Yes

[Verbal Mike]

First Law of Thermodynamics always springs to mind for me. (I may be thinking of the wrong one.. yanno, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only change)

I used it once in terms of ecosystems and chemical energy.... the heat of the person may be gone, but they are still intrinsically part of the world.  This is why I wants one of them biodegradable woodland burials, with as little chemical treatment as I can get away with. I WANT to be worm and bug and plant foods, and in a sciencey way be actually part of the ecosystem and the earth and surroundings, I don't need any.of the where does the the conciousness part (for me, anyways) go type questions, anymore. We can only be sure that memories and the actual physical matter and energy live on.

Exactly this.

But what good is living forever? I understand my fear of death to be a combination of things. Fear of the unknown, anger at being removed from everything (or everything being removed from me), jealousy of people I will leave behind, sorrow for people who will be sad to see me go, and the threat of not being there to provide for people who depend on me. There's also a feeling that it is somehow "unfair" to be denied the right to watch events unfold forever. I am intensely interested in history and that I will die relatively soon is like being plucked out of a theater before you get to see the end of an awesome movie.

Also exactly this.


About the whole god and atheism thing... It's funny. When I bumped into Discordianism on Wikipedia, I was about 15 or 16, and in the bouts of militant atheism. I would spend a lot of time on theism arguments online, and couldn't identify with religious or theistic thinking at all. But when I read about Discordian metaphysics, you know, the PURE CHAOS + grids stuff, it was like "hey, I thought that was my own idea", and I also pretty quickly recognized that Eris is a useful metaphor. It took years for that metaphor to grow on me, and that was part of a process of understanding why people are religious in an empathetic, non-judgmental way. "Eris" is to me a bridge between rational atheism and theism. I'm still basically an atheist, I've just stopped caring about it so much, and can playfully and/or seriously entertain notions that don't fit in with strong atheism. And this is possible because I can connect with the proposition that chaos controls the universe and is beyond my understanding. I still can't connect with religious ritual or "faith", but I can have conversations with human beings who see the world differently, and I can even go along with a lot of their thoughts, so long as they're harmless. (Not long ago I had a really nice conversation with a woman who is making a career change from Animal Communicator to Angel-Assisted Healer, kept a straight face as she briefly described these two vocations, and still don't think of her as a total idiot. I shit you not.)

And this stuff mostly happened just from reading the Wikipedia article about Discordianism, and maybe the Principia – all well before I discovered PDCOM and started getting my brain kicked around in unexpected directions.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!

[Verbal Mike]

Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!

Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!

Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?

It's hippy for "neat".

[The Wizard Joseph]

Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!

Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?

Sorry. The consequence of the more or less random exposure to the Discordia mythos and philosophy sounds like it has considerably altered your perceptions over time. Not trying to de-rail and confuse.

Personally If there is an omni-being that could be called God I think the whole Sacred Chao descriptor well describes it's "paintbrush", if you will. We are inherently limited in our ability to use it, but just knowledge of the "chaos" that transcends order and disorder can lend perspective and allow for more info and tolerance in one's life. Personal opinion only of course.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!

Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?

It's hippy for "neat".

You would not believe how many hippies reside in the LaX area. I think I've caught something.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!

Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?

It's hippy for "neat".

You would not believe how many hippies reside in the LaX area. I think I've caught something.

That's no excuse.  I'm up to my ASS in last year's hipsters (it's a Tucson thing), and you don't see ME wearing a stupid Brad Pitt hat.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!

Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?

It's hippy for "neat".

You would not believe how many hippies reside in the LaX area. I think I've caught something.

That's no excuse.  I'm up to my ASS in last year's hipsters (it's a Tucson thing), and you don't see ME wearing a stupid Brad Pitt hat.

I don't see you wearing anything.. this is an internet forum. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!

Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?

It's hippy for "neat".

You would not believe how many hippies reside in the LaX area. I think I've caught something.

That's no excuse.  I'm up to my ASS in last year's hipsters (it's a Tucson thing), and you don't see ME wearing a stupid Brad Pitt hat.

I don't see you wearing anything.. this is an internet forum. 

Oh, you'd know it.

[Verbal Mike]

Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!

Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?

Sorry. The consequence of the more or less random exposure to the Discordia mythos and philosophy sounds like it has considerably altered your perceptions over time. Not trying to de-rail and confuse.

Personally If there is an omni-being that could be called God I think the whole Sacred Chao descriptor well describes it's "paintbrush", if you will. We are inherently limited in our ability to use it, but just knowledge of the "chaos" that transcends order and disorder can lend perspective and allow for more info and tolerance in one's life. Personal opinion only of course.

Yeah, that's part of the story, but putting it in that kind of cause-and-effect way is a bit of Lo5, or maybe just too little information on my part. I was a teenager, going through a lot of changes, and exposure to Discordia was one small part of it. It only became a big deal and had a central effect after I moved to Germany, when I started spending a lot of time on PDCOM – and that was BIP Discordia, not PD Discordia. When I was a teenager I was mostly learning to calm down, be social, and open up to people; part of that was ceasing to be a dick about religion, which PD Discordia helped with.

Anyway, we're derailing here... This is not the VERBL's History of Personal Development Thread.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!

Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?

It's hippy for "neat".

You would not believe how many hippies reside in the LaX area. I think I've caught something.

That's no excuse.  I'm up to my ASS in last year's hipsters (it's a Tucson thing), and you don't see ME wearing a stupid Brad Pitt hat.

I don't see you wearing anything.. this is an internet forum. 

Oh, you'd know it.

You know I think there's some stuff about that in the back end of the Bible. Hmmm..Oceans of blood, sun darkens, sky rolls back like a scroll... AH! here it is! Yep, that sounds like you in a stupid Brad Pitt hat alright. Please don't sir. The rest of the shit afterward sounds pretty bad.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!

Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?

Sorry. The consequence of the more or less random exposure to the Discordia mythos and philosophy sounds like it has considerably altered your perceptions over time. Not trying to de-rail and confuse.

Personally If there is an omni-being that could be called God I think the whole Sacred Chao descriptor well describes it's "paintbrush", if you will. We are inherently limited in our ability to use it, but just knowledge of the "chaos" that transcends order and disorder can lend perspective and allow for more info and tolerance in one's life. Personal opinion only of course.

Yeah, that's part of the story, but putting it in that kind of cause-and-effect way is a bit of Lo5, or maybe just too little information on my part. I was a teenager, going through a lot of changes, and exposure to Discordia was one small part of it. It only became a big deal and had a central effect after I moved to Germany, when I started spending a lot of time on PDCOM – and that was BIP Discordia, not PD Discordia. When I was a teenager I was mostly learning to calm down, be social, and open up to people; part of that was ceasing to be a dick about religion, which PD Discordia helped with.

Anyway, we're derailing here... This is not the VERBL's History of Personal Development Thread.

gotcha.

[Kai]

one thing that assuages me is considering that i don't really feel too terrible about the time before i was alive, so i really shouldn't feel too terrible about the time after i'm alive.

furthermore, we are limited in space, just as well as time.  should we be upset about the fact that we are missing the experience of life on that planet 4000 lightyears away where they finally rid themselves of stupid, and the worst thing in life is the dull ache in your cheeks from grinning too much? nobody ever gnashes their teeth about that one...

it doesn't dismiss the notion that we should strive to live longer, experience more, seek unicorns, etc.  but it seems to focus the notion that anguishing over temporal limitation sours the infinitesimal grain of perception we do have at our disposal.

Well, that's exactly it.  IF we were put here by some agency, it was obviously for us to live our lives.  IF we got here by natural means, but have been "adopted" by some agency, then we still have to live our lives.  And IF it's a cold, empty void, then we'd DAMN WELL BETTER live our lives, because that's all we've got.

The problem is, most people walk around assuming that God (or whatever) is just as petty and narcissitic as they are.  "GROVEL LEST I THROW YOU INTO THE DARKNESS."  Sounds like the admins at Mysticwicks, more than a deity of any kind.  And if the deity IS like that, then I'll take the darkness, if it's all the same to him/her/it.

I agree so heartily with the above two posts.

Once I was having a conversation with some Buddhists, and they were talking about levels of reincarnation (as in, do you become an animal spirit or hell spirit or human or deity or whatnot when reincarnated), and I just said, none of that matters. We're here, now, with no guarantees of anything else other than this, and if anything might come after, we've got absolutely no control over it other than to /enjoy our lives/. I don't think there's anything after that would have a 'me' in it, but that's equally irrelevant to what's going on right now.

[trippinprincezz13]

About the whole god and atheism thing... It's funny. When I bumped into Discordianism on Wikipedia, I was about 15 or 16, and in the bouts of militant atheism. I would spend a lot of time on theism arguments online, and couldn't identify with religious or theistic thinking at all. But when I read about Discordian metaphysics, you know, the PURE CHAOS + grids stuff, it was like "hey, I thought that was my own idea", and I also pretty quickly recognized that Eris is a useful metaphor. It took years for that metaphor to grow on me, and that was part of a process of understanding why people are religious in an empathetic, non-judgmental way. "Eris" is to me a bridge between rational atheism and theism. I'm still basically an atheist, I've just stopped caring about it so much, and can playfully and/or seriously entertain notions that don't fit in with strong atheism. And this is possible because I can connect with the proposition that chaos controls the universe and is beyond my understanding. I still can't connect with religious ritual or "faith", but I can have conversations with human beings who see the world differently, and I can even go along with a lot of their thoughts, so long as they're harmless. (Not long ago I had a really nice conversation with a woman who is making a career change from Animal Communicator to Angel-Assisted Healer, kept a straight face as she briefly described these two vocations, and still don't think of her as a total idiot. I shit you not.)

And this stuff mostly happened just from reading the Wikipedia article about Discordianism, and maybe the Principia – all well before I discovered PDCOM and started getting my brain kicked around in unexpected directions.

Essentially this. My I'm fine, you're fine mentality has basically expanded while at the same time my ability to recognize, poke fun at and otherwise deal with the uniforms people put on and/or cling to has developed as well.

If that makes any sense