Terry, in your short story, do you think the people went anywhere after they died?
In direct response to your question: "There is no PLACE or destination and there is no GO" in the
usual understanding or meaning of words.
I think about those nested Russian dolls (one inside the other inside another, etc) and visualize
how primitive philosophers (i.e. Ancient Greeks) conceptualized all the civilizations of mankind
that way. Every person who ever existed was inside Adam's balls :)
An artist or writer or any storyteller has worlds and peoples inside the egg and sperm of mere thought and as real or as gossamer as the touch of moonlight on your shoulder.
In other words, more "real" than real.
Here. Not here. Where? Not here.
Or as the Hindus tell it: Turtles all the way down...infinite regress
Who is the who of WHO we ARE? And when we die......where does the "who" go?
by Terry 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Terry
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peacefulpete
Everything changes. A local mountain is 12 ft shorter than it was a century ago. It's still the same mountain. My expanding gut and arthritic hands weren't there 20 years ago but it's still me. The mind is no different. I'm not as sharp as I used to be, head trauma and chemotherapy have taken a dozen IQ points. My mind (or self) is an emergent quality of the biological machinery between my ears. It changes with the machinery and ceases along with the machinery. It's like asking what happened to the brilliant posting I was making after my hard drive crashes.
What freaked me out as a JW was the promise that when my mind and machinery stopped functioning, I was supposed to take comfort in the belief that an enhanced clone of me was going to benefit from my obedience. Similar enough to convince my friends it was me. That 'clone' might even be convinced it was me, being preprogrammed with enough false memories to pass itself off as me. Without, of course, the scars and recollection of pain of loss and trauma that identified the original.
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TonusOH
That is an interesting thought experiment, Pete. Say it was possible to clone your body with your mind intact at some earlier point in your life. And your original body has a mind that is dealing with changes due to time and injury. Which of the two would be more "you"?
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Terry
________________________What do we have here?___________________________
Two ball bearings manufactured at the same time, in the same factory, by rigorous engineering standards, and produced to serve the same function inside a particular machine.
QUESTION: Are they IDENTICAL?
ANSWER: No
________________
There is one on your left and there is one on your right.
These do not occupy the same space.
You can remove one and the other will not follow.
_________________
These ball bearings match identical specifications, true--but the practical test of identity is indeed separateness. The very fact I must refer to them and you must think of them as quantities identify the rational distinction our minds demand!
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RATIONAL MIND and the problem of IDENTITY
To exist is to be something somewhere rather than nothing nowhere.
The way the human mind addresses the nature of IDENTITY is to break it up into separate characteristics.
Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why are the usual conceptual categories.
_____________IMAGINATIVE MIND and the problem of IDENTITY_______________
To "exist" is different from exist (without quotation marks).
To "exist" comes about by your mind assigning characteristics--not to an actual thing--but to your own created mental mock-up.
Example: Playwright James M. Barrie, imagined the character of Peter Pan. He wrote the play which was performed (made real or realized) on stage by real actors.
As a result, other people all over the world can think of Peter Pan too. Children can assign the mental value of "existence" to that imagined character.
________________Are there two kinds of EXISTENCE?_______________
The slippery slope of BELIEF is the result of our mind being able to perform a task NOT UNLIKE that of those 2 ball bearings. These 2 tasks are practically identical without, in fact, being identical.
We can use our 5 senses to identify (we smell it, we see it, we hear it, we taste it, we touch it.)
OR. . .
We can use our imagination to assign a mental mock-up (internal creation of our thought) and then BELIEVE it into "existence."
An amazing thing is our mind / brain.
__________________WHAT IS PHANTOM LIMB SYNDROME?_______________
A phantom limb is a complex phenomenon involving a sensation that an amputated or a missing limb is still attached to the body.
_______________The real limb was removed, but your mind acts upon your body to report its PRESENCE.
The limb that isn't there can 'itch" or ache. Is this evidence of a ghost limb?
No, it is a false report by your own mind giving you false evidence which you then BELIEVE.
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Do we have 2 sets of SENSES? No. When our mind hallucinates, although it is our only source of information about our self and surroundings, we are fooled.
Garbage in = garbage out
False reporting equals false conclusions.
____________________SUBJECTIVE vs. OBJECTIVE___________________
"The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June. Eighteen others followed Bishop to Salem’s Gallows Hill, while some 150 more men, women and children were accused over the next several months."
a study published in Science magazine in 1976 cited the fungus ergot (found in rye, wheat and other cereals), which toxicologists say can cause symptoms such as delusions, vomiting and muscle spasms.
________________
Above are 2 examples of what happens when we rely on our mind to reliably report reality and the information is corrupt.
Subjective thoughts, feelings and beliefs are acted upon as though reliable evidence had been experienced matching reality.
What does OBJECTIVE mean if SUBJECTIVE is simply what goes on inside our head?
OBJECTS can be seen by everybody, measured by the same standards, and no special set of beliefs are necessary to induce their report of the existence and nature of the objects.
_____________________The Cottingly Fairies_______________
Is seeing believing?
______________PROOF of existence?
The famous Cottingley fairies were “photographed” by two girls Elsie Wright, 15, and her cousin Frances Griffiths, 10, in the last days of the First World War. The case got its international acclaim through Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes, who was fascinated by the account and published an article in the Strand Magazine in December 1920. Doyle was completely convinced the photographs were actual evidence of the existence of fairies!
With the world’s attention focused on them, the girls had little option but to stick to their story. A juvenile prank had grown into a mass media circus.
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JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES have minds and brains and beliefs which are no more or less intelligent
than any other group of believers on planet Earth.
They come from all walks of life with varied educational backgrounds. .
Each JW is not unlike one of 7 or 8 million ball bearings.
These millions are all alike and their unity of purpose is determined by the Watchtower Corporation which--like the manufacturer of ball bearings--exactly specifies the purpose which these teeming millions will serve.
QUESTION: Are all JW's identical or "identical"?
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Religiously speaking, by self-identifying with JEHOVAH (Jehovah's Witnesses) rather than JESUS, JW'S cannot be said to use personal, individual and separate consciousness manifesting Christianity in the historical sense.
By renouncing "personal" conversion experience; by not espousing a "born again" confession, and by not engaging in acts of conscience other than REQUIRED manifestations of loyalty to creed, JW's are "identical."
The CULT mind feeds corrupt information to cult members and they all react AS THOUGH theirs is actual reality, rather than imaginative mock-ups of non-verifiable fact.
Do Jehovah's Witnesses actual exist as human individuals?
The jury is out on that one!
Where is the separateness? How--without debate, or internal dialogue--can those 7 or 8 million people be disambiguated?
QUESTION: If the Watchtower suddenly declared Blood Transfusions were a matter of conscience, wouldn't every member immediately believe the exact opposite of what was "True" the moment before without further research, speculation or investigation of a personal nature?
ANWER: Yes! To act otherwise would indicate separateness which is disloyalty which creates disunity which cause that person to suddenly EXIST as an individual. This would end his "existence" by being disfellowship.
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WHAT DOES THIS ALL PURPORT TO MEAN?
All the above is an exercise to distinguish what it means to be a real human being from being an identical cult member without separateness of thought, tastes, personal opinions.
Historically (from the examples of the Salem Witch Trials and the Cottingly Fairies) we discovered how mass belief in defiance of reality leads to disastrous NON-RATIONAL behavior and even murder.
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES may well be nothing more and nothing less than mere 'things' just like utilitarian ball bearings inasmuch as they are denied distinction as thinking, rational creatures.
AND DEATH?
If nobody remembers you after you died, if nothing memorializes you - what is the difference?
Most of these prospective questionings are ethereal.
The scent of honeysuckle, the memory of your grandfather's laugh, a photograph in an antique store,
what are these to anybody and what does it matter? That is the most SUBJECTIVE of all wonderings. -
Sea Breeze
The very fact I must refer to them and you must think of them as quantities identify the rational distinction our minds demand!
Terry,
I do appreciate your ponderings. Have you ever pondered why the human mind "demands" rationality? Why should we be rational and where did rationality come from?
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peacefulpete
All the above is an exercise to distinguish what it means to be a real human being from being an identical cult member without separateness of thought, tastes, personal opinions......JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES may well be nothing more and nothing less than mere 'things' just like utilitarian ball bearings inasmuch as they are denied distinction as thinking, rational creatures.
I love the illustration Terry. It's my view that no one is a 'ball bearing' on the inside. Uniformed soldiers goosestepping through the streets might appear to be identical from a distance. Inside however they are very different. Some are proud, some are afraid, some are asking how they got there. Similarly, JWs, or members of any high control sect, must put real effort toward indistinctness, most all inwardly wish to shine as individuals but the price is deemed too high or impossibly hard. Some might think it's too late to become someone else. Some have been convinced the ball bearing bin is the only place to be.
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Terry
Have you ever pondered why the human mind "demands" rationality? Why should we be rational and where did rationality come from?
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I'll let Ayn Rand answer that query.Rationality
Rationality is man’s basic virtue, the source of all his other virtues. Man’s basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know. Irrationality is the rejection of man’s means of survival and, therefore, a commitment to a course of blind destruction; that which is anti-mind, is anti-life.
The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action. It means one’s total commitment to a state of full, conscious awareness, to the maintenance of a full mental focus in all issues, in all choices, in all of one’s waking hours. It means a commitment to the fullest perception of reality within one’s power and to the constant, active expansion of one’s perception, i.e., of one’s knowledge. It means a commitment to the reality of one’s own existence, i.e., to the principle that all of one’s goals, values and actions take place in reality and, therefore, that one must never place any value or consideration whatsoever above one’s perception of reality. It means a commitment to the principle that all of one’s convictions, values, goals, desires and actions must be based on, derived from, chosen and validated by a process of thought—as precise and scrupulous a process of thought, directed by as ruthlessly strict an application of logic, as one’s fullest capacity permits. It means one’s acceptance of the responsibility of forming one’s own judgments and of living by the work of one’s own mind (which is the virtue of Independence). It means that one must never sacrifice one’s convictions to the opinions or wishes of others (which is the virtue of Integrity)—that one must never attempt to fake reality in any manner (which is the virtue of Honesty)—that one must never seek or grant the unearned and undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit (which is the virtue of Justice). It means that one must never desire effects without causes, and that one must never enact a cause without assuming full responsibility for its effects—that one must never act like a zombie, i.e., without knowing one’s own purposes and motives—that one must never make any decisions, form any convictions or seek any values out of context, i.e., apart from or against the total, integrated sum of one’s knowledge—and, above all, that one must never seek to get away with contradictions. It means the rejection of any form of mysticism, i.e., any claim to some nonsensory, nonrational, nondefinable, supernatural source of knowledge. It means a commitment to reason, not in sporadic fits or on selected issues or in special emergencies, but as a permanent way of life.
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Sea Breeze
Terry,
I think we all understand what rationality is. That was not my question.
above all, that one must never seek to get away with contradictions.
What is "wrong" with irrationality and contradictions? It is a chance universe in your view right? Maybe even multiverses. How do you know that in some universe contradictions might be the norm, even demanded as you have demanded logic in this one.
What is the basis for your certitude that rationality and non-contradiction is "correct"? And you still haven't answered where did logic and rationality come from in your worldview?It means a commitment to reason, not in sporadic fits or on selected issues or in special emergencies, but as a permanent way of life.
If we blew up a 5 gallon bucket of paint, why should you demand that the paint splatter on one wall be used as a standard to judge the other nonsensical splattered walls? Doesn't make any sense. It's arbitrary.
The rats in the video clip I posted above seem to do just fine without much rationality. The greatest rational minds in all of history, Einstein, Newton, Di Vinci have never discovered a way to eradicate them.
Your worldview is self defeating on its own merit and implodes upon itself under examination. It should be rejected as irrational, arbitrary and without basis.
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Sea Breeze
Terry,
You steered the conversation away from your original question in your opening post:
Who is the who of WHO we ARE? And when we die......where does the "Who" go?
Do you have a clear viewpoint on these questions you raised? In other words, Who do you think you are? I admit, I had trouble seeing the relevance of Russian dolls with the original questions you proposed.
There is a documentary out in theaters right now called AFTER DEATH. I plan to go see it in the next day or two.
You pose really good questions in your OP. -
Terry
I admit, I had trouble seeing the relevance of Russian dolls with the original questions you proposed.
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The analogy of the dolls hearkens back to the Greek view. All of civilization, if it were a video on rewind, would be a series of people shrinking into infants and disappearing up inside their mother's womb.
We all begin INSIDE of a HUMAN (mother) and the seed from INSIDE the father on and on until One woman and one man and this is certainly not dissimilar to the Russian dolls conceptually.
The problem most true believers have is in having to STOP at the first Human mother and father.
Evolutionarily speaking, it can't stop there. We must transition our thinking into gradients of ingredients ALMOST human.
Continue rewinding back and back and back as the branch tips disappear into limbs, limbs into trunks, trunks into saplings, into sprouts, seeds, and so on back and back and back.
What are WE? We are partly EVERYTHING that came before us.
When we die, some of our constituent bits and bobs become soil and airborne particles like scattered bricks for walls all over the planet.
Some of Julius Caesar's atoms are inside of us and so forth. Everything is partly everything that came before it.
"Identity" is very particular and vanishingly brief. Your mixture and my mixture are unstable and unsustainable, and we come apart, but our salvageable detritus is up for grabs if we allow our corpse to decay.
If we manage to create something that touches the lives of others while we exist - that's as close as we come to memorial perpetuity. Khufu's pyramid, et al.
