Then it is a mathematical possible for anomolies to occur. If the theory holds true that human beings lie on the side of perpetual decay and an object such as a rock lies further away, then it is logical to assert that there are things that do not follow the theory of entropy.

In the end, something continues or else where would a "rebirth" if you will occur to repeat the cycle all over again?


-LDF

ghostdragon Wrote: In the end, something continues or else where would a "rebirth" if you will occur to repeat the cycle all over again? -LDF

Well, technically, my little ditty doesn't hold true when you apply the principle that matter cannot be created nor destroyed, only reverted in form or compressed. Literally this is only supplement to the Big Bang theory--that all matter was confined to a single point which exploded, expanded, and underwent chemical reaction...once this outward movement has stopped, gravity will pull all the matter back into a single point once again, and the universe will summarily be reborn.

you_suck Wrote: ghostdragon Wrote: In the end, something continues or else where would a "rebirth" if you will occur to repeat the cycle all over again? -LDF Well, technically, my little ditty doesn't hold true when you apply the principle that matter cannot be created nor destroyed, only reverted in form or compressed. Literally this is only supplement to the Big Bang theory--that all matter was confined to a single point which exploded, expanded, and underwent chemical reaction...once this outward movement has stopped, gravity will pull all the matter back into a single point once again, and the universe will summarily be reborn.

Ah! So if we were to think of human beings as creatures that simple exist and then eventually cease to exist, then we would be in error, for some part no matter how small would live on in a sense.

The Egyptians believed this and it is represented in the ankh which the straight line represents the material world and the oval at the top represents the eternal world. They had no thought of complete extinction of the soul, but saw it as another step into another realm. A similar belief is held by those who have a gothic lifestyle.


-LDF

EDIT: I'm sorry that was the worst post i've made since joining this site, i at least thought i could still make a point about something. Apparently not.

krackerjack Wrote: That's almost depressing because it sounds so truthful...but here's my take on pretty much any topic like this... Philosophy is a concept based on logic. Logic is simply human thought, and as we know humans are very flawed in almost everything we do, meaning our thoughts are often flawed. Therefore, it is "logical" to come to the conclusion that idea of "philosophy" itself is flawed. Philosophy is based supposedly on facts yet a lot of things are assumed, and there inlies the flaw(s). For example, you assumed that there was nothing before our lives, and after it, there will again be nothing. There's no way this can be proved at all, so really everybody's take on this subject (and sharing that veiw) is a complete waste of time, because there can never be an answer, and none of this "deep thought" (or "philoshophy") is really that deep or philosophical at all, because all it is, is our human imaginations running away with us, which is why i can't allow myself to get depressed by such ideas. But i guess thats were faith comes in... This of course, is like a philosophy itself (mine), and is also probably very flawed, so this whole post is just a nice boring pointless oxymoron... Yay! And now i've confused myself, and forgotten what my point was to begin with. Great. Bugger it, i'll post it anyways.

Yeah you confused me too.

You're not entirely correct about philosophy. Philosophy and logic don't mengle too much all the time. Logic (Aristotlian logic) is about reasoning and determining whether arguments are either valid or invalid. I won't go into the "square of opposition", but overall logic has nothing to do with thought. Logic is what is used to determine what is verifyable, what can be proven by whatever accepted and appropriate means, such as the scientific method or Aristotle's concept of "The 5 Causes".

Philosophy is based on "oughts" and "should be's" rather than logic. A pseudonym for philosophy is ideology. They are interchanged most ofter in political circles. while most people believe that they are the same in whatever circle one chooses to use it, the definition changes within the confinds of that circle.

One politician is of one particular ideology and one is of another. This is due to their core beliefs on general issues primarly and tend to generate extriemists that lie on the fringes of either viewpoint. They both issue their won ideological or philosophical opinions or "oughts" to those who would listen.

Philosophy
of a more existential variety such as the I Ching, Tao Te Ching or anything that lies in the realm of religon, are all thoughts and opinions based on the teachings of their own views. To say that they are flawed is... lol logical for not every view is correct in every matter of instance.

Faith is apart of whatever you believe in and that in itself is a philosophy whether it be religous or personal. There are many uses of philosophies, but their intent is to offer divergent avenues of pondering that one has not come to. Now is all of it simply a play on words used to confuse ego-centric and convergent minds into accepting it's way of thinking? Well, of course! And how can our imaginations run away with us if a logical thinking person can accept in part certain aspects of a Daoist philosophy or accept certain teachings of whatever faith? By accepting your definition of philosophy, your faith, which is apart of your beliefs and which could be considered a philosophy, has no merit.

Philosophy is more expansive than you think my friend! So dicounting it in general might narrow one's field of view of the world not that you believe it all, but at least aknowledge its existence.

Holla!


Le Dragon Fantome

ghostdragon wrote: Some stuff that actually made sense.

Yeah...I realised what you just said about faith following after Philosophy, and that my meaning of "philosophy" there was a tad too broad about 2 minutes after i made that post, before you replyed, thats why i edited it.
I lost my train of thought and kinda just kept typing, heh.

Well, decay is one word for it. Change suits better, IMO. As stated above, matter cannot be created or destroyed, since from what I've been taught, we're just energy that has slowed down and has reached a solid state.

But if the purpose of life is to succumb to the inevitability of death, then the validity of the point of life will change from person to person. Not everybody defines death in the same light. Some see it as a conclusion to existance. Due to spiritual experiences, I see it as a passage. So to those who see no purpose in life or death, since it is a rise-and-decline process, this is my basic view.

Humans are bound by limited perception. And not just humans, pretty much everything in the cycle of life is restricted by such limitations. Some more than others. But for now, let's use ants as an example. Pretending for moment that they're not engined completely on instinct, let's say they shared our own abilities of choice and reason. The differences in the way they act and interact would be worlds of difference. But due to mechanical and mental limitations, they're still stranded in the same ways we are. There are a handful of layers that make our atmosphere(stratosphere, troposphere, whatever), but it doesn't make a difference to the ants, because there is no possible way they can prove their presence. No matter how many years of advancing, they will never be able to physically prove these layers exist at all. They may be able hypothesize about them, making all sorts of conjectures and theories. Some will say they must exist out of necessity, and others will be arrogant and say they are merely fabrications made by their own society. Does this mean these atmospheric layers don't exist, just because the ants had not understanding or evidence of them?

Of course not. We're the same as the ants. If there is something too complex for us to understand, we discard it. We can't fathom anything beyond our physical reality, so we assume the physical reality is all there is. The concept of a spiritual dimension is to us as the atmosphere is to the ants.

But there comes the inevitable "why." Why the suffering, why even exist? I'm know I'm asking a lot, but for a moment, just a moment, try to humble yourselves into the understanding that maybe the reason for the life, pain, and death is too complex for us to understand, as it was originated from not just a a more complex entity, but THE MOST complex entity.

I believe if you are willing to enjoy the life that you are given, you fulfill the purpose of being active in life. It is what staves off death. Inevitability is not without hope. It is hope and fear that gives others hope. I live because I choose to. Not many can honestly say that. It is better to live and enjoy, than to live and fear. I find it far more acceptable fate to live for 24 years learning something new or enjoying something old, than to sit by and watch everything while I do nothing. To fight the current of time is the greatest gift we have. To admit that we too, are alive is what signifies the deep implications that death has. So loose your feeble shackles and break free into a new ideology. That you live life for the comfort of everyone. And you will see that things are better than they appear.

BTW: Wonderful topic, thank you for making it.

-Shoe

ShoeUnited Wrote: I believe if you are willing to enjoy the life that you are given, you fulfill the purpose of being active in life. It is what staves off death. Inevitability is not without hope. It is hope and fear that gives others hope. I live because I choose to. Not many can honestly say that. It is better to live and enjoy, than to live and fear. I find it far more acceptable fate to live for 24 years learning something new or enjoying something old, than to sit by and watch everything while I do nothing. To fight the current of time is the greatest gift we have. To admit that we too, are alive is what signifies the deep implications that death has. So loose your feeble shackles and break free into a new ideology. That you live life for the comfort of everyone. And you will see that things are better than they appear. BTW: Wonderful topic, thank you for making it. -Shoe

Ah there's the Shoe I know

TemperaryUserName Wrote: Humans are bound by limited perception. And not just humans, pretty much everything in the cycle of life is restricted by such limitations. Some more than others.

Ah! And this is the reason why I feel being expansive and diverget in looking at the world and towards those of different beliefs is the key for mankind to break from those precieved bonds of limitation. Water is not bound by rules that state that it must only be one shape. It's formlessness, it's expansiveness, it's innate ability to change due to varying conditions makes it a perfect template for people to understand that change is inevitale and that change is needed. Without the willingness to change, mankind will be bound by limitations without seeing the bigger picture that if change does not occur, then they will suffer for it.

It would seem that people today more than any other time in this worlds history are unwilling to consider other logical and reasonable points of view. that sort of narrow vision only allows one to see what's int front of them at the time and not want to give up that view for the fear that they maight be in error in precieving what they see. A rock requires an external force to move wich makes it dependent. While a vine elongates and expands utilizing the resources within the surrounding nature to feed it while at the same time it contributes back to nature for what it has given it.

Movement is fluid and natural for it both moves or it's own will and move adjusting to the external world. Water chages form due to movement. Poeople learn by moving from one area of understanding to another. Thoughts become broadened, knowledge is aquired, lessons are learned, goals are meet, and eventually limitations are surpassed. Nature isn't bound by limitations because it has the ability to adapt. Humasn also apply in most instances. However, with our girft of free will, it is primarly a matter of choice.

TemperaryUserName Wrote: But there comes the inevitable "why." Why the suffering, why even exist? I'm know I'm asking a lot, but for a moment, just a moment, try to humble yourselves into the understanding that maybe the reason for the life, pain, and death is too complex for us to understand, as it was originated from not just a a more complex entity, but THE MOST complex entity.

And this speaks to what people have trouble trying to develop, faith. Whether it's a higher power or diety, people are afraid of such "why" questions and "what" questions. "What will happen to my children?" "What will manking do to preserve itself for future genertaions?" And even a "will" question occasinally get's thrown in the mix. "Will mankind learn from its mistakes or continue to repeat them?" Some are unwilling to accept faith on some level for they are uncertain about what will happen. Questions thay they have may not have answeres to them, or at least answers that they could even comprehend in the larger grand scheme of the universe.

I'd like to know what lies beyone the event horizon of a quantium singularity. Do all known concepts of time, space, gravity, or physics exist beyond that hidden eye that resides in the pitch blackness of a tear in the fabric of space? Perhaps it is only a matter of time before we develop an understanding of the phenomenon. Or maybe it beyond our understanding. Perhaps we aren't mean to know. I'm humble to the possibility of they which cannot be explained but does have an answer. Such is my belief in expasiveness of the known and unknown questions about life, existance, the form, the formless, the light, the dark, the coporeal, the non-coporeal, the state of the living, the apparition state of a Ghost , and the known and unknown balances that exist.


I'm Ghost!

Ghost Dragon

I'll say this first to get it out of the way, although it really doesn't apply to anything--

I don't like the idea of a supreme deity, a great Creator. It just doesn't make sense to me. I was raised on the principle of total equality. Everything that has come to be has equal worth, applying to all humans, all animals, and whatever else there may be lurking in the universe. Nothing has the power to claim superiority over another thing, and nothing has the right to control another. The idea of something that is not only more powerful than another, but infinitely powerful, boggles me.

Secondly...due to the fact that's been mentioned several times, matter is completely undestroyable, at it's most insignificant able to be confined to a single, dense point. For both this theory and the idea of entropy to exist, entropy cannot be completely corrosive, but cyclic. As Temp said, we are, at our most basic, energy that has taken physical form. Entropy is the force that moves, changes, creates the energy, formed it into what eventually became us, and will continue to change it. Nothing is permanent except the fact of itself.

you_suck Wrote: Life is existence's biggest paradox, God's little joke, a big cosmic whoopsie.

Spinoza's God?

you_suck Wrote: The very purpose of life is not to die.

Not necessarily. I think that idea comes from the American denial of authority.

Some people believe life's purpose is to learn and hone yourself, to grow. Others (like naturalists, and perhaps the majority of teenagers) believe the purpose of life is to reproduce, to pass on the strain.

you_suck Wrote: Isn't inevitability the negate of purpose? If our lives have meaning, why do they end? Alternately, if they didn't end, what's the point of living? Where goes the skill it requires to stay alive?

Well, inevitability doesn't negate purpose in all cases, at least not in the case of life. Even though your life is a relatively short ride, on our level, it's plenty of time. I mean, right now, we're all here doing stuff. Just because death is coming our way doesn't mean what we do now will die with us.

And conversely, I don't think immortality would make life meaningless either. It'd just give us more time to do stuff.

I guess meaningfulness in someone's life is determined by the someone by what they do with it and how much they cherish it.

you_suck Wrote: Life is simply a diversion between spats of eternal and unrelenting nothing.

Yep.

Well, unless you believe in the afterlife or something...

Even so, there's still a lot you can do with your spat.