This is a response to Brandon's post about life and death being two sides of the same coin. While playing through Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, one of the characters was explaining that light cannot exist without shadow, because they are two sides of the same coin, which reminded me of the Buddhist idea that all life must die, and everything that dies must live. One cannot exist without the other.
http://hylianfolklorednf.blogspot.com/2012/03/life-and-death-two-sides-of-same-coin.html?showComment=1333845385856#c6597307854327342029
Last night I finished my second play through Twilight Princess (it's been a while since 2006) and following the end credits, Midna was talking to Link and Zelda about how this will be the last time they meet- light and shadow cannot mix. Zelda corrected her, saying that they were two sides of the same coin, and one cannot exist without the other.
I remembered reading this post and just thought I'd share.
It reminds us that we can't have life without death. In your post, it seems you have found a loophole- what if you never die?
As Avery said, there are no current means for attaining immortality, although it is a popular fantasy.
I cannot confirm that there is a soul which lives forever in either heaven or hell, nor can I confirm that souls exist.
I do believe that everything which begins, ends. Even someone who is immortal cannot physically last forever. They may take their own life tomorrow or be victim to some catastrophic event in 3,000 years. The end is inevitable.
Yes, that would be quite the loophole. While I love that game with all of my tiny heart, I think that the analogy is limited to shadow and light, I do not think it would be relevant to life and death conversations. Shadow is the absence of light - death is the cessation of life. You can have things which are neither live or dead (rocks for example).
ReplyDeleteRight now I agree that immortality is not within our reach. However, I think that it's not so incredibly far away actually. I don't agree that what begins must end, I think that in the not-so-distant future we will be able to see immortality. I'm not saying that everyone will choose it. I think it would be necessary to give people the choice to die when they want to. So in that sense there will be death; but any given individual could choose to live forever, or at least until the universe collapses on itself. Though actually, even then, if the multi-verse theory has any weight, even that won't be able to kill people permanently.
Just a note, when classifying lifeforms, a thing is either biotic, living, or abiotic, non living. Anything that is living or was once living is considered biotic, from the newly hatched blue jay or the rotting log.
ReplyDeleteThings such as rocks, metals, wind, have never experienced life, nor will they.
With all respect to your argument, I still believe that life and death are part of the same coin, thus one cannot exist without the other. At least for the state of our current universe...