?
What's the difference?

>>12483190
It's a neutral uncertainty... It doesn't establish the primacy of the observer nor the existence of anything transcendental. It's literally just 'you can't escape your own perspective so there's always some inscrutable element of uncertainty'. Nothing more.

So, is it not more logical to default to epistemology which demonstrates apparent predictive power, resulting in the only degrees of certainty we can have?

>>12483351
It's precisely the fact that the results and predictive accuracy of your epistemology have to always be disclosed to observer that makes it "transcendental", I don't think you're able to appreciate what that anon is saying, there is no information without observers that make it so

>>12483371
He seems to think "reality" is something "beyond him", rather than "in him".

>>12478053
Why are you scared, anon? This shows you are spiritually in sickness right now. Has your soul not yet found its purpose in life? This is not a good sentiment at all. Why do you desire to be nothingness, forever? These questions you must address to yourself, it's not healthy at all to be speaking like such. Find happiness during this life, anon. The purpose your soul is here for.

>>12478344

>>12483198
Why shouldn't we be existing right now? I haven't seen any of the materialist types equating statistical improbability with impossibility. It could be true that life (let alone sentient life) is extremely rare, but here we are. Don't strawman us.

Do you have any statistical meta-analysis or or particular studies with large amounts of subjects in mind? I'd happily examine them if you've found convincing stats with respect to paranormal phenomenon. If all 'evidence' is limited to self-reporting of an unfalsifiable nature, I think we have to remain highly skeptical.

I see a lot of self-righteous posturing here, and not much in the way of the dispassionate logic or empirical support you imply is in your corner.

>>12478053
The Pali Canon.

>>12483198
You're the one with his mind made up about an falsifiable conclusion. I said its possible, but there is no more evidence for it than alien abduction. People all over the world (including children who are apparently infallible to you) claim to have been abducted by aliens and have very similar stories. Just because a lot of people claim they had an experience doesn't mean its real.

>>12483371
I do understand, and it's a mistaken assumption. Yes, there's no information without observers -- but that's a trivial point; it no more establishes the nature of the observer or reality than the aforementioned inescapability of perspective. Think about it... It's neutral.

There's no music without a musician, but that trivial observation does nothing to establish the nature of music, the musician or the how of any of it. It only speaks to a very basic relation between the two. It does not tell us that music is only contingent upon a musician, and it does not tell us if music and the muscian are examples of fundamentally different types of existence.

>>12483512
accept we haven't plumbed the true depths of consciousness yet and allow yourself a little mystery in that monochrome world of yours you twat

it's unbelievable the arrogance that emanates from you types, the way you talk out of both sides of your mouth, life and subjectivity are nothing in this universe but are apparently capable enough of making absolutist claims about it. just fucking stop. oh, so people parroting things isn't proof of anything? fine, but that applies to the parrots wearing lab coats too.


>>12483553
it establishes reality as observer-based, observer-dependent, and that's enough to make claims about the primacy of that observer and certainly enough to deflate your reification of "matter" or whatever it is you think it's all "really" about

>>12483564
No, it really doesn't. It only establishes -experience- as observer based and dependent.

I think that arrogance you're detecting is a projection. You don't know us, and we haven't been hostile. Look over the thread... It's the transcendtalists who have been pointedly hostile, emotional and condescending.

>>12483613
The difference that makes no difference, since the point is that there is no reality without experience, there is no reality that is not experienced

>>12483385
It could be either, or a seamless integration. The point is that the inescapability of perspective is not an indication of which possiblity is true.

>>12483617
No, that is not the point, that is the assumption. How do you go from 'there is no experience without an observer' to 'there is no reality without an observer'? Show me.

>>12483440
I'm not trying to strawman nor be self-righteous, rather, I'm merely trying to remind us all here of the proper motions of reasoning to which we are to apply to a realm like this one, the same as those we do to any of the others. I also disagree with certain existing conceptions within the scientific method's framework, like that of "unfalsifiability", given that we are now dealing with phenomena of a different nature than the merely physical, or causal, ones previously explored.

I have, not at this moment, any such studies to present to you. Sadly the modern scientific establishment hasn't yet put much of its resources towards these areas (given that they contradicted the worldviews they were presenting), but parapsychology is earning momentum now, especially since panpsychism is beginning to gain hold, and so the worldviews will no longer be in conflict. Google some such parapsychological studies into reincarnation if you desire to, and see if there's any studies of valid experimental procedures. I have read into a few before, but it was some time ago and my memory has not retained the details, else I'd forward them to you.

We could also get into proper epistomology, and if we did, it'd become clear that we're speaking less-sensibly than we realize. When we use probabilities, for example, we can, logically, only say that your existence is of absolute certainty, not ever being capable of claimed as "rare", since one's existence must by nature be a preceding necessity to even speak of improbabilities at all. To make claims on something's improbability, there must be a ground of certainty from which the claim is made from, which cannot be superceded by the statement of the improbability. I could go on further, elaborating on the (in my view) proper nature of other epistomological principles, but it would be a much longer discussion which I can't really afford at this moment of time. It would similarly reveal incoherencies in the manner by which we speak of ourselves. The above is an example of the dispassionate logic which you said you hadn't seen from me.

I am not trying to be self-righteous, again, but it's quite undeniable that many new-athiest types, like some here, have incredibly close-minded conceptions of reality, which I feel somewhat obligated to confront and help erode, so that they feel less-certainty in their convictions. If I found them to show a greater lack of conviction, I would show less bold a tone myself.

>>12483512
I'm definitely not certain, don't worry. But what basis do you have to believe that alien abductions are not real, or even unlikely to be? You again seem to be implying it isn't, of which I am asking why you have taken such a side.

>>12483656
What reality does a reality that exists for no one and nothing have?

>>12483664
I didn't say that I'm rare, I was saying that sentient life (as proportion of all existence) could indeed be vanishingly rare.

That's really my point... If we can only be absolutely certain of existence and some very fundamental logic, then 'perfect/complete knowledge' is an unreasonable standard. In light of that, it seems more logical to cleave to standards which at least display apparent predictive power rather than to mostly whimisical speculations based upon an inscrutable uncertainty.

Yes it's true, many new-atheist types are absolutely insufferable. But looking over this thread, it is predominantly the transcendentalists showcasing poor attitudes an unreasonable conviction.

>>12483685
What coherence does that question have? It is entirely possible that things exist independent of observers, and this is referred to as 'objective reality'. The fact that observers can't escape their own perspective tells us nothing about the likelihood (or not) of objective reality.

>>12483753
But what are you therefore even referring to by "objective reality"?

>>12483753
and it's just as likely there are mind-independent zebra gods made of cotton candy, it's meaningless to talk about

>>12483766
At the risk of repeating myself, anything that exists independent of an observer.

>>12483773
Yet the only reality which could affect us, the observer, is that which is of our observation, right? As >>12483770 said, we literally couldn't speak of anything else, and it's therefore entirely pointless to even take up such a discussion. It's a null set, to use mathematical language.

>>12483770
Well, I have defined what I mean by objective reality... And since no other possibilities besides an objective or subjective reality are apparent, it would be far more probable and relevant to talk about than the facetious zebra gods you can't even define.

>>12483753
technically we can't even claim there is a perspective "to escape" at all, but can only speak of it as "reality" itself

>>12483800
There is absolutely no basis to distinguish between your "objective reality" and zebra gods, since we might as well be trying to make statements about the experience of oblivion, it's ridiculous and completely incoherent

>>12483801
based and zenpilled. perspective is all there is

>>12483789
No, not right. Most would think that reality is affecting a foetus before it ever begins to observe.
Yet again, the fact that we are trapped in our perspective does not indicate the direction of actual contingency between observer and reality, only between observer and experience.

You're building in your assumption, and your logic does not follow.

>>12483405
This, dude. What's got you so down?

I think any excursion into the realms of the 'afterlife' inherently exist in a worldly aspect, and are thus subject to world-binding failures of understanding. Even scientific thinking attempts to anthropomorphize deaths and changes which exist outside of the ideas of the subject and the human. The concept 'death' exists within a parade of names and images that may or may not be representative of the actuality of death. Death is purely of speculative interest and the actual, real, 'felt' death is something by it's nature beyond subjective understanding. Death and the afterlife only scare one because perhaps it's by their very nature to scare. This should be sobering in the same way knowing a haunted house is constructed to affect fear is sobering ie it's not 'real' fear at all, but rather a funhouse whose primary expression of fun and play is through artificial shock.

>>12483801
Your logic for this? Unless you can lay claim to omniscience, perspective seems like an unavoidable inference.

You're just babbling at this point. If you can't define what you mean by 'zebra gods' and how they relate to the hypothesis of subject-dependent reality, then you've gone off the reservation.

>>12483810
>>12483858

Even if you were reborn you would just die again eventually. There is nothing eternal.

>>12483858
Not him but I return the argument to you; if you can't define what you mean by said "objective reality" beyond the subject (yet somehow knowable by them, allowing you to presently speak of it), then you too are simply babbling. Also, subject-dependent reality is not a "hypothesis", it's the only coherent epistomological claim one can make.

>>12484112
>Also, subject-dependent reality is not a "hypothesis", it's the only coherent epistomological claim one can make.
wtf George Berkeley was right all along

>>12484112
I did define it. There's nothing illogical about the proposition of a reality which precedes observers (therefore is independent of them) but of which observers are a part thereby allowing them to interact with the rest of it. What makes subject-dependent reality a more likely scenario, and how does the perspective trap indicate the probability of either?

Subject-dependent -experience- is what you are actually talking about, and again unless you lads can claim to be all-knowing you cannot claim experience and reality to be identical.

Learn 2 logic boyos

>>12478913
Chakra meditation makes you "feel" that something like this will happen in the afterlife (and all religions kinda point to it too). but yeah, its weird and theres no proof.

>>12481247
that's like asking if a person who's dreaming has any need to interact with his dream

>>12478053
There is no reason to assume there is such a thing.

>>12479054
>ants, termites, bugs, worms, fish, etc.
>turning into a human when they die
Meaning NPCs are literal bugmen, then.

>>12483054
>Could NDEs be the result of DMT or some neurotransmitter released at death?
>result
Causality has four aspects, and the material cause is but one. It is not just a single chemical that "results in" anything, but the entire system that gives the chemical some sort of meaning or function, and the neurons that respect this function in processing the chemical. You have no clue how that function manifests itself across the network to give rise to what is felt as a spiritual experience, and to explain how that experience works from the bottom up you would need to add in a lot more claims than just "DMT results in X". It would in fact be more parsimonious to claim simply that those functions and meanings are part of a material manifestation of spiritual forms.

>>12484621
Or simulation theory, in which case NPCs could be actual NPCs.

>>12484313
Name me one (1) thing which you know of, that you do not know of. Give me a single attribute of this "independent reality", which is independent from us. Remember, it is independent from you, and therefore you can't know of it, and therefore when you presently speak of it you are not speaking of anything at all, merely trading a label, empty of content.

>>12483405
Anon here. I’m stuck and hurting badly. I have no strength to continue and I just want to rest assure I won’t be ripped out from the void again because living is just a nightmare, hence my question.

>>12485501
Your soul is on a journey, and you are presently a lost traveller on it. You must find out why you're in the state you're in, and bring yourself out from it. Take up meditation, yoga, and other practises. Find peace. The pain is an error, your natural state is in bliss. You have till forever to achieve it. I don't know whether you reincarnate immediately after physical death, but hopefully not and hopefully your souls unique needs are taken into consideration. Either way, this is a dilemma of yours which you must solve. You can do it, my friend. I have been there, a year or so ago; I began to detach myself from my sufferings, and steadily learnt how to enter far more pleasant states of internal equinamity. You can do this too, if you make the effort to.

>>12478053
what was your life like before you were born?
you've been dead for hundreds of millions of years already.

>>12485557
how can one "be" dead, if being requires one to be? you're implicating existence, again. also invoking time, which is within existing, again.

>>12478053
OP. Even if you are reincarnated it would not matter at all. Notice how no one has memories from a past life? You'll be a different person if reincarnated. The you as of now will pretty much be dead.

>>12483564

Why life after death is so important to you?

>>12483564
> oh, so people parroting things isn't proof of anything? fine, but that applies to the parrots wearing lab coats too.

You being delusional does not make other people delusional.

>>12485395
Independent as in non-contingent upon observers. You're being intentionally obtuse now to deflect from your logical shortcomings.

>>12486018
The problem that anon is trying to point out is that anything "Independent as in non-contingent upon observers" is merely assumed (opposed to definitively known), as we only have our own contingent-upon-observer experiences to reference. Because this is a (literal) blind assumption, why assume a Mind-independent, material world even exists?

>>12478053
0%.
I could tell you what will happen when you die right now, without memes, without the "it feels the same way it felt before you lived," but you guys never listen to me so fuck you.

>>12487496
Enlighten us

What is your merit if you do the will of the Father and it is not given to you from him as a gift while you are tempted by Satan? But if you are oppressed by Satan, and persecuted, and you do his (i.e., the Father's) will, I say that he will love you, and make you equal with me, and reckon you to have become beloved through his providence by your own choice. So will you not cease loving the flesh and being afraid of sufferings? Or do you not know that you have yet to be abused and to be accused unjustly; and have yet to be shut up in prison, and condemned unlawfully, and crucified <without> reason, and buried as I myself, by the evil one? Do you dare to spare the flesh, you for whom the Spirit is an encircling wall? If you consider how long the world existed <before> you, and how long it will exist after you, you will find that your life is one single day, and your sufferings one single hour. For the good will not enter into the world. Scorn death, therefore, and take thought for life! Remember my cross and my death, and you will live!

>>12486269
Because it's literally how we live. You don't assume that a car barreling towards you is just contingent upon your mind and you can will it out of existence, you get the fuck out of the way.

So given that a mind-contingent reality is also assumption (AND IS IN NO WAY INDICATED BY THE PERSPECTIVE TRAP), what makes more sense to assume honestly?

>>12478053
Is that guy in the drawing a nigger?

>>12488689
>You don't assume that a car barreling towards you is just contingent upon your mind and you can will it out of existence
The second part of this does not follow from the first. Some ideas can be willed, some are involuntary. This does not mean that each of these are any less objects within your subjective experiences. These Mind-contingent phenomena are not assumed, they are self-evident (dissimilar to the assumed material world outside our experiences). Interaction with material objects is in-every-way indirect, so assuming it is there behind your experiences is definitely an assumption.

>>12478158
>>12482871
>If I don't have proof, and you don't have proof, then it supports my belief more!

Jesus christ.

>>12478053
I believe that existence is an endless cycle of both life and death in which both cannot exist without the other. In my opinion, I hypothesize that consciousness persists after a biological death and connects all things sentient and non-sentient into a massive collection of thought in which we would describe as a God. In essence, we all may be just a minuscule but equally important fraction of the same source which perpetuates the cycle of life and death for the sole reason of countering the idea of nonexistence. An eternal balance composed of finite imbalances. So on and so forth.

This is just what I've been piecing together for the past year in between my own navel gazing and eastern philosophy readings. I'm really fond of Taoism since it's so remarkably similar to the breadth of which I believe is true for the nature of our existence in general. I used to think that death would be remarkably similar to the feeling that a person had before they were actually born. We've all experienced it once, and can't remember. But if it's happened once, who's to say it can't happen again?

>>12489273
This is the gayest most retarded modernist take I've ever read. Grow up, kid.

>>12489359
It's just my opinion. What's yours?

>>12489359
he's more or less right

>modernist

learn how to use your words

>>12488949
No, mind-contingent phenomena are not self-evident, only mind-contigent EXPERIENCE is. This is not that hard to grasp. Do you claim to be omnisicient? If not, then there is a difference between experience and reality which precludes the certainty of reality being mind-contingent. You guys keep ducking this.

>>12489463
>No, mind-contingent phenomena are not self-evident, only mind-contigent EXPERIENCE is.
What's the difference in your eyes? Conscious experience and mind-contingent phenomena seem to refer to the same thing.

>Do you claim to be omnisicient? If not, then there is a difference between experience and reality which precludes the certainty of reality being mind-contingent. You guys keep ducking this.
I don't think you understand what I am saying. I will explain the difference you and I are both apparently aware of. I obviously agree that there is a difference between our conscious, subjective experience and any sort of Mind-independent reality. The difference is in how we come to know them. Subjective experience, which is the defining quality of conscious living (you agree we are alive and conscious, right? It's not stretch to say this is self-evident), is something we know *directly*. When we interact with the world, we interact with a world all in accordance with how our Minds' structure conscious experience.

A "real", material, Mind-independent world is something we come to know *indirectly*. Since we only interact with the world *as it appears to us*, we are unable to see things *as they are in themselves*. The only reason we (you) assume that such a realm of things-in-themselves exists, is because we (again) assume that because we have these subjective experiences, there must be a real, objective world behind them which causes our subjectivity through some sort of cause and effect relation. The whole assumption that what we feel with our senses is sense-data (knowledge/information from a real world behind the experience) is an example of how our older, obsolete models influence how we think now. This particular concept, along with others, should be ditched since they are built on a foundation of uncertainty, and because it is a carryover from a time in which we thought our experiences conveyed real knowledge of reality (which you seem to oppose).

>>12489565
The difference is that if we are not all-knowing then we are not apprehending the entirety of reality (which means experience is not equivalent to reality), therefore we cannot be certain about the direction of provenance. It is very simple.

Yes, we are alive/conscious. Yes, experience is subjective. Those are self evident truths which have not been disputed in this thread. No, it does not then follow that interaction with reality is then certainly indirect. By 'indirect', you are not just discussing self-evidence, you are injecting an assumption of the mind being discrete from reality in some actual and certain way. However, it could easily be the case that the mind structures experience by means of physical processes which are of the same fundamental physical nature as that which it observes.

So what do you propose generates apperances? Is it just as illusory as apperances? If not, is not a thing-in-itself? You seem to have a problem of infinite regression if you make the colossal assumption that there are no things-in-themselves.

Don't be silly. It's the notion of subjective-reality (fallaciously extrapolatd from subjective experience) that is founded upon an inscrutable uncertainty. This foundation is plain as day in your arguments. Yes, objective reality is an assumption, but since we are not omniscient it is more likely. Furthermore, it is the sensible assumption from a standpoint of practicality and caution. I've no doubt that those arguing against me here demonstrate this sensible bias in the majority of decisions they make from day to day.

>>12489874
>The difference is that if we are not all-knowing then we are not apprehending the entirety of reality
Right, I totally agree. In fact, I have taken the next step by saying we are not apprehending ANY aspect of reality whatsoever within our subjective experiences. If you think this is going too far, show me something which we can directly know to be real outside of our own subjective experience. I'd say you will have a hard time pointing to any particular thing.

>you are injecting an assumption of the mind being discrete from reality in some actual and certain way
Yes this is the subject/ object distinction.

>However, it could easily be the case that the mind structures experience by means of physical processes which are of the same fundamental physical nature as that which it observes.
The problem with this is that to even get to the point where you qualify something as "physical", you have already crossed over from the realm of self-evidently real subjective experience (things as they appear to you) into a realm where you are trying to label things outside of this subjective experience (in the world of things-in-themselves). How can you possibly put a label on something you have never, and can never come to know directly?

>So what do you propose generates appearances? Is it just as illusory as appearances? If not, is not a thing-in-itself? You seem to have a problem of infinite regression if you make the colossal assumption that there are no things-in-themselves.
I honestly don't know. Perhaps we are framing it in a way in which we are expecting something necessarily generated it, and maybe that is not necessarily the case. The point is that we cannot infer that there *must* be something behind our experiences, since there is nothing we know directly which necessarily leads us to that conclusion (unless you find the transcendental arguments convincing). Our models of reality should not expect an unseen, Mind-independent entity to necessarily be present to tie it all together.

>Yes, objective reality is an assumption, but since we are not omniscient it is more likely.
It's strange to me that we can both agree that it is an assumption and we are not omniscient, but we conclude opposite positions.

>Furthermore, it is the sensible assumption from a standpoint of practicality and caution.
Yes this is the pragmatic approach, apposed to the approach in which we try to find the *truth* of reality and convey *true* ideas instead of what is merely useful. I'd say this discussion centers around what is actually *true* about our circumstance. I think it is very likely that what is true will be very counter-intuitive, and thus not very applicable in the day to day scenarios we evolved to live in. To be redundant, just because something is useful does not mean it conveys any truth of reality.

>>12478053
Instead of skipping ahead to a re-incarnation, I think we should take a look at our current incarnations. People are curious about something from our current incarnation passing on to a subsequent incarnation, but rarely seem to think about the previous incarnation(s) that got us to our current ones.

So where do the influences of my current incarnation arise? As it turns out, they aren't from a single source, my current incarnation is dependent on a myriad of influences. My ideas are mostly from other people, in the sense that I have been given thoughts from people stretching back thousands of years. My father has played a big part in laying the groundwork for my though processes and mind, but so has my mother, even someone as old as Plato has reached across time to influence my development in this incarnation. I may develop these idea independently, then re-transmit them, influencing the incarnation of another.

My origination is dependent on nearly everyone else, human and nonhuman, on Earth. Some of it is in my genes, but those were only passed down to me because they benefitted some previous incarnation - not of me, but of someone.

I continue to change as well, so the fixedness of my self is questionable as well - I consider my self to be completely different than the one I had as a child. Sure, we share memories and maybe qualia, but apart from that we are nothing alike. If young Anon had taken a different route, would he still be me, or would that be a branching of this soul?

>>12490058
-Then what are we observing? Are there two separate realities that cross-talk without sharing actual aspects of themselves, and are not themselves contained in a larger meta-reality? How can an appearance not betray some aspect -- however slight -- of its provenance? How can there be apparent distinction without real distinction?

-The subject/object distinction is only certain to the extent that you know yourself to be a subject. It does not necessarily describe a concrete dichotomy which exists. It is entirely likely that all subjects are also objects. You keep treating this dichotomy as if it is certain, and you're wrong to do so.

-Fine, call them spiritual processes then. The same logic applies. You cannot be certain that the mind is fundamentally different in type or discrete from that which it observes. I can put labels on things because I am not bound by an unreasonable standard of perfect certainty. I am aware of technical limitations of perception and so proceed with methods and apparent knowledge which demonstrates predictive power. We all do. Again, you cannot know that we aren't directly apprehending some aspects of reality, you're adding extra assumptions where they are not necessary or otherwise justified.

-I strongly disagree here. If our own existence is self-evident, then the existence of everything we experience -in some form- is also self-evident, even the 'true' form is hidden from us. To suggest that appearances can exist (which they must if we experience them) without an underlying reality would seem to violate the logic of non-contradiction. What would 'existence' and 'appearance' even mine in this case? The facts that we are not all-knowing, do not anticipate everything and indeed are not even conscious of how our thoughts arise -strongly- suggest a reality which is not contingent upon our minds.

-Well reason it out then. Contrast the notion of subjective reality (NOT subjective experience) with objective reality and show logically why it is not an assumption, and why limited perception makes it more likely than objective.

>>12490389
>How can an appearance not betray some aspect -- however slight -- of its provenance?
Because the type of origin you are looking for does not necessarily exist, so you have to be able to reconcile the fact that there may be literally nothing behind your experiences. You don't have to believe it if it doesn't sound exactly persuasive, but it is not impossible so that leads me to believe that it is also possible, which you and anyone should agree with.

>It is entirely likely that all subjects are also objects
I'm completely open to this being possibly true. The problem I have is how we come to obtain this knowledge. If we as subjects are made up of objective entities, how can we look through our own subjectivity in order to come to know such entities? We can't, because as soon as we look, all we see is an appearance (as opposed to the thing-in-itself entity).

>I am not bound by an unreasonable standard of perfect certainty. I am aware of technical limitations of perception and so proceed with methods and apparent knowledge which demonstrates predictive power
Again this is a scenario in which you are valuing practical use over that which is true. Any something with (no matter how grand) predictive power does not necessarily convey any truth about reality. Instrumentalists who agree with what you say about the importance of predictive power will also agree with me in regards to the lack of truth it does or does not convey (as in the instrumentalist model such truth is irrelevant, though many scientists shudder in their boots at the thought).

>If our own existence is self-evident, then the existence of everything we experience -in some form- is also self-evident
I'm open to this. It is possible that what we see is some sort of projection of real objects outward just for us to see them. This would mean that the objects we interact with are real, but they are still mind-dependent. Still though, confirming these objects as real outside our experiencing of them seems like a task too difficult for anyone to complete without uncertainty.

>To suggest that appearances can exist (which they must if we experience them) without an underlying reality would seem to violate the logic of non-contradiction.
I agree that appearances must exist if we are able to experience them (I'm not a nihilist yet, though you make me feel like one). I don't think that this necessarily implies that they need some mysterious, unseen entity outside of our Minds to prop them up until we walk by and see them.

The real problem here is epistemological. We can say all we want that the appearance of anything necessitates that something real exists which projects such an appearance, but what truth does such a necessity convey if we have no access to it's being? Can unknowable objects (objects in every possible circumstance a subject cannot gain knowledge of) even have an objective existence?

>>12478158
discounting mysticism if time and space is infinite and the universe contains even slight randomness then the possibility of eventual reincarnation is significant. Even if that isn't so the possibility of being reincarnated by a future intelligence is certainly nonzero.

>>12478344
daily reminder Muslims invented baths while europeans were still living in mud huts

>>12478822
lol this nigger thinks reincarnation is necessarily chronologically sequential

>>12478947
was plato the first tranny?

>>12482235
>Current data indicates the universe will become a cold and barren grave

except there is nothing stopping a system from spontaneously decreasing in entropy except some very long odds and given an infinite time span it becomes inevitable

Buddhism. try the Mahayana, read MahaPrajnaParamita Sutra
the MahaPrajnaParamita-Sastra explains the Sutra

read Amita Sutra

>>12490389

2/2

>Contrast the notion of subjective reality (NOT subjective experience) with objective reality and show logically why it is not an assumption, and why limited perception makes it more likely than objective.
Firstly, my subjective reality is made up of my subjective experiences, so I don't see where the line is drawn between. Secondly, let us start with something that isn't assumed. The best choice would be that which is self-evident, that thing being the fact that we are experiencing something at all. The reason this something is subjective is because, in the very act of seeing, it necessitates that the thing which we see is merely an appearance (since an appearance is a thing as it appears to us). From this point of necessities and no assumptions we can see that it all holds up fine without throwing in some phantom noumenal world to unnecessarily give these appearances real being out in the world.

In regards to why my subjective perspective seems so finite and small, I'd say it isn't (at least it won't be finite and small forever). If we do indeed assume the role of subjects, then the true limits of what can be assimilated within as objects of our experiences are not yet defined. To paint a romantic picture for you, the essence of subjectivity is shared between the experiences of an ant and the omniscient.

>The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will be."
>Jesus said, "Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death."

>>12483340
literally nothing

>>12483845
I am omniscient because the only things that exist are those things I am observing at this moment, there is nothing else.

>>12490590
>Can unknowable objects (objects in every possible circumstance a subject cannot gain knowledge of) even have an objective existence?

Why not? What is inherently illogical or difficult to believe about a potential universe of nothing but rocks floating through a spacetime manifold? What exactly is it that makes the subject fundamental to or preceding of existence? Why can't objects be the base? How are you certain?

It's not that I don't value truth or discovery of reality. I absolutely do. It's simply that in the light of the meta-uncertainty of limited perception, our only recourse is to proceed with methods that show results in predicting and manipulating what we experience as reality. Can you propose an alternative method/standard to empiricism which can boast such a track record? There's absolutely a role for speculation in our investigations, but if you can't establish probabilities or actionable theories then how do we approach truth?

>tfw by using and defining the term objective reality I am engaging in an abstract form of observation rendering it subjective

I think you can only experience one consciousness. You're either just yourself or everybody at the same time.

>>12490629
Yes, we experience appearances, but the nature of those appearances is not self-evident. No, your subjective experiences are made up of your subjective experiences. You're injecting the experience-reality equivalence again, you can't seem to help yourself. An appearance seems to necessitate the noumenal, how do you logically circumvent that? Unless appearances are all, and we really do see the thing-in-itself, but that doesn't seem compatible with your claims either...

The issue isn't that your perspective is finite and small, the issue is that it's incomplete. Which implies that there's something underlying your experiences which is not contingent upon them.

>>12490666
Nice digits. So where do the things in the next moment come from? Why aren't you aware of them before they appear? Why aren't you conscious of where your own thoughts come from?

>>12490682
If logic was subjective your statement would be meaningless, no matter the content and arrangement. All debate would be moot.

>>12490736
Things exist or do not they do not come from anywhere because there cannot be a thing that does not exist. how could I be aware of things that don't exist.

>>12490682

Indeed, "Objective" statements are only so because people agree with them, thus Subjective. And "Subjective" statements are only so because they are made with no concern for others, thus Objective.

>That mystery is I, and I am that mystery.