[zeroca]

Originally Posted by Robert This is a question .

The story happened in a Labran’s monastery, India and I read about it in July 1985 in Georgian newspaper. Some 20, or 22 years old guy, called Dup Rimpoche left his house for the monastery. ("to seek the truth"). The chief of monastery-guru knew beforehand about his coming and he was admitted there. There were a lot of separate cells underground of monastery. All who went there were voluntaries, all of them got different goals, but every one was instructed by the guru. Dup Rimpoche was placed in a solitary cell and only way of communication (to receive the food and the water) was a little window. He began to meditate, sitting in the pose of Lotus (as I remember). He had been sitting in the cell for about two years. The only thought he was concentrating on the first 1.5 years was trying to get his feet toes to decompose. He became very ill and thought about death all along. After passing of this period he had visions: The first one was the great number of skeletons, and he began to burn them down (As he was instructed by his teacher) into the fire, which appeared at the same time in his visions. This period lasted for about two months. The souls of dead people, which he called Shimnuses, hinder everybody to take this test, so without knowledge it’s impossible to succeed. The following step as I remember was the test how to overcome all kind of fear. He saw in his visions various different horrible situations. This period lasted for 3-4 months. Then he saw a flower of Lotus, on which Brahma is resting, saw lions. They swallowed the flower and went into the umbilicus of Amitabha (which, he said, is the sovereign of the universe). Then he saw the train consisting of 38 small balls that was flying to him and he recognized it as an unmistakable mark of freedom according to his guru’s instructions. He continued the meditation and reached the 3-rd level of it: he saw abyss of Nirvana, to which he had to connect if he wanted to die forever and not to return to life again, but he remembered some of his obligations left before, so he cancelled the meditation. He didn’t need a food and the new spring of water, which appeared at this moment in the cell was enough for him as a source of energy. At the same time his guru ordered to set him free and then he become the chief of monastery. All this and also his claim that the visible sun is the tempting lantern of nirvana and is cold, but not hot, was quite unclear to me.

[BIG-BERTA]

The question does not make any sense because to feel is to exist.
You can feel that thing while you are still alive.
I just want to ask you one question?
Do you remeber anything how is to not exist?
Of course the answer is no
So thet is the feeling of non-existence

[AntonioLao]

if a theory such as the special theory of relativity becomes a human being, how does it feel to be discovered by Einstein in 1905?

How does a TOE theory feel if it never be discovered? But Einstein said that theories of the universe are all products of the human mind, while the objective reality of the universe is independent of these products of our mind. Life and death are both products of the human mind and therefore if there is no mind, all these products cannot exist. Yet the universe will still be there even without a mind thinking about it or is the universe a totality of a mind? The one and only everlasting mind?

[hdeasy]

I was coincidentally just starting on " In the theatre of consciousness" by Bernard Baars - and was at the point where he describes what parts of the the brain are neccessary but maybe not sufficient for consciousness. Interesting in itself - but as indicated above there are also many reports of near death experiences - so maybe there is a soul disjoint from the body. Even an apparently materialist mysterian like Colin McGinn had a good idea here too: Our awareness of chairs and every other thing 'out there' is actually nowhere: out thoughts about the world are not located anywhere - that theatre where the homunculus sits patiently confounding Dennett and all the other bores is real but not located - non-local but not in the sense of distributed in location - actually somewhat more immaterial. A wonderful bit of lateral thinking as expressed by McGinn. But even apart from such picture-laden types of maybe non-corporeal consciousness, there might be a sense in which every being who ever potentially was or will be or is also has a basic essence that might even be sub-conscious. It might seem hopeless - a disembodied essence drifting in a void: and maybe even if it takes half an eternity, if the sleeper should awake? Who knows? Science has nothing to say here. That's where some sort of faith or even agnostic admission of a possibility comes in...

Ciao,
Hugh.

[undef00]

robert,

you certainly to look fearless to me

how does it feel to not exist?

you may want to come close(but just close) to an answer to that question if get rid of your senses bit after bit and everything else until just the brain alone keeps on living (sure it will (if available) require some artificial instruments to support it) - and sure that might hurt (maybe the come up with a solution for that as well) - no brain - no you.

so you better don't want to know that.

[subversion]

We always exist in the sense that the universe always exists, since we are part of the universe as it carries on before and after our birth/perishment. Our energy/matter is recycled (from us and back into us), and indeed the information contained in our energy "infects" the future world with its slight yet noteworthy particularness. But as was mentioned, the information is scrambled, and that means that you are scrambled, your consciousness disassembled for re-decipherement. So you that you are right now just ceases to exist.

In light of this inevitable distortion of self, perhaps the thought of you could transcend the mere atoms and energies that pass through your body in this life, because perhaps the thought of you is integral to the universe! This notion is both reasonable and somewhat eclectic. I just thought of a great thing! We are all like notes in a song! When our note ends, our life is over, but the song may call upon our note again in order to finish, but it may be on a different instrument this time. Each note is important. And each time the same note is played it is never quite the same, but the essence is still you. I can take this metaphor even further. When you live your life to the fullest and fulfill your essence, your destiny, then your note rings true and strong. But if you err in your ways, the musician will strike the note awkwardly or the instrument will detune. So you have to ask yourself, how dischordant is the symphony of our society? Could we possibly aspire to the "music of the spheres?"

with hope, sub

[David Maes]

What happens when they put you 'asleep' before an operation with a drug.

You suddenly wake up and it's ten hours later...

Descartes said "I think, so I am"

When you don't think and you don't feel; when you don't have any perceptions,
than your body and your brain may still exist, but...

What I mean is... you simply don't know anymore...
To know or to perceive is function of building constructions out of the fragments 'flowing' around in your unconsciousness.
During an operations, the fragments in your brain still exist, but you're not building anything with them! So when you're not building, when your 'computer' isn't switched on; then you simply don't know, you simply don't perceive...

You know time has a direction; it's easier to scramble an egg than do unscramble it. Even old memories you don't use anymore and you have long forgotten are fragments flowing around in your brain. While dreaming you can suddenly remember those (even very detailed). You dream because your 'computer' is defragmenting!

Now, time has a direction; the old 'buildings', constructions in your brain you don't use anymore, fall apart and those fragments are flowing around in your unconsciousness... This is normal, this is the direction of time.

You can only be aware of something or perceive or think, by BUILDING constructions in your brain... When you don't BUILD anymore, than you simply don't KNOW anymore... Knowing or perceiving is building constructions out of other more little constructions... This is how we give signification to every data coming in in our brain... We make constructions by linking those incoming data with the fragments of our inconsciousness!

Every fragment is already a signification!!!

So everything we experience or 'see' is SUBJECTIVE.

Of course sometimes the subjective comes together with the objective...

But we can never know the objective... Because our brain constantly has to link with those fragments of signification to be aware of something or to perceive it.

Whatever you 'see'... it's subjective.

Than only way you can keep building thoughts is by keeping eating and drinking, and breathing... When you stop doing those things, then there is not enough energy left to build your thoughts; this means you don't know anymore or you don't perceive anymore.

Your body finally disappears... Only atoms exist forever...
A body exchanges every day millions and millions of atoms...

We are just a sorting of those atoms in time...

The atoms keep moving...
But we don't...

We have to find a way to download the information stored in our brain to a form of artificial intelligence or a computer, that's the only way our mind can keep on 'building'... that will be the only way to keep our consciousness alive...
The only problem is... we're not ready yet...

I hope they suceed to do it in our generation; this is the only chance we've got.

Did you know that there are milliards and milliards of connections in a human brain?...

[David Maes]

I agree more with Marketa... (I could be wrong of course...)

Actually... Suppose you have thermal energy... Can this energy think??
Can it feel?? I don't think so... I think it's just the sorting of these little bits of information in time (which our brain does) which gives us consciousness...
and our feelings... and our perceptions...

I think something like thermal energy just follows the laws of fysics...

I think our brain also does, but we're not aware of it.
Of course a brain works 'parallel'. This means it's not like a personal computer.
It converts millions and millions of bits information AT THE SAME TIME!
Than it choses the best information or solution and 'troughs away' the information it doesn't need anymore to the unconsciousness (which is the 'recycle bin' of our brain...! The 'recycle bin' is fragmentated!

This leads to what we call 'free will' or we can make a choice; (of course it's still our brain which makes a choice!) And these processes are still following the laws of fysics!!

I only dout about one thing... It's holography!!

You know what a holographic picture is. I don't know much about it... but it seems that the a lightbeem which reflects on a holographic picture would contain a whole picture 'like a tree for example'. If this is the truth; it meens that a single lightbeem could actually contain lots of information!!
(I don't really believe it; but I don't really know much about holography)...

What about the EPR-paradox?... Maybe one foton actually can send information to another foton breaking with relativity and lokal causality.
(Relativity could still be wrong...)
Of course you can say that non-lokality does not exist because of the subjectivity (which says that a quantumobject only exist when you're perceiving it)

The information that one foton would send to another foton would go faster than light. We haven't perceived such information yet by experiments...

But... If you look back to the past... many theories are completed changed or are proven to be wrong... Maybe relativity is wrong????
(or at least not completely correct)
(Of course still with all respect for Einstein; who was a million times smarter than me (I'm more the avarage); but Einstein was also human)

For example look at the past hundred years: first we knew that light contains several wavelenghts (ROGGBIV), than they discovered other ones, like radiowaves, röntgenwaves, infrared, UV, gammawaves, microwaves, ...

WHAT IF THERE WERE OTHER WAVES WE HAVEN'T DISCOVERED YET?

What if those waves could break the borders of time and space and lokal causality; and travel to the past???

We don't know everything! We know a bit, but very very very little...

(The thing is, whit a very little bit of information, you can have very much power; for example the atomic bomb; of course to distroy 'the force' you would have to know everything!!)

I think we're a little naieve to think we could know everything now (people have always thought they knew everything, even in the past...)!!

(Of course I could be wrong)

Edison once said... 'If there would be an afterlife; these should be waves... and we should be able somehow to recieve those waves on some kind of medium...)

Of course... we have lots of theories about waves and little particals....

But what if there were an afterlife, of which the information we can not recieve with our brain???

Is the afterlife containing waves....

(Oh God, again I don't know anything anymore.........)

[undef00]

one the other hand what do you think about virtual reality or computer games as a kind of virtual reality?

even if playing giana sisters (thanks to commodore -it once just was a great company!!!! sure it still exists but nobody does take notice anymore-that company probably also comes close to that feeling of not existing)

why are humans able to manage to feel kind of existing again and again (and kind of fight for their lifes) if just a virtual character has been assigned (sure nowadays you make you own characters and even feel better just not because of advancement in cpu-power, graphics, sounds, etc) - sure it just feels better if you're not forced and being able to use your own phantasy to be whatever you want to be ...

a mirror(mirrors may not tell the truth i suppose - i rather go with glass - or why arent they coming up with something new? ge) in your environment might help so that you know that you (i would rather go with your body) exist - do pigeons look into the mirror - sure they do have lots of mirrors/glas in urban areas. and sure they will know somehow that they do exist.

!!especially do look at BIRDS -they are kind of only species living free (besides humans)(and by free i also mean not under water- i didn't look much until now at life under water-so i don't want to go and say what they are maybe capable of and what not) but sure there are great species down the surface) in the wild on earth and being able to get somehow(+++) to know what they look like (and they get the BIG PICTURE - not just their face(---) - they are even able to make LOOPINGS? arent they? i'm not sure about that - and sure that will PUSH EGO beyond everything else human mind may even be capabale until now!) - sure they have to find some water/glas/skycraper below/near/far to them while flying - and sure their eyes may surpass everything elso on earth similar in capturing light in a just powerful meaning. !!

so great flying objects may have a great ego - some of them we may assume did recognize themselves before the first ape kind of got aware of himself - they just lack fingers to build arms and shoot - so they rather fall back against human in some way - but if you look around today even in urban areas you mostly will spot a great flying object - and be aware again: ego might be HIGH!!!!!! so rather be shy ....

are there other animals out there beside insects(as a special kind of animal) and by human TERRORIZED (my personal guess: nothing wrong with keeping dogs and cats (as they recently advanced kind of with us) in a humanous way - but everything else rather should stay away from your living rooms/zoos!!!!) pets getting something to know about themselves?

sure one possibility is if animals watch each others eyes (or your eyes - why does it just hurt (if you're still kind of human) watching an caged animal especially if look at its/his/her eyes? you may come up with an answer - sure!) - they may somehow be able to get some kind of message into their brain - but it is rather rare in the wild that animals watch each other eyes -and sure it may help them in having a rather easier life ....

was that biology or psychology? or psy-fiction?

ps:

as the internet revealed GREAT FLYING OBJECTS ARE ABLE TO MAKE LOOPINGS!!!!(+++)

but rather don't go and believe everything what comes up while you google or cluster around .....

[undef00]

it rather should go like that:

"if we are already some kind of human"

just my personal point of view - that doesn't matter anyway ...

also an amendment:
living rooms, zoos, lab, etc