Yes ... Maybe "Life, The Universe and Everything" is a VERY Interesting "Program" running on The "Holo-Deck" of "God" ...

Jan 24, 2011 -- 7:08AM, ozero wrote:

jcarlin: "Nice belief system.  You are welcome to it.  I will spend my limited lifetime dealing with the reality of living."

Since we can't be sure about anything other than what we are living in now, that is still the best idea.  If we are living in a simulation, then knowing that would defeat the purpose of it, so I'm quite sure that it would be programmed not to allow us to know.  If we found out it was real, we'd simply die and start again.  Live the life you have been given.  It's all you've really got.

I was thinking more along the lines of G. W. Leibniz's Monads  in prearranged harmony by God. 

Jan 24, 2011 -- 11:06AM, teilhard wrote:

Yes ... Maybe "Life, The Universe and Everything" is a VERY Interesting "Program" running on The "Holo-Deck" of "God" ...

Jan 24, 2011 -- 7:08AM, ozero wrote:

jcarlin: "Nice belief system.  You are welcome to it.  I will spend my limited lifetime dealing with the reality of living."

Since we can't be sure about anything other than what we are living in now, that is still the best idea.  If we are living in a simulation, then knowing that would defeat the purpose of it, so I'm quite sure that it would be programmed not to allow us to know.  If we found out it was real, we'd simply die and start again.  Live the life you have been given.  It's all you've really got.

"Do you agree with the idea that the  desire for immortality can be seen as evidence of our appetite for what  we experience as the impersonal immortal part of our being?"

No. I don't think we have either an impersonal or immortal part.

Jan 25, 2011 -- 11:59PM, rangerken wrote:

I think that our sentience, which includes the knowledge that there was a time when each of us was not, and there will be a time when each of us will no longer be, causes us to seek something to look forward to after life has ended. Neanderthal graves show evidence in a belief in an 'afterlife'. I certainly hope there is one. Of course if there isn't, I'll be very dissappointed...except that I won't know about it to be dissappointed .

So my vision of immortality is bound up with my belief that we have immortal souls.

Ken

Well Ken, I think the basic difference between us is this, I'm saying that the desire for immortality comes primarily from what we experience. Example; I have tasted chocolate and desire more chocolates. You are saying that the desire for immortality primarily comes from observation and speculation. Example; I see chocolate, I think I would like it so I desire chocolates.  The experience of Impersonal immortality is what causes our desire for immortality. 
1. Biological continuity: We experience the similarity or sameness that we have with our parents  and through our offspring and with humanity as a whole as a kind of organism. These immortal traits exist through us and is experienced by us. 

2. Social influence: Just as we experience the effects of the words and actions of past generations, so future generation will experience the effects of our words and actions. These immortal influences exist through us and is experienced by us. 

3. Universal intelligibility: We experience the similarity or sameness that we have with reality as a intelligible thing. In other words our intellect is similar and part of the intelligible nature of the reality around us. This immortal intelligibility is experienced by us and through us by our intellect. 

4. Universal truth and value: We experience and are part of the effects of the  truth and value that is inherent in reality. The immortal truths and values that make reality what it is effects us just as we use those immortal truth and values  to effect reality.  

We have and do experience the impersonal immortalities of our reality and desire more. However I do not know the meaning that you give to the word soul and what you mean by its immortality. Please explain. 

Exploringinside

Quoting and commenting on any of these opinions appears to open one for great eventual difficuty, arguing and counterarguing interpretations of other opinions.

Why would a human want to live forever?

By giving into the desire that comes from their own impersonal immortality.

Isn't it that they know by the evidence what it means in reality to stop living?

Merely observing something is different from experiencing something first hand.

And they wish to avoid the "state of not being alive?"

Well avoiding the “state of not being alive” is natural and wanting the opposite does not seem that compiling.  

There is no great significance in the desire for a living being who can discern how undesireable death is that they would prefer something else, deep within their psyche.

I think it is very significant that a living being desires life rather than death.  And even life unending.