Discussion Existensial Questions and Self Preservation

[δάσος]

Do you believe that existensial questions are just another layer of self preservation? Having found a method that no longer scares me, what does scare me is the future beyond my loss of consciousness. Two rebuttals to my rope, actually. In the case of a successful attempt, time is no longer relevant and isn't experienced, infinite years pass instantly, which offers up the theory of reincarnation - if time is no longer in the equation, theoretically you're just a flipped switch away from consciousness again, where you could be brought into a new world far worse than the current one. One other theory, not nearly as concerning to me is quantum suicide, due to it being unlikely - what if you're forced to live through all the suffering your body will endure and dying is only but one universe that never gets selected upon any given decision? The universe only offering you the world you can experience, as all once co-existing parts of you, previously have been wiped from the others.

 

[endergames]

I think you're over thinking existence. Before I came into this reality, the world was already here and will be when I leave. I'd no prior memory before my birth and I don't expect to have any memory of life when I die. All existence of me will only persist in the minds of the living, for perhaps a couple of generations. I remember visiting a cemetery and viewing weathered tombstones of the long pasted deceased unattended for a hundred years. Their successors have long forgotten them, and certainly don't missed them. I know it's cruel, even unfair, but that's reality. Personally, I wouldn't bet on reincarnation.

 

[Meditation guide]

if time is no longer in the equation, theoretically you're just a flipped switch away from consciousness again, where you could be brought into a new world far worse than the current one

This is the problem and this is why I'm a Buddhist, to hope that if I achieve enlightenment I no longer keep getting reincarnated. This last incarnation was so fast I literally went from one life and one house directly into another set of parents and another house. It's like I went to sleep in my familiar old home, and woke up being brought into another place, time,and set of parents. It's endless.

 

[Zappfe lover]

Do you believe that existensial questions are just another layer of self preservation?

Zapffe says that the human mind has 4 different coping mechanisms:

• Isolation is "a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling".
• Anchoring is the "fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness".The anchoring mechanism provides individuals with a value or an ideal to consistently focus their attention on. Zapffe also applied the anchoring principle to society and stated that "God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future" are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments.
• Distraction is when "one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions".Distraction focuses all of one's energy on a task or idea to prevent the mind from turning in on itself.
• Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones. The individuals distance themselves and look at their existence from an aesthetic point of view (e.g., writers, poets, painters). Zapffe himself pointed out that his produced works were the product of sublimation.

Criticizing existence would fall in line with "Distraction".

 

[Meditation guide]

if it was true, then there would be a lot more animals and communication between us and animals,

I don't see what that has to do with reincarnation. We would communicate with animals if there was reincarnation?