On the socialization of children

[Adios]

WTF.

No matter how pretty the dress you put on this the simple fact is NOBODY FUCKING KNOWS WHAT HAPPENS AFTER YOU DIE.

There is NO WAY to know.

It is, on the other hand, probably possible to know what happens *just* before you die.

I understand you've flatlined twice on the op table... ever try DMT? Apparently, your body releases a lot of that shit into your brain as you are dying...
I've tried it. Freakiest thing is, I remember the experience being the most intense psychedelic trip I have to date experienced... but as you come down from it, it very quickly removes the experience from your conscious memory, leaving only a shadow of an intangable memory to hold onto, much like when you wake up from a dream and then forget it except for tiny bits and pieces that can sort of come back if you try. You know how you *know* a lot went on during the dream, but you can't remember most of it, and what you can remember, sort of feels like how when you have a word on the tip of your tongue but it just won't come?

I think maybe there's something to DMT, that it contains *some* secret about the mysteries of death... not that it's what death is, but more so, is one of the "stages" of death... and for some reason, our brain tries to protect us from those memories of what goes on when you're close to death.
Of course, maybe I'm just some drugged up hippy confusing chemical hallucinations for reality. (Whatever "that" is).

I don't use drugs for recreational purpose except caffeine, cigarettes and alcohol.

All I can say my experience was utter, absolute and complete nothingness.

So, like the "place/state" you go to after your fall asleep, but before you start dreaming? (If that makes any sense...)

Well, I don't know. I certainly wasn't even aware of any of it until I was told after waking. I guess just nothingness is best as inadequate as it is.

Well, I like to think that the state after falling unconscious but before you start dreaming is a state of nothingness... I mean, you probably have trouble conceptualizing what I'm talking about cus it's kinda a state where nothing happens and well, you'd have a lot of trouble remembering/acknowledging it since... it's a state of nothing.
But yeah, point being, there's a brain state of unconsciousness you go into, right after your consciousness seperates from the outside reality, and before you enter REM state, which is the state in which you dream, there's a period of complete zen nothingness...
It's hard to talk about, and hard to conceptualize, but I swear I know what I'm talking about... but I suppose it doesn't matter anyway...

Nothingness, check. I can work with what your saying.

I do see what you are saying.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Just so I understand you, would you agree that conciousness is somehow related to the brain?

I would say that all available evidence seem to point toward consciousness being something that comes from the brain. Where I'm undecided is, once the brain is done, is the consciousness reliant on the brain for future survival. For about nine months the foetus is related to the host, to the point where the two are biologically indistinguishable (at which point along the umbilicus does one end and the other begin?) At point of birth, however, they are both able to exist independently of each other.

At present I do not have enough evidence to discount the possibility that consciousness behaves the same way, vis a vis the host neurology.

[Adios]

Forgot about privacy settings on FB. I am Charley Brown there if you want to friend me.

[LMNO]

Just so I understand you, would you agree that conciousness is somehow related to the brain?

I would say that all available evidence seem to point toward consciousness being something that comes from the brain. Where I'm undecided is, once the brain is done, is the consciousness reliant on the brain for future survival. For about nine months the foetus is related to the host, to the point where the two are biologically indistinguishable (at which point along the umbilicus does one end and the other begin?) At point of birth, however, they are both able to exist independently of each other.

At present I do not have enough evidence to discount the possibility that consciousness behaves the same way, vis a vis the host neurology.

Yeah, I gotta let this one drop.  I was mistaken earlier in saying there was little common ground.


There is no common ground here.  As it turns out, we were barstooling all along.

[Cramulus]

LMNO, your failure to get people to agree with your conclusion about what happens when you die does not mean we are all staring at our navels and shouting NOTHING EXISTS.


anyway, the OPs question was about how to answer a child's questions about death while attempting to raise them in a "spiritual vacuum". (as an aside, I don't know why you would want to raise a kid in any kind of vacuum) He said, "trying to introduce the idea that there may be nothing after life seems to depressing for them to relate to at their ages."

So let's say you're a scientific materialist like Kai and LMNO and buy into the idea that brain tissue = consciousness = the person. And you believe death is actually a very simple matter, life just stops at the end and there is no remaining soul or locus of consciousness left to speculate about. And you're trying to explain this to a child. What do you say?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

So let's say you're a scientific materialist like Kai and LMNO and buy into the idea that brain tissue = consciousness = the person. And you believe death is actually a very simple matter, life just stops at the end and there is no remaining soul or locus of consciousness left to speculate about. And you're trying to explain this to a child. What do you say?

And so it is that we, as men, do not exist until we do; and then it is that we play with our world of existent things, and order and disorder them, and so it shall be that non-existence shall take us back from existence and that nameless spirituality shall return to Void, like a tired child home from a very wild circus.

[Kai]

Yes yes, you are all reacting exactly as I planned.   

[Lies]

LMNO, your failure to get people to agree with your conclusion about what happens when you die does not mean we are all staring at our navels and shouting NOTHING EXISTS.


anyway, the OPs question was about how to answer a child's questions about death while attempting to raise them in a "spiritual vacuum". (as an aside, I don't know why you would want to raise a kid in any kind of vacuum) He said, "trying to introduce the idea that there may be nothing after life seems to depressing for them to relate to at their ages."

So let's say you're a scientific materialist like Kai and LMNO and buy into the idea that brain tissue = consciousness = the person. And you believe death is actually a very simple matter, life just stops at the end and there is no remaining soul or locus of consciousness left to speculate about. And you're trying to explain this to a child. What do you say?

I would say... to child... death is like the same place you were before you were born...maybe...

And if that confuses them, I'd try to get them to become familiar with zen/buddhist philosphy, perhaps when they are a bit older...

Or perhaps, even, as I mentioned earlier... it's like the the state between falling asleep into unconsciousness and dreaming...

Or, I'd just ask them what they think. They probably have a better answer without me having to explain anything.

[LMNO]

LMNO, your failure to get people to agree with your conclusion about what happens when you die does not mean we are all staring at our navels and shouting NOTHING EXISTS.

I know that; you're staring into the sky and building castles.  Since we can't create experiements to test hypotheses, and since we cannot accept an occam's razor approach to what we can, then our questions are defined as "scientifically meaningless".  Which means, by the above game rules, there is an equal chance of conciousness ceasing to exist after death as there is of being magically transported to a cosmic version of Yo Gabba Gabba.

Which is, you have to admit, just asking for the barstool.

[Adios]

Yes yes, you are all reacting exactly as I planned.   

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

LMNO, your failure to get people to agree with your conclusion about what happens when you die does not mean we are all staring at our navels and shouting NOTHING EXISTS.

I know that; you're staring into the sky and building castles.  Since we can't create experiements to test hypotheses, and since we cannot accept an occam's razor approach to what we can, then our questions are defined as "scientifically meaningless".  Which means, by the above game rules, there is an equal chance of conciousness ceasing to exist after death as there is of being magically transported to a cosmic version of Yo Gabba Gabba.

Which is, you have to admit, just asking for the barstool.

There are no wrong answers... just wrong conclusions?  

[Cramulus]

LMNO, your failure to get people to agree with your conclusion about what happens when you die does not mean we are all staring at our navels and shouting NOTHING EXISTS.

I know that; you're staring into the sky and building castles.  Since we can't create experiements to test hypotheses, and since we cannot accept an occam's razor approach to what we can, then our questions are defined as "scientifically meaningless".  

I know I'm wandering into deep barstool territory here, but there miiiight be other reasons to discuss death than to find a scientifically testable explanation.

Which means, by the above game rules, there is an equal chance of conciousness ceasing to exist after death as there is of being magically transported to a cosmic version of Yo Gabba Gabba.

You are comparing the position that we aren't capable of understanding death with belief in total cartoon bullshit.

thanks.

[Kai]

Yes yes, you are all reacting exactly as I planned.   

If I knew unintentional trolling was this easy, I would have started years ago.

Humans have fun, emotionally driven fixed action patterns, no? 

[LMNO]

You are comparing the position that we aren't capable of understanding death with belief in total cartoon bullshit.

thanks.

I'm saying that if we state that we truly can't know, than literally anything is possible; therefore, all stances share equal value.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Say you can prove, using science that there is no life after death. Conclusively, with a fuckton of evidence and diagrams and formulae and models and all shit... even then it's just bullshit navel gazing unless you can come up with a practical application for this revelation. What possible practical application could there conceivably be? A faster processor? A tyre that lasts twice as long? A new and sustainable form of energy?

The bottom line is that the question of what happens after you pop your clogs is, and always will be, a philosophical one. It's one I've spent a fair amount of time and effort dealing with and the best conclusion I've come to is - I'll find out when I'm dead.

Science has no business getting involved. By the same token, in a conversation about what happens when you die, no one has any fucking business involving science, given that it's utterly incapable of shedding any light on the subject. Any attempt to do so isn't scientific - it's just retarded. So now we're reduced to the age old clusterfuck that invariably happens when science tries to overstep it's remit and settle a philosophical question using charts and graphs - the philosophers look at the scientists like they're retarded and the scientists look at the philosophers like they're retarded and no one ends up with a faster processor, improved tyre compound or ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything.

Why can't scientific rationalists not just fucking admit that some questions can't be answered using ohms law? Why does their whole belief system seem to hinge on the fallacy that science has an answer for every question?