Re: Animal pain, suffering, and death: why does it matter?
 

thru this long discussion has anyone been able to extract anything meaningful, or coherent, from the original post?

Re: Animal pain, suffering, and death: why does it matter?
 

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I want to understand.

Do you believe Life is finite consciousness, and death is infinite unconsciousness?


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YES.

Re: Animal pain, suffering, and death: why does it matter?
 

Tried, but failed. I didn't take enough notes while forming my moral relativism. (oops, another cheap laugh)

Re: Animal pain, suffering, and death: why does it matter?
 

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I want to understand.

Do you believe Life is finite consciousness, and death is infinite unconsciousness?


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YES.

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Great, we are on the same page.

We experience finite unconsciousness regularly, it's called "sleep" (exclude dreams for a moment) and we return to finite consciousness (life) when we wake up from this "sleep".

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"Death's brother, Sleep." - Virgil

"Sleep, those little slices of death, how I loathe them." - Edgar Allan Poe

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All men are equal when they sleep, they care not what they look like, nor decisions they have made in their life before the sleep - some of which the consequences they will face when they wake up from it.

Here's a picture I drew to illustrate:

http://tinypic.com/eimpmr.jpg

Both Caesar and SDM do something in their finite consciousness, then they enter finite unconsciousness (represented by the black), then they reemerge to their finite consciousness with memory of who they are, and what they have done before entering finite unconsciousness. (ie- going to sleep)

Caesar remembers (from ante-sleep) the 10 virgins fondly and hopes to repeat the experience (post-sleep), while SDM knows a choice he made prior to going to sleep (ante-sleep) may well have bad consequences today. (post-sleep)

But in sleep, in this finite unconsciousness, both Caesar and SDM are equals. How they look, &amp; what they have done, all means nothing because both of them are deprived of consciousness - and with it identity and memory.

Therefore if Death is the great "infinite unconsciousness", in death both Caesar and SDM are the same - nothing. It matters not that SDM was a thief &amp; mere plebeian or that Caesar slept with 1000 virgins &amp; ruled a mighty empire because both now have no identity for themselves, no memory, &amp; no consciousness.

What they did only matters to the history books, to those still alive (finite consciousness) to read about what they with their lives (finite consciousness) while they had them.

But even the human who reads the book "Of Caesar &amp; SDM", will one day meet the great "infinite unconsciousness" like Caesar &amp; SDM, and if that human is the last human on earth then all human effort exists only on record for another life to find - if another life exists, and if that record exists.

Either way, Caesar, SDM, and the last human don't care, because they unable to care - for to care one needs consciousness, and in death there is no consciousness.

Re: Animal pain, suffering, and death: why does it matter?
 

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What they did only matters to the history books, to those still alive (finite consciousness) to read about what they with their lives (finite consciousness) while they had them.
But even the human who reads the book "Of Caesar &amp; SDM", will one day meet the great "infinite unconsciousness" like Caesar &amp; SDM, and if that human is the last human on earth then all human effort exists only on record for another life to find - if another life exists, and if that record exists.

Either way, Caesar, SDM, and the last human don't care, because they unable to care - for to care one needs consciousness, and in death there is no consciousness.


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SDM,

Whew. You are correct in your statement above. If the entire race ends and no-one finds any record of us then nothing will matter in the end. But what does that have to do with mattering while we are alive - and with the original post. The fact that in the ultimate end we may never matter is not enough reason for me to not have things matter to me now. I do not live in the future but the present. Once I die, and everyone who knew me dies, it will be as if I never existed (maybe I didn't). But, that does not influence me what-so-ever in everyday life (should it)?

Re: Animal pain, suffering, and death: why does it matter?
 

So let me get this straight.... the OP wanted everyone to tell him why we think the way we do... but didnt want to have to defend his own beliefs, or give reasons for his inquiry in the first place.

wow, I wish the world worked this way.

Re: Animal pain, suffering, and death: why does it matter?
 

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So let me get this straight.... the OP wanted everyone to tell him why we think the way we do... but didnt want to have to defend his own beliefs, or give reasons for his inquiry in the first place.

wow, I wish the world worked this way.

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If it didn't work this way, what would we on the forum be doing in our spare time? And we wouldn't have made such good (sometimes) converstation and "friends".

RJT

Re: Animal pain, suffering, and death: why does it matter?
 

If the OP isnt willing to defend his own beliefs or his inquiry in and of itself, it really doesnt lend itself to discussion.

It just seemed a really weird stance to take.

Re: Animal pain, suffering, and death: why does it matter?
 

You are indeed correct. Don't you also agree that the topic itself didn't really lend itself to discussion anyhoo?

Re: Animal pain, suffering, and death: why does it matter?
 

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SDM,

Whew. You are correct in your statement above. If the entire race ends and no-one finds any record of us then nothing will matter in the end. But what does that have to do with mattering while we are alive - and with the original post. The fact that in the ultimate end we may never matter is not enough reason for me to not have things matter to me now. I do not live in the future but the present. Once I die, and everyone who knew me dies, it will be as if I never existed (maybe I didn't). But, that does not influence me what-so-ever in everyday life (should it)?

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Here's how it applies:

In my illustration above, Caesar lived a life of great power, &amp; great pleasure, SDM lived a life of no power, &amp; little pleasure. Both interacted with the world around them and both at times helped and hurt others by their actions - yet they both end up in the same place in death, thus their actions in life are futile.

Caesar's life &amp; SDM's life, while both vastly different, could be described by that famous phrase "All roads lead to Rome", with "Rome" meaning death in this case.

Thus whether a Chicken lives free range or is couped up in battery cages means nothing, in the end the chicken will die, and will not remember whether it spent it's days in the sun roaming around freely, or whether it was confined to a claustrophic environment.

The same could be said of humans; In the end Barry Greenstein with his donations to charity to improve the lives of impoverished children and Hitler with his answer to the "Jewish Problem" both go that "never ending sleep" having no identity, &amp; no memory - equals in sleep, equals in death.