Korean Job Discussion Forums

[BaldTeacher]

Do you think that something about us continues after death? It's been on my mind a lot lately. Not all of us will live until old age. I've had a close call or two and I know people who have died. In the end we all die. We'll be remembered directly by our family and friends until they all die. The details and fragments known about our lives decrease with each generation until they completely fade except for maybe a name on a family tree if we're lucky. Then inevitably, civilization collapses. It's entropy and it can't be avoided, only postponed. Even if we go down in the history books or produce great works that will be remembered by a future civilization, like Julius Ceasar or Plato did, eventually humans will go extinct too. And it's like we've never even been here.

If this Earthly realm is all that there is for us, it really doesn't matter how much fulfillment or enjoyment you get out of life, or what impact you have. You could be Hugh Hefner, George Patton, or an overweight Warcraft nerd and in the end, you all reach the same finish line and get the same prize. Of course if you pass on your DNA, a part of you does live in the physical sense. If you think about it, who we are as individuals, is a culmination of all the people in our family who came before us.

How much of your being do you think survives death? Maybe consciousness is universal and never dies. Maybe all of our egos come from the same consciousness. Who the hell really knows. I've read some interesting circumstantial evidence about the afterlife in different forms.

If there is one, that's fantastic. If there isn't, we won't be around to be disappointed. I guess that's a plus.

Anyway, what do you think?

[Street Magic]

[.38 Special]

The Greeks had a fine way of looking at life: Beauty is proportional to mortality; with brevity and scarceness comes preciousness.

There exists beauty because a thing is remarkable in someway. We are amazed by the feats of great people because they were born and died as our peers despite their astonishing accomplishments.

And then there is love -- the eternal bond of temporary creatures.

An interpretation of a line I found in the Good Book once: You will in death be appraised for your life. What I mean is that the quality of life that you create for yourself and others is the value of you and the life you lived.

I try not to worry about death. Every once in a great while I stumble into a dark depression contemplating the briefness and futility of life and living. These episodes are pretty short, and I come out of them with one of two minds: A person should either endeavor for greatness or goodness. By greatness I mean to toil toward an end that will make you a legend or hero in posterity. By goodness I mean to dedicate your time and efforts to your family, friends, and community. Whether a legend of your time or beloved of your people, in the end each would be a fitting life.

Don't waste your life. I've wasted a lot of mine working long hours in factories, drinking habitually, and untold hours by myself on the internet. The difference between knowledge and wisdom is knowing how and actually doing...

[blackjack]

we are born

we live

we die

we rot

[kinerry]

no, and there's no reason to believe so other than our own thoughts of grandeur

[machinoman]

[Sergio Stefanuto]

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:

[Olivencia]

To live is to die for we are just an empty bubble floating on a sea of nothingness.


Glad I don't believe it.

[Sector7G]

[Sector7G]

Some really good stuff by several people on this thread and I do not want to diminish it or be crass by bringing up a tv show, but the HBO series Six Feet Under really dealt with the topic of death in a way that made me contemplate my mortality and existence in some of the very ways articulated here. If you have not seen it I highly recommend it. More recently, for some reason,the movie The Road had the same affect on me.

[Otus]

I think the answer really lies in how far you want to 'push' the question. It seems that we didn't have a choice about a 'physical' birth so don't really have a choice about a 'physical' death. Look around and you can see a lot of both happening.

Personally, I do not doubt the possibility of a higher 'consciousness. Within the so called living body, we experience states of deep sleep or unconsciousness. The difference being that we regain consciousness, whereas in the condition of death, the effects seem more permanent to the point where the heart stops beating, the brain stops functioning, etc. Even the body itself may disappear from its previously recognized form, unless somehow preserved.

However, even in physical science it is claimed that nothing remains completely inactive. Although, without consciousness and intellect, we cannot think of it as being any kind of 'moral' agent. The point here being that we cannot claim a state of complete motionlessness or inactivity and call this death; just a radical change in the physical condition of something to the point where we no longer recognize it in the condition it was before.

Is it possible to have or awaken to a different kind of experience or reality than what we previously felt or knew? Perhaps kind of like falling into a deep sleep and then being transported somewhere, and then waking up in a completely different place? I can't really say for sure. Some people just believe in a final physical death of body and consciousness and for all I know, they may stay dead. Others seem to have claimed awareness of an ongoing life, but that would have to be realized (and experienced) within themselves. I don't believe that this is involuntarily thrust upon a person on a 'deathbed' or when facing the so-called 'final curtain'. It would need to be realized in the 'here and now'.

Coming back to the key point - it may depend on how far you want to push the question (with an honest and open mind).

Emerson made some interesting remarks on this in his essay "Nominalist and Realist":

[schwa]

I cant imagine utter nothingness as the payoff -- our stroll through life is far too elaborate.

I'm genuinely curious about what's next, to the extent I have no qualms about dying whenever.

[VanIslander]

The Before Death ... is what concerns me.

[machinoman]

[Street Magic]