What happens after we die.

[N.T.M.]

Re: What happens after we die.

after we die, our atoms will be back in the natural cycle, and that's good enough for me.

if only they used corpses to feed the soil instead of putting them into coffins....

You could essentially be reincarnated as a sunflower.


Tell me that wouldn't be awesome!!

[ledwix]

Re: What happens after we die.

See the metaphysics thread.

Odds are, once our brain ceases to function, so does out perspective and sentience. Therefore you basically wind up in the same state of existence that you were in before you were born. That is to say, nothing.

To the physiologically concerned side of me, this is very reassuring. When I think of death, it's a very sad vision. The thought of having 60 or so years left to perceive everything in the world that I will ever perceive is kinda sad, especially when the world is so idealistically minded to us when we are young (i.e. you can do ANYTHING if you put your mind to it !!!1!11). But when I think about it some more, the 1980s weren't all that bad for me! I just simply have no record of them or any of the other years before 1990.

It's strange to think about how the world is a big continuous flux of people in and out, with no discrete changes. There are almost no massive events that change life for everyone, just a lot of smooth, rounded trends toward a "better" or "worse" world.

My overall reasoning though is that our physical bodies don't really matter by any metrics. From a humanistic, naturalistic perspective, there will absolutely no meaningful physical record of our existence in the next eons, barring fossilization and crap. And there will be no record of our accomplishments, either. From a spiritual perspective, if the spiritual realm is real and meaningful in any way, then the body still does not matter; only one's spiritual commitment matters. And so if there is anything grand to live for, it cannot be based in one's physical relations with the world. Our worldly desires are just that: worldly desires, and nothing more.

[N.T.M.]

Re: What happens after we die.

The thought of having 60 or so years left to perceive everything in the world that I will ever perceive is kinda sad.

Look up Aubrey de Grey, Cynthia Kenyon, and Rob Freitas.

I've been researching them for a while.

Feel better with such prospects?

[MrRubix]

Re: What happens after we die.

ledwix: I agree -- in the future, we'll basically be gone. As time goes on, our influence starts to slowly null out in the same way out forefathers have basically vanished into the history of everything.

And so I've always wondered, what actually matters? I think "purpose" is only a human construct -- it is subjective, and therefore human in origin. Was there any purpose to the universe back when there was no life, no experience? Finding "meaning" in things is purely a result of an evolutionary construct. And so, to me, what "matters" is that I live a happy life, since emotion is what gives our sentience that extra boost. We're able to perceive utility.

It's just amazing to me that we basically have this eternally long, perspectiveless existence... and then for the tiniest of blips in time, we burst out from under the surface and experience a plethora of amazing things before falling back under into the same void from whence we came. It really makes everything feel so temporary for me. Everyone we meet is just another passerby that we happen to encounter during our brief little blip. There's just something bittersweet about it.

My response to it all is simply to seek happiness. I fear death only to the extent that it puts a time limit on my ability to perceive utility. The end result of that, though, is a heightened appreciation for simple things. Most of my favorite memories/moments of nostalgia revolve around simple things. I want my whole life to be like that. It'll come to an end, but at least I've made the most out of what I can, and that's what matters to me.

[Mollocephalus]

Re: What happens after we die.

Yeah, life is only a parenthesis. Actually, the concept of life itself is only an arbitrary deadline we created to divide what we perceived similar to us from what we perceived different from us. Another human concept that does not really make much sense when translated in absolute terms. If you look at universe it from another point of view, everything goes into the same cycle. "Life" is just a very complex assemblement of concurring phisical reactions that enter into a variety of concentric, more complex cycles. As rubix said, "purpose" or "meaning" are only relative concepts that we created during our evolution.

Going by this, i guess that the infinitely tiny moment of existance we call life can be anything, in the end it won't matter. That's why many people hold on to various irrational beliefs to find some answer to a question that doesn't have any answer, since it was a meaningless question to begin with.

Even though in the long run everything we humans do will just disappear, i guess it's okay to try and improve the way ourselves and the ones around experience this transition, because we are constituted in such a way that negative events, emotions and situations will hurt us, making our and other entities' experience worse.

[perfectchaoslemon]

Re: What happens after we die.

It happened to one of my cousins. He died like we was supposed to, before of after. No need to be a whiny pussy about what you cannot change.



So if you cannot picture something just because is doesn't fall into the range of your perception/abstraction, it doesn't exist? I'm dying to hear what is your mental perception of UV rays. Or a black hole. Or any other thing we do not have a direct experience of yet. I'd also be happy to listen how do you conceive god, since you guys always say it's unconceivable. By your thought pattern, it also doesn't exist.

1. So in other words you weren't close to him at all.

2. UV rays and black holes have been proven. God is a divine power that persists above us and we as humans can get a general idea of his presence. Nothingness, however, just seems to me like an incomprehensible idea. I mean can you seriously picture nothingness? It's not complete blackness because that blackness IS a something.

[MrRubix]

Re: What happens after we die.

1. You can be close to someone/care for someone and respect their memories without needing to assume they still exist in some sort of spiritual format. If you're going to approach it like "Dead people just rot in the ground," that's your own take. Even though dead people do rot, that's not what we need to really care about.

2. I won't get into God in this thread, but you're right that nothingness isn't "blackness." Nothingness is nothing. It's what life was like for you before you were born -- nothing.

[25thhour]

Re: What happens after we die.

My father died when I was 6. Sure it was a sad sad time. I really believe that when you die you just become a ghost or you go into the ground. Sometimes I can feel his presence in a room and I just get shivers.

[Mousethecat]

Re: What happens after we die.

My response to it all is simply to seek happiness.

Nothing anyone says could be more meaningful than this statement. If there's any one indisputable fact of life, it's that Happiness > Unhappiness.


Death is the end of life. There's always nothing after the end, for if there was, it wouldn't be an end. Concentrating on death is just a complete waste of time. Unless you're trying to avoid death, in that case you're doing the exact opposite. You're giving yourself more time.

The only thing that will persist of you after you are dead, is the changes you cause that affect the future.

- Having a child. Making sure you pass your wisdom on to them, and they pass it to theirs.
- Making a scientific breakthrough. I don't need to list examples of people who have made a huge impact on what we know today, and may not know without them having done the work they did.
- Saving someones life.

Every small thing is a brick to building a better future. Having the most bricks should be the goal of anyone who wants their life to have meaning.

The future will remember and thank you.

[perfectchaoslemon]

Re: What happens after we die.

1. You can be close to someone/care for someone and respect their memories without needing to assume they still exist in some sort of spiritual format. If you're going to approach it like "Dead people just rot in the ground," that's your own take. Even though dead people do rot, that's not what we need to really care about.

2. I won't get into God in this thread, but you're right that nothingness isn't "blackness." Nothingness is nothing. It's what life was like for you before you were born -- nothing.

Well the fact of the matter is, you don't know what that was like. Back then, that nothingness was temporary until you were born and conceived, and I'm pretty sure nobody knew about this nothingness while they were in the state. It's like unconsciousness, it feels like it happened in one millisecond. After you die, will it be the same thing? Won't you eventually be aware of the nothingness? Or will it keep spanning every thousand years per millisecond without an end?

[MrRubix]

Re: What happens after we die.

Well the fact of the matter is, you don't know what that was like. Back then, that nothingness was temporary until you were born and conceived, and I'm pretty sure nobody knew about this nothingness while they were in the state. It's like unconsciousness, it feels like it happened in one millisecond. After you die, will it be the same thing? Won't you eventually be aware of the nothingness? Or will it keep spanning every thousand years per millisecond without an end?

Why would you ever be aware of nothingness? It's NOTHING for a reason. If you're dead, you're no longer perceiving. Your eyes, ears, nose, nerves, etc will no longer work, and neither will your conscious, self-conscious, or any other form of sentience/perception/identity/inner monologue/etc. All of these things reside in the brain, and when the brain stops working, so do all those functions.

We know what nothingness was like because we don't remember experiencing anything before we were born. This would make sense, considering we didn't exist. When we die, we return to that state of non-activity.

[Izzy]

Re: What happens after we die.

Nothing anyone says could be more meaningful than this statement. If there's any one indisputable fact of life, it's that Happiness > Unhappiness.
.

But at the same time I don't believe happiness is greater then the truth. Just being happy through ignorance of the world is a huge problem because it slows down the progression of humanity by preventing us to find the truth sooner.

If you want to believe something yourself that's fine, but you are just the worst kind of person if you try to force it on your kids or other people.

[Plan_Bsk81127]

Re: What happens after we die.

After you die, it is just like before you were born.

[Mousethecat]

Re: What happens after we die.

But at the same time I don't believe happiness is greater then the truth. Just being happy through ignorance of the world is a huge problem because it slows down the progression of humanity by preventing us to find the truth sooner.

If you want to believe something yourself that's fine, but you are just the worst kind of person if you try to force it on your kids or other people.

I couldn't agree with you more.

Finding happiness in the sad truths is what separates intelligent enthusiasts from the rest of the world. I just couldn't accept someone as intelligent if they couldn't understand and accept what is truth.

[spreadNv]

Re: What happens after we die.

I picture being dead just the same as a night's sleep when I couldn't remember any dream. Nothingness that I'm not even aware of.