Life and Death

[existentialist]

Hello, im 16, i also like to think a lot, about, well everything, and I have been debating with myself, obout one subject that I consider extremeley important. the subject is death what is it why is it, what happenes when it happens, every one that wishes to participate in this debate, feel free to do so, well, now I wll say what I have thought about this matter. Death is the state of not being alive, that is obvius, but what IS not being alive? second why do we die? basically becouse if we didnt energy could not be recycled in nature, secound becouse, overpopulation would destroy de planet, in weeks, but still we find it pertinent to ask why? the other questions you guys can help me find answers.

[Leo Volont]

Life Organizes. Life takes various atoms, at one stage, molecutes at another, cells at another, and spins them into greater and greater levels and elaborations of Organization. Even beyond living organisms, we then have organization of herds and groups. Among Human Beings we have Family, Clan, Tribe, Nation, Civilization. Death is when any Life Organized Structure disintegrates into its constituent parts.

[carlhungis]

You claim that we die to prevent overpopulation? I don't think so. We instinctively try to live as long as we can. We have no ingrained control for overpopulation. If we are threatened, instinct makes us fight or flight (survival). We are instinctively attracted to the opposite sex to promote reproduction. Everything that we do seems to toward the goal of overpopulation. There is nothing out there that would lead me to believe that we are prepared to take any steps to avoid overpopulation. The only thing that will prevent it will ultimately be nature. Once we run out of resources, or some crazy natural disaster, or another plague, only then will overpopulation be brought under control. I think Leo's summary is a good one. I like your energy idea as well. But the ultimate question of why we are here is one that I fail to understand. In your description, we are just here to recycle energy? Why do we need to take a solid form? I don't know, doesn't make much sense to me. I don't fault any religion (well, maybe some of them... but for the most part I don't fault them). I understand that mankind has a need for answers and comfort and religion seems to provide that. I just don't think that I am educated enough on the subject to truly believe in any that I have seen. Some say that we are here as a test, to prove our worth to God. I guess that I have a hard time understanding why an all knowing, all powerful God would need us in the first place. I also fail to understand why he would then need to test us. I also don't get why he would need us to go to Heaven, for his company and entertainment? It could be, but I don't know. I guess the scale of it is what is hard for me to understand. Currently, I am just of the impression that it is something that mankind can't truely understand. It is too depressing to think that we are just an accident, a fluke if you will. That when we die, it is just all over. That we serve no purpose and that our lives are meaningless. No matter how much evidence there is to support such claims, I honestly don't feel ready to accept that. What I hope happens.... I hope that after you die, you are just energy. Your consciousness still there, just no physical form. Only your body dies, not your consciousness. I could even get my mind around that happening. My only problem with that theory is, it does nothing to explain why we were here at all. Sigh.... who knows. Just keep researching for yourself. I hope you find something to believe in.

[existentialist]

Hi, well what you say is true, but, i didnt mean, our life to be an energy recicle, i said that we died becouse that had to happen, the energy we have taken from nature has to be given back sometime, second, death IS the only overpopulation control LOL, what does fatal disseas cause,, death, what does freak nature dissasters cause, deaths, get it, besides, i dont think that we can remain as energy after we die, becouse, we would have to reamain as energy right? well, there is a law that establishes that energt is not created or destroyed, just transforms itself, if every individual that die, reamais as concient energy, when another individual was born and then died, he wold be still using energy, my point, there would be an energy deficit, and that is imposible. I belive in life but death only makes life more beutifull, why well imagine yourself eating chicken for eternity, sounds boring, now imagine you could only eat chicken 4 times, no more, a assure you each time you ate it ,you would make an experience from it, if life were eternal, THAT would be boooooooooring, believe it or not.

[carlhungis]

Originally posted by existentialist Hi, well what you say is true, but, i didnt mean, our life to be an energy recicle, i said that we died becouse that had to happen, the energy we have taken from nature has to be given back sometime, second, death IS the only overpopulation control LOL, what does fatal disseas cause,, death, what does freak nature dissasters cause, deaths, get it, besides, i dont think that we can remain as energy after we die, becouse, we would have to reamain as energy right? well, there is a law that establishes that energt is not created or destroyed, just transforms itself, if every individual that die, reamais as concient energy, when another individual was born and then died, he wold be still using energy, my point, there would be an energy deficit, and that is imposible. I belive in life but death only makes life more beutifull, why well imagine yourself eating chicken for eternity, sounds boring, now imagine you could only eat chicken 4 times, no more, a assure you each time you ate it ,you would make an experience from it, if life were eternal, THAT would be boooooooooring, believe it or not. I disagree with that statement. The universe is......well... fairly large. Containing vast amounts of energy. I seriously doubt that the pool of consciousness (if it is energy), would possibly be depleted or imbalanced by the amount of people on the earth. The question is how much energy could consciousness (or a soul...) require? If you cut off your arm, are you the same person? A leg? Both arms and legs? At what point are you no longer the same person? Is it the physical matter in your brain that makes up who you are? Or is it something else? I do agree that the energy contained in your body is given back. But whatever it is that makes up your consciosness, or soul remains. That small amount of energy is what would go to heaven or hell in certain religions, it is the same energy that would take the form of a higher or lower being based on Karma in other religions. It could also return to the larger energy pool, or source (loosley Gnostic). If you look at Monroe's focus level model, you can see another way to look at it. If our consciousness remains, you could have to work your way through the various focus levels. It is an interresting way to incorporate/explain the ideas of heaven and hell. http://www.mikepettigrew.com/afterlife/htm...afterlife1.html *keep in mind that this is just a random theory that I am continuing on. I don't necessarily subscribe to this belief. But this is how I would explain this scenario, if it were to be the way that things actually work.

[Slight]

I like the idea of C.G. Jung, saying that your dreams are like the judgement of your actions and thoughts expressed through an "incorruptible judge's mouth." This one always wanting you to feel "clean and clear" in life; always wanting you to be happy and fullfilled. Life is the path to achieve exactly that; making your soul clear from bad influences in modern society and its mediums, and bad influences for your personality from people directly around you. So you know which desicion to make in order to achieve "the best" for you (your emotional status, for a plain conscience etc). When dying, your soul gets set free - totally .. it is in a state, where it can't be bothered by bad influences, surpressing impulses from "shadows" being integrated into the soul over the years etc. It revolved its true personality and will live on without emotions like fear, rollercoaster-rides from too happy to too depressed etc. That is what paradise is. The time, when YOU can't change anything anylonger about the state of your soul. It got set free, and it will be there the way it left its physical body (for that specific lifetime). When being rather unhappy and depressed in life, not being able to get out of that dark hole, your soul will be set free that way ... pretty much meaning that this one will live on in hell-like conditions - permanent fear and anxiety, nervosity and depressions etc. But you can't change anything about it no more ... Inbetween those two examples described, there are a billion stages of the state of your soul... I have no idea about questions like "Will the set-free soul live on in a different physical form lateron?" or "How is the soul even set free, where does it go, where will it be for the rest of eternity?" ... Just as I have no idea about ungraspable questions like the beginnig of the universe or anything like it. With all the coincidences in life, like being able to control dreams, dream interpretations and what becomes emotionally more true through it, intuitions, precognitive dreams, meditation and all that kind of stuff ..... I just can't get to believe in science, or what they claim to have found out and what seems now to be definitily true .. sure some is .. but I am sure, a load isn't .... but todays' society is not mature enough to live life to achieve what described above ... therefore we won't get the truth .... if there is a truth true for general public.

[Original Poster]

Well let me jsut say, without having bothered reading anything above me, that death is the end.

[Belisarius]

As far as I'm concerned there is no such thing as death. If there's an afterlife then death is really a transition and not an end and not really death. If there is no afterlife then there is nothing once life is through. The phrase "once life is through" is false as well because time does not continue. All that exists is what you are conscious of and you can't be conscious of death because it is the end of all consciousness. If there's an afterlife death is like falling asleep and waking up in a new world. If there isn't, then it simply doesn't exist.

[PenguinLord13]

I agree that death is the recycling of life. It is the way the world keeps us from overpopulating, as we naturally want to reproduce, so if we are reproducing, making more people, others need to die too. If people didn't die naturally, we would have been overpopulated 10000 years ago, and there would be nothing in the world for us. We would be wiped out. Also, death gives life meaning, as living forever would be boring and pointless, since you would know that it doesn't matter if you can't do something now, as you'll have plenty of time to do it later, and them, there would be no point to life at all, we would be pathetic creations living out eternity doing whatever the hell we wan't, with no consequence to ourselves. To me, the ultimate goal of life is to reproduce, and continue our race, but as humans with our ability to learn, we also have the goal to take in as much of the world as possible, to learn all that we can, and to live our life to it's fullest. But we also have responsiblity to give back to the world which we use at our will. We have the ability to destroy the world in 90 minutes (literally, America has more than enough nukes), but we don't, instead we must learn to be better to the Earth. To build so that less of nature is destroyed. To farm so that the land isn't left barren afterwards. To find ways to produce energy that do not pollute. That is our place in life. With our great power we must turn away from the violence and killing and war, and be a single peaceful race of humans. Race means nothing, humans are humans, and with our ability we must give back to the world, and not interfere to greatly with its natural course, because in the end the Earth will come back to its former glory no matter what we do, but we will be destroyed.

[Alric]

Forget people, if nothing ever died every square inch of earth would be covered in insects probably half a mile deep.

[PenguinLord13]

Originally posted by Alric Forget people, if nothing ever died every square inch of earth would be covered in insects probably half a mile deep. You have a point there.

[existentialist]

I totally agree with penguin lord, totally, yet there is something that confuses me, if death is necesary to be able to live, if it elevates life to its billion potency, why do we fear it so, well correction, we do not fear death, we fear ceasing to exist... the moment we die, we go out of the universe, time nor space affects us, if the universe is infinite, where do we go, or is it total ahnihilation, how sad it is to think...

[AirRick101]

We probably wouldn't have as much of a capacity to be thankful is we lasted forever. Gratefulness usually comes with a mental contrast against the opposite situation. I don't know about a solid answer to the question why we die, but with the way that the universe works, it's evident that absolutely everything that ever existed, exists, or will exist is temporary. The only thing that doesn't disappear is energy, so I suppose if you viewed everything in terms of merely energy, there is no concept of life or death, because either requires the other.

[existentialist]

Yes, if we speak of energy, we are not totally ahnihilated, becouse, the energy that we are made up of, will transform itself into something else, it is possible, that the energy, of a star, millions of light years away, is the same, we are using to live , yet, our energy, does not retain our concience, so THAT, is lost, but, if you think about it, this universe, is phisical, so it hold all that is phisical, yet, even though, some my think that thought is merely the result of photochemical reactions that occur in our neurons, they forget, about, concience, free will, soul, that divine spark wich we seem to hold, that, wich IS without being, in the phisicall grasps of the universe, alas, the metaphisical. Were does our concience go? not our energy... or is our concience energy?... At the moment, I really do not know...

[acheron]

I tend to believe in the materialistic view, but only because it is the easiest one to believe in. If i dig deeper I know that something must continue, but it may just be my feeble little mind trying to protect me from the knowledge that this measly existence is all thats to it.

[existentialist]

That is exactly what I am afraid of...