BS: Hypothetical semi-philosophical question

Subject: RE: BS: Hypothetical semi-philosophical question
From: Nerd
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 03:24 PM

I also agree with Wolfgang that it is key to have the imagination to actually relive the feelings of people you know you have wronged. I do this all the time, and say "what was I thinking? How could I have said that to him/her?" I think ultimately it DOES make me a better person.

Subject: RE: BS: Hypothetical semi-philosophical question
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 04:07 PM

Excellent idea! Wars could be stopped if enough people got the idea of doing that on a serious level of intention.

Subject: RE: BS: Hypothetical semi-philosophical question
From: Nerd
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 07:57 PM

Well, I don't do it intentionally. It's actually like a flashback where I see myself doing something to (say) my college girlfriend, and wince with embarrassment and shame. I don't sit down and say "when was last an asshole?" though. Maybe people should...

Subject: RE: BS: Hypothetical semi-philosophical question
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:38 PM

I also agree with Wolfgang that it is key to have the imagination to actually relive the feelings of people you know you have wronged. I do this all the time, and say "what was I thinking? How could I have said that to him/her?" I think ultimately it DOES make me a better person.

This is a good point from both you and Wolfgang, Nerd.

P.S. Wolfgang, are you going to give us a better translation than what Babelfish can come up with for your song?

Subject: RE: BS: Hypothetical semi-philosophical question
From: Wolfgang
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 06:20 AM

The verse is a bit tangential and, on the other hand, not:

I strongly believe that caring about the life before the death is the most urgent task we have (which doesn't mean, considerations like in this thread are worthless). I do not believe in life after death but if I am mistaken I'm fairly confident that I shall be judged for what I have done regarding this life and not whether I already had a glimpse at afterlife. A person doing something good only with an eye to the eventual afterlife has my full contempt (I see no candidate here).

Wolf Biermann has made a record titled 'There is a life before death'. For him too, the 'task' we have is to make this life worth living (for us and others). The song is the title song of that recording where he tells, half mockingly and very serious, about the life after death, how comforting that belief is, for instance for him the good feeling that his father might still be somewhere though all what was left of him was a bit of smoke ascending from a chimney in Auschwitz (his father was a German Jew and a communist fighting in the underground against the Nazis each alone being already a sufficient reason for the Nazis to throw him into their killing machine).

But Biermann being critical of usual religion/religiousness (and in particular of the pie in the sky variant) ends the song with this last verse:

Ach (sigh), that there is something beautiful/good thereafter
is a solace in our situation.
How fine! But yet, there remains
the little, the big, the question
(and we'd love to know that as well)
whether there is such a thing - we'd love to have it -
a life even before our deaths.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Hypothetical semi-philosophical question
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 06:56 AM

As has been said in the past (but I can't track down the quote at present) It's a shame humans aren't bound by Asimov's three laws of robotics.
Human version:
1, Harm no-one, neither by direct action nor by knowing inaction
2, Acceed to others requests if it harms no-one
3, Look after your own interests, as long as they don't conflict with the above

Clearly another version of "The Golden Rule"

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Hypothetical semi-philosophical question
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 08:49 AM

CarolC,

My point was that YOUR idea cannot be taken anywhere UNTIL the person who wants to take it somewhere gives it a LOT of serious thought.

YOUR question is essentially meaningless without a whole lot of fleshing out.

I am using "meaningless" here strictly as a technical rather than a pejorative term. Remember I am a former philosopher.

Meaningless questions can still be inspiring, interesting, annoying, whatever. Witness this thread.

My points were more or less "standard" responses that any professional philosopher would make to your question if it appeared in a student essay or class discussion. And I made them off the top of my head. To be honest, I am not interested in doing any of the fleshing out. Your question inspired me only to take a few minutes to write my response.

Subject: RE: BS: Hypothetical semi-philosophical question
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 12:24 PM

That's a nice translation/song, Wolfgang.

Russ. The reason I put "semi-philosophical" in the thread title, is because I have about as much patience with philosophers as you have with people like me (which is to say- very little).

;-)

I like your post better when I approach it my own way.

Subject: RE: BS: Hypothetical semi-philosophical question
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 12:44 PM

So here is my response to your post from the perspective of the way I like to look at things:

If you are going to claim that a thread is "semi-philosophical" do some philosophy. Work out the implications of your initial postion first to see if it makes any sense. Then to see if it gets you where you want to be.

The operative word fragment here is "semi". I have no desire to get into a real philosophical discussion with anyone. I tend to see "philosophy", as a serious school of thought, as not much more than a good way to get paid for a lot of mental masturbation. I posted this thread because this discussion is interesting to me. Nothing more, nothing less.

You say that one would "see, hear, smell, etc. all of the things you had done". In other words one would replay ones life. Would that be in real time or burst mode?

In my hypothetical after-death scenario, terms like "real time" and "burst mode" are irrelevant.

Then you go on to say that one would repeat "everything that every other person your actions and decisions effected in any way while you were still alive".

if you take the butterfly hypothesis seriously you'd have to relive the lives of everybody on earth. Perhaps every sentient being in the galaxy, universe, whatever.

That could be a very enlightening experience, don't you think?

Even assuming a minimal average lifespan, billions of earth lives will require billions of years to repeat. It wouldn't take a large average lifespan to exceed the currently expected life of the known universe.

In my hypothetical after-death scenario, there is no such thing as time. Time is irrelevant.

The Key question however is would you be aware that you were repeating?

Yes.

If you were aware, it sounds like the most horrific case of multiple personality syndrome imaginable in the relives no matter how you behaved in this life.

Possibly. Or the life just lived could be just one of many experiments in the art of living life. Next life could have adjustments made to it as a result of what is learned from the most recent life, and the experiment is continued.

If relife happens to everybody, then at any given time everybody will be reliving almost eveybody else's life simultaneously. If everybody is in some sense everybody what happened to individuals?

In the hypothetical scenario you are describing with this question, it looks like eventually, people would begin to understand "separateness" as being an illusion. Just a guess though.

If you envision a human as a body in the control of one owner self-consciousness that is unaware of billions of other consciousnesses who are along for the ride, where does that get you?

I'm not sure what your question is here, but if you're asking what purpose could it serve, maybe it helps set up a framework for consciousness to have experiences it couldn't have without this perception of "separateness".

You cannot sort out the practical implcations of a belief until you sort out its implications and its nuts and bolts.

Yes I can. This thread is not work. This thread is play. I can pretend anything I want to here.