LSHAFC2004

MF is obviously trying to state oblivion instead of eternal sleep. eternal sleep sounds far more peaceful to me, but for some like MF, they try to weedle out of it becasuse they fear it. I know how they feel, an eternal deep coma isscary but in way of ANOLOGY NOT SCIENTIFCALLY it is true. Final thing to not edit my posts again!


Death is peaceful,UNENDING,dreamless sleep. :snooze:

Nothing scary really, kinda nice when you think about it.

post tenebras lux

But what do you think is the difference between oblivion and 'peaceful,UNENDING,dreamless sleep'?

You still seem to be ducking that question.

Luxie

Koyaanisqatsi

Although you're obviously proselytizing more to convince yourself than others for whatever reason, I'll take your bait...

I see. So because others have used sleep as a metaphor for death, this therefore proves they are equivalent? The answer to that question is, "No, it does not," by the way so you can jettison your fallacy. Particularly since it rests on what others have written and this thread alone provides more than enough written regarding brain death and zero brainwave activity as compared to the deepest of comas, where the brain is not dead and there is activity, no matter how minimal.

In other words, your assertion that sleep is equivalent to death is clinically proven false, just as, by extension, any past or present author asserting there to be an equivalence in any other manner than metaphorically/analogically, to coin a phrase, is also proven false.

But that doesn't matter to you, correct? That the assumptions upon which you base your repeated assertion are demonstrably false? Sleep and death are not equivalent. The only thing they share in common is the appearance of inactivity, but, as has been pointed out repeatedly to you, this is a false appearance; a mistake of perception on your part. And had you ever seen an actual dead body you'd know precisely (and, I would argue, inherently) what we're talking about. A dead body in its natural state (i.e., without makeup and embalming fluid) looks about as "asleep" as cordwood.

That's nonsensical even in your own paradigm, since you continue to argue that in deep sleep or coma there is no ability to reflect. There is no "me" or "I" when you're dead just as there is no effective "me" or "I" when you're in a deep coma or otherwise dreamless sleep.

You're hoisting yourself with your own petard.

Relevant to whom? It can't be to you, since when you're dead there is no more you to reflect on the relevance. If you mean to friends and loved ones who remember the experiences they shared with you back when you were "in" spacetime, that's true, but only trivially so in a discussion of what may or may not be relevant to "you" when you no longer exist to measure the relevance to yourself.

So will the many times I've defecated. What's your point? If there is no more "I" or "me" within spacetime to reflect back on those moments, pardon the pun, but who gives a shit? Your existence in spacetime will only be measured and reflected upon by others who still experience spacetime, but cannot be measured or reflected upon by anything that does not experience spacetime.

Unless you're attempting to claim that it is your consciousness that somehow survives the death of your body in a manner that still exists within spacetime that allows for self-reflection, but, again, your own examples (coma and dreamless deep sleep) do not necessarily allow for self-reflection; at least not in any sense we would normally ascribe that term to (as you are doing in other parts of your fallacy).

It seems you're doing little more than asserting a primacy to consciousness; an independent primacy, no less, that is somehow not reliant upon the chemical makeup of your body to exist. If that were the case, then I have just one simple question, Why birth yourself into chemical spacetime at all? Isn't that the implication of your assertion? That our consciousness exists externally somehow to our physical properties?

So why enter into the irrational limitations of such properties and/or why, once you've "found" such an answer, remain tethered? Surely if your consciousness can so easily exist without the need for physical, chemical actions and reactions, then it can leave the confines of its own self-made prison/vehicle anytime it chooses (and presumably does in your scenario during sleep, yes)?

You've found the answer, just not the conscious "off" switch; the manual override that would allow you to simply leave your body any time you consciously chose? Why would that be?

Again, nonsense. Not to mention special pleading. You can only make such an assertion out of ignorance, wish-fullfillment and a healthy does of self-rationalization; three conditions no dead man or woman can demonstrate, so far as the whole of recorded human history is concerned.

Are you aware of what an asssertion is, by the way? What its limitations are and what it does or does not demonstrate? Don't answer so hastily, because of course those questions are rhetorical.

Again, to whom and of what probative value is this tautology?

Nor any time when it is relevant. That's precisely the point. That you died in a state of self-aggrandizement does not therefore mean that such a self-reflection can continue when there is nothing operant any longer for it to continue on or through, yes?

Self-reflection, by definition and hyphen, requires a self to be present. If your self ceases to exist, then obviously there can be no more self-reflection. Further, whatever self-reflection occured prior to your death may indeed be said to "exist" in "spacetime" (i.e., in historical context), this is only a trivial remnant of your actual self; the subjectively altered memories of those you met and knew.

Yes, history may record (and by that I of course mean, historians) that you existed in a certain section of subjectively applied, chronologically categorized spacetime (i.e., the one hundred or so times the Earth orbited the Sun) but your ability to self-reflect on those years ceases upon your death, so aside from the childish semantics game, what's your point?

Your life can only be relevant to you while you're still alive. Once you're dead, there is no "you" to apply relevance.

You need to re-evaluate what the hell you're trying to say, because this is just more nonsense.

Are you saying that, because you once lived, you live eternal? If so, then you are conflating two disparate definitions of living and life.

Only if you're arguing about the spacetime period during the coma or deep, dreamless sleep. Indeed, at the time of your dreamless sleep, you probably are not self-reflecting so at that time, it is similiar to being non-existent, but only in that narrow context. The difference being, of course, as everyone keeps pointing out, that you will awaken from the sleep and hopefully from the coma, but you do not awaken from death. They are too distinctly separate chemical/physical states.

Thus, to focus upon a time in your life when you are not actively self-reflecting and compare that time to a state where the possibility/ability for self-reflection does not exist is disingenuous, at best. You're comparing apples and oranges in order to say, "See, they're both fruits, therefore apples and oranges are identical." It's good work if you can get it, but hardly substantive.

Which "YOU" are you referring to? The individual experiencing a dreamless sleep or the individual who has awakened and is therefore consciously reflecting on the dreamless sleep saying, "Why didn't I dream last night?"

Perhaps your biggest problem lies in the fact that you're fiating a static definition of consciousness, instead of what it actually is; dynamic. Up until, of course, that dynamic, ever acting and reacting process ceases and there is no longer any interaction. I.e., death.

And if there is no "me?" Getting the picture yet? "Me" is a finite quantity, so far as we have any evidence for. "Me" ceases to exist coincidentally at the point we call "death." So, again, your own arguments work against you.

I think I see the other problem. Let's be consistent with your own terms and more properly qualify that last statement. It should read, "Even when I am dead, because being in the equivalence of a dreamless state of non-consciousness after death is far better than being in the equivalence of a dreamless state of non-consciousness before birth and never waking."

Now you can see the parity and therefore the irrelevancy of your statement. If you're in the equivalence of a dreamless state of non-consciousness, it doesn't matter if you're in that state before, during or "after" death since it is an identical state of non-self-reflection.

What you're really saying is, "Because I have awakened from my dreamless state of non-consciousness and therefore have the ability to self-reflect on which of the two states is preferable, I choose the awakened state of conscious self-reflection."

Which is just peachy and wonderful and keen and huzzah to you and cold-comfort when faced with the more than apparent fact that such an awakened state of conscious self-reflection ceases upon death.

No, you have merely repeatedly asserted your case to be salient and not argued it in the slightest. We, on the other hand, have actually argued your case to be anything but salient. Again I would ask if you know the qualitative difference between asserting something to be true and actually demonstrating (i.e., proving) it to be true?

No, then we will only see other authors using sleep as a metaphor or analogy to death as you have repeatedly done here. Hardly compelling.

So you continue to chant and as mantras go, it's a good one for the ignorant and searching, but it doesn't actually provide anything of substantive value, which, in case you hadn't already noticed, is sort of what we're all on about here.

My advice (not that you asked)? Stop with the chanting and get on to addressing all of the substantive points raised that disprove your assertions; number one being that the physical qualities of a body asleep are not equivalent to the physical qualities of a body dead and then perhaps you can address why you've fallaciously compared the state of conscious self-reflection during a period where no such self-reflection occurs (dreamless sleep/coma) to the state of conscious awareness during which time self-reflection can and therefore does occur (waking or, arguably, dream-filled sleep).

Only then should you turn your attention to what it means (substantively) to value self-reflection over non-self-reflection, since one is an active state that must be engaged in by the individual and the other an inactive state that an individual simply experiences as part and parcel to existing in spacetime.

Declaring, "I'm just right and others agree with my declaration," doesn't get you anything 'round these parts.

pairadocs

BUZZZZZ! Wrong. My mother-in-law was in a 2-week total coma and once she awoke she was aware that time had passed (without being told).

Viti

Fine, it's like a dreamless sleep except for the whole breathing, brainwaves, heart beating, metabolizing, non decaying, and still existing part. What is your point?

deja voodoo

Yup.

*yawn*

Nanook

When someone says sleep instead of dead it softens the finality of the word.

To me being dead is final, zip, zilch, end of the line, you are out of here...

When you say sleep it sounds nicer, like you might wake from your sleep. We all know this is not true, dead is dead. Sleeping is sleeping and indicates, to me, the possibility of waking.

I'm right! I know I'm right! Nah Nah Nah

Jball

socratoad

Ya know, all these cute little euphemisms drive me up the wall.
So and so is at Slippery Sam's funeral parlor. I have actually whipped my arm across my brow dramatically and said, "Thank gawd, they're resting, hot damn for a minute there I thought they were dead".

Try it sometime. I'll make ya real popular. Oh yes, how DID I live this long?

LSHAFC2004

Give it a rest all. You havent made a single point worth EVEN considering. My arguement still stands and by COMPARISON, the person exsperiencing it, there would be no difference. Do none of you get it??????? :banghead: Existence is ALWAYS relevant. In 50+ years maybe not to me because I will be asleep, but to spacetime and others,ALWAYS RELEVANT!!!!!!!

I would usually right my normal saying here, and it STILL exists more than ever now. All you arguements arnt worth scratchin my ass with. :rolling: Worth nothing, trash. :snooze:

You need to all sought yourselves out really.

post tenebras lux

Um, what arguement (sic) LSHAFC2004? You haven't exactly presented an argument yet. In fact, I don't think you've even explained what your gripe is.

Do you have a problem with 'oblivion' LSHAFC2004? Or some objection to just ending up as 'worm food'?

Why do you want to think of yourself as 'just sleeping' as your physical body lies decaying in the grave? Then again, you could choose to be cremated, but that sounds like an even worse thing to do to the body of someone who is in a deep dreamless sleep.

Luxie