Near death experiences

Should be,

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5324234.ece

Remember, don't go towards the light!

Inevitable quote from Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico Philosophicus:

quote:

6.4311 Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.

6.4312 Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say of its eternal survival after death; but, in any case, this assumption completely fails to accomplish the purpose for which it has always been intended. Or is some riddle solved by my surviving for ever? Is not this eternal life itself as much of a riddle as our present life? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time. (It is certainly not the solution of any problems of natural science that is required.)

Discuss!

" Take away space and all we have is here. Take away time and all we have is now. Don't you think, in the here and now, we can truely know each other? "

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

'Hole in the Wall' BBC, Saturday evenings.

I happened upon this piece of prime-time television, and found the will to live, drifting away.

John.

i've been to lots of funerals. i always spend some time observing the deceased. near as i can tell, they were all happier when they were breathing. i think what the dead need most is life.

well I don't speculate on the hereafter, but I've been up to that point once in life. In 91 I was having an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug. I'll save you the details, but in extreme pain and at the end of your ability to hold on you just want to give in and get it over with. I passed out for 2 days, it took 7 months to get back to somewhat normal.

Same with aging, both my parents have diminished capacity at 87. Everything is a trial and difficult, They don't want resuscitation. There comes a point when you've had enough.

Wolf2,

That is quite a terrible story to read. I have also been on the brink of death when I was 17 but I wasn't conscious of it - intensive care following a RTA.

I have no recollection of the seconds before impact - perhaps its a defence mechanism of the brain or a lack of consolidatory memory.

Having said this I've never had the sort of experience you said you had.

Has this opened you mind to the question whats all this about?

Regards,

Jon

FWIW, my wife was involved in a very bad RTA 3.5 years ago and she has clear recollections of floating above her bed in the small local hospital she was first taken too, watching the staff work on her. She also clearly remembers a bright light at the end of what appeared to be a tunnel. Cliched I know but she was close to death at one point which is why she was subsequently sent via helicopter to a large trauma hospital some 90 miles away in Little Rock.

I have to add that she is not some wacko, weirdo post hippie spiritualist but a highly experienced nurse/midwife who is as pragmatic as they come.

She is of course a weirdo as she married me though so there goes any credibility she may have had...

Jim

oh yeah, as I've grown older, now 54. Lost a lot of friends, and my aging parents, not to mention my own experiences, it certainly does reflect in my mind to treat others with compassion and to not be so attached to objects. Tho just try to take my Naim out of my hands.

Many people haven't thought about death, they haven't even thought about next year or their life. I've been mostly poor tho rich in friends in my adult life. For years all I owned fit in the back of my truck so downsizing isn't strange to me. Oh I didn't live in my truck, I roomed with friends in a nice house in Santa Barbara and went back to school.

The constant in life is change, those trying to hold on to a "perfect" life will have to go with the flow or be very frustrated and angry when life shifts, and one day all will disappear.

My main point in the prior message is that at some point, in declining health, you welcome giving up, as it just becomes too difficult to maintain.

Well my 2 cents worth.

I agree with Wolf2. My wife and I are both 48, certainly not old by today's standards, but having lost our parents it does make you confront your own mortality. Priorities shift, things which once seemed of the utmost importance no longer seem to matter very much. Certainly I have become far less materialistic. I have also in many ways become less ambitious and far more accepting of my lot in life. I think I've reached a point where instead of constantly working torwards some vague sort of goal, some ill-defined notion of a "better" existance, I now accept that "this is it" and I'd better make the best of it. This is the real thing as they say, not a trial run. You are absolutely right Wolf2 when you say that change is the one constant in life. Whatever situation/circumstances we find ourselves in today will not last forever - the "sameness" or sense of "being in a rut" we may feel at certain times is but a fragile illusion.

Peter

I've certainly tried to feel content and enjoy the moment. Simpler pleasures are better than trying to reach the top and not enjoying life.

I saw a BBC show on public television about India (it's still playing next week). It's really fascinating especially the show about birth of Buddhism. I've had a lot of contact with Americans who practice and read about it. It makes sense tho you don't have to give up everything and be a monk. I also think Jesus was sort of Buddhist in his answers to questions and parables. All good food for thought.

g

quote:

Originally posted by Wolf2:
treat others with compassion and to not be so attached to objects. Tho just try to take my Naim out of my hands.

amen.

naim gear are not objects, they are loved and trusted individuals :-)

i've spent some time now and then thinking about death - if you can call that sort of thing thinking.

in general, i hope to take every day as it comes, squeeze as much juice out of life as possible at every opportunity, and be a good person.

i don't want to live forever, 1700-2500 years would be plenty. how ever much i end up getting, my final comment will be "very nice, thank you, but why are the portions so small?"

good one Mike. "Love the one you're with"