From: vallor@cultnix.org   
      
   On Sun, 16 Feb 2025 21:21:52 +0100, D  wrote in   
   <269dc1e5-63cd-61da-3c09-9071f94b4ac1@example.net>:   
      
   > Dear ap:ers,   
   >   
   > I thought you might enjoy this given the current themes floating around.   
   >   
   > IMMORTALITY:[1] A DIALOGUE.   
   >   
   >   
   > Thrasymachos—Philalethes.   
   >   
   > Thrasymachos. Tell me now, in one word, what shall I be after my death?   
   > And mind you be clear and precise.   
   >   
   > Philalethes. Everything and nothing.   
   >   
   > Thrasymachos. I thought so! I gave you a problem, and you solve it by a   
   > contradiction. That's a very stale trick.   
   >   
   > Philalethes. Yes, but you raise transcendental questions, and you expect   
   > me to answer them in language that is only made for immanent knowledge.   
   > It's no wonder that a contradiction ensues.   
   >   
   > Thrasymachos. What do you mean by transcendental questions and immanent   
   > knowledge? I've heard these expressions before, of course; they are not   
   > new to me. The Professor was fond of using them, but only as predicates of   
   > the Deity, and he never talked of anything else; which was all quite right   
   > and proper. He argued thus: if the Deity was in the world itself, he was   
   > immanent; if he was somewhere outside it, he was transcendent. Nothing   
   > could be clearer and more obvious! You knew where you were. But this   
   > Kantian rigmarole won't do any more: it's antiquated and no longer   
   > applicable to modern ideas. Why, we've had a whole row of eminent men in   
   > the metropolis of German learning—   
   >   
   > Philalethes (aside). German humbug, he means.   
   >   
   > Thrasymachos.—The mighty Schleiermacher, for instance, and that gigantic   
   > intellect, Hegel; and at this time of day we've abandoned that nonsense. I   
   > should rather say we're so far beyond it that we can't put up with it any   
   > more. What's the use of it then? What does it all mean?   
   >   
   > Philalethes. Transcendental knowledge is knowledge which passes beyond the   
   > bounds of possible experience, and strives to determine the nature of   
   > things as they are in themselves. Immanent knowledge, on the other hand,   
   > is knowledge which confines itself entirely within those bounds; so that   
   > it cannot apply to anything but actual phenomena. As far as you are an   
   > individual, death will be the end of you. But your individuality is not   
   > your true and inmost being: nay, only the outward manifestation of it. It   
   > is not the thing-in-itself, but only the phenomenon presented in the form   
   > of time; and therefore with a beginning and an end. But your real being   
   > knows neither time nor beginning nor end, nor yet the limits of any given   
   > individual. It is everywhere present in every individual; and no   
   > individual can exist apart from it. So when death comes, on the one hand   
   > you are annihilated as an individual; on the other you are and remain   
   > everything. That is what I meant when I said that at death you would be   
   > everything and nothing. It is difficult to find a more precise answer to   
   > your question and at the same time be brief. The answer is contradictory,   
   > I admit; but it is so simply because your life is in time, and the   
   > immortal part of you in eternity. You may put the matter thus: Your   
   > immortal part is something that does not last in time and yet is   
   > indestructible; but there you have another contradiction! You see what   
   > happens by trying to bring the transcendental within the limits of   
   > immanent knowledge. It is in some sort doing violence to the latter by   
   > misusing it for ends it was never meant to serve.   
   >   
   > Thrasymachos. Look here, I sha'n't give two-pence for your immortality   
   > unless I'm to remain an individual.   
   >   
   > Philalethes. Well, perhaps I may be able to satisfy you on this point.   
   > Suppose I guarantee that after death you shall remain an individual, but   
   > only on condition that you first spend three months of complete   
   > unconsciousness.   
   >   
   > Thrasymachos. I shall have no objection to that.   
   >   
   > Philalethes. But remember, if people are completely unconscious, they take   
   > no account of time. So, when you are dead, it's all the same to you   
   > whether three months pass in the world of consciousness, or ten thousand   
   > years. In the one case as in the other, it is simply a matter of believing   
   > what is told you when you awake. So far, then, you can afford to be   
   > indifferent whether it is three months or ten thousand years that pass   
   > before you recover your individuality.   
   >   
   > Thrasymachos. Yes, if it comes to that, I suppose you're right.   
   >   
   > Philalethes. And if by chance, after those ten thousand years have gone   
   > by, no one ever thinks of awaking you, I fancy it would be no great   
   > misfortune. You would have become quite accustomed to non-existence after   
   > so long a spell of it—following upon such a very few years of life. At any   
   > rate you may be sure you would be perfectly ignorant of the whole thing.   
   > Further, if you knew that the mysterious power which keeps you in your   
   > present state of life had never once ceased in those ten thousand years to   
   > bring forth other phenomena like yourself, and to endow them with life, it   
   > would fully console you.   
   >   
   > Thrasymachos. Indeed! So you think you're quietly going to do me out of my   
   > individuality with all this fine talk. But I'm up to your tricks. I tell   
   > you I won't exist unless I can have my individuality. I'm not going to be   
   > put off with 'mysterious powers,' and what you call 'phenomena.' I can't   
   > do without my individuality, and I won't give it up.   
   >   
   > Philalethes. You mean, I suppose, that your individuality is such a   
   > delightful thing—so splendid, so perfect, and beyond compare—that you   
   > can't imagine anything better. Aren't you ready to exchange your present   
   > state for one which, if we can judge by what is told us, may possibly be   
   > superior and more endurable?   
   >   
   > Thrasymachos. Don't you see that my individuality, be it what it may, is   
   > my very self? To me it is the most important thing in the world,   
   >   
   > For God is God and I am I.   
   >   
   > I want to exist, I, I. That's the main thing. I don't care about an   
   > existence which has to be proved to be mine, before I can believe it.   
   >   
   > Philalethes. Think what you're doing! When you say I, I, I want to exist,   
   > it is not you alone that says this. Everything says it, absolutely   
   > everything that has the faintest trace of consciousness. It follows, then,   
   > that this desire of yours is just the part of you that is not   
   > individual—the part that is common to all things without distinction. It   
   > is the cry, not of the individual, but of existence itself; it is the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)