Immortality and the Afterlife
Mar 18, 2007许多宗教都考虑到某种形式的个人在死后继续存在:在另一个身体转世,或继续在一些截然不同的地方,如天堂或地狱。
Nobody wants to die. Well, that's not exactly true. Some people do commit suicide in moments of deep despair. And many would rather die than live on in interminable and unbearable pain. I bet hardly anyone, if you asked them in advance, would say "Even if I sink into a persistent vegetative state, keep me alive. Better to live on as a vegetable than to die."
所以,我开头的这个简单陈述需要有限定条件。没有人会在生命的全盛时期,没有被一种麻痹的绝望或难以忍受的痛苦所征服,等等,想要死亡。由此看来,我们本质上更喜欢,至少在盛开的每一刻,生胜于死。从这一点就可以得出我们更喜欢永生而不是死亡。当然,我们不会得到不道德的东西。至少今生不会。但如果永生真的是我们内在渴望的东西,但在我们唯一的生命中却无法实现,接下来会发生什么呢?在和今天的嘉宾安妮·阿什宝(Anne Ashbaugh)一起直播之前,我想在这篇文章里谈谈这一点,以便让我的思绪畅通起来。Anne, by the way, was our guest onone of the most popular Philosophy Talk episodes ever,从它仍然接收到的网络流量来看。我想,即使是在哲学这样一个看似高雅的学科里,性仍然很受欢迎。
I would gladly see all the pointless and depressing deaths disappear. But although I think that all deaths are sad (for someone) maybe not all deaths are bad in the ways that the kinds of deaths just referred to above are. Maybe there is such a thing as a good death.
Perhaps we could more easily see some deaths as "good" deaths -- not good simpliciter, but good in the way that deaths can be, good "for a death" (but is that damning with faint praise?) -- if we did not view mortality itself as a problem to be overcome, as a tragic condition from which we yearn to escape, to which we cannot be reconciled.
Throughout much of human history and in many human culture mortality has indeed been viewed as a tragic predicament from which we yearn to escape. It is no accident, I think, that eastern and western cultures have both given rise to fantasies of the afterlife. Of course there are difference between eastern and western visions of the afterlife. Westerners seem to have envisioned afterlives in which we survive as the very persons that we now are. Easterners seem to have envisioned an afterlife that involves, ultimately -- perhaps after many cycles of earthly existence -- some kind of non-personal survival in the great sea of being. Despite their differences, I suspect that both sets of visions of the afterlife are borne of a deep sense that the condition of mortality is tragic.
To be sure, there have been those how have accepted mortality as an inescable condition of human existence, who have had the clear eyed courage to acknoweldge that we have exactly one short life, a life that will last for a mere blip in the entire history of the universe, a life that will never be repeated, that can't be transcended, escaped, or extended by a transit to some otherwordly realm. The existentialists are perhaps the clearest examples.
但我们还有一个问题。我们总是渴望更多的生命——至少当我们正处于生命的花期时——但我们不能拥有它。所以,我们对更多生活的渴望和我们无法得到它的结合不就意味着我们注定要沮丧和悲伤,要忍受一种永不满足的渴望吗?这难道不让那些认为死亡是悲剧的人感到遗憾吗?
Of coruse, sometimes the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" manage to beat the desire for still more life out of us. But that just shows, again, that its not just mortatlity, but mortality plus "the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to" that pack the real whammy. Perhaps mortality wouldn't be so depressing if it weren't for the shocks. On the other hand, the thought that you could eliminate the thousand natural shocks is probably as hopeless and as delusional as thoughts of an afterlife.
Could we give up wanting more life (life of the full-flowering kind)? Should we give it up? The stoics say, roughly, if there is something beyond your control and you hold your happiness hostage to whether you gain or lose that thing, then you will not live well, you will not be a self-governing other, but will be "fortune's slave," as Shakespeare has as Hamlet put it.
Well I think we can't give up the desire for more life. And that we shouldn't. That would be a tragedy of its own kind. We should embrace life fully and entirely with open and welcoming arms. And we should also mourn its passing. For the loss of life is really a loss, a great loss, perhaps the greatest loss -- at least if its the loss of live of the full flowering kind.
But there must be a way both to embrace life and to desire it as a great and glorious good, but also to be reconciled to the inescapable fact of its finitude and vulnerability. There must be a way both to desire to be and to delight in just what we are -- finite, fragile beings, here for only the briefest of moments -- without giving into a despair that gives rise to delusions and fantasies. In their own sometimes confusing, but sometimes astoundingly clear-eyed ways that's what many of the existentialists were after. Unfortunately, I don't have time to elaborate on why I think that. Maybe I can say more after the show.
But for now, I gotta go, as Ian Shoales loves to say.
Talk to ya' soon.
许多宗教都考虑到某种形式的个人在死后继续存在:在另一个身体转世,或继续在一些截然不同的地方,如天堂或地狱。
Would you want to live forever? It's a tempting notion that has been explored and imagined for centuries.
The question of what happens to us after we die remains as mysterious now as it always was. Some think that death amounts to total anni...
对许多人来说,死亡是可怕的。但是为什么呢?正如大卫·休谟(David Hume)所指出的,在我们出生之前,我们不存在的那些年似乎没有什么痛苦。为什么要担心未来不存在?
What is the sound of one hand clapping? Does Zen Buddhism provide a unique perspective on the world that transcends the wisdom in Western Philosophy?
Rabbis and Talmudic scholars have spent centuries puzzling over theology, texts, and life. In the process they came up with many ...
Some of the many topics discussed in Islamic philosophy are the Qur'an, knowledge, dreams, justice, poetry, reality, prophethood, peace, and the State.
许多宗教都考虑到某种形式的个人在死后继续存在:在另一个身体转世,或继续在一些截然不同的地方,如天堂或地狱。
Would you want to live forever? It's a tempting notion that has been explored and imagined for centuries.
The question of what happens to us after we die remains as mysterious now as it always was. Some think that death amounts to total anni...
对许多人来说,死亡是可怕的。但是为什么呢?正如大卫·休谟(David Hume)所指出的,在我们出生之前,我们不存在的那些年似乎没有什么痛苦。为什么要担心未来不存在?
What is the sound of one hand clapping? Does Zen Buddhism provide a unique perspective on the world that transcends the wisdom in Western Philosophy?
Rabbis and Talmudic scholars have spent centuries puzzling over theology, texts, and life. In the process they came up with many ...
Some of the many topics discussed in Islamic philosophy are the Qur'an, knowledge, dreams, justice, poetry, reality, prophethood, peace, and the State.
Comments(10)
Guest
Saturday, March 17, 2007 -- 5:00 PM
The fear or distaste we feel when we face our mortThe fear or distaste we feel when we face our mortality is somewhat leavened by the realization that, after a while, life gets sort of repetitive and, as faculties decay, less interesting. I recall seeing William Buckley on Charlie Rose's excellent interview show, talking about his life and saying that he has become "weary". He had done so much and now life seemed to be wearing on him.
当然,从长远来看,事情也有变得杂乱无章的趋势。还要考虑到地球的尽头,也许还有宇宙的尽头。我肯定不想活到那一刻,更不想再活下去了。
Guest
Saturday, March 17, 2007 -- 5:00 PM
I am the caller during the show on immortality whoI am the caller during the show on immortality who raised the issue that the current discussion on immortality contained two major assumptions that were not being mentioned: (1) the assumption that the self is real and could conceivably go into the indefinite future and (2) that time is a succession of instants from the past, to the present and into the future.
This note is a clarification of the second assumption concerning time that the radio format did not have enough time for. Ken Taylor stated that an athlete who is living in the now (an example I had brought up) still has to learn from the past and plan for the future and just can?t live in the now. This response is a common misperception of the position that we can only live in the now. When a person thinks about the future, he can only do this
在当下;同样,当他思考过去时,他只能在现在这样做。“我们所拥有的只是现在”的观点并不排斥为未来规划或吸取过去的教训。我们不能跳到未来去思考未来吗?必须现在就做。
The concepts of past and future are just that ? concepts - or mental constructs. They are much like the constructs of longitude and latitude. These are not strings girdling the earth ? as depicted on maps and globes. They are constructs that help up to navigate the earth - and therefore are useful tools - but we can?t stumble over them in our trips from point A to point B. In exactly the same way, the ?past? and ?future? are mental constructs, mental boxes, which help us to order our experiences. But, they are no more real than latitude and longitude.
I would like to know what others think about this concept of time.
无论如何,在对任何主题的哲学研究中,至少陈述讨论背后的大假设是有用的。澄清是哲学的一个主要功能,而且,就目前关于永生的讨论而言,上述两个假设至少是值得承认的,即使人们对它们得出了困难的结论。
Regards,
Don DuBois
Guest
Sunday, March 18, 2007 -- 5:00 PM
Donald has raised intriguing issues that, for me,Donald has raised intriguing issues that, for me, highlight the limits of western philosohical discourse.
This notion that time is but a mental construct has been developed in western thought only recently by theoretical physicists. While some physicists have found "the arrow of time" to be a fragment from the first moments of the big bang, others find no good evideence in the material world as to why we should expect that our actions today shoujld have effects in the future.
Eastern philosophy and religion, however, has developed this notion of time for millenia. Without launching into a dissertation, suffice it to say that certain Hindu and Buddhist thinkers maintain that there is only the "now" and that thoughts of the past and future take one (to quote Eliade) one out of the "sacred" space and into the "profane" space of the world. Buddhists call this "mindfullness."
Western neo-platonists, and followers of "new age" figures such as Eckhert Tolle have begun developing this motion of the "now" as the only meaningful measure of time.
As to immortality, I find that western discourse on eastern ideas focuses only on the Hindu notion of reincarnation. Buddhism (generally) advocates rebirth, and there is an importatn difference. reincarnation implies the tranmigration of a distinct soul, while rebirth does not.
To illustrate this point, the Buddha aked his followers to visualize a candle being lit which in turn lit another candle and in turn another, repeated millions and millions of times. Which is the original flame (of consciousness)?
I found this notion that I (there is no "self")am not here very comforting when I took this woman I was dating to a Celine Dion concert.
Guest
Thursday, March 22, 2007 -- 5:00 PM
I am seventy three and its almost two years now si我今年73岁,被诊断为胰腺癌已经近两年了。当时我被告知,我只能活3到6个月,除非我接受惠普尔手术,这是一种生存率非常低,导致痛苦非常高的大手术。也许是因为这种病的症状太可怕了,我完全预料到自己会在手术中死去,并平静地接受了它。我很好地挺过了“手术”,但现在需要化疗,它带走了我生命的精髓。
I do not believe in a "higher power" (except perhaps women in general) or an afterlife. I have been off Chemo now for six months and have felt truely alive, I have felt true physical and spiritual "joy" for the first time in my life. I understand that I am a part of Nature in the whirling circle of all life - not an observer of Nature.
我的肿瘤医生刚刚通知我,我的癌症又复发了,但现在已经不能手术了,已经到了晚期,并且给我带来了很多身体上的痛苦。我还被告知,我将回到化疗的生活中。
Frankly, I don't understand why I feel so calm about it all. Perhaps its because of my intertwining with Nature (I lived alone along the Great Divide in Montana for nine years)and my place in it. I now doubt that Nature really intended or desires Humanity. That evolution somewhere along the way missed a beat and created animals that are suicidal and the antithisis of Nature. Although I'm not sure, I think that I am comfortable with the fact of mortality. Hey, I've had a fantastic ride and at some point you have to get off!
George
Lowell
Guest
Friday, March 23, 2007 -- 5:00 PM
Thanks, Lowell. I'm touched. I think that says iThanks, Lowell. I'm touched. I think that says it all.
God bless.
Guest
Monday, March 26, 2007 -- 5:00 PM
Everybody wants to be in heaven, but nobody wants每个人都想去天堂,但是没有人想死....
nick
Tuesday, April 10, 2007 -- 5:00 PM
Desire both innate and intentional (e.g. a goal) i天生的和有意的欲望(例如一个目标)几乎和意识本身的现象一样有趣。
Guest
Sunday, April 15, 2007 -- 5:00 PM
Having a finite life is necessary because it givesHaving a finite life is necessary because it gives us a timeline in which to operate. We know that by a certain time we should meet a partner, perhaps have children, embark on a career, take vacations, and so on. If we lived forever then there would be no rush to do anything and the world would slow down to an almost unbearably slow rate that would cause boredom.
Guest
Tuesday, April 24, 2007 -- 5:00 PM
Great post Ken. Things are made such that wGreat post Ken.
事情是这样的,我们不会停止我们的活动,尽管我们最终灭绝。
We all have the option of ending it now. Instead, the little bird of hope perches singing on our shoulders and we go on. Maybe we will be fulfilled before the end comes--we will have a "successful life". We remain
narrowly focused on the path ahead of us---as the cliff
gets closer and closer.
The Yogis see the whole thing as a form of play --
he eternal dance of Shiva---forms eternally being created and being dissolved.
When things fall apart in our world, when there is a fundamental crisis, and we are inconsolable, then is an invitation to
see our bodies, our lives, as participants in this coming and going of form and to identify with the
source of this process of forming and dissolving.
Guest
Tuesday, September 18, 2007 -- 5:00 PM
I agree very much with Adam, who wrote that havingI agree very much with Adam, who wrote that having a finite life is necessary because "If we lived forever then there would be no rush to do anything and the world would slow down to an almost unbearably slow rate that would cause boredom."
I feel it is as if we can only accept life fully after we have accepted our mortality. To accept the possibility that I might die any second now (which is improbable, but nevertheless a possibility) leaves no choice for me to accept my life as it is right now. To wait for 'more life' is a terrible waste of time - even if I die an old woman. Nobody gains more life, we only lose it.
As James Dean once said, "Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."