"Heaven"

First off, I put this in Philosophy to avoid the eternal flame war that is R/S. I'm talking about the concept of Heaven, and not any religion.

Most religions have a positive afterlife (As well as a more negative one, like hell) , one that is many times better than our life here on earth. I was thinking today... What could be any better than a lucid dream? Can any imaginable afterlife even hold a candle to complete freedom, and complete control at the same time? I may be wrong here, but the way I see it, we have the best thing we're gonna get, right here on earth. (I'm not saying I'm believe in an afterlife, I'm speaking from a theoretical standpoint.)

In some of the more esoteric Vajrayana Buddhist traditions they believe life after death to be much like sleep and dream, so they take lucidity practice during life very seriously (dream yoga). They say if one is unconscious during sleep, then death will certainly be no different.

The only shitty thing about a lucid dream afterlife, is that you're alone.

Let's say there is a lucid dream afterlife, and let's say it claims to be a shared one. Who says those people aren't just lying (unintentionally) dream characters? Who says you're not alone?

[/out before solipsism]

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Originally Posted by Abra

The only shitty thing about a lucid dream afterlife, is that you're alone.

Let's say there is a lucid dream afterlife, and let's say it claims to be a shared one. Who says those people aren't just lying (unintentionally) dream characters? Who says you're not alone?

[/out before solipsism]

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You have a very good point... Hmm. I actually never thought of that. What *would* be the ideal afterlife then?

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Originally Posted by Kraftwerk

You have a very good point... Hmm. I actually never thought of that. What *would* be the ideal afterlife then?

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If you think about it, this life could be a dream. You actually have no way of knowing if you're alone. The only consciousness you can be sure of is your own. But this thought will have no effect on your life, will it?

Even if you're alone your life will carry on as normal. Why would a dream afterlife be any different?

You still wouldn't feel any connection with any other beings but yourself. You're still an individual being that sees through its own eyes. Or it could go the other way, you connect with every being in existence and become God.

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Originally Posted by Kraftwerk

First off, I put this in Philosophy to avoid the eternal flame war that is R/S. I'm talking about the concept of Heaven, and not any religion.

Most religions have a positive afterlife (As well as a more negative one, like hell) , one that is many times better than our life here on earth. I was thinking today... What could be any better than a lucid dream? Can any imaginable afterlife even hold a candle to complete freedom, and complete control at the same time? I may be wrong here, but the way I see it, we have the best thing we're gonna get, right here on earth. (I'm not saying I'm believe in an afterlife, I'm speaking from a theoretical standpoint.)

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*Bites tongue* I'm going to do my best to leave debate at the door, per OP request...

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Originally Posted by Kraftwerk

You have a very good point... Hmm. I actually never thought of that. What *would* be the ideal afterlife then?

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Alright, in my book, an ideal afterlife is one which provides you with many great experiences, but also a few negative ones (so you appreciate the good ones that much more). Conveniently, lucid dreaming accomplishes this marvelously. The biggest obstacle is loneliness...now, if the afterlife were a great big shared dream with limits, I could see a very pleasant afterlife emerging. Say that you're completely powerful in your own dream, so to speak, but in your dream, everyone else is somewhat robbed of power unless given exclusive permission to have their powers "show up." This would help to ensure that others don't mess up your good time.

Clarity of thought and vividness of the dream would also have to be increased substantially, and it must be ensured that you would never lose lucidity. There would have to be very few consequences of one's actions, I think...dream control would also have to come easier and more naturally.

In my personal paradise, there is a very cute girl waiting for me; someone I love dearly (I'm a hopeless romantic, by the way. :smitten:). There is food everywhere...you can eat as much as you want and gain no weight. My dog is also there somewhere...and my dream house, for sure. And good music...for the love of God, let there be music!

For the most part, I see myself carrying out epic duels and wreaking havoc, only to fix it all at the end of the day with a snap of the finger, as well as going about all other dream business. Once I tire of this, I would go ahead and start carrying out another life, I think...only using my substantial powers to occasionally show off, etc.

Sorry for big post. :D (Is this kind of what you had in mind?)

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Originally Posted by Abra

Let's say there is a lucid dream afterlife, and let's say it claims to be a shared one. Who says those people aren't just lying (unintentionally) dream characters? Who says you're not alone?

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That's easy: You try to kill them. If you cannot accomplish this, they're
probably real. I mean that in all seriousness. A DC cannot stand up to a
dreamer. Two dreamers would be hard pressed to effect each other in
permanent sleep (maybe?).

Well, as far as run of the mill lucid dreams go, I've always run into a limit on
awareness that never quite manages to match that of real life. In an afterlife
form of lucid dream, I'd expect the vividness to outdo that of the current
world we all live in by far, and in that case I'd agree that we'd have a pretty
good paradise setting, for starters (and for myself). My idea of an ideal
afterlife would that of creator for a new universe, or as many as I could
possibly think up, and then some. The only other thing that needs to come
with it to be "perfect" is the ability to contact other real people in the
hereafter, perhaps even to invite them into my universe or to see their own.
And I could spend as long as I want anywhere. Hundreds of years in one
place, hundreds in the next, and so on.

I think there has to be something that alleviates the feeling of constant,
nonstop existence. Maybe we'd still be able to sleep and get the 'recharged'
feeling. Maybe we'd experience bouts of insanity every several hundred
thousand years, and settle back into the more benign state that we had
been in before. Don't know. A lucid afterlife sounds nice, though, so long as
the sharing option is open.

I think your theory presupposes that there is no experience that a human consciousness in a human body cannot imagine. If I were to take a stab at it, I would say heaven or any degree of after life is so unlike anything a human being is capable of experiencing as to be completely indescribable in human terms.

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Originally Posted by Invader

That's easy: You try to kill them. If you cannot accomplish this, they're
probably real. I mean that in all seriousness. A DC cannot stand up to a
dreamer. Two dreamers would be hard pressed to effect each other in
permanent sleep (maybe?).

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Naw. If you go into this with the intention of seeing if they're real other people and a part of you wants them to be real then it's useless. Because it will simply mean you fool yourself in order to believe what you want.

Also:

Spoiler for Heaven:

My roommate and I sometimes try and make the perfect afterlife. And by that, we mean create immortality, here on Earth. So no, not an "afterlife" at all.

1. Replace biological neurons, one by one (so as not to lose our personalities/continuous consciousness) with immortal, mechanical ones.
2. Immortality!
3. Be able to transplant our robot brains into other bodies, including animals and fuckawesome mechas.
4. Be able to alter our robot brains, so that we can delete memories, but not the emotions attached to said memories. In this way, we'd be able to remember which movies are worth watching, and be able to watch them without it feeling like a re-run. This prevents us from ever getting bored of eternity.

herpderp. I love how childish this sounds~

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Originally Posted by Abra

My roommate and I sometimes try and make the perfect afterlife. And by that, we mean create immortality, here on Earth. So no, not an "afterlife" at all.

1. Replace biological neurons, one by one (so as not to lose our personalities/continuous consciousness) with immortal, mechanical ones.
2. Immortality!
3. Be able to transplant our robot brains into other bodies, including animals and fuckawesome mechas.
4. War begins and giant armies of Mechs and animals face off, eternal battle.
herpderp. I love how childish this sounds~

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Fixed. It is.

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Originally Posted by Abra

My roommate and I sometimes try and make the perfect afterlife. And by that, we mean create immortality, here on Earth. So no, not an "afterlife" at all.

1. Replace biological neurons, one by one (so as not to lose our personalities/continuous consciousness) with immortal, mechanical ones.
2. Immortality!
3. Be able to transplant our robot brains into other bodies, including animals and fuckawesome mechas.
4. Be able to alter our robot brains, so that we can delete memories, but not the emotions attached to said memories. In this way, we'd be able to remember which movies are worth watching, and be able to watch them without it feeling like a re-run. This prevents us from ever getting bored of eternity.

herpderp. I love how childish this sounds~

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Only thing I would add is a computer-style memory...accurate storage and easy access, so that once-in-a-lifetime experiences could be saved for access at a later date without losing a single detail. Also, a cure for all diseases, which is implied in immortality, though not necessary...oh, and a society that actually works kind of well, too. :D

Just for the heck of brainstorming, "hell" wasn't originally a bad place. Egyptians' and Greeks' hell, for example, were just a place for the dead. It was the catholic church that imbued those concepts of hell with suffering, in order to fight paganism.

Also, freedom is affected by consequences. A Lucid Dream is the perfect example of completely free place, where there are (nearly) no consequences. In my opinion, a good view of "heaven" would be a lucid dream. But I don't believe in afterlife, so..

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Originally Posted by Kromoh

Just for the heck of brainstorming, "hell" wasn't originally a bad place. Egyptians' and Greeks' hell, for example, were just a place for the dead. It was the catholic church that imbued those concepts of hell with suffering, in order to fight paganism.

Also, freedom is affected by consequences. A Lucid Dream is the perfect example of completely free place, where there are (nearly) no consequences. In my opinion, a good view of "heaven" would be a lucid dream. But I don't believe in afterlife, so..

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Same here. For once, I would love to be proven wrong, but somehow, I think this is mostly wishful thinking...

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Originally Posted by Xaqaria

I think your theory presupposes that there is no experience that a human consciousness in a human body cannot imagine. If I were to take a stab at it, I would say heaven or any degree of after life is so unlike anything a human being is capable of experiencing as to be completely indescribable in human terms.

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Exactly. In addition to this, our experience of life, for most of us, is often directed by familiarities. When they're given up, whole new dimensions and understandings are found. How often will somebody be on the search for heaven or a better afterlife and not realize it is not something to be attained?

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Originally Posted by Carôusoul

Naw. If you go into this with the intention of seeing if they're real other people and a part of you wants them to be real then it's useless. Because it will simply mean you fool yourself in order to believe what you want.

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Then don't have pre-expectations. You don't have to actively fight a DC to get rid of them,
but that kind of dream control shouldn't effect another real person in the same way. If it
fails, you can always attempt to dispatch of them physically. If you cannot, but find that
your dream control is otherwise stable, you can form other possible conclusions.

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If I were to take a stab at it, I would say heaven or any degree of after life is so unlike anything a human being is capable of experiencing as to be completely indescribable in human terms.

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I'd have to agree with that too. It's called paradise for a reason. Our attempts to put it into words come short of what it's supposed to be by definition (place of unending joy, whatever), assuming its existence.

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Originally Posted by Invader

Then don't have pre-expectations.

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Is that really something you can help?
I'm pretty sure the need for companionship is deeply ingrained within us.
So I'd think we'd go to great lengths to protect our sanity and well-being, including convincing ourselves (whether consciously or not) that afterlife dream characters are actual people.

Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins, so I find it surprising that some people think you can just lounge around heaven, sitting back and relaxing all day. Basically doing what your not supposed to do on earth.

You need challenges and conflict to make life interesting. The ideal situation, is that all the challenges in heaven are more like games(which people can take very seriously!) where people don't get killed or suffer permanent injury.

If you have everything and can do anything, then that gets boring quickly.

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Originally Posted by Alric

Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins, so I find it surprising that some people think you can just lounge around heaven, sitting back and relaxing all day. Basically doing what your not supposed to do on earth.

You need challenges and conflict to make life interesting. The ideal situation, is that all the challenges in heaven are more like games(which people can take very seriously!) where people don't get killed or suffer permanent injury.

If you have everything and can do anything, then that gets boring quickly.

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...I think that this is a good idea. Perhaps there could be this sort of arena or something, where you go head-to-head against an equally-powerful being. Maybe some of your powers of control are stripped away at the door, increasing the challenge, etc. That would be fun. *Adds idea to utopia*

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Originally Posted by Abra

Is that really something you can help?
I'm pretty sure the need for companionship is deeply ingrained within us.
So I'd think we'd go to great lengths to protect our sanity and well-being, including convincing ourselves (whether consciously or not) that afterlife dream characters are actual people.

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Well, if this is a "lucid" afterlife in which we can bend our realities, the
majority of us would already assume that the other people are dream
characters. If anything (being that we're already familiar with dreaming and its
quirks) we'd have pre-expectations that they were fake. If you were
experiencing powerful dream control in the event that you try to kill one and
fail, well then... :teeth:

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Originally Posted by Invader

Well, if this is a "lucid" afterlife in which we can bend our realities, the
majority of us would already assume that the other people are dream
characters. If anything (being that we're already familiar with dreaming and its
quirks) we'd have pre-expectations that they were fake. If you were
experiencing powerful dream control in the event that you try to kill one and
fail, well then... :teeth:

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You're missing the point that it's perfectly possible and expectable for people to unconsciously create characters which can't be killed because you yourself are holding them up in an unconscious way of dealing with loneliness. Just like how you can't effectively end yourself.

Alright, I can see how that would work. I just haven't experienced it for myself,
or at least haven't heard of such a thing happening for others. It's a possibility
though, sure. Maybe by the point that happens one can be considered insane,
even though it would be good in that case to be under the delusion that you're
not alone if it saves you from other mental problems.

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Originally Posted by Invader

Alright, I can see how that would work. I just haven't experienced it for myself,
or at least haven't heard of such a thing happening for others. It's a possibility
though, sure. Maybe by the point that happens one can be considered insane,
even though it would be good in that case to be under the delusion that you're
not alone.

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I think long enough alone in any form anyone will eventually go insane. We've evolved to be heavily socially reliant animals.



:(

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Originally Posted by Xaqaria

I think your theory presupposes that there is no experience that a human consciousness in a human body cannot imagine. If I were to take a stab at it, I would say heaven or any degree of after life is so unlike anything a human being is capable of experiencing as to be completely indescribable in human terms.

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You nailed it right on the head. When we are dead we will either expierience it, or we wont and it will be nothing like our human minds can even grasp. People wanna think of things using their imaginations, well death is beyond our understanding. We have no idea what happened before we were born, we will have no idea what will happen after we die. It's simple. When you're dead, probably everything that made you human except your memories exist, but then this is just guessing and being part of being human. We can't stop thinking in our bounderies, no matter how hard or how much we want to, this is part of everyone so all people can do is guess at what it could be, but like you said, it's beyond our understanding. If you're thinking of death, you're not living your life.