The Afterlife - Javier style

[nausearockpig]

my perfect afterlife would be a state of ethereal flux where I exist in a conscious "ghost" or spirit form that allows me to travel to any point in time and space and do things like relive concerts or moments in history or the future. I would also be able to exist alongside the consciousnesses (spirit things) of family and friends and pets.

That would be fucking cool.

[Hype]

my perfect afterlife would be a state of ethereal flux where I exist in a conscious "ghost" or spirit form that allows me to travel to any point in time and space and do things like relive concerts or moments in history or the future. I would also be able to exist alongside the consciousnesses (spirit things) of family and friends and pets.

That would be fucking cool.

I go with Costanza on this one (go figure...):

George Costanza: I just don't see what purpose is it going to serve your going? I mean, you think dead people care who's at the funeral? They don't even know they're having a funeral. It's not like she's hanging out in the back going, "I can't believe Jerry didn't show up".
Elaine: Maybe she's there in spirit. How about that?
George Costanza: If you're a spirit, and you can travel to other dimensions and galaxies, and find out the mysteries of the universe, you think she's going to want to hang around Drexler's funeral home on Ocean Parkway?

[nausearockpig]

and here i was thinking i'd thought of that on my own..

I guess it could be that lots of people think that sort of thing is the perfect afterlife.. I'm gonna go with that.

[Hype]

I don't want an afterlife. I want to be immortal.

[nausearockpig]

I don't want an afterlife. I want to be immortal.

I reckon you've got more chance of an afterlife that you like, than any real chance of immortality that science or some other mystical force can provide. Think a Lazarus Pit from Batman mythos... sans the crazy of course...

then again, what do I know? maybe tomorrow a group of aliens will land and grant the few deserving of us true immortality in paradise...

[Hype]

I don't want an afterlife. I want to be immortal.

I reckon you've got more chance of an afterlife that you like, than any real chance of immortality that science or some other mystical force can provide. Think a Lazarus Pit from Batman mythos... sans the crazy of course...

then again, what do I know? maybe tomorrow a group of aliens will land and grant the few deserving of us true immortality in paradise...

I was chanelling my inner Woody Allen there, but it's true: "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." -- Woody Allen

By the way, not to rain on your thread, but I want to toss this out and see what you think: The concept of an 'afterlife' is incoherent. It expresses a logically impossible state of affairs --- that of living and not living at the same time (since you'd have a life after death while you're still dead, if this were possible).

The concept of the continuation of personal identity after bodily death is the same, it suffers from a lack of coherence. Those who believe in an afterlife do not, I argue, know who or what they really are.

You might like to read John Perry's "A Dialogue On Personal Identity". There's a summary of it here: http://www.unc.edu/~megw/Perry.html

[nausearockpig]

I don't want an afterlife. I want to be immortal.

I reckon you've got more chance of an afterlife that you like, than any real chance of immortality that science or some other mystical force can provide. Think a Lazarus Pit from Batman mythos... sans the crazy of course...

then again, what do I know? maybe tomorrow a group of aliens will land and grant the few deserving of us true immortality in paradise...

I was chanelling my inner Woody Allen there, but it's true: "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." -- Woody Allen

By the way, not to rain on your thread, but I want to toss this out and see what you think: The concept of an 'afterlife' is incoherent. It expresses a logically impossible state of affairs --- that of living and not living at the same time (since you'd have a life after death while you're still dead, if this were possible).

The concept of the continuation of personal identity after bodily death is the same, it suffers from a lack of coherence. Those who believe in an afterlife do not, I argue, know who or what they really are.

You might like to read John Perry's "A Dialogue On Personal Identity". There's a summary of it here: http://www.unc.edu/~megw/Perry.html

I'll be honest with you, I don't understand most of what you write (probably close to 90% of your big posts) so I probably won't get what you mean but...

From this statement "The concept of an 'afterlife' is incoherent. It expresses a logically impossible state of affairs --- that of living and not living at the same time (since you'd have a life after death while you're still dead, if this were possible)." To me, our ability to understand is bound by what we know, from a living point of view, of what "alive" and "dead" mean.

So from our "alive" point of view. it is impossible to understand or imagine what it means, or what it would be like to have a "something" after death. Being alive is our only reference point and so negates our ability to understand or comprehend being "alive after death", so of course it would seem incoherent as mentioned.

This being the case, is it not possible for us to comprehend what it's like from the "dead" point of view so we can't know what it's like to be dead (or after-dead), or whether an afterlife is possible. Because we can't know that (because we can't see or understand it from that point of view (being dead)) then I don't think we can discount the possibility.

I don't understand this "The concept of the continuation of personal identity after bodily death is the same, it suffers from a lack of coherence. Those who believe in an afterlife do not, I argue, know who or what they really are." or how the idea of continuation of mental/spiritual/self consciousness after physical expiration and not knowing "who or what they really are" tie together.

That was all very hard to put to screen. That's the most thinking I've done in a loooong time. If some or all of it is unclear I'll try to explain myself a bit better..

[Hype]

No worries. Those are all good, interesting, thoughts. No need to qualify yourself, but I do appreciate the effort. I'll try to speak plainly, because I like this topic.

When you say "from our "alive" point of view. it is impossible to understand or imagine what it means, or what it would be like to have a "something" after death",
But then, "is it not possible for us to comprehend what it's like from the "dead" point of view so we can't know what it's like to be dead (or after-dead), or whether an afterlife is possible".

One thing you are assuming is that there are things you can only understand from that point of view. This might be true for some things, but I don't think it is actually true here (or anywhere).

One problem is that you seem to be saying two things that contradict each other:
1. If you aren't in some point of view, you can't understand or imagine it.
2. But you can't rule it out.

The problem is that when you try to talk about it, you seem to be talking about something, and that something either does mean something or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then you're talking nonsense, so there's no point. If it does mean something, then you're contradicting point #1. Right? If you say that you can't understand or imagine something unless you're in that point of view, but then you want to say you can't rule "it" out, then we can ask what you think "it" is that we can't rule out... but you've already said we can't really talk about it... so point #2 can't be true if #1 is true.

Hopefully you followed that. If not, I can try to break it down more.


The second thing you said, "I don't understand this "The concept of the continuation of personal identity after bodily death is the same, it suffers from a lack of coherence. Those who believe in an afterlife do not, I argue, know who or what they really are." or how the idea of continuation of mental/spiritual/self consciousness after physical expiration and not knowing "who or what they really are" tie together."

Is actually just a good question. It's never a bad thing to admit not understanding something. I do it all day long. I'll try to explain:

By 'continuation of personal identity', I meant the belief that "you", whatever "you" are, continues to exist after your body dies. If you have, or are, a "soul", then that could be what continues to exist, and it's what makes you who you are.

I claimed that this is incoherent --- it doesn't make sense --- because if you believe that "you" continue to exist after "you" die, then you've just said something confusing: either you didn't really die, your body just stopped working, and you're not your body, or you are your body, and you don't continue to exist, or you are two things: your body and something else, and only the second thing continues to exist. But what is that? When you talk about yourself during your life, you always refer to your body. That's why I said that people who believe that there's an 'afterlife' don't know who are what they are. They think they're something else other than the thing that they call "I" or "me" for their whole life.

[nausearockpig]

Man.. quoting all this is bound to fuck up..

One thing you are assuming is that there are things you can only understand from that point of view. This might be true for some things, but I don't think it is actually true here (or anywhere).

That's the way I see it. How can I truly understand or be in a postion to comprehend something, if I have no way to "see" it or know that it's even there or possible or imaginable?

One problem is that you seem to be saying two things that contradict each other:
1. If you aren't in some point of view, you can't understand or imagine it.
2. But you can't rule it out.

That's not what I meant. I meant to say just because I'm not in a position to understand or imagine something, does not mean that I won't believe it's possible. I have no way of proving that an afterlife exists, but I believe that it could.

The problem is that when you try to talk about it, you seem to be talking about something, and that something either does mean something or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then you're talking nonsense, so there's no point. If it does mean something, then you're contradicting point #1. Right? If you say that you can't understand or imagine something unless you're in that point of view, but then you want to say you can't rule "it" out, then we can ask what you think "it" is that we can't rule out... but you've already said we can't really talk about it... so point #2 can't be true if #1 is true.

Again (I think) that what I was trying to say is that even though I'm not able to understand or prove something, doesn't mean I don't accept it's possible. I think I may have contradicted myself by not explaining myself properly. I can talk about something being there in theory but I can't prove it's there, or not there.

Hopefully you followed that. If not, I can try to break it down more.

The second thing you said, "I don't understand this "The concept of the continuation of personal identity after bodily death is the same, it suffers from a lack of coherence. Those who believe in an afterlife do not, I argue, know who or what they really are." or how the idea of continuation of mental/spiritual/self consciousness after physical expiration and not knowing "who or what they really are" tie together."

Is actually just a good question. It's never a bad thing to admit not understanding something. I do it all day long. I'll try to explain:

By 'continuation of personal identity', I meant the belief that "you", whatever "you" are, continues to exist after your body dies. If you have, or are, a "soul", then that could be what continues to exist, and it's what makes you who you are.

I claimed that this is incoherent --- it doesn't make sense --- because if you believe that "you" continue to exist after "you" die, then you've just said something confusing: either you didn't really die, your body just stopped working, and you're not your body, or you are your body, and you don't continue to exist, or you are two things: your body and something else, and only the second thing continues to exist. But what is that? When you talk about yourself during your life, you always refer to your body. That's why I said that people who believe that there's an 'afterlife' don't know who are what they are. They think they're something else other than the thing that they call "I" or "me" for their whole life.

I have to go to bed now but just quickly, to me the idea of an afterlife is that the soul/spirit/mind is able to continue on even though the body dies. Otherwise, I guess, like you say, it's not really dying.

[Hype]

You're not exactly wrong (I mean, I don't think you're right, but it's not like it's just a simple thing...). Immanuel Kant would be on your side here. He distinguished two "realms", the "phenomenal" and the "noumenal", then said that all of our experiences are in the phenomenal realm, so we can't talk about the noumenal, but nevertheless, it's there. Of course, he also thought that's where God and angels were. The same things I said I had a problem with in what you said, I have a problem with in Kant's philosophy. It was a tricky point about language. I was saying that since according to your own view you can't actually think about the thing you think might be possible, then we can't even say whether it's possible or not. We can't say anything.

I don't want to try to talk you out of a belief in a soul/mind, but I wil just ask you why you think there's more to you than your body.

[Artemis]

I don't believe in an afterlife.
I think it's because there wasn't much religion in my house to influence this sort of thought. Not much church going either. My father told me that a person's body just decomposes and becomes particles. My mother is a little religious and sometimes goes to church, but doesn't believe in an afterlife either.

When I experimented a little with religion, I tried to believe in an afterlife, but it is too much of a leap of faith for me, I guess. Illogical as Spina mentioned. I don't dismiss people who do believe though. I think that afterlife buisness was started as a consolation to distract from their lives. In times when life was really hard,like wretched hard, such thoughts gave people faith I guess to carry on.

[Hype]

I don't believe in an afterlife.
I think it's because there wasn't much religion in my house to influence this sort of thought. Not much church going either. My father told me that a person's body just decomposes and becomes particles. My mother is a little religious and sometimes goes to church, but doesn't believe in an afterlife either.

When I experimented a little with religion, I tried to believe in an afterlife, but it is too much of a leap of faith for me, I guess. Illogical as Spina mentioned. I don't dismiss people who do believe though. I think that afterlife buisness was started as a consolation to distract from their lives. In times when life was really hard,like wretched hard, such thoughts gave people faith I guess to carry on.

I think the mystery of consciousness... the fact that we feel that we are something other than our bodies -- since you can lose a limb and still be "you"... and the fact that we are only just beginning to understand the brain (and only really smart neuroscientists are even close)... and the difficulty we have imagining not existing... makes it easier to believe in an afterlife. It may not necessarily be just a religious distraction... it also has a part that comes from what people really feel they experience every day.

One thing to consider: if you have a family member (especially a parent) who died when you were a young child, and they were young, think about what it would mean for there to be an 'afterlife' in which you could meet them. Would they still be the "age" they were when they died (when you last had memories of them)? Isn't it strange to think, say, your dad, might be permanently 29 years old, even if you die in your 90s? What would that relationship even be like, if you could have it? The fact that you could have so much more experience, wisdom, and a changed perspective from a full life... and your loved ones either had to pay attention and "grow with you" somehow, in order to still know you, and be able to understand you... or you would have to treat them totally differently in the afterlife... It just loses all sense. And what about re-marriages that last longer than the first one... does that mean you're 'afterlife-divorced' from the first guy? Even if you never stopped loving them?

None of that makes any sense ... it doesn't fit with the way we really live, here, now.

[nausearockpig]

It was a tricky point about language. I was saying that since according to your own view you can't actually think about the thing you think might be possible, then we can't even say whether it's possible or not. We can't say anything.

what I was able to write isn't what I was trying to express, I think. I'm saying that today, here, now with our collective knowledge and experiences, we are not able to say whether there is, or there is not, an after life - simply because none of us (except those dare I say "crackpots" who claim to have come back from a near death experience and have talked to Jesus or James Dean & Elvis) has been there and back. We're not able to say "it's there, it's real" nor can we discount it

I don't want to try to talk you out of a belief in a soul/mind, but I wil just ask you why you think there's more to you than your body.

I really don't know why I think there's more to me than my body. Thinking about how to type out my response is an interesting experience, by the way..

the reasons could be:
1) Maybe it's an off shoot or result of growing up near religion (I'm not religious but my father is strongly so and my mother is a little) or
2) it could be a result of what I see when I look at the marvel that is the human body and mind (ie how could such a complex mechanism only be a vessel for 80 or so years then death) or
3) maybe it's borne out of a "low self-esteem" (self esteem is not the right term but think self esteem but on a spiritual level if that makes sense) NEED for there to be something else for us, rather than just dying and decaying and loss of consciousness. Kinda like point 2 I guess..

[Hype]

It was a tricky point about language. I was saying that since according to your own view you can't actually think about the thing you think might be possible, then we can't even say whether it's possible or not. We can't say anything.

what I was able to write isn't what I was trying to express, I think. I'm saying that today, here, now with our collective knowledge and experiences, we are not able to say whether there is, or there is not, an after life - simply because none of us (except those dare I say "crackpots" who claim to have come back from a near death experience and have talked to Jesus or James Dean & Elvis) has been there and back. We're not able to say "it's there, it's real" nor can we discount it

Okay, this is good. So your view isn't that we can't talk about it at all, or that we can't know anything about it, but just that we can't know with absolute certainty whether there is this thing that we think might be the case. As a result, we can still talk about what it might be like. This is better, since it means that what you're trying to conceive isn't ruled out by your perspective as an embodied person.

This is good place to make another sort of tricky claim that I think I can make simply. Bear with me and I'll see if I can do it in a few sentences.

You know how sometimes religious people will say "you can't disprove God's existence"? When you say "you can't discount the possibility of the afterlife", you're saying a very similar thing: the existence or reality of this one kind of thing is such that you can't rule it out even if you don't have any reason to think it is there.

There are many problems with this but I think the biggest one is that it isn't clear what you're referring to when you say 'the afterlife' (like when religious people say 'God'... what are they talking about?). It's too easy to avoid the question, or replace 'the afterlife' with 'continuing to exist after bodily death'. As with the 'God' question, I think it really is possible to say about some beliefs about these things that these beliefs cannot possibly be true.

What do I mean by this? I mean, for example, if you say: "God could make a square-circle.", then I can easily say "There is no such God, because square-circles are impossible, by definition." So I've proven that *that* God doesn't exist (the God that someone believes can make square circles... they're just confused). Likewise, if you believe certain things about what 'the afterlife' is, it is possible to say whether any particular claim is possible or not. If you think, for example, that in the afterlife it's possible to do something logically impossible, like be in two places at once, then this can't be what the afterlife is, because this is simply impossible.

So the important question, I think, if you're talking about 'the afterlife' is: what is possible?
Does that make sense?

I don't want to try to talk you out of a belief in a soul/mind, but I wil just ask you why you think there's more to you than your body.

I really don't know why I think there's more to me than my body. Thinking about how to type out my response is an interesting experience, by the way..

the reasons could be:
1) Maybe it's an off shoot or result of growing up near religion (I'm not religious but my father is strongly so and my mother is a little) or
2) it could be a result of what I see when I look at the marvel that is the human body and mind (ie how could such a complex mechanism only be a vessel for 80 or so years then death) or
3) maybe it's borne out of a "low self-esteem" (self esteem is not the right term but think self esteem but on a spiritual level if that makes sense) NEED for there to be something else for us, rather than just dying and decaying and loss of consciousness. Kinda like point 2 I guess..

Those are all possible reasons, and it makes sense. The second reason is interesting. The question is, does that reason make you want to believe in an afterlife because it's a reason for it to be true, or because it's a reason to be sad if it's not true? Because if it's just unfortunate that we only get roughly 80 or so years on this planet (and we're the lucky ones! Think about all the still-born infants, the miscarriages, the child-soldiers, the innocent civilians, the cancers, the car-accidents... these people don't even get the 'normal' life that we take for granted...), then it makes psychological sense that we would WANT there to be something more, but this isn't a reason to think that there IS something more.

[nausearockpig]

This is good place to make another sort of tricky claim that I think I can make simply. Bear with me and I'll see if I can do it in a few sentences.

You know how sometimes religious people will say "you can't disprove God's existence"? When you say "you can't discount the possibility of the afterlife", you're saying a very similar thing: the existence or reality of this one kind of thing is such that you can't rule it out even if you don't have any reason to think it is there.

There are many problems with this but I think the biggest one is that it isn't clear what you're referring to when you say 'the afterlife' (like when religious people say 'God'... what are they talking about?). It's too easy to avoid the question, or replace 'the afterlife' with 'continuing to exist after bodily death'. As with the 'God' question, I think it really is possible to say about some beliefs about these things that these beliefs cannot possibly be true.

I agree.
Part of my problem is that I don't have a clear definition or understanding or perception (or agreement within myself) of what "THE afterlife" is. Like I said in my original post, a "floaty ghost who can time travel and be with other floaty ghosts" would (today) be my preferred afterlife. But it's just as "possible" that THE afterlife is (and I'm making these up on the spot) a giant machine (similar to in The Matirx) where our "souls" are caught when we die to fuel a machine that powers all existance (or "feeds" a creator so we are nothing but cattle as such). Or it could be a place of eternal pain and suffering like the Christian hell or it could be like The Phantom zone in Superman comics. Or it could be just a sense of eternal orgasm. Or it could not exist at all and when we die, there's literally nothing more. Or it could be that our consiousness stays with whatever remains are left and is literally like being "stuck" in a comatose body..(that would be sooo fucked).

What do I mean by this? I mean, for example, if you say: "God could make a square-circle.", then I can easily say "There is no such God, because square-circles are impossible, by definition." So I've proven that *that* God doesn't exist (the God that someone believes can make square circles... they're just confused). Likewise, if you believe certain things about what 'the afterlife' is, it is possible to say whether any particular claim is possible or not. If you think, for example, that in the afterlife it's possible to do something logically impossible, like be in two places at once, then this can't be what the afterlife is, because this is simply impossible.

True or it could mean that we are not able to understand that something like a square circle can exist. Or it could mean that that god can make a square circle exist by changing reality and/or the understood rules of physics/science to make a square circle possible. Similarly the being two places at once may indeed be possible, if you can change the rules around what is and is not possible.
Just because I don't understand something, or can't perceive it, does not mean that it's not possible - that's my belief, not what I deem to be "fact".

So the important question, I think, if you're talking about 'the afterlife' is: what is possible?
Does that make sense?

I don't know that we can define what "is possible" or what is not. I believe we simply do not have the capability or experiences to do that. I think we can ONLY safely say that we can't define what is possible therefore we can't define what is not possible.

I don't want to try to talk you out of a belief in a soul/mind, but I wil just ask you why you think there's more to you than your body.

I really don't know why I think there's more to me than my body. Thinking about how to type out my response is an interesting experience, by the way..

the reasons could be:
1) Maybe it's an off shoot or result of growing up near religion (I'm not religious but my father is strongly so and my mother is a little) or
2) it could be a result of what I see when I look at the marvel that is the human body and mind (ie how could such a complex mechanism only be a vessel for 80 or so years then death) or
3) maybe it's borne out of a "low self-esteem" (self esteem is not the right term but think self esteem but on a spiritual level if that makes sense) NEED for there to be something else for us, rather than just dying and decaying and loss of consciousness. Kinda like point 2 I guess..

Those are all possible reasons, and it makes sense. The second reason is interesting. The question is, does that reason make you want to believe in an afterlife because it's a reason for it to be true, or because it's a reason to be sad if it's not true? Because if it's just unfortunate that we only get roughly 80 or so years on this planet (and we're the lucky ones! Think about all the still-born infants, the miscarriages, the child-soldiers, the innocent civilians, the cancers, the car-accidents... these people don't even get the 'normal' life that we take for granted...), then it makes psychological sense that we would WANT there to be something more, but this isn't a reason to think that there IS something more.

My view is that given the complexity of the world (and everything in it that we do know of including humans) and the vastness of space, I find it hard to believe that once our bodies die, we cease to exist in any other form. That seems futile, pointless and really unfair. Though just because something seems unfair, doesn't mean it's not a reality. It's just a shitty reality.

Yes I WANT to believe in some sort of afterlife, but I would want it to be good or pleasant, not one of the the shitty ones I wrote about earlier..

Agreed, just because I want something does not mean that I expect to exist.
all that fucking quoting took ages to get right....

[Hype]

Thanks for the time and effort you put into responding to my questions and suggestions. I hope you haven't minded me kind of hijacking your thread in a deeper direction than you may have intended it to go. I think I've said enough stuff about possibility and coherence and other difficult topics, but I'll just talk say a bit more about a more ordinary subject that you bring up:

My view is that given the complexity of the world (and everything in it that we do know of including humans) and the vastness of space, I find it hard to believe that once our bodies die, we cease to exist in any other form. That seems futile, pointless and really unfair. Though just because something seems unfair, doesn't mean it's not a reality. It's just a shitty reality.

This is really the tragedy of the human condition. Somehow, the recognition that the universe is a brutal place leads us to imagine something else (in the same way that the suicidal brain mistakenly imagines that death would be better than the pain and suffering of life) and then declare that that something else is beyond where we are now.

I've been working on a new book that just came out by Oxford philosopher, Derek Parfit, that is supposed to be the most important work of Moral philosophy of the past 100 years (since Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics). He called it On What Matters, and takes about 1400 pages to tell us what he thinks really matters. I think the concluding paragraph of the first volume is really powerful, and important, and relates to this discussion entirely:

What now matters most is that we rich people give up some of our luxuries, ceasing to overheat the Earth's atmosphere, and taking care of this planet in other ways, so that it continues to support intelligent life. If we are the only rational animals in the Universe, it matters even more whether we shall have descendants during the billions of years in which that would be possible. Some of our descendants might live lives and create worlds that, though failing to justify past suffering, would give us all, including those who suffered, reasons to be glad that the Universe exists.

Parfit's not the greatest writer in the world (the first sentence in that quote is awkward), but that is a hell of a conclusion... and it sums up what I think about the desire to get "another life" because the one you have is so bad... It seems that that's the opposite reaction of the one that we should have. When we notice that the world is in terrible shape, shouldn't we do our best to make it the best we can, for ourselves at least, and for anyone else we can? And isn't that good enough?

[nausearockpig]

Thanks for the time and effort you put into responding to my questions and suggestions. I hope you haven't minded me kind of hijacking your thread in a deeper direction than you may have intended it to go. I think I've said enough stuff about possibility and coherence and other difficult topics, but I'll just talk say a bit more about a more ordinary subject that you bring up:

No worries at all, I don't consider this thread turn a hijack. I've enjoyed this. I was being serious when I said this is the most thinking I've done in a long time. Thank you for helping me think something.

My view is that given the complexity of the world (and everything in it that we do know of including humans) and the vastness of space, I find it hard to believe that once our bodies die, we cease to exist in any other form. That seems futile, pointless and really unfair. Though just because something seems unfair, doesn't mean it's not a reality. It's just a shitty reality.

This is really the tragedy of the human condition. Somehow, the recognition that the universe is a brutal place leads us to imagine something else (in the same way that the suicidal brain mistakenly imagines that death would be better than the pain and suffering of life) and then declare that that something else is beyond where we are now.

Yup. I guess that all (most) of us pine or hope or wish for something better or more fulfilling. Whatever that may be; happier life, an "afterlife" that's a reward or free from pain etc..

I've been working on a new book that just came out by Oxford philosopher, Derek Parfit, that is supposed to be the most important work of Moral philosophy of the past 100 years (since Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics). He called it On What Matters, and takes about 1400 pages to tell us what he thinks really matters. I think the concluding paragraph of the first volume is really powerful, and important, and relates to this discussion entirely:

What now matters most is that we rich people give up some of our luxuries, ceasing to overheat the Earth's atmosphere, and taking care of this planet in other ways, so that it continues to support intelligent life. If we are the only rational animals in the Universe, it matters even more whether we shall have descendants during the billions of years in which that would be possible. Some of our descendants might live lives and create worlds that, though failing to justify past suffering, would give us all, including those who suffered, reasons to be glad that the Universe exists.

Parfit's not the greatest writer in the world (the first sentence in that quote is awkward), but that is a hell of a conclusion... and it sums up what I think about the desire to get "another life" because the one you have is so bad... It seems that that's the opposite reaction of the one that we should have. When we notice that the world is in terrible shape, shouldn't we do our best to make it the best we can, for ourselves at least, and for anyone else we can? And isn't that good enough?

I understood his comment as a) selfish cos he wants a better world to live in (actually I'm not sure if selfish is the right word - maybe he just thinks we all need a better world today) and b) selfless because he wants a better world for everyone else today and in the near and far future.
Why worry about what might or could be when we have something real and tangible right here and now? On the other hand, yes it "right" to be happy with what we have here, but why should we not look for something as good / nice / clean after we die?

Also some would argue that rather than give up or luxuries, we should be looking at ways of converting our current processes from damaging ones to either neutral or repairing ones. eg, rather than a petrol engine for a car, why not have an engine that uses say plastic waste products to power the vehicle? assuming of course that it does not produce an even worse "exhaust"..

[Hype]

Parfit cares a lot about suffering and thinks everyone should. He goes to great lengths to argue that no one deserves to suffer, and that we ought to act according to principles that make things go best for everyone. You're right to notice that he seems to want things to be better now, or as soon as possible. This is because that is the way things would go best. He thinks that all real human decisions about how to act are made "in time", that is, they are about the past, present, or future (of our lives, or our ancestors' lives, or our childrens' lives) of life on this planet. They cannot be about a future not in this world, because, as you yourself agreed, we can't know what it would be like to be in that 'other world', or 'afterlife', and so we can't know how we should act in this life to make things go the way we want in the next life. All we can do here and now is try to make things here go best, which involves attempting to fix wrongs we did in the past, and avoid wrongs in the future.

I also think you're right to question the claim that doing what would make things go best for everyone would necessarily involve giving up "luxuries". We may have to give up some luxuries, in the short-term, though, if we want our children's children's children to have a place to live that isn't worse than this one, and may even be better.

[blackcoffee]

I'd really like to be bitten by a vampire and live the life of the damned for all eternity. I tell my wife it's the only reason I'd leave her i.e if I couldn't take her with me.

[nausearockpig]

I'd really like to be bitten by a vampire and live the life of the damned for all eternity. I tell my wife it's the only reason I'd leave her i.e if I couldn't take her with me.

surely you could bite her and she could then come with you?