Insane i am, i says

[HankTOBA]

I'm told in have it good and I do, we're not rich by any means but certainly not poor. I have escaped the wasteland the public schools are, now I'm souroundrd by truly careing people but most of the non adults I know are filthy stinking rich! Now I under stand that their parents have worked real hard but still it pisses me off!
Back to my story, I have been raised by a single mom and all that crap. Most of my family is dead of have terminal illnesses, and the weird thing is that I feel fine about it. Some people say I'm heartless, some cruel, some angry and I guess they are right.
I don't know where I was going, I'm tired of my suburban life, I'm tired of news, mtv, fox, tmz the list goes on.
I'm tied of curruption, bad infrastructure, gangs, crime.
If
I could hop a freight train and head east to the maratimes but I won't, I have thought about it but I won't.
Just like I thought how easy it would be to jump off the bridge I walked across, I didn't and won't.

Really I don't know, I don't know what I want to say or how to feel, so many bad things happen...

I don't think that this is even a rant, more so a insane persons mumbels.

There is no strength in my to say what needs do be.

what bothers me the most is that life is supposed to matter, but if your dead how can you tell?


My point...no, question is why....

Does life really mater? We will all eventually die (I think) so what is the big deal? If there is "afterlife" then why do we cry when life ends should we not rejoice?


P.S. This comes from a Mennonite that believes in reincarnation (does that void after life?)

[Rushlight]

Don't wory, its not insane at all. I think alot of people have been fed up with the world, and with spoiled and oblivious people. Its totally natural to want to escape. And as for afterlife? I don't know. If you're reincarnated, how can you go to the afterlife( unless your next self is in a new universe then its.like infinate afterlives... SO CONFUSING!)

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[anoni]

  Emotions are relative, a lot of people will look at a poor person, who is hard on his life and feel sad for the person (and that is completely logical reaction). But then they will see a rich person, who has been given anything, and he feels sad, and a lot of the time people will say suck it up, look at that poor person, you should be happy not sad, it's inconsiderate of you being sad. Emotions are relative though, if he knew what that poor person was feeling, he'd probably be happy, but he doesn't. Regardless of how good his life is, regardless of the reasons he is sad, he is still legitimately sad and it's better to make him feel better, than worse. So no, it's not bad to feel sad even though your life isn't necessarily catastrophic, it's normal, everyone feels sad sometimes.

  For your talk about death, here is my view. I don't believe in an afterlife, or incarnation, I believe when you die your brain loses the ability to transfer neurotransmitters and thus, loses the ability of computation, cognition and consciousness. Some people who think of that view feel sad, because they ask "Wouldn't being dead suck?" "What would it feel like!?" and I said the same thing, but then my brother gave me a brilliant response. "The feeling of being dead is the same feeling as being not born". Before I was born, I didn't feel anything, and so I will feel after death. I won't know I am dead, I won't know anything because there will be no computation at all, it'll be like before I was born.

  But lets go to your question specifically, "What bothers me the most is that life is supposed to matter, but if your dead how can you tell?" you can't tell you're dead. That's the simple fact, when your dead life no longer matters, even if you believe in an afterlife that statement still holds true. But you see, life still matters, it's still important, it's important while you're alive. Sure, you will die eventually, but before you do don't you want to have a fun time? Don't you want to be happy? Feel like you accomplished something? This notion that you die means that nothing matters is like, silly, almost because it's assuming DEATH is the only time we feel. Will our contributions in our life pass on after we die? Yes of course! It's silly to think it won't, our actions are still being affected by freakin' Aristotle and he died more than 2,000 years ago. Will your own actions affect you after you're dead? No, it won't, you'll be dead so i won't. So, if your actions don't affect you when you're dead, when do they affect you? When you're alive. The point I'm making is no, nothing matters when you're dead, but things matter when you're alive and so it's important to use your life to the fullest, and be happiest when you can be happy, if you die then you can't be happy, you lose all potential to be happy, you still have potential when you're alive.

 

[Rushlight]

Anoni's point is well made, but i do belive is spirits and greater powers outide atom bombs and the human mind.

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[Philosophunculist]

I'm in the same position as you; my parents can just about send me to a private school if they work extremely hard, but because they are paying that money, we are lower middle class. People assume that I am incredibly rich, I am not, I live in one of the worst places in England in a small semi detached house, we are in debt by huge amounts of money and are still paying off mortgage (I'm not trying to start a competition of who is worse off than who here, I'm just stating what I am, I am more well of than the majority of the world and I know that so you don't have to remind me  )... I am also often incredibly sad and have been since an extremely young age because I was and am different (gay, furry, not an ignorant bigoted jock, etc.) and people don't accept that. Also what I believe courses me a lot of grief.


As for your philosophical questions. You happened to be brought up by Mennonites, imagine if you were brought up by 1 other of the thousands of other religions: Hinduism, Islam, a different flavour of Christianity, Judaism etc. (there are so many). Everything would be different, what is the likelihood that the one that you just happened to become is right? I ask you to forget religion and everything that you believe, morals, knowledge, all of it just for a moment. Now study your environment, everything around you, logically work out what everything is and how it works. This is science. Anything that you don't understand or know, don't fill the gap with a God or an illogical believe, say "I don't know" and then learn, research and find the answer. I can't tell you the whole answer, I am a 14 year old boy, I am still figuring them out myself, and I will learn them by learning what has already been leaned by others and then possibly be a part of discovering new things myself.


Lets begin with things that don't exist:
Points/Meanings: These are ideas, not properties of things, therefore they don't exist, therefore everything is pointless.
Good/Bad: These are ideas, not properties of things, therefore they don't exist.
Control: Everything is a huge chain reaction, we have no control of what is going to happen, what ever last existed causes the next thing to exist in a certain way.
Anything that is based on points: Importance etc.
There are so many more of these but we have covered some main ones.


Now evolution is proven, there is no doubt about that. It's basic component concepts are that things that are able to exist will exist and things that aren't won't. Sounds simple right? Imagine you have some hard rocks and some soft ones and you leave them in the rain for 100 years; the hard ones will still be there, but the soft ones will have changed into a form in which they are able to exist (mud).


Lets now look at the concious. Conciousness is so hard to understand, on a basic level it is just a computer, it receives information, processes it then sends out information. But to ourselves we seem to be different, we aren't, we are matter and energy, thinking about our own mind is so incredibly hard and right here and right now I won't try to explain it because I don't fully understand it myself.


If you want to learn more you will have so many opportunities at school/collage/university, study physics and quantum physics, study neurology and psychology. The path to understanding these things is knowledge and scientific research, not made up stories or deities with no basis of logic.

Make sure that you don't prejudge all atheists by any atheists actions. Most of my year are atheists but none of them believe what I do and some of them are extraordinarily bigoted and stupid so you can't group all atheists together and judge them all.

I've probably missed out a vast amount of things that I want to say but I hope that I helped.   

[HankTOBA]

*blank stare*
Thank you guys very much! im not sure what i was looking for, but you guys helped a lot.
I now have a train of thought, witch as you can probably tell does not happen often.

[Philosophunculist]

anoni is pretty much right except he is stating that the point in everything is to be happy, there is no point in anything.

[anoni]

Ah but Philosophunculist how can you know there is no point to anything?

  I think this is most important quote you made

These are ideas, not properties of things, therefore they don't exist, therefore everything is pointless.

  I think an idea is a property of an object, but it's a subjective property. What is the difference between a man and a king? Atomically, there is not really any significant difference, chemically there isn't a significant difference, biologically no significant difference, but clearly they are different. They're treated differently, they have completely different routines and there are hundreds of differences that are present. So the king and the man are different, but where IS the difference? And the difference is of course, the idea of him, how people perceive him, and therefore that's an important property of him, it's important enough to make a difference. Is he really a king, to the universe? It's impossible to tell, because we're bias, but to men of the society he is in, he is indeed king. This is a REAL property that has changed which has created a real difference, although it's subjective and it entirely depends who you ask (to me, everything is subjective and true objectivity and absolutism doesn't exist or is irrelevant to existing).

  If you want to go to a more structured point of view, think of how an idea is formed. An idea is formed through computation, if you believe in a completely material world with no spiritual outside sources, than consciousness, the mind and the brain are  the same thing. The mind arises from the patterns, transmissions and structure of the brain, the orientation of it over a given time allows for computation. Therefore the idea of something can be proposed to be an abstraction of a real and physical pattern within the brain, if you changed the pattern, you change the idea, and therefore the idea also does PHYSICALLY exist as well.

  Now if the idea exists, the idea is entirely subjective and therefore changes with who you ask. So indeed, to me, the point of life is to be happy, this is an entirely valid point of life and does exist, relative to me. It's important to also note I never said the meaning of life "is to be happy" I said it's important to be happy while you're alive, I think that and factual statement, it is important to be happy. It's not important to the universe, necessarily, but it's important to the person for them to be happy. I believe that everything is subjective, and therefore i believe something being important to a person, or a rock, or a star, and not necessarily important to anything else, is still a valid and existential quality that does exist.

[Philosophunculist]

You are correct in that ideas exist and therefore the idea of points exists. When I said points are ideas I was kind of wrong, people imagine points and therefore ideas of points exist. There is a significant difference. The idea that a piece of matter and energy has a particular set point is just as fatuous as a belief in a God. You are correct that a king is significantly different to any other person but that is purely due to ideas in the minds of others which are nothing more than matter and energy. Believing in points is literally the same as believing that objects posses meaning (what is meant by a word, text, concept, or action). Just out of interest are you an atheist anoni (I'm sure I have made it clear that I am). Also importance doesn't exist.

Post Merge: February 01, 2014, 01:09:35 PMI suppose the basis of your argument is that the brain/concious is more than energy and matter? Which I understand but disagree with.

[anoni]

No that's not my basis xD In fact, I said that because the brain IS only energy and matter, or more importantly information (which is an assortment of energy and matter), that ideas exist as energy and matter, because they exist through the brain and hence physically exist. In fact, I don't understand your entire point and I'll show you why.

You are correct that a king is significantly different to any other person but that is purely due to ideas in the minds of others which are nothing more than matter and energy.

  I don't understand what you're saying here, you say "it's nothing more than matter and energy" but matter and energy is what comprises EVERYTHING, matter and energy is in no way insignificant. I think it's funny because your argument is to try and not separate mind from matter, but in doing so you separate mind from matter xD You say "but that is purely due to ideas in the mind of others" as if, just because it's in the mind of others means it's insignificant, or not a physical property, even though if you believe the mind is physical than the mind of others is physical too!

I am an atheist, my argument isn't spiritual but remains entirely in the physical realm. What I believe is an important philosophy called Relativism, which essentially says that an objective truth is entirely irrelevant. It is irrelevant because, there's no way to tell what the objective truth is. When you look at an angle of truth, you see only a small fraction of it that is bias from your mind, in order to see the complete objective truth you can either
  1) See the truth without bias (essentially observe something without observing it...)
  2) See the truth from all bias (see an object through all possible (infinite) perspectives)

  Both of these are impossible, though seeing it from more perspectives gives a truer perspective and closer to an objective truth. The important thing about this is that I believe in subjective truths, that what is entirely, certainly true for someone is not necessarily true for someone else. When someone imagines an idea, that idea is true to their own frame of reference and to there frame of reference, does exist. Therefore ideas exist to those who have the idea. Does the idea physically exist relative to the universe as a whole? Kind of, the idea has an actual consequence, it is changes how matter (the person with the idea) behaves, without the idea the matter would behave differently and therefore the idea has a true and significant effect on the universe (though to the universe the event isn't significant, entire galaxies are insignificant to the universe, in fact the universe isn't conscious so doesn't even comprehend significance). Does it exist, objectively? Does the idea exist to all frames of references? It's irrelevant if it does, we can never know.

[Philosophunculist]

What you have proven here is that people have ideas and that they are physical and change other physical things, which I agree with. However the idea of significance, importance, or points are simply devises to help us exist, which came though evolution (everything came though evolution, it is pretty much just stating that things come from cause and effect). Significance does not actually exist, it is an imaginary property that we humans see due to the fact that we have evolved to (which is the same as saying we do because we do). You can say that everything is infinitely small however you can't say anything about how things are significant because it is not a property of anything. Saying that something is important is the same as saying that something is holy or sacred.

[anoni]

I'll continue this discussion in PM so we don't derail the thread anymore than we have xD

[Twilight Rose]

I actually switched from private school to public, and it was one of the best things that happened to me. I was a shy, non-sporty kid in a school where 95% of the students were rich, sporty, snobby, or some combination. My tiny group (read: 3 of us) were harassed literally every time we left a classroom. All manner of derogatory terms for gay, for starters, even though I wasn't even identifying as gay at the time. I apparently was by default cause my only good friend was a guy. I switched to public school, and suddenly, no one gave a damn. "You're gay? Cool." "You're depressed? Man, been there.... you okay?" People respected that I wasn't a clone.


Now, before I get too into that point... Being kinda numb to death isn't bad at all. I grew up around death; my dad was a mortician. There's always been a bit of a sick amusement there for me. But regardless of that... Death is a powerful thing that many people understand even less than children supposedly do. When someone sees it for what it is, people lash out. They don't like it when people are comfortable with it.


The meaning of a life is lost in death, so live life so meaningfully it'll be found by others and carried on as a legend, in your friends and those around you.

[HankTOBA]

I actually switched from private school to public, and it was one of the best things that happened to me. I was a shy, non-sporty kid in a school where 95% of the students were rich, sporty, snobby, or some combination. My tiny group (read: 3 of us) were harassed literally every time we left a classroom. All manner of derogatory terms for gay, for starters, even though I wasn't even identifying as gay at the time. I apparently was by default cause my only good friend was a guy. I switched to public school, and suddenly, no one gave a damn. "You're gay? Cool." "You're depressed? Man, been there.... you okay?" People respected that I wasn't a clone.



The meaning of a life is lost in death, so live life so meaningfully it'll be found by others and carried on as a legend, in your friends and those around you.

Hey thanks!
I am sorry to hear what you have been through. With me changing schools had an opposite had a opposite affect.
With the private school i go to it is super small (350 kids, grade 7-12) and the teachers care, so atleast that eeps the phisical violence down some.
Thankfully they try to hide the verbal insults too.
Although, i am not sure weather they are cowards and dont want to face me or if its beceause i am no longer the shortest weakest kid there is.
Lets put it this way, in the last 3 years i have yet to a fight.