next »

[Taoki]

I've brought this in another topic and felt it would be interesting to continue the discussion here. I have many fears, but from all of them I think my biggest fear is that we might not exist forever as I thought we would. By existing forever I mean being immortal as spirits, and capable to be born in different worlds and live various lives infinitely, never dieing away or being lost forever. Many say that every spirit lives indefinitely, some that only as long as they aren't killed in certain ways (eg: spells or special astral weapons), some that a spirit only lives for a certain million or billion of years then dies of old age, or others that the spirit dies when the universe it lives in ends.

I want to know what the truth is. Can a spirit really die? In what situations, what can cause one's death? Also what does death for a spirit mean? Loosing their form and turning into a mist until they find another mother astrally to reborn them? Or my worst feared theory that if a spirit dies they will become nothing?

The thought that we could reach a state of 'nothing forever' is very scary at least for me. I believe that living in that case is not worth it if you do it just to reach such a state in the end. In that case everything you learned, grown from, experienced, felt and basically ever lived would disappear and have never happened for you once your spirit becomes nothing. Anything we have lived for millions of years, are living now and will live billions of years from now would have been temporary... to in the end reach a state where everything is dark, there is no memory, life, thinking, just a blackness forever. It would mean it all never existed, and everything we lived or ever felt in any form existence has never happened, which is a thought I for one couldn't bare

My current theory is that a spirit can probably be killed in certain ways, but once they're killed they loose their form and turn into a mist... a formless presence which can just float around. In that moment they're in a place I'd define as a "waiting room", waiting to find a mother and live as a real spirit again. They could then choose what species to be depending on what mother they chose... if I would die and want to be a kitsune again for instance I'd choose a kitsune mother to birth me again. Not sure if a spirit would then loose all their memories and completely all experiences they have acquired, and start completely all over again in case this is true.

NOTE: I'm only saying the above from my belief. I have seen no proof things are like that nor can guarantee they are, it's just what I currently think. I have however not seen any proof that a spirit can be killed either, as much as I fear there might be ways though.

So what do you think of this? Is there really such a thing as a spirit ending and reaching a state of "nothing forever" from which they will never live anything again? Or are spirits fully immortal, or can die but be reborn again...

[Zephiris]

"Spirits", astral-native beings, aren't exactly hard to kill. Wars aren't usually won by diplomacy and kind words, they're won by warring. Warring isn't terribly effective if nobody dies, and war is perhaps the oldest job and way to settle disagreements there is. There's nothing "special" or usually all-that-complex required. Despite that people always want to focus on the super-magical rah rah, a spear, a gun, works just as well on the astral, if it can penetrate defenses (including 'material' defenses such as armor), and anything much more complex than manufactured armor requires training to use or obtain. Even simple claws and biting can be used to severe and potentially fatal injury.

For any way a human could die here, there are significantly more ways to die astrally "for real".

As far age, old age is always something that gets most sooner or later. Lifespan, how gracefully one ages, seems to depend on a variety of factors, not the least of which is training, specialization, and lifestyle. A well-trained leader or soldier is more likely to have a longer natural lifespan than an average baker or artisan.

If you build up a grand stone wall...it can sit there and be respected for ages...but after a few thousand years will be much more likely to crumble and fade into dust. No matter how long you last, period, it'll more or less always be like trying to build sand castles in the surf. Nothing is truly permanent.

Physical things, different worlds, don't have much to do with it. You could live a whole bunch of lives as a human or whatever...but that tends to be about as useful or enlightening as "...wait, why does the sun burn again? Is it hot?".

Nobody gets to choose what species they are, let alone what family they're in, any more than a human child would choose to be born AIDs-infected in Africa to a poor mother and die 13 days later for no purpose. You either are something, or you aren't. There's no in-between. There's no kinda. There is no "well, I want to be".

People are always trying to put a happy rhyme and reason to life, the universe, and everything, but...shit happens, and it's not "God" that makes it happen. People get old, die. It's sad, but dying is as much of a part of life as living. No matter how long a story is, it has a definite beginning, middle, and end.

It's not fun to hold someone in your arms as they bleed to death, nor is it fun to watch your grandmother on her death bed, still doing her best to teach and provide wisdom and guidance before she slips away. But it's only right to provide the proper honor to both, and to the memory of both.

Someone spinning a tale because they want things to be nice and happy and perfect doesn't somehow magically make it any more likely. That's what makes "new age" in general so chock full of fluff the whole thing becomes a morbid joke on itself.

[Kira]

 
Hmm, for me, I beleive in the trinity of body, spirit, and soul.
The body is our proxy in the real world.
The soul is pretty much what defines us in the spiritual world.
Te spirit, however, is the most important part, since it binds the two tohether. Thus it connects the real to the spiritual. The heart of what I write originates in my soul, my spirit turns it int thoughts and into words, and my body types it on the screen.
So yes, the spirit can be destroyed, but the soul cannot.
When we die, our body fails and the spirit fades. All we are is once again the soul.
The soul will fly through the worlds, through the river of dreams, until it is ready to be reborn someplace, as something. I could act all knowledgable and say that where and as what is determined by this and that, but really I am clueless. Although it would certainly be romantic to beleive that I'd be certainly reborn as a fox when I die.
 
As for how eternal the soul is: Its core is fully eternal. Once a soul is created, it can never be completely destroyed. Sure, one may go through the trouble of rending a soul, but he could not destroy the last part. The core of the soul that cannot be divided and is truly eternal.
 
And yes, it is oblivion I fear, too.

[Taoki]

Yeah, I often fail to make the difference between spirit and soul. What I normally addressed here is the life / existence that you have on the astral plane when not alive in another body like here... not always sure when that's the spirit or the soul. If the soul is the one which goes on while the spirit dies with the body then I should probably edit the pool to address what I really wanted to say, though it's probably too late now. I shall try to address it as soul from now on, though spirit is the term I am used to so I may forget again.

Anyway, I have given some more thought to this today and have gotten to a conclusion: It may probably not be possible to turn a soul into nothing over some certain theories I analyzed. I would like to know more thought on this from others as well. I also have a theory about souls dieing of old age. These theories are just some technical thoughts of mine, so I'm not claiming to know it all or be able to talk about such things for certain (a lot of what I said might even be pretty retarded). And sorry, I know, long post Here is what I think:

1 - About souls being destroyable:

At least in this world, matter cannot be destroyed. If you take a piece of paper and burn it, you could say "it is completely destroyed as it vanishes into flames", but in reality it changes state and turns into ash. That ash then integrates into the ground or something else and over the years, becomes part of another thing. Water evaporates at high temperatures, and as much as you watch it disappear from a pot it does not fade away into nothingness, and instead becomes steam which then floats in the atmosphere and sooner or later turns into water again when it rains.

The only matter which can disappear is anything which qualifies as energy. Energy such as flames, electricity, light, etc. only exists as long as another source emanates it, which means that anything which is energy is sustained by physical manner or another phenomenon creating it. Eg: A flame (energy) exists because a piece of wood (physical matter) is burning thus creating it... or electricity is generated because two metals spin and rub each other. Energy is actually physical matter too, but a high agitation of it creating light, fire and other similar phenomenons.

So this makes me wonder... does the matter which forms souls qualify most as physical matter, energy, or another type? Another type... can't really think what that could be now. Physical matter... I believe that's most likely, but not quite physical matter as we know it here. I'm not sure if the astral plane is a dimension where everything is just energy, but I believe that things are physical there as well. If there was nothing physical astrally you couldn't pick up a ball, throw it and have it roll over the ground (which I believe is possible in the astral world), and everyone would be floating and no one colliding with each other or anything else pretty much. So I'm inclined to say that the soul is physical matter as well given the fact it collides and has a well defined form, just on a different plane and manipulated differently. What I actually believe the soul to be is a special type of 'alive' physical matter, which allows you to be a perception... generating its own energies of course but not necessarily depending on them.

Of course the soul could just seem as an energy at first, but that would mean it has to be sustained by something, and a soul most certainly exists by itself and not generated by another phenomenon, so given this I don't see how a soul can qualify as energy (it would also be most likely formless if it was energy, and I'm certain we have our true forms on the astral). Unless there is clearly a third type, a soul most likely applies to physical laws (may not be -quite- or only physical matter but something of the type), which at least in this world its proved that this kind of matter cannot be destroyed but only changed to a point (like you can't turn wood into metal or water into fabric), which would then prove souls as unable to just "vanish" but changing, getting reborn, or integrating into other souls. Well I probably said a lot of things which don't make sense or may be contradictory here... if this wasted your time I apologize but I wanted to write down this idea

2 - About souls dieing of old age:

As many others, I believe that souls grow through experience, power and wisdom, and become better by learning from different lives. In the souls world there is not necessarily a thing such as time, or at least time isn't as we know it here. I know it's possible to even travel though time technically... I have had a few dreams in the past where I went to places I was about to visit in the future, and discovered once I got there for the first time in real life that remembered I dreamed that place in my dream before, which means that one way or another I know (or was told) in some way that I was going to be there, so getting in touch with the further future is clearly not impossible from a technical point of view.

Given that and the fact that souls don't grow by eating, growing bigger in size, then turning into old men and dieing of a disease around the age of 80-90, I think that dieing of old age is not necessarily a possibility for souls. The reason people die in lives like this when they get old is that something in their body gives up. eg: A person is so old that their heart all of a sudden stops or explodes and so they die. For one thing I'm not sure if souls have their organs as we do here, and if those get weaker with time as here. And for another we can shapeshift astrally, so even if a soul is 100000 years old and wants to shapeshift into a cub they still can, and be a cub though they have the same knowledge.

End

I probably missed many things but this is just a quick analysis I've made, since the issue does worry me a lot. I'd like to know what you all think though... I try to hope all is not lost for our dream of living in infinity.

[spectravixen]

Spirits are as eternal as the universe of there origin.  Of course every universe has an alpha and omega.  The only way a spirit can out live it's universe of origin is to evolve to a level some would argue is impossible.   
Otherkin are showing the closest to reaching that level of existence.  If we can stop bickering about everything and take time to let ourselves evolve we will continue past this multiverse and perhaps create some universe that fits us.  
I can only hope we will see that happen

[Taoki]

Yes Spectra hon, you have always told me this is your belief. Id like to know how many other people believe Spectra's theory above however. Do you believe it's true that there are many universes and that a spirit / soul only lives as long as it's universe unless they evolve to a bigger state?

[Kitsunami]

There are an unlimited amount of realities.

There are a limited amount of realms.

Arguiably however, there are unlimited realms and universes as, when this one dies/booms/whatever, there ae other realities that go on, or areborn again, or just begin..etc etc

[PeachClover]

Yes Spectra hon, you have always told me this is your belief. Id like to know how many other people believe Spectra's theory above however. Do you believe it's true that there are many universes and that a spirit / soul only lives as long as it's universe unless they evolve to a bigger state?

I believe Spectra.

[Zephiris]

Yes Spectra hon, you have always told me this is your belief. Id like to know how many other people believe Spectra's theory above however. Do you believe it's true that there are many universes and that a spirit / soul only lives as long as it's universe unless they evolve to a bigger state?

I guess it's only reasonable that so many people want safe, easy, happy, warm-feeling answers regardless of the way things are. It's why "newage" is so popular, though I'd suppose it's a similar reason why so many people go for any major Earth religion as well.

[Seeker]

I guess it's only reasonable that so many people want safe, easy, happy, warm-feeling answers regardless of the way things are. It's why "newage" is so popular, though I'd suppose it's a similar reason why so many people go for any major Earth religion as well.

I'm still with zeph here. The universe sucks. Life is hard. And things die. Optimism can't escape it.

[Kira]

 
If you follow the physics-approach, then you should note that matter and energy are the same.
Heat is the rapid movement of molecules, and fire is light generated by that movement. Light is photons that take away some of the heat from it's source and deliver it to it's destination. That's the way the sun warms the earth. Transfering molecular movement through photons.
You can also go the opposite way, and view everything in the universe as energy, but I lack the knowledge of molecular and quantum physics neccecary to explain that. Anyone here having a degree on physics?
 

[Taoki]

I guess it's only reasonable that so many people want safe, easy, happy, warm-feeling answers regardless of the way things are. It's why "newage" is so popular, though I'd suppose it's a similar reason why so many people go for any major Earth religion as well.

I'm still with zeph here. The universe sucks. Life is hard. And things die. Optimism can't escape it.

OK then, and what do we do in this case? For all my life I have been confirmed exactly this every second... that things are awful, horrible, dead, depressing, and nothing can be done to change it. I have been confirmed that the smallest hope of real lasting happiness is a joke and something fake... just a story to get laughed at for believing, and that our lives mean obeying the idea that real happiness cannot exist. I know its like that in this world and I'm not going to demand now that the entire world turns all lovely and beautiful, but at least our afterlife as kitsune I want to live reasonably and forever... me and the others.

I'm not asking to be a god, be all mighty and powerful... I'd actually love to be a slave or pet to someone I love for millions of years and love it more then anything. All I want is to be with my kind in a reasonably peaceful and safe place and live forever spiritually, which I'm sure most of us want and don't want to loose that hope just like that. Must every single world be subject to "everything is horrible, nothing good is possible and nothing lasts forever but death"? No infinite life in this universe, no place where everything mustn't necessarily be horrible, nothing? Sorry, I just had to say it

If you follow the physics-approach, then you should note that matter and energy are the same.
Heat is the rapid movement of molecules, and fire is light generated by that movement. Light is photons that take away some of the heat from it's source and deliver it to it's destination. That's the way the sun warms the earth. Transfering molecular movement through photons.
You can also go the opposite way, and view everything in the universe as energy, but I lack the knowledge of molecular and quantum physics neccecary to explain that. Anyone here having a degree on physics?
 

I thought I remembered that but wasn't sure. Yes it's true, energy is also matter just a high agitation of molecules. Still can't be destroyed however, just changes state, though I wonder how much and if enough would be possible to make a soul go "poof"

[Seeker]

OK then, and what do we do in this case? For all my life I have been confirmed exactly this every second... that things are awful, horrible, dead, depressing, and nothing can be done to change it. I have been confirmed that the smallest hope of real lasting happiness is a joke and something fake... just a story to get laughed at for believing, and that our lives mean obeying the idea that real happiness cannot exist. I know its like that in this world and I'm not going to demand now that the entire world turns all lovely and beautiful, but at least our afterlife as kitsune I want to live reasonably and forever... me and the others.

Note the strikethrough. Death gives life meaning and vice versa. The time we spend with each other... each moment is irreplaceable. We work to better ourselves, to lift each other up. Each person builds their own experiences, their own unique character, over time... Infinity destroys that, takes away everything precious about life. And I didn't say death was permanent.

[Zephiris]

I'm still with zeph here. The universe sucks. Life is hard. And things die. Optimism can't escape it.

OK then, and what do we do in this case? For all my life I have been confirmed exactly this every second... that things are awful, horrible, dead, depressing, and nothing can be done to change it. I have been confirmed that the smallest hope of real lasting happiness is a joke and something fake... just a story to get laughed at for believing, and that our lives mean obeying the idea that real happiness cannot exist. I know its like that in this world and I'm not going to demand now that the entire world turns all lovely and beautiful, but at least our afterlife as kitsune I want to live reasonably and forever... me and the others.

I'm not asking to be a god, be all mighty and powerful... I'd actually love to be a slave or pet to someone I love for millions of years and love it more then anything. All I want is to be with my kind in a reasonably peaceful and safe place and live forever spiritually, which I'm sure most of us want and don't want to loose that hope just like that. Must every single world be subject to "everything is horrible, nothing good is possible and nothing lasts forever but death"? No infinite life in this universe, no place where everything mustn't necessarily be horrible, nothing? Sorry, I just had to say it

If you follow the physics-approach, then you should note that matter and energy are the same.
Heat is the rapid movement of molecules, and fire is light generated by that movement. Light is photons that take away some of the heat from it's source and deliver it to it's destination. That's the way the sun warms the earth. Transfering molecular movement through photons.
You can also go the opposite way, and view everything in the universe as energy, but I lack the knowledge of molecular and quantum physics neccecary to explain that. Anyone here having a degree on physics?
 

I thought I remembered that but wasn't sure. Yes it's true, energy is also matter just a high agitation of molecules. Still can't be destroyed however, just changes state, though I wonder how much and if enough would be possible to make a soul go "poof"

Live the best you can? And how would anyone "live as kitsune" in some afterlife...? Mrf. If you want to live, live. Dying's a part of living too. Life is hard, particularly if you deal with reality. Who the hell says you have to be passive about it, though? If you expect everything to be handed to you on a silver platter, you're going to die a long, long time before anyone else. If you lived millions of years, you'd probably be setting a record. "Real happiness" exists, it's just not something you can find in a fortune cookie, or by believing happy-good explanations that have no foundation in reality. That's right. Santa Claus isn't real, kiddos.

It has nothing to do with "worlds", everything to do with the fundamental nature of life. Astral is perhaps (not-so-arguably) significantly nastier, harder, and worse than Earth. Humans merely have a 'wide range' of terror and sadism. Many others do it significantly better (including kitsune), and are not above torturing someone just for a laugh or 'something to do'. Virtually any kitsune worth their salt is going to be trained in at least rudimentary self-defense/group-defense as soon as they possibly can.

And...the "everything is energy physics rar" argument is kinda flawed. If someone went at you with an atom smasher...it's true that your physical body's energy/matter isn't "gone", but given the state change...I don't think you'll be winning any Nobel prizes after death, either. Death can be described as a "state change", but it's pretty well catastrophic. And astral death is not dissimilar. It's not that you don't remember, it's not that you go to some black limbo, it's that you no longer exist.

[Akana Uruha Seiru]

I will say that while I think we will be destroyed eventually, like many ghosts, we are completely unable to be destroyed.  We will return to the rest of the universe, but the stuff that makes us up can never be gone itself.  We can also be reborn one day, but not knowing anything we did before, either.

Powered by SMF 1.1.15 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines
Blueace design by Crip | XHTML | CSS

Page created in 0.074 seconds with 21 queries.