An afterlife and forgetfulness

[RCSaunders]

So we have to decide Whom to believe.

Well, it's a mistake to believe the hallucinations of the mentally deluded recorded in the Bible. In fact, nothing is likely to get one in more intellectual trouble then believing truth is determined by placing one's credulity is someone else rather than using there own mind.

One of the great jokes in the world to me has always been those who say they must believe what someone else teaches them because their own intellectual ability is limited and they cannot know the truth on their own, but they are nevertheless certain they can know which teacher knows the truth.

[Immanuel Can]

...nothing is likely to get one in more intellectual trouble then believing truth is determined by placing one's credulity is someone else rather than using there own mind.

I'm all for us using our minds.

But a person also isn't an island, "entire of himself," to quote John Donne (and the Boomtown Rats.) To be oblivious to the origins and derivations of one's own opinion, and to believe oneself to simply be staggeringly inventive and original, when one is actually and intellectual thrall, just channelling the platitudes one has been served by others, that's an equal folly.

So be sure that when you "use your own mind," it's actually your own "mind" that you're using.

[RCSaunders]

I find myself forgetting many things, places I've been, things I've done, people I've known. What happens when I completely forget everything? What happens when I die? If there is being after death, then what could/would it be like without any memories or sensory experience?

Life is an attribute of living organisms and has no meaning either before the organism exists or after it ceases to exist. Independent of living organisms there is no life.

Consciousness is an attribute of living organisms. There is no consciousness independent of living organisms.

Like all attributes, before the existent with those attributes exists and after the existent with those attributes ceases to exist the attributes do not exist. The beauty of a flower does not exist until the flower blooms and ceases to exist when the flower wilts. The life of an organism does not exist until it begins living and ceases to exist when the organism dies.

[RCSaunders]

So be sure that when you "use your own mind," it's actually your own "mind" that you're using.

If you think there can be any doubts about it, you are suffering from some form of schizophrenia. Do you hear voices or see visions (like the Biblical prophets)? Do you have knowledge (just, "revealed," to you, by the magic of, "intuition," or, "inspiration") that you, "just know," without having to discover or learn it? These are common symptoms of varying degrees of neurosis and psychopathology.

Unless you believe in demon possession or that one consciousness can actually be conscious of another, you could not have made that absurd statement.

[Immanuel Can]

So be sure that when you "use your own mind," it's actually your own "mind" that you're using.

If you think there can be any doubts about it, you are suffering from some form of schizophrenia.

No, a form of humility.

For although it's true to say that getting a formal education can make one arrogant, as if one's knowledge makes one "better" that others, it may be otherwise. Meanwhile, the autodidact is not less susceptible to arrogance, if he imagines to be "enlightened" and "clever" those things he's actually only imbibed as prejudices. And at that moment, the educated person has a distinct advantage over the autodidact; for the education he has acquired has reminded him, first of all, that there are man smart men and women; that many such have lived in the past, and have thought about problems much more deeply than he, by himself, ever has.

So a formal education may teach humility, whereas independence from a formal education may induce only a misguided sense of self-sufficiency and self-education that conduces only to unwarranted hubris and a big, fat head. A formally-educated person knows whom to quote to give proper attribution for the origins of his particular ideas; the autodidact quotes only himself. The educated person knows whose "mind" he got an idea from, and is chastened thereby; the autodidact may too easily imagine he has an originality he actually lacks in practice, a perspecuity that is derived from never having really been tested, and a naive confidence that the only place good ideas come from is himself.

Just saying.

[Age]

So we have to decide Whom to believe.

Well, it's a mistake to believe the hallucinations of the mentally deluded recorded in the Bible.

Is it also a mistake to believe that what is recorded in the bible is a hallucination and of the mentally deluded?

If no, then 'what' are you basing what you believe here on, exactly?

In fact, nothing is likely to get one in more intellectual trouble then believing truth is determined by placing one's credulity is someone else rather than using there own mind.

If you did not just answer my clarifying question, then again 'what', exactly, are you basing the 'truth' on, which you BELIEVE here.

One of the great jokes in the world to me has always been those who say they must believe what someone else teaches them because their own intellectual ability is limited and they cannot know the truth on their own, but they are nevertheless certain they can know which teacher knows the truth.

Once again, how do you KNOW, for sure, and on your own, that what is recorded in the bible are in fact the hallucinations of the mentally deluded?

[Age]

...nothing is likely to get one in more intellectual trouble then believing truth is determined by placing one's credulity is someone else rather than using there own mind.

I'm all for us using our minds.

But a person also isn't an island, "entire of himself," to quote John Donne (and the Boomtown Rats.) To be oblivious to the origins and derivations of one's own opinion, and to believe oneself to simply be staggeringly inventive and original, when one is actually and intellectual thrall, just channelling the platitudes one has been served by others, that's an equal folly.

So be sure that when you "use your own mind," it's actually your own "mind" that you're using.

'you', human beings, in the days when this is being written, do NOT even know what the 'mind' is EXACTLY. Let alone know absolutely ANY thing about this so-called "human mind". Let alone KNOWING if what you are actually using is actually "your" "own mind", or some actual 'thing' else.

The very reason these human beings were STILL SO LOST and CONFUSED, back in the days when this was being written, was because they, literally, did NOT even what they were saying and talking about.

[Age]

I find myself forgetting many things, places I've been, things I've done, people I've known. What happens when I completely forget everything? What happens when I die? If there is being after death, then what could/would it be like without any memories or sensory experience?

Life is an attribute of living organisms and has no meaning either before the organism exists or after it ceases to exist. Independent of living organisms there is no life.

There ALWAYS EXIST living organisms. Therefore, there is ALWAYS life.

Consciousness is an attribute of living organisms. There is no consciousness independent of living organisms.

Like all attributes, before the existent with those attributes exists and after the existent with those attributes ceases to exist the attributes do not exist. The beauty of a flower does not exist until the flower blooms and ceases to exist when the flower wilts. The life of an organism does not exist until it begins living and ceases to exist when the organism dies.

But just because one living organism ceases to exist, this does NOT meant that 'consciousness', itself, also ceases to exist, correct?

[Age]

So be sure that when you "use your own mind," it's actually your own "mind" that you're using.

If you think there can be any doubts about it, you are suffering from some form of schizophrenia. Do you hear voices or see visions (like the Biblical prophets)? Do you have knowledge (just, "revealed," to you, by the magic of, "intuition," or, "inspiration") that you, "just know," without having to discover or learn it? These are common symptoms of varying degrees of neurosis and psychopathology.

Unless you believe in demon possession or that one consciousness can actually be conscious of another, you could not have made that absurd statement.

After you wrote, "One of the great jokes in the world to me has always been those who say they must believe what someone else teaches them because their own intellectual ability is limited and they cannot know the truth on their own, but they are nevertheless certain they can know which teacher knows the truth."

How I read "immanuel can's" words; "So be sure that when you "use your own mind," it's actually your own "mind" that you're using." in relation to what else they said, was something like, 'Make sure that what you believe is "your own mind", which knows the truth, is just NOT some OTHER 'thing', which has influenced 'you' in some way. And this was, well to me anyway, being CLEARLY POINTED OUT by explaining how 'you' are NOT 'alone' and the views and BELIEFS 'you' have are NOT 'yours' ALONE, as they have come from OTHERS.

[Age]

So be sure that when you "use your own mind," it's actually your own "mind" that you're using.

If you think there can be any doubts about it, you are suffering from some form of schizophrenia.

No, a form of humility.

For although it's true to say that getting a formal education can make one arrogant, as if one's knowledge makes one "better" that others, it may be otherwise. Meanwhile, the autodidact is not less susceptible to arrogance, if he imagines to be "enlightened" and "clever" those things he's actually only imbibed as prejudices. And at that moment, the educated person has a distinct advantage over the autodidact; for the education he has acquired has reminded him, first of all, that there are man smart men and women; that many such have lived in the past, and have thought about problems much more deeply than he, by himself, ever has.

What are you basing this BELIEF on EXACTLY?

WHY, EXACTLY, is it NOT AT ALL possible, to you, that one could have thought about 'problems' MUCH MORE DEEPLY than ANY one ever had previously?

What you have just said here is a PRIME EXAMPLE of WHY the 'formally educated' can obtain 'being arrogant' attitude so easily.

So a formal education may teach humility, whereas independence from a formal education may induce only a misguided sense of self-sufficiency and self-education that conduces only to unwarranted hubris and a big, fat head.

BOTH the so-called "formally educated" AND the "uneducated" can be what you said here.

And, is 'humility' REALLY something, to you, that could be taught, SUCCESSFULLY, through just 'formal education'?

A formally-educated person knows whom to quote to give proper attribution for the origins of his particular ideas; the autodidact quotes only himself.

OBVIOUSLY the so-called "autodidact" quotes "only them self" (if they do), this is because of what the word 'autodidact' means or refers to, exactly.

And, the so-called "formally-educated person", OBVIOUSLY, does NOT always know whom to quote to give proper attribution for the origins of their particular ideas.

The educated person knows whose "mind" he got an idea from,

LOL
LOL
LOL

'you', so-called, "educated people" do NOT even KNOW what a 'mind' IS.

and is chastened thereby; the autodidact may too easily imagine he has an originality he actually lacks in practice, a perspecuity that is derived from never having really been tested, and a naive confidence that the only place good ideas come from is himself.

Just saying.

"Just saying", from one who OBVIOUSLY BELIEVES that 'it' is an "educated person", and a PROUD one at that, and who has also SHOWN absolutely NO 'humility' AT ALL here.

[Age]

I believe in the eternal now, so I believe there is life after death, but not life as we know it as differentiated persons. I can imagine that the eternal now contains also differentiated experiences like what we have in this life, but how the switch-over from eternal now to relative time might happen is beyond my imagination.

When the word 'life' is used in the word 'afterlife', and in relation to eternal peace and harmony, that 'life' word is just referring to the (way of) 'life' AFTER this greedy, stressful, pollution-riddled and war-torn 'life' (or 'world) has ended. AFTER 'the end of these days and times', in the days when this was being written, or, in other words, AFTER the 'apocalypse' of that greedy and selfish way of LIFE and living, then the NEW and MUCH BETTER 'LIFE' begins, which will last FOREVER MORE.

'you', adult human beings, ONLY BELIEVED the words 'afterlife' were in relation to your OWN lives BECAUSE 'you' had become SO GREEDY and SO SELFISH that 'you' had ACTUALLY come to BELIEVE that some God 'thing' would CHOOSE 'you' OVER "another". Which is just TOO ABSURD 'beyond belief', as some would say.

Oh, and by the way, thee eternal NOW is, obviously, ALWAYS 'NOW'.

And, because there is NO actual 'thing' as time, what APPEARS to be 'time' is just RELATIVE to the way one has been brought up and RAISED.

See, there are perceived separated or different events (with an 's'), and 'you', adult human beings, are able to measure the duration between these apparent separated, different, and so-called "events". The word 'time' just refers to the 'measuring', itself. Which is ALWAYS depended upon or relative to the observer, itself.

The 'switching' over between the two just happens in 'thought' ONLY.

The body is ALWAYS living or existing in thee eternal 'NOW'.

The thinking, however, can, literally, views 'thing' VERY DIFFERENTLY.

[RCSaunders]

So be sure that when you "use your own mind," it's actually your own "mind" that you're using.

If you think there can be any doubts about it, you are suffering from some form of schizophrenia.

No, a form of humility.

As usual, you conveniently drop the context. My comment was in response to yours:

So be sure that when you "use your own mind," it's actually your own "mind" that you're using.

And my point is your own mind is the only one you can be conscious of, and to suppose anything is in your own consciousness that is not your own is a mental aberration.

"Humility," is another form of aberration. "Humility," is the false belief that self-abnegation is a kind of virtue. It's the last resort of those who know they have nothing about themselves of real value so claim their humble defects as their only worth. It is best expressed as, "I'm a failure and proud of it!"

Humility, in those who claim it, is, in fact, a form hubris.

[Immanuel Can]

If you think there can be any doubts about it, you are suffering from some form of schizophrenia.

No, a form of humility.

As usual, you conveniently drop the context. My comment was in response to yours:

So be sure that when you "use your own mind," it's actually your own "mind" that you're using.

I didn't "drop the context" at all.

You made a comment about using your own mind, and I pointed out that one can think one is using one's own mind, when one is actually merely parrotting an argument one accidentally picked up from somebody else, or else triumphantly trumpeting one's prejudices, oblivious to the fact that better ideas exist at all.

Formal education can be a curative to that, if it helps one realize that there are plenty of smarter ideas out there, or that one's own ideas are more derivative than original. It can sometimes fix hubris.

"Humility," is another form of aberration. "Humility," is the false belief that self-abnegation is a kind of virtue.

No. Humility is a proportional sense of one's own abilities and achievements. That's all.

[RCSaunders]

No, a form of humility.

As usual, you conveniently drop the context. My comment was in response to yours:

So be sure that when you "use your own mind," it's actually your own "mind" that you're using.

I didn't "drop the context" at all.

You made a comment about using your own mind, and I pointed out that one can think one is using one's own mind, when one is actually merely parrotting an argument one accidentally picked up from somebody else, or else triumphantly trumpeting one's prejudices, oblivious to the fact that better ideas exist at all.

Formal education can be a curative to that, if it helps one realize that there are plenty of smarter ideas out there, or that one's own ideas are more derivative than original. It can sometimes fix hubris.

"Humility," is another form of aberration. "Humility," is the false belief that self-abnegation is a kind of virtue.

No. Humility is a proportional sense of one's own abilities and achievements. That's all.

We do not agree.

"After life," is rightly called death. It is when there is no longer life. On this subject, everything else you have to say is just so much superstitious nonsense. There is no way to discuss it reasonably. It's like discussing how many fairies are in the world of trolls. Good grief!

[Immanuel Can]

We do not agree.

I did not think we did.

"After life," is rightly called death. It is when there is no longer life.

And your evidence bolstering your certainty of that is...

I'll wait.