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One more before you die.

W

Wabbit

New Member
If you know you are about to die or you are condemned to death but you have time to read JUST one last book. What book would you read?
 
I want it too!

*cry*

But it's one of the books that I will probably buy myself for Christmas so I will stop crying now :-D
 
I would say The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I haven't read it but I have heard its funny and I want to die laughing.
I don't want to read anything I have already read, I think that if my life flashes before my eyes I'll get through them anyway.
 
SillyWabbit said:
Yes! Good idea, die with a smile on your face! :)
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Ya, I possess this ill trait of preferring understanding....it will be both my greatest strength and weakness in life, I guarantee it.
 
One of my favorite questions about death that Nagel attempts to answer is "Why would the period of nonexistence after our death be bad, if the period before our birth is not considered so?"

~True
 
That's a kinda stupid question by Nagel if I may so say without offending you :D :)

Errr the period before we are born ends with us exisiting and so therefore is good! The period after we die we then cease ( as far as we know ) to exist and so therefor it would be bad.

I would have thought that was pretty obvious or am I missing something profound? lol
 
SillyWabbit said:
I would have thought that was pretty obvious or am I missing something profound? lol
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Yeh I think you might be. Maybe you could find out by reading what this Nagel chap has to say.

Anyway, be more specific about the rules. Do we die once we've read the book? If so, I'm going to pick a jolly long one and be very slow about reading it. If not, I'll pick a short one so I'm not wasting my last hours reading. Learning something new and fascinating is all well and good, but really - you're dying. Chances are, you don't need to know. And if there is some kind of afterlife, you could probably go hunt down a load of the best authors and get them to explain loads of stuff to you. In fact for my very last book, I might have a quick think through all the religions, decide on which seems the most probable and read a book on that, quickly converting myself.

Although, and I'm surprised no-one else has piped up with this, I certainly wouldn't be reading a book if I'd just been told how long I have left to live.
 
Freya said:
Yeh I think you might be. Maybe you could find out by reading what this Nagel chap has to say.
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In other words. You don't know and have no answer. Yes, maybe I could find out by reading him and hence my question "maybe I am missing something profound?

Anything you don't understand about that?

Anyway, be more specific about the rules. Do we die once we've read the book? If so, I'm going to pick a jolly long one and be very slow about reading it. If not, I'll pick a short one so I'm not wasting my last hours reading. Learning something new and fascinating is all well and good, but really - you're dying. Chances are, you don't need to know. And if there is some kind of afterlife, you could probably go hunt down a load of the best authors and get them to explain loads of stuff to you. In fact for my very last book, I might have a quick think through all the religions, decide on which seems the most probable and read a book on that, quickly converting myself.

Although, and I'm surprised no-one else has piped up with this, I certainly wouldn't be reading a book if I'd just been told how long I have left to live.
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You take too long nit picking about the rules and they shoot you between the eyeballs :D
 
SillyWabbit said:
In other words. You don't know and have no answer. Yes, maybe I could find out by reading him and hence my question "maybe I am missing something profound?

Anything you don't understand about that?
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It seems unlikely that Nagels answer would simply be

SillyWabbit said:
Errr the period before we are born ends with us exisiting and so therefore is good! The period after we die we then cease ( as far as we know ) to exist and so therefor it would be bad.
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if he felt the need to dedicate part of his book to answering the question. Hence why, without reading the book, I am willing to hazard a guess that his answer would be somewhat what more 'profound' than yours.

Need I clarify?
 
And then again it might not be :)

I'm sure Al queda have written thousands of pages on why it's good to blow things up and oppress women but it doesn't make it to be "correct" does it? Sometimes the simplest answers are the right ones.

Your logic of "he has written a lot so therefore he must be right" doesn't really hold water. Simply writing a lot or being published does not make one "correct" automatically. Some things we will agree with and some things we won't. I suppose I will have to wait until true@firstlight comes back and answers my question. :)
 
I didn't say he was right did I? I just said you were probably missing his main points. Besides which, I thought the whole point of the philosophical clap-trap was that there is no right answer. I mean, is a table really a table?
 
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