A lot of people are afraid of hell. That's where the fear stems from. — Xtrix
To say being is finite (or infinite) is a mistake. — Xtrix
Didn't seem it. You referred to "non-being" as death or sleep. One wouldn't say that's non-being. Maybe a kind of nullity. The world goes on when you're dead or asleep, however. — Xtrix
What is non-being if it is not being dead? You can't be dead really because you aren't anything when dead . There is nothing that it is like to be dead. There is only what it is like to be alive. Where there is life, presumably there is being. — Nils Loc
What is a dreamless sleep like? Is that non-being? — Xtrix
What if, instead, being is considered something concealed, absent? A kind of "nothing" in a sense? We do seem to live most of our lives in a kind of "unconscious" (or in Heideggerian terms, "ready-to-hand") relation to the world--like when we're involved and engaged in the world, in a skill or with other people, or when totally absorbed in an activity. — Xtrix
Yes, I'd classify unconsciousness as well as death as non-being, granting the
major difference between those two states. — Nils Loc
I have no clue as to why being would be used in that sense but I suppose I'd have to expose myself to Heidegger for that. — Nils Loc
Then consciousness is being? Like I said, you're then interpreting being in relation to the human being, particularly the human lifespan or human consciousness. That's not an unreasonable position, in fact its the view of most people, scientists included. I just happen to think it's not the complete picture. — Xtrix
I think consciousness and therefore being is inevitable because there is nothing else that enters into it. — Nils Loc
It seems that Heidegger posed Das Nicht (The Nothing) as a source of anxiety. Please expand about it if you can. — Nils Loc
My concern is about being as the only possible state of awareness which will never end as the source of anxiety, however irrational this is. — Nils Loc
Being ends but it likely starts again, like waking up from sleep. I never experience sleep though I sleep, I am unfortunately always awake. It can't be otherwise. — Nils Loc
I don't understand this sentence. "Nothing else that enters into it"? What's "it"? Being? What does the "else" refer to? — Xtrix
I don't understand this either. We exist, we are. The world is. That's being. Being is everything, every being, and the basis on which anything "shows up" for us at all. Awareness is being. Non-awareness is being. Your life will end, believe me, and so will your anxiety. So to be worried that anxiety will never end is indeed completely irrational, and also incoherent -- unless you're afraid you'll be reincarnated or something like that. — Xtrix
Being doesn't end -- beings end. Waking up from sleep is talking about states of conscious awareness. "I am unfortunately always awake"? What does that mean, you've never fallen asleep? Seems you've just contradicted yourself. — Xtrix
My point is surprisingly simple. Being is an experience. Non-being is not an experience. After my death the experience of being will reoccur because being is what constitutes experience. "Reoccur" is an inadequate or incorrect term because there is nothing that links specific beings and identities between lives. Nothing that I identify as myself will recur but being will always be. There will always be an experience because that is all there can be. — Nils Loc
Being is surely more complex than I've made it out to be, as an on and off state of affairs rather than a continuum. Qualia might work as a better substitute for my use of being. — Nils Loc
In any case I'm not saying much of anything. I'm merely pointing to being and the fear about it that will pass but likely return. I might even concede that I'm irrationally paranoid about the eternity of having to experience what any something is like. — Nils Loc
"Experience" is something that happens to a living being: human beings and animals. The being of a rock has no experience. If you equate experience with being, fine -- but why bother? It's misleading. "Being" as a word is good enough. — Xtrix
If you're worried that your life will reoccur in an eternal recurrence or in reincarnation, fine -- just say that. (You must be saying this, otherwise what is there to "fear"?) — Xtrix
It's not at all misleading, as it's more natural to use "being" as a condition of a subject experincing and reflecting upon the world. I find it odd you disagree with my usage. — Nils Loc
While it likely that a rock has no independent being, it is a dependent feature of our (and any) being. — Nils Loc
Yes, I'm worried, for the sake of chit chat, about whether being (an experience of what anything is like) is an eternal condition. If I am being now, won't I be again later (after death/birth)? — Nils Loc
Your experience is your experience. It's one aspect of being, nothing more. To generalize human experience to all of the world, nature, the universe -- to "being" generally -- is not only misleading, it's incoherent. — Xtrix
You say it's likely it has no independent being, then state categorically that the rock is a dependent feature of our being? — Xtrix
My advice: stop using the word "being" -- you're clueless about its meaning. — Xtrix
There's no evidence whatsoever that we live again, that there's reincarnation or a heaven or anything else. If there is, we certainly have no memory of it. This could be your millionth life, in that case -- and you have no idea. So who cares. — Xtrix
I'm not generalizing human experience only, I'm extending any experience in any capacity (what it is like to be something/anything). — Nils Loc
The existence of a rock depends upon (any) something for which it is like to be. Therefore I'm proposing a primacy to the experience of being (the experience of an entity) and making it universal. The state of any existence is relatively bound to experience of what it is like to be something. — Nils Loc
Lends a bit of grandiose and useful obscurity to try to lure folks in. — Nils Loc
I can't imagine that there is anything but an experience (what it is like to be something). Death is like dreamless sleep and as soon as time begins (for something it is like for there to be time) we are.
If you don't care you are free to go. No need to harass me. — Nils Loc
Fine. The only beings that experience are living things -- namely, animals. That's like saying that all things that don't "experience" in this sense, that aren't living, aren't "beings." — Xtrix
This has little to do with my main worry which I did admit was irrational. — Nils Loc
There is only what it is like to be something. We do not experience what it is like to be nothing. — Nils Loc
Therefore being (what it is like to be something) is all there is. — Nils Loc
It's as incoherent as the hard problem of consciousness. How could there possibly be satisfying explanation for qualia (being like something rather than nothing)? — Nils Loc
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