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On a related note, see attached for Schopenhauer's fleeting reference to the proto-Marxist movement brewing at the time of his writing.
(Might also be of mild interest to @PhilosophyCuck) https://twitter.com/tom_username_/status/1253777080380198919
(Might also be of mild interest to @PhilosophyCuck) https://twitter.com/tom_username_/status/1253777080380198919
The view that death is the ultimate end—that before & after you is but a black void of eternity—stems from the following fact:
Life (almost by definition) is the addiction from which you cannot divest your full attention. The fear of death is the desperation of a helpless addict
Life (almost by definition) is the addiction from which you cannot divest your full attention. The fear of death is the desperation of a helpless addict
To you, it doesn't matter that this addiction to your particular life is the cause of endless torment and misery. You are so 100% in thrall to this addiction—nay, you in some sense *are* this addiction—that it does not and cannot occur to you that there's something beyond it.
The capacity to intuit something beyond life is the result of having an excess of mental awareness which is superfluous to the needs of mere fleshly existence.
In such people, existence presents itself as a mystery for which science cannot provide an answer.
In such people, existence presents itself as a mystery for which science cannot provide an answer.
In a crude & roundabout way, the "hard problem of consciousness" is a reckoning with this problem. Philistines cannot for the life of them understand what all the fuss is about, which is why people like Daniel Dennett talk over the subject without actually addressing the problem.
Philistines can't quite get beyond purely material considerations, e.g. "what does it do?" "how can you prove it works?" "what's the point?"
Far from having mental awareness that's additional to needs of material life, they see nothing but kinetic material facts.
Far from having mental awareness that's additional to needs of material life, they see nothing but kinetic material facts.
They remain anchored in this one lifetime, which is why they keep going on and onnn and onnn about the importance of clinging onto every dear second of this one life.
No matter how much they feign a consolatory tone, it always comes off utterly morbid and desperately pathetic.
No matter how much they feign a consolatory tone, it always comes off utterly morbid and desperately pathetic.
The high-spirited minds perceive that, in addition to material facts, there's a certain...something about existence which cannot be accounted for by mere numbers and words. What they're detecting is the raw spiritual (or "ideational", if you prefer) essence of existence.
It then becomes apparent that you are perceiving something totally superfluous to a materialistic worldview
You are perceiving something which, by its very nature, cannot perish. Only the *contents* of perception can perish, not perception itself.
A crude but OK enough analogy:
You are perceiving something which, by its very nature, cannot perish. Only the *contents* of perception can perish, not perception itself.
A crude but OK enough analogy:
Your addiction to this bodily form is so absolutely intense, so complete in its distractive effects, that you identify squarely with it.
If someone denies you your addiction—even if only in a mediated and quite harmless way—you revolt against it with a homicidal vengeance.
If someone denies you your addiction—even if only in a mediated and quite harmless way—you revolt against it with a homicidal vengeance.
Brief respite happens either with eyes closed, or with eyes blurred so that you can no longer discern objects. The latter is typically what happens when you're in a self-forgetting daydream
(And notice how unpleasant it is to return from a lofty daydream. You resist the return.)
(And notice how unpleasant it is to return from a lofty daydream. You resist the return.)
Life is a self-contained loop. Your spirit cannot escape during its earthly entrapment. Death opens it up.
If you were petty & adharmic, your death will be anti-climactic, or even a downward drain.
Wholesome, dharmic people will have full psychological continuity. A rapture.
If you were petty & adharmic, your death will be anti-climactic, or even a downward drain.
Wholesome, dharmic people will have full psychological continuity. A rapture.
I must once more caution against the intuition that death and sleep/anaesthesia are analagous modes of being.
Sleep is fleshly drain on consciousness. As always, there's a mechanical analogy here: darkness is what happens when a crooked object steals light for its own warmth.
Sleep is fleshly drain on consciousness. As always, there's a mechanical analogy here: darkness is what happens when a crooked object steals light for its own warmth.
Darkness appears briefly during death because the flesh makes one last dying demand in a fit of desperation, just like the addict prior to his recovery.
When the flesh dies, so too does your addiction to this bodily form. Consciousness is then free to pursue its higher form.
When the flesh dies, so too does your addiction to this bodily form. Consciousness is then free to pursue its higher form.
And when I say "addiction", I mean this in the upper-most ultimate sense.
The addiction par excellence. To call it 'complete' is almost an understatement.
You cannot *for the life of you* divest from it. It feels equivalent to the boundaries of existence.
The addiction par excellence. To call it 'complete' is almost an understatement.
You cannot *for the life of you* divest from it. It feels equivalent to the boundaries of existence.
Anything which isn't involved in this addiction you block out as non-existent, just like the desperate drug addict.
Nothing else matters in the addict's mind.
Nothing else matters in the addict's mind.
