This NPR post made me wonder what the Hubski community thinks of life after death? I for one have absolutely no idea but I'd certainly be interested in hearing what others think.
You stop. End of story. There's no you, and no you to know there's no you. The remnants of your body may be there for some time, and the memory of you may exist as a meme in other people's mind for a long time, along with pointers by way of pictures, writing, and other data that is left, but that is all. You only "exist" by way of an emotive, expansive definition of the word in the minds of the living.
It's such a hard concept to wrap ones mind around though, isn't it. Nothing, non existence. Far easier to construct an elaborate narrative that is comforting and soothing. I tend to agree with you ecib, but I hope you're wrong because I'd really like to keep on keepin' on with the same people I've been keepin on with.
I find that non-existence isn't hard to wrap my mind around in the slightest. What is mind-shatteringly stupefying to me is why anything exists at all. I've literally had to pull over to the side of the road while driving while pondering that before. I wish I was too but I'm not. Can be terribly painful for creatures with self-preservation instincts and surrounded by people/things they care about. Can also be much less painful with the right perspective and a commitment to not take it for granted while you're here.It's such a hard concept to wrap ones mind around though, isn't it. Nothing, non existence.
but I hope you're wrong because I'd really like to keep on keepin' on with the same people I've been keepin on with.
Very glad to hear this. I've never fully understood why I -- specifically me -- exist, or why any of us exist in any sense. Why the fuck is life something that happens? Not just life, either, but space and stars and everything on down. No clue. Cosmic accident.I find that non-existence isn't hard to wrap my mind around in the slightest. What is mind-shatteringly stupefying to me is why anything exists at all. I've literally had to pull over to the side of the road while driving while pondering that before.
Nothingness doesn't happen to me every night. The concept of nothing is something I can think about but not something I can conceive or view in my minds eye. I can see darkness, but that darkness has quality. "Nothing" is impossible for me.
I've always imagined it as when you sleep, the period you aren't dreaming is like being dead. If I were to die in my sleep tonight I wouldn't even have a chance to care if I even noticed.
It's not hard at all. Just think, you experienced non existence for eternity up until relatively recently up until you were born. That's how I look at it. I've not existed for the vast majority of the life of the universe.
Hi tng, dropping into this conversation of morbidity. mk says Me: What are you doing. Aha: Thinking Me: About what Aha: About that place Me: What place Aha: The other place - before I was here. aside from that, I agree with ecib Edit: My daughter's name is Aha, I'll explain some time.I believe it's like life before birth.
I would think so. Although when my daughter was very young and just learning to talk, maybe two and a half, we had this conversation:
I made a post on Reddit in response to someone telling the story of how they had to break up with their girlfriend, because she lost her memory in an accident and no longer remembers him. I said: That is to say, even if there is an afterlife, will we be capable of remembering who we are? The way I understand it now, our memories are kept in the synapses and physical presence of our mortal brain. I don't believe in any religion. Each one tries to interpret our reality into their own story, for me it's just a distraction from discovering the real truth. There are anecdotes from personal experiences that I have led me to believe we are connected in ways we have not discovered yet. So, I do believe there is something more out there for us, but in the end, those anecdotes were only sensory responses and there really is no recourse.Things like this make me depressed, because it only confirms [in my interpretation anyway], that who we are as a person is not an inherit part of our psyche, but only the accumulated amalgamation of memories and experiences that can be wiped away as easily as a hard drive.
Each one tries to interpret our reality into their own story, for me it's just a distraction from discovering the real truth. This. I can't call myself a christian because I don't believe that one random jewish carpenters son was the fulfillment of divine will. I believe there is something greater than man out there, but to try and ascribe human characteristics and desires to something as incomprehensible as God just seems like the worst kind of species-wide ego-stroking.
I can't subscribe to any kind of thinking that implies we, as an animal on this planet, know how everything works. That is how I feel about religion and that it is exactly egocentric - like, we as a species are superior to anything on our planet and in our universe. Just thinking about how.. for example, we don't even see all the wavelengths of the colour spectrum, don't hear past a certain +/- amount of dBs, don't fly, can't breathe underwater, and a lot of other things I can list for an hour that some other animals are capable of - how can we be so certain in our understanding of life and everything if there are hard limits to what we experience?
Funnily enough there is a Battlestar Galactica quote that addresses this. I've only seen a few episodes personally but I came across this quote one night. Cavil: In all your travels, have you ever seen a star supernova? Ellen: No. Cavil: No. Well, I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the universe, other stars, other planets, and eventually other life, a supernova, creation itself. I was there. I wanted to see it, and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull. With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum, with ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air. Ellen: The five of us designed you to be as human as possible. Cavil: I don’t want to be human. I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I want to smell dark matter. Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can’t even express these things properly, because I have to — I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting spoken language, but I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me. I’m a machine, and I can know much more, I could experience so much more, but I’m trapped in this absurd body. And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way.
Rosencrantz: Did you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it? Guildenstern: No. Rosencrantz: Nor do I, really. It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean, one thinks of it like being alive in a box. One keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like you were asleep in a box. Not that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you. Not without any air. You'd wake up dead, for a start, and then where would you be? In a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it. Because you'd be helpless, wouldn't you? Stuffed in a box like that. I mean, you'd be in there forever, even taking into account the fact that you're dead. It isn't a pleasant thought. Especially if you're dead, really. Ask yourself, if I asked you straight off, "I'm going to stuff you in this box. Now, would you rather be alive or dead?" Naturally, you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance, at least. You could lie there thinking, "Well. At least I'm not dead. In a minute somebody is going to bang on the lid, and tell me to come out." [bangs on lid] "Hey, you! What's your name? Come out of there!" [long pause] Guildenstern: I think I'm going to kill you.
We can't really answer this question without first asking the questions - What are we made of? And where did "we" come from, which can also be asked as what caused the big bang? Here are some of the pieces of the puzzle we got so far: Thanks to Einstein, science agrees that we are made of energy (e=mc2). We also know that energy can't be created nor destroyed it can only transmute from one state to another. String theory proposes that, at the quantum level, everything is made of tiny strings of energy, vibrating at different frequencies. The double slit experiment shows some weird interaction between the observer (consciousness) and electrons. Now for the controversial bit, my own extrapolation of all of this is that I wouldn't be too surprised if we end up discovering that matter = energy = consciousness. To what extent our personal lifetime consciousness/energy would remain differentiated from the rest after death is anyone's guess. We have only the personal testimony of people who claim to have experienced near death. One of the most interesting is the testimony of Jill Bolte Tailor, a brain scientist who experienced the shutting down of her own brain during a stroke. TED talk here. Another testimony of a near death experience is the one of Dr Steven Greer MD where he talks about leaving his body, going to outer space and experiencing what he describes as "cosmic consciousness". To answer your original question we'll have to inevitably answer the questions of the very core of our existence. These are the pieces (or not) of the puzzle I'm aware of so far. The quest continues.
The term 'observer' has no reference to consciousness, but rather something which by its effect on the electrons forces to collapse their quantum waveform into a state. A human is not an 'observer' in that context.
The problem with this question is that it is impossible to determine. We don't really have much evidence. Nobody has ever truly come back from the dead to tell us. Near death experiences that people talk about are most easily explained by hallucinations due to oxygen deprivation in the brain (Occam's razor and all). The only thing that I am justified to say about the subject is "I don't know." Since brain activity stops after death, I am inclined to say that we cease to exist, but I cannot say for sure.
I was born a Hindu. I was taught that there was an eternal cycle of death and rebirth. The only way to attain freedom ('moksha') from this cycle is, my parents told me when I was a child, by doing the right thing. I have spent most of my life either an atheist or an agnostic, fearing that the answer might be that we are flung into nothingness. Not nothingness really, but something that we cannot explain because language is limited by the boundaries of human imagination, which in turn, it can be argued, is limited by the sum total of human experience. Buddhism has always intrigued me. I remember reading What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula before I turned eighteen and thinking for the first time after I had renounced whatever little faith I had as a child, that I got it. The belief that phase ingrained in me is that, if you choose to enter the fourth phase of your life when you are ready, it may be possible to attain true inner peace ('nirvana'). The object is still to escape rebirth. So, whichever phase I'm in, be it the rational phase, which I am in most of the time, or the magical mystery tour phase, I guess we are flung into word-we-haven't-invented-but-is-similar-to-nothingness.
I believe in the Christian church's teaching on Heaven. I believe it exists and that its opposite, Hell, also exists. I believe that our existence (that is, the soul) does not end when bodily functions cease. There is something more after these short years I have "among the living". I choose to believe this because it's better than the alternative in my mind. To think that life is meaningless and when it ends then that's it is just...depressing. There must be something more, otherwise life as we currently know it is nothing.
theadvancedapes made an interesting point in his recent talk at the Global Brain Institute regarding the human legacy. It used to be that people considered their offspring to be there legacy after death. He proposes that a shift is occurring and that people are beginning to view their ideas, creations, theories etc to be their legacy. I for one find great pleasure in knowing that both my children and the things I have created and thought (one in the same?) will live on after I am gone. I don't know what happens when people die, but I don't believe in heaven and hell. I have no evidence for this. I do know that life is beautiful and I'll hold on to it for as long as I can, I'm in no rush to meet my 40 virgins or to enter any pearly gates.To think that life is meaningless and when it ends then that's it is just...depressing. There must be something more, otherwise life as we currently know it is nothing.
-This is the problem I have with the Heaven scenario. It diminishes existence. People are looking forward to something instead of making the absolute most of what they have. Life is more meaningful when you consider that it may be fleeting. Because I have no clue if there is anything after life, I must make this one count. I must gather my roses while I can -to paraphrase.I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back -- up the hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every,every minute?
-Nope, they're too busy pining for heaven or afraid of hell.
To think that life is meaningless and when it ends then that's it is just...depressing. There must be something more, otherwise life as we currently know it is nothing.
Just religion being used again as a teddy bear to comfort people from the harsh reality that your life has infinitesimal meaning when compared to the universe as a whole.
I had a near death experience when I was a kid while drowning. I know I wasn't just passing-out because it felt very different. Obviously, it was due to suffocating because I filled myself with water while trying to get air. My limbs went numb and stopped moving, I stopped feeling alarmed and I remember thinking "I could really use a nap. It's so warm and comfortable here," which at that point I think I forget where I was. I heard once there's a hormone your body makes when you're dying to officially start shutting things down - well, it definitely felt like that and that was what stood out from the experience. Very different feeling. Everything felt extremely comfortable, I stopped hearing, thinking, ect. and my vision was just white - I suppose maybe that is the "light at the end of the tunnel" effect? I kind of choose to not worry about where we end up - because we just don't know. I got that close, and I didn't find out. That experience really disturbed me, especially as someone with depression. Imagine having suicidal thoughts paired with that memory - it just makes it that much harder. "Where do we go in the afterlife?" is kind of paired with "Why are we here in the first place?"
But what is beyond that white light? We have lot's of near death accounts that share many of the characteristics you mention but it could be that actual death is quite different. I'm glad you came back from "the light."
It's one of those things you just have to experience to know what it's like, but I guess what I'm saying is that you might not even be aware of what's happening at that point. You'd make the transition without knowing, just like you don't remember being born. Even if there's an afterlife, or past life, or heaven, would you be aware of where you came from? I don't think so. I feel like you'd lose that footprint of being a human. It just makes me lose concern for it.
I experience it someday.... hopefully a long, long time from now.
I don't know. Life is mysterious, so I'm fine with death being mysterious too. It does seem though, that we exist in a universe where a lot of things go unseen and unnoticed though these things are always happening everywhere. Maybe what happens after death is one of those unseen and unnoticed things.
One of the basic tenets of Kabbalah (Which I don't profess to understand fully, but I do believe is correct in many of its ways of interpreting the world) is that there is an entire world around us that we are unable to perceive with the five senses. All kinds of actions, reactions and processes occur outside of our perception. As an extension of this our senses are growing, through science we are able to 'sense' all sorts of things from enzymatic reactions, DNA collation, even molecular and sub-molecular processes. I believe that right now, with current technology and human understanding the only possible honest answer is "I don't know" but I believe we will eventually extend our perception enough to figure out 'where' a personality is located within the brain, and what happens to it when biological function ceases.
My afterlife beliefs are heavily tied in with the rest of my beliefs. So it might be a bit hard to explain. I suppose the best place to start is my thoughts on time. I regard time (and it's been scientifically shown) that time is a where. Not a when. This is important. As we are all slowly moving through this "W" axis. Now, since time is not temporal, but rather just a location, that means that there's no way for it to "flow". Each location along time is a discrete location that shares no similarities between anything. This'll come into play later. Following this, that means each "entity" of consciousness is separate from previous iterations. This makes sense. I'm obviously not the same person I was 5 years ago. He and I are different. So what makes me, me? Well, I have my current brain "configuration" which determines my personality, actions, and such. And then there's my memories from previous "iterations". With me so far? Here's where it gets complicated. So each moment in time is a separate "me". Following the many-worlds interpretation (what I consider to be the most logical interpretation of quantum physics), there are infinitely many me's in a bunch of separate "timelines" where I make different decisions. So there's an infinite amount of me's, all separate and doing their own thing. Rather, not doing their own thing because they are at discrete locations in time. So really, it's just a bunch of particle configurations. So where do "I" or "my concsiouness" come in? What is it exactly? That's currently the "hard" question. But it seems the consensus is that it's an emergent function arising from your brain activity. Great. But that still dodges the question. Why am I me, and not you. Well that's where all this comes together. I consider consciousness to be like any other "natural law". It's one single force/law that influences anything that can be said to have a consciousness. What does this mean for the afterlife? Simply that once we die, this global "consciousness" will still exist at every location in time and in every single entity that has it. Simply put, I am you and you are me. It's the same consciousness "thing" with different personalities, memories, thoughts, etc. It's eternal and takes place at every possible moment and every possible timeline and every possible conscious thing. At the same time (because time is a location, not a moment). So what do I think this'll be like for the person dying? It'll probably be something like: you pass out and are unconscious (like when you go to sleep). That's the act of dying. Once you are dead, it'll be no different than when you are alive. Since you are both. Your current frame of experiences will be gone and reframed into something else. This'll mostly look like being born as someone else. But really, you have been and always were that person. But from your subjective experience, it'll appear as if you have just been born. Unable to remember what you just experienced. This kind of all ties into my general belief that reality is merely information. It's all just a bunch of hypothetical hogwash. Things are they way they are because in one configuration of data, it's possible. So in another configuration (another re-incarnation) the universe could be entirely different and function completely differently. It's a very difficult idea to grasp, and I've been struggling with it for a few years now. But that's what I believe.
The thought of being conscious after death - no body, no ability to do anything besides think and be aware - is terrifying. Our thoughts only exist because we are constantly encountering and learning about new things. If you take that away and give us some massless bodiless orb to exist in - we would quickly run out of trains of thought and be forever bored. It might take a bit and we might reach some pretty amazing conclusions as we take the time to really follow each train of thought to completion. But forever is a long time and we'd most likely end up incredibly bored after a while. Sounds like hell to me. I hope we just cease to exist. I think it's best that way. Perhaps we go off into some other dimension and "level up" so to speak. New rules of existence, new interactions and experiences to learn, etc. If we did carry our memories and consciousness with us it would be interesting to see if there were groups or factions of new people who have made "the old days" a religion or something. I don't know though. I'm not going to let the unknown dictate how I live my life today and I'm going to make the best of the situation I'm in right now.