# Death.



## exball (Oct 18, 2013)

So I was having one of those moments where your trying to get to sleep and your mind wanders. I started wondering what death is like and thought I would get everyone's opinion on it. Do you believe in an afterlife? Does the idea of dying scare you? Etc.


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## Fibonacci (Oct 18, 2013)

I sincerely hope there's nothing after death. Peaceful non-existence would be pretty nice, I think. Life after death would be tantamount to living forever, and that would be tiresome.


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## The Tyrant (Oct 18, 2013)

Death is a subject that really horrifies me. While I adore the macabre and grisly styles, death is the one thing I cannot dabble in. I have a problem with a wandering mind, and if I do not have a television near me, thoughts of death creep up on me. I tear up at the very fact that one day I will be without my mother, and when I'm having a really terrible day, I just think that we'd never be reunited if the afterlife results in just eternal darkness. Recently I've been very uncertain about my beliefs, and many negative events have gotten me doubting if there is an afterlife at all, and it's just...overwhelming. It's really something I cannot talk about without crumbling to a total mess. I should talk to The Dude about his paranormal encounters and see if that brightens me a bit? Or anyone else who has a positive outlook on the path of life...


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## Some JERK (Oct 18, 2013)

It's funny you mention death and sleep in the same sentence. For most of the time you are sleeping, "you" are effectively dead. You only dream in short bursts here and there. 

Death is an event that leads to non-existence. Non existence is a non-event. You didn't exist for the billions of years leading up to your birth, and you won't exist for the billions more that lead to the eventual heat-death of the universe. Existence is an infinitesimal spark hammered between two unimaginably wide gulfs of oblivion. 

What I'm really trying to say is, stop fucking around. Go get drunk or hang out w friends. Get your heart broken. Make an idiot out of yourself in public. You'll regret the shit you didn't do way more than the shit you did.


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## Watcher (Oct 18, 2013)

I don't really think about death.

I tend to think about this episode of Seinfeld when I think about death.

[youtube]fvEYgR9vr6U[/youtube]


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## Surtur (Oct 18, 2013)

In Asatru, we believe that we join the Ancestors in Hel, of course Hel is not a bad place to us. On a more personal note, I don't really care. I live like this is my only chance.


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## Zim (Oct 19, 2013)

Don't dwell on death because death doesn't dwell on you. It just happens. Usually without cerimony and sometimes without warning.

I'm a deep motherfucker.


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## Marvin (Oct 19, 2013)

I don't worry about death because it's too far off for me to give a shit about it. And hell, that'll probably be my justification even when I'm 80.


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## Picklepower (Oct 20, 2013)

Death isn't scary to me, but sometimes life is a little. When it comes to aging, I just think, my favorite old people, George Carlin, my grand parents etc. act like their not even old, I'd rather be like that when I'm older then dwell in sadness.


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## Niachu (Oct 20, 2013)

I've gone through months long bouts of existential despair, but I'm coming to terms with it all. There are some things that help me through, though.

[youtube]DkzQxw16G9w[/youtube]
It seems trivial at first compared to what's being said in the thread, but watch it til 12:26 to the end. Oddly, it comforts me about death. This guy shares some existentialist views I do, I think.


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## Burning Love (Oct 21, 2013)

I had a really shitty experience three months ago. I had a relapse to some bad shit because I was around the wrong people and they kept handing me drugs. Through mixing them and taking so much at once, my heart stopped and my vitals dropped for about 1.5 minutes. I can't say for sure what death was like because it's all kind of a blur now, but I do remember hallucinations nonstop and then it was like that state between being asleep and dreaming (you know, the nothingness), and then back to hallucinations. I'm pretty sure that nothingness was death. 

A year earlier, my cousin tried to commit suicide. Drank a bunch of vodka with a bottle of klonopin and also died for between 1.5 and 2 minutes, he reported basically the same thing. After his (dream-nothing-dream) experience, we jokingly concluded that there is no god. We were both atheists beforehand but that was kind of a turning point for him especially, where he lost remaining doubts. As for me, mine didn't reinforce anything, but rather confirmed what it feels like. I got to see for myself. I wasn't scared before, and I'm much less so after. 

Through life and death, brushes with death, addiction, disease, all this unnecessary bullshit, I've concluded that the best approach to the topic of death is to just assume (right or wrong) that this is it, one chance, and give it all you've got. I might die tomorrow, but shit, if I could say I did the best I could, great.


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## bradsternum (Oct 27, 2013)

I fear dying before I'm able to accomplish something I'm proud of. But if Death really is non-existence, I don't think I should fear it, because I won't have the capacity to fear it when it happens.


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## Marvin (Oct 27, 2013)

bradsternum said:
			
		

> I fear dying before I'm able to accomplish something I'm proud of. But if Death really is non-existence, I don't think I should fear it, because I won't have the capacity to fear it when it happens.


Death itself probably isn't much to worry about. It's just the lead-up to it that might be bad.


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## The Hunter (Oct 27, 2013)

Might as well give my two cents on the subject.

I'm not scared of death at all. Don't have a reason to be scared of it. I guess it might hurt, but when I'm dead, I doubt I'm gonna give a shit. I don't think I'm going to care if my last demands aren't met and I'm buried instead of cremated, I won't care if my casket is made of cardboard, I won't care if my body is just dumped in some shallow lake. I do care about other people in my life and how it will affect them, but I won't care after I'm dead because... well, I won't be alive to feel emotion. I don't want people to care about me after I'm dead, I want them to move on with whatever the hell they were doing with their lives. I want to make a difference, but I'm not gonna be able to do that or even see the fruits of my labor after I'm dead. There's really a lot more I have to say, but let's just leave it at I personally don't care about dying.


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## Holdek (Oct 27, 2013)

We are hardwired to fear death for evolutionary purposes but if you can transcend that notion some of the time it's a good thing because it it helps put things into perspective.  When you're dead you'll feel like you did before you were born (that is to say: you won't).  

Also Marvin's right: there's nothing to fear about death but the lead up to it could be frightening and painful.


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## c-no (Oct 27, 2013)

Death isn't something I really fear since we all will die, sooner or later but it's how you die that does scare me. The though of dying a slow, painful death is something I'd fear compared to a quick and painless death. I believe in an after-life but that is just my opinion so really whether it's a fluffy cloud heaven with God or a cessation of existance, death is something that shouldn't be feared even if there is a Hell. After all, not all us really believe in an after-life whether it's some burning inferno or meeting up with your ancestors and whose to say there is one? As one here has said, assume this is the only chance you have and give it your all. If we are going to die one day, then we may as well live our lives and accomplish whatever goals we have.


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## Marvin (Oct 28, 2013)

The Hunter said:
			
		

> Might as well give my two cents on the subject.
> 
> I'm not scared of death at all. Don't have a reason to be scared of it. I guess it might hurt, but when I'm dead, I doubt I'm gonna give a shit. I don't think I'm going to care if my last demands aren't met and I'm buried instead of cremated, I won't care if my casket is made of cardboard, I won't care if my body is just dumped in some shallow lake. I do care about other people in my life and how it will affect them, but I won't care after I'm dead because... well, I won't be alive to feel emotion. I don't want people to care about me after I'm dead, I want them to move on with whatever the hell they were doing with their lives. I want to make a difference, but I'm not gonna be able to do that or even see the fruits of my labor after I'm dead. There's really a lot more I have to say, but let's just leave it at I personally don't care about dying.


I see this argument a lot, but I really don't think it's valid. The "I'm not going to care, I'm dead" argument. At least for painful deaths, anyway.

The big problem is that time is experienced differently for all conscious entities. So, when you're experiencing strong pain, it takes forever for it to be over. Like, an eternity. And the only way it ends is when you experience relief. It doesn't matter that you're dead, so you won't care about things, because you're not alive to experience that relief. If you die painfully, that pain will be your last experience. It will be burned into your mind as your last conscious thought for all eternity.

All the other emotional feelings, yeah, they probably won't matter to you. Pain is really the important feeling, as far as dying goes.


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## Night Terror (Oct 28, 2013)

I like to imagine that when you die, you pretty much immediately wake up as a fetus in a womb who's just gained consciousness. I don't know if it's true, but it's a comforting thought.
Better than ending up as a ghost or something.


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## cheersensei (Nov 1, 2013)

I do fear for my own mortal passing one day, but until my time comes, it's just a thought that rests in the back of my head. Only time it really upsets me is when my husband and I discuss our future funeral plans. 

Working in an assisted living community, death is inevitable, especially those who are in hospice care. It's not an easy subject to talk about with the residents, but with fellow coworkers, it's a bit easier, though rough regardless. One coworker walked in on a resident who had passed, and it was an extremely rough night afterward. 

I'm also a believer in euthanasia or more specially assisted suicide. If I were to be stricken with a serious condition like cancer (or in the case of my godfather: ALS), I would rather die with some dignity than let myself waste away and cause more of a burden to my family.


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## random_pickle (Nov 3, 2013)

It's not death itself that terrifies me, it's what comes after it that scares me.

Let's say there is no afterlife out there, that when you die, you're just gone. No more thinking, no more feeling, no more anything, all the while the rest of the world moves on and leaves you behind. I cry everytime I think of that outcome.

Now let's say there is an afterlife, what then? You live forever and ever, watching as the world changes for all eternity. That also seems very insane.

The only good outcome I can think of is reincarnation.


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## Foulmouth (Nov 4, 2013)

I tend to believe in reincarnation , not from any religious point , just that nature recycles everything so why waste a perfectly good operating system ?


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## Holdek (Nov 5, 2013)

Foulmouth said:
			
		

> I tend to believe in reincarnation , not from any religious point , just that nature recycles everything so why waste a perfectly good operating system ?



It doesn't.  Your brain decomposes in the ground and nourishes the soil.


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## exball (Nov 5, 2013)

Holdek said:
			
		

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Fixed.


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## Foulmouth (Nov 5, 2013)

Holdek said:
			
		

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I meant the software, not the hardware.


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## Marvin (Nov 7, 2013)

Foulmouth said:
			
		

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Yeah... I don't think there's anything that physical about consciousness, other than what the network of your brain produces.


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## Holdek (Nov 7, 2013)

Foulmouth said:
			
		

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Software doesn't actually physically "exist."  It's just information.


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## Goddessoftheshire (Nov 16, 2013)

Death itself does not scare me it is the thought of an afterlife that does. I don't know if it is the usual ingrained Christian guilt or just the idea of an angry mythic overlord as portrayed by the Bible. The idea of being tortured in Hell for being what god predetermined you to be does not sound like a loving god, and Heaven would be like an unending family reunion just without liquor to make it interesting. As another poster mentioned I have always thought that the idea of not existing to be the most comforting idea.


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## Picklepower (Nov 16, 2013)

Mormon Heaven would be hell to a gay person, you have to make love to women for eternity.


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## cypocraphy (Nov 17, 2013)

The idea of non-existence can be a terrifying thought, but you won't even know it's happening. It's sort of impossible to even comprehend. A comforting thing is that it will happen to everyone, so you won't be alone. 

Maybe this will help...ever get a good nights sleep and you don't remember your dreams? It could be like that for all eternity.


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## Holdek (Nov 17, 2013)

bungholio said:
			
		

> Maybe this will help...ever get a good nights sleep and you don't remember your dreams? It could be like that for all eternity.



Except that there won't even be any feeling of a passage of time because there won't be any dreams and you won't wake up.


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## LM 697 (Nov 18, 2013)

yolo


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## RV 229 (Nov 18, 2013)

It scares me. I do chose to believe in an afterlife because I don't want to stop existing. I want to continue to see the world and experience life for the rest of human history. I already try not to think about the fact that I wasn't around before I was born because that is also creepy to think about. Existing and being me is all I really know and can fathom, so it's upsetting to think about how finite it is. 

I hope to continue to have thoughts and awareness. When I die, I hope all it means is that I lose my body and ability to interact with the living. It's something I wishfully believe in, even when evidence points to the contrary.

Edit: However, I do have more to say about it, actually. When people die, I take comfort in knowing that the matter that makes up their bodies and the energy they used for living still exists. It returns to the Earth, which one of my biology teachers said was "the biggest living organism". In a way, that's true. All of the organic matter in the world fuels more life. When we die, the stuff that made up our bodies will continue to exist in the soil, the grass, the animals that eat the grass, the people that eat the animals, etc. Death isn't the opposite of life, it's a part of it. Living things are fueled by dead things.


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## Holdek (Nov 20, 2013)

Cyan said:
			
		

> It scares me. I do chose to believe in an afterlife because I don't want to stop existing. I want to continue to see the world and experience life for the rest of human history. I already try not to think about the fact that I wasn't around before I was born because that is also creepy to think about. Existing and being me is all I really know and can fathom, so it's upsetting to think about how finite it is.
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> I hope to continue to have thoughts and awareness. When I die, I hope all it means is that I lose my body and ability to interact with the living. It's something I wishfully believe in, even when evidence points to the contrary.
> 
> Edit: However, I do have more to say about it, actually. When people die, I take comfort in knowing that the matter that makes up their bodies and the energy they used for living still exists. It returns to the Earth, which one of my biology teachers said was "the biggest living organism". In a way, that's true. All of the organic matter in the world fuels more life. When we die, the stuff that made up our bodies will continue to exist in the soil, the grass, the animals that eat the grass, the people that eat the animals, etc. Death isn't the opposite of life, it's a part of it. Living things are fueled by dead things.



Not only that, but the atoms currently in your body were forged in stars long ago.


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## c-no (Nov 20, 2013)

CompyRex said:
			
		

> yolo


yolo swag? (Why would I even bother using those two words?)


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## Smokedaddy (Nov 20, 2013)

Y'know how you wake up and there are echoes of your dreams and whatever you were thinking about before you went to sleep bouncing around your head?  There's always something.

Except sometimes.

I woke up once and there was nothing there but black, black, black.  No echoes.  No nothing.  Just the most profound nothing you could ever imagine. 

Opened my eyes and it was not the bathroom ceiling I was used to, it was something weird and lights were coming on and people were saying things like "he's awake!"  I'd been helicoptered to the Big Hospital, sixty miles from where I fell asleep.  I wasn't expected to awaken, but I had, and I kind of lay there, digesting the news.  I couldn't move my arms and my fingers were stuck in what felt like Chinese fingertrap tubes.  Turns out I was in restraints because some fool doctor had tried to take a biopsy, so I clocked him, and the fingertraps were those blood pressure/oxy content meter transducers.  I couldn't make sense of any of it and couldn't form a word so I went back to sleep.  But the one thing I remember is the blackness like none other.  There's no light you go into; it's just black, black, black where nothing stirs.  Nothing there.


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## Holdek (Nov 20, 2013)

Smokedaddy said:
			
		

> Y'know how you wake up and there are echoes of your dreams and whatever you were thinking about before you went to sleep bouncing around your head?  There's always something.
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> Except sometimes.
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http://youtu.be/QptNufdR_0c?t=7m45s


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## jaijai (Nov 21, 2013)

I'd like to think there's an afterlife. A lot of my family have moved on, and i'd like to think my parents tales about them being together and happy is true. Objectively, I know nobody can know until you actually pass on.

In terms of myself dying... i'm not afraid of actually dying, more of the thought of a painful or drawn out death. It's something that's inevitable in the end, and so when it happens... it happens.


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## Dork Of Ages (Nov 25, 2013)

Death is something that I am apprehensive in thinking about, but I do know that when I'm dead, I will be dead. I won't know if there will be an afterlife, if my consciousness will disappear, or if I will reincarnate before the time comes. What matters to me is how I will spend my living days, and I hope that during this time, I can experience new stuff and learn new things before I die.


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## Zim (Nov 26, 2013)

I believe you just cease to exist when you die and that's mainly because of the way the myth of how the afterlife commonly works. 

In general most religions center around either going to a heaven or going to a hell for all eternity and either one would be really shitty. Eternity is a never ending bit of time. Say you're still "aware" in some form or another for 1000 years, how bored would you get? No matter if you were in a hell or a heaven everything would eventually become meaningless. After the first 1000 years of whatever you find yourself facing another thousand, then another, then another ad infinitum.

Death being final and nothing makes the most sense. As nice as the afterlife sounds it's only there because people are very uncomfortable thinking they just vanish into the void upon death. It's hard to think about in a similar way to how it's hard to think of space being infinitely large.

You get to die twice anyway. The first time is when you physically pass one. The second is when no one alive remembers your name.


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## Charon (Nov 28, 2013)

I am not scared of death, actually embrace the idea (especially if 1000 Ways to Die, a Documenting Reality thread and/or a Darwin Award are involved), want to be cremated nude in a cardboard box, flushed down the toilet like a dead goldfish or dumped down a sewer grate like a cigarette butt, and want all my personal effects destroyed regardless of value. It's to the point that I smoke cigarettes, use snus, chew nicotine gum, and drink alcohol & energy drinks copiously.

I do not believe in afterlives or reincarnation.


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## Backwards Harvester (Feb 15, 2014)

No matter what you believe, we're all ducks  at  some game in a midway, that some  kid with  with unlimited baseballs is playing, knocking down the ducks.   Now sometimes and often he misses, but the duck are constantly moving round and once the machine puts you into the line of fire it's hit or miss. But everyone will be knocked down eventually. You can dodge, but that only makes him try harder.
That kid, is death, if you hadn't figured it out.


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## Obnoxion (Feb 15, 2014)

I normally don't think about death. I will know what to do when I get there. Thinking about it makes me terrified, yes.

"It's not the end that I fear with each breath, it's life that scares me to death"

Nobody will get to see the very end of our tale, just like nobody could remember the very beginning. From the moment life came to be till the time it finally gets snuffed out completely, we remember only a small period of time and the most impetuous events.

I like how the planet seems to behave just like any other living being, to a degree: it only now begins to store its memories. Its brain cells (that would be us, I think) grow more resilient and more capable over time.

It seems like in the end, nothing we'll ever do will matter. We could nuke ourselves to death, but the tide cannot be turned. The need to be loved which drives all of our actions cannot be rooted out, which is why there is no cure for depression. The programming seems almost flawless. There is no way to escape or change it. We will never truly transcend ourselves by learning exactly how our brain works, because that would make us, by nature, something else entirely, something more than human, and therefore possess even more advanced brains. There is no true freedom, or true free will, but the illusion of having one is more than enough anyway. We are amazing automatons, the most lifelike robots there are.

So, are the wizards who came to similar conclusions superhuman?
"Death is meaningless, making life the same."

No. They have given up. They possess forbidden wisdom. Or that's what they think, anyway, which really is all that matters. They have seen through the greater meaninglessness of it all. So they choose to wither and fade away.

The only winning move is not to play. Living is suffering. But we are built for losing time and time again, until we finally fail for the last time and die. We call them losers because they are missing out.

I'm talking as if I have it all figured out. But there is one peculiar piece that doesn't seem to fit. I used to do dissociative drugs. Once, I took quite a large dose. Halfway through the drug-induced trip, my heart started pounding and I started having peculiar hallucinations. My consciousness slipping away from me, I walked to the flatmate's room and asked him to call an ambulance. I was terrified. I desperately clinged to remaining "there".

But, right there and then, I had the most unsettling case of deja vu: I recalled the dream of asking the flatmate to call an ambulance, and riding said ambulance to hospital with a paramedic scolding me for my stupidity. I had had that dream a few months before.

That was too unreal to be true, and I feel increasingly nauseous, my heart rate rising as I write these very words and relive the memories.

The dream came true somehow; I remembered some of the things my flatmate, the paramedics and I said in the dream and they matched perfectly with real life, word for word.

I don't know what is true or false. I know, however, that lending any credence to that experience makes me a lunatic. I was not sober back then, for goodness' sake!

But that deja vu felt too real for comfort. If I am to trust myself, I would have to embrace the madness and believe I actually had an extremely accurate prophetic dream. But the implications of such a dream being true are almost too terrifying to ponder.

I don't think there exists anything after death. You cease to experience anything, especially yourself.

There are some things that just cannot be proven. I'd say let's stay sane and not think about them too much.

"How can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real?"


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## extreme_misfortune (Feb 15, 2014)

Gosh there are a lot of breathtaking replies in this thread.

I, too, believe there is nothing after death, and I'm glad there isn't. Death is as natural as birth, I think. We're all designed to die, it's a part of our existence. I'm also glad I'll get to rest at some point. I'm not even afraid of dying, because I hear your body releases all of it's endorphins before you die anyway. People really are designed to die.

I'm more concerned about the second death, being forgotten. It reminds me of an art piece someone did, I forget the artists' website, but what he did was he set up a computer with a program that would say "I am (random number), I will exist for as long as you remember me" or something to that amount. It would re-generate the sentence every few seconds.

It's a pipe dream most likely (not having access to a supercomputer doesn't help either), but I wanted to create a strong AI to act as my successor. It would live forever, and remember me forever. This would make me pretty happy, because it's also the only way I can see myself reproducing. I don't want to make just some kid who'll barely remember me and then die too, I want to create a perfect being.

But, personally, I don't mind dying. I'm totally ready to die, and even be forgotten. My problem is I just like living. I want to live for as long as I want, not for 60 or 80 more years. I want to choose when I die.

I went through existential bullshit when I was a kid too. Got really depressed, started not caring about life, kinda begged for a near-death experience to snap me out of it. I never got one, but I did get over myself and started to appreciate life. It's funny how insecure people are. A lot of them don't appreciate life at all, but go so far as threaten their lives and they'll freak out.

I had a lot to say before reading this thread, but after reading it this is all I can add to it without repeating things. This is a really awesome thread.


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## Carlson (Feb 15, 2014)

I try not to think about death too much. I've had an existential crisis before (often from thinking too much about the universe and my consciousness), and I don't like it.


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## KatsuKitty (Feb 15, 2014)

Death, to me, is such a _waste_. Had we not needed to experience it, or perhaps were able to utilize a means to extend life far beyond the typical 80-100 years lived, individuals such as Albert Einstein could've continued making amazing contributions to fields that benefit us all.

I believe it is nothing to embrace and that in this modern, scientific age, we absolutely need to commit ourselves to extending life as far as possible. Cyronics is an important first step toward understanding the need for life extension, and I believe we'll live to see transhuman technology achieve all of these key ideals, and quite possibly transform society in the process.


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## Picklepower (Feb 16, 2014)

I don't know if I would want to live forever, even if I could.


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## Holdek (Feb 16, 2014)

"Was Steve Jobs right? Can thinking about death lead to a good life?"
http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/04/was-steve-jobs-right-can-thinking-about-death/


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## bradsternum (Feb 17, 2014)

I was put under for surgery when I was a teenager. I was conscious for a few seconds after the injection, and then I was gone. Completely, utterly gone. No dreams, nothing, just dark. Then I woke up, and was absolutely terrified of that nothingness, because I think that's probably what death is. An absence of time. 

I really, really want to sugar coat it with la-dee-da bullshit about God and eternal life, but I would be lying to myself if I claimed I believed it.


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## Watcher (Feb 17, 2014)

KatsuKitty said:
			
		

> Death, to me, is such a _waste_. Had we not needed to experience it, or perhaps were able to utilize a means to extend life far beyond the typical 80-100 years lived, individuals such as Albert Einstein could've continued making amazing contributions to fields that benefit us all.
> 
> I believe it is nothing to embrace and that in this modern, scientific age, we absolutely need to commit ourselves to extending life as far as possible. Cyronics is an important first step toward understanding the need for life extension, and I believe we'll live to see transhuman technology achieve all of these key ideals, and quite possibly transform society in the process.


Death is also an end.

Bare in mind Einstein also created a nuclear weapon and Nobel created dynamite. Opening the Pandora's box of immortality also includes that less scrupulous individuals also keep living.

There's a lot of really good stories about the tragedy of immortality. Highlander is a great movie for that reason.


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## Picklepower (Feb 17, 2014)

Don't get me wrong, living longer would be great, and dying young is tragic, but there are a bunch of hazards you would face "being immortal". For one thing you would probably lose your mind, and months would become like days. Also there is the problem of, "what if my friends and family aren't given this magic solution?" I wouldn't want to outlive all my friends and family. Also I read somewhere that a consequence of living longer, is getting more exposure to natural radiation, that for a regular person is harmless, but being exposed for say 130 years would increase your chances of getting Cancer. Also if the technology to increase lifespan, to the point of near immortality, existed, they wouldn't just give it to everyone, otherwise our population problems would really increase, and earth could look something like the earth in the movie Elysium. Minus the robotic power armor, and spaceships of course. And a large amount of near immortal biengs, plus the fact that people will still be breeding, would equal an enormous drain on our resources. I don't think Earth could handle it, Hell, the pollution would increase as well. America already has difficulty handling the population it already has, imagine handling the issue of poverty, with such a large increase of people.


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## Holdek (Feb 17, 2014)

Cuddlebug said:
			
		

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True, but the tragic aspect was also imagined, as no one knows what it's like for sure.


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## Watcher (Feb 17, 2014)

Holdek said:
			
		

> True, but the tragic aspect was also imagined, as no one knows what it's like for sure.


In Highlander one of the most tragic aspects of the film was how his wife grew old and died while he stayed young.

Indeed in most fiction that explores immortality or just living longer than everyone else, a reoccurring trope with that is watching everyone you know die. A good example is the Green Mile where the main character lives longer than his wife and children, and lives the rest of his life in a retirement home alone.

I personally believe things are only as good as their inevitable end. This is true in storytelling as well as the things we do in life. As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.

There's also hundreds of other problems I can think of that arise with permanent immortality for everyone. That includes things like if a person has a disorder they can never be rid of, if a person is brain dead, population growth would never stop and we would all starve. Etc. Immortality is as much of a curse as it is a blessing. Life and death are two absolutes, and both must exist for the other to continue. The cells in your body die specifically to give birth to better newer cells. Organisms die for other organisms to feast on. Etc.


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## caffeinated_wench (Feb 17, 2014)

My own death I'm not completely bothered by.

I'm more bothered and upset by the death of those around me, the people I care about most.
I'm not very good with death and have some unresolved issues about it, so I try not to think about it too much.

I've also come to doubt that there's an afterlife. Well, the certainty of one, anyway. There could be, there could not be.


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## Zim (Feb 18, 2014)

caffeinated_wench said:
			
		

> My own death I'm not completely bothered by.
> 
> I'm more bothered and upset by the death of those around me, the people I care about most.
> I'm not very good with death and have some unresolved issues about it, so I try not to think about it too much.
> ...



I think this just shows you're a caring person who's more concerned with loved ones then with yourself. 

I don't personally believe there's an afterlife (I could be wrong and in that case jokes one me). It would be nice if there was one but I think the afterlife was invented because people don't like to think that their conciousness completely vanishes at the end. It's really hard to imagine 100% non existance. To me it's like trying to think about how big outer space is. Both deal with a scale of sorts that's hard to fathom.


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## caffeinated_wench (Feb 18, 2014)

Zim said:
			
		

> caffeinated_wench said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I wouldn't say that. There's some selfishness in there.

I've come to have a rather cynical view of the concept of an afterlife, specifically how it's used. Then again, I tend to be negative in general.
It's essentially, in my opinion, used by some as a way to bribe you to act in a way that the religion deems fit or else you'll go to this bad place.
It feels like some of those who use it that way aren't being good people to be decent folks. They're doing it to get something out of it. If heaven does exist, it shouldn't be used like a bargaining chip to force people to be nice.

And we're all supposed to reunite in heaven... but according to the church I went to, you won't recognize each other. Ever. Why would I want to go to a place where I'll be reunited with the people I care about most only to be torn away from them forever again? That's cruel.

A less negative view would be like you said: that it's because people don't want to think that they'll disappear. They don't want to think that once they're dead, that's it. Everything they were ceases to be.

Now, it's still a possibility that an afterlife exists. It's not a concept that one can truly wrap one's head around. To be perfectly honest, I'm leaning towards there not actually being one (not that I can say that out loud where I live).
If it does, then I'll accept whatever fate lies in store for me after death.
If it doesn't, I'll accept that too. Even if there is no afterlife, that's no excuse to act like an asshole and not try to be a decent person.


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## UnwiseKhan (Feb 18, 2014)

KatsuKitty said:
			
		

> Death, to me, is such a _waste_. Had we not needed to experience it, or perhaps were able to utilize a means to extend life far beyond the typical 80-100 years lived, individuals such as Albert Einstein could've continued making amazing contributions to fields that benefit us all.


I'd argue that this isn't true. One of the things that drives progress is turnover in the workforce and in academia and the new ideas that it brings. New ideas like those that Einstein or his successors introduced. Immortality seems like it would breed stagnation. Postponing death or slowing the process of aging would still allow people to make contributions for longer, but eventually they need to step aside and let someone else take over. Pretty sure it was Planck that talked about how new ideas don't become popular by convincing the opponents, but by waiting for them to die off.


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## BT 075 (Feb 18, 2014)

We are all born and we all die. And I get how people would fear death, hell I used to fear it quite a bit. Everyone on this thread, everyone here, we'll all die one day. There's no denying it, there's no sugar coating it and science isn't ever going to make us immortal. We may prolong life, but never escape or eliminate death altogether. All we can do is embrace it as a fact as sure as the sun rising and going down.


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## c-no (Feb 18, 2014)

Satan said:
			
		

> We are all born and we all die. And I get how people would fear death, hell I used to fear it quite a bit. Everyone on this thread, everyone here, we'll all die one day. There's no denying it, there's no sugar coating it and science isn't ever going to make us immortal. We may prolong life, but never escape or eliminate death altogether. All we can do is embrace it as a fact as sure as the sun rising and going down.


True to that. Whether or not some of us believe in an afterlife or the possibility that we can achieve immortality, we have to accept that death is part of the natural cycle. We have to accept the fact that the reaper will come to us one day and say it's time to go. Regardless of how we feel about death, as some would say, we should try and live this life of ours to the fullest, accomplishing whatever is in our grasp.


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## exball (Feb 18, 2014)

Satan said:
			
		

> We are all born and we all die. And I get how people would fear death, hell I used to fear it quite a bit. Everyone on this thread, everyone here, we'll all die one day. There's no denying it, there's no sugar coating it and science isn't ever going to make us immortal. We may prolong life, but never escape or eliminate death altogether. All we can do is embrace it as a fact as sure as the sun rising and going down.



Nice try Satan but you won't get my soul yet.


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## Picklepower (Feb 19, 2014)

If someone lived for hundreds of years, his or her brain would deteriorate, how would that threat be handled? I'm not trying to be a smart ass, I'm legit asking.

Also you cant really be immortal, in a literal sense, because the sun will eventually die out, and earth will become unlivable.


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## Smokedaddy (Feb 24, 2014)

Picklepower said:
			
		

> If someone lived for hundreds of years, his or her brain would deteriorate, how would that threat be handled? I'm not trying to be a smart ass, I'm legit asking.
> 
> Also you cant really be immortal, in a literal sense, because the sun will eventually die out, and earth will become unlivable.


Why would their brain deteriorate?  Presumably, whatever technology / medicine / etc. kept them from dying would deal with that somehow.  We don't know and can't speculate about the details, but given _A_ we can assume _B_ will have been dealt with.  A software solution isn't out of the question -- I truly believe that true artificial intelligence is possible.  There is nothing in the Universe that can't be described mathematically, and that includes what goes on in the kilogram or so of electrochemical jelly between your ears.  (After all, this forum is not real life, just an incredible simulation.)

Personally, I believe that mankind's future lies in the stars.  There are formidable obstacles to getting there, most notably the cosmic speed limit that makes it really hard to get anywhere else.  Fuck warp drives and whatever else you see on tv, it's going to be a very, very difficult problem to deal with and the answers won't be easy either, but we have a few billion years to work on it.


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## The Dude (Feb 24, 2014)

Picklepower said:
			
		

> If someone lived for hundreds of years, his or her brain would deteriorate, how would that threat be handled? I'm not trying to be a smart ass, I'm legit asking.
> 
> Also you cant really be immortal, in a literal sense, because the sun will eventually die out, and earth will become unlivable.



Who is to say that the brain deteriorates because it's getting older. Maybe the brain deteriorates because our body deteriorates, not because it has some built-in expiration date. So, if someone's body were able to live to...say...500 years old, then why wouldn't their brain be able to stay sharp for that period of time as well so long as their body holds up?


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## Carlson (Feb 24, 2014)

The Dude said:
			
		

> Picklepower said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Part of the problem is that even if we manage to slow or prevent ageing, the brain still maintains a limited capacity. The older you go, the more you begin to forget of the past.

More scarily, you naturally view time as going faster as you age. The older you get, the smaller a fraction a year or a month or such is of your life; when you're 10, a year is a tenth of your life. But when you're 50, it's a fiftieth. The older you get, the less stake you'll put into units of time until you eventually reach the point where a year can blaze past without you even caring.


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## Holdek (Apr 2, 2014)

I've been thinking about death quite a bit lately, more than I should actually, but anyways, I'd like it to be like how they describe it in _The Sopranos,_ "You probably won't even hear when it happens, right?"  I'm not saying I want to get shot in the back of the head unawares, but I don't want know that I'm dying when it happens.


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## ToroidalBoat (Apr 19, 2014)

I believe the afterlife as described by Swedenborg (1688-1772) is a possibility, but nonexistence after death won't be bad (or good) because you aren't around to experience the lack of experience.

The only reason to be afraid of death is if there's something horrible after, like hell or reincarnation into crappy lives. Otherwise, it's either bliss or you simply aren't even aware, not even of not existing.

How one dies is another matter.


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## Backwards Harvester (Apr 23, 2014)

I can't say I'm  looking forward to my own demise, and I'll probably be lucky if   I see nothing, not even blackness. (which is something)    But If I wake up in a place that's hotter than the earth's core,    or dark and full of terrifying eldritch abominations, or possibly even freezing cold, or just some gloomy realm where you wander aimlessly with no purpose.   A guy like me? deserving a good afterlife?..... Yeah right.
 But   that being said.     Who wants to live forever?    You'll witness the destruction of all life on the earth when the sun begins it's death cycle and barbecues the planet.   Even if we move earth outward using the gravity of another object.   You'll get to see the earth die a slower death by  cold, rather than heat.    And even that will seem  warm as the universe  goes through the degenerate era. the black hole era, and finly the Dark Era, for eternity.   Think.   You're drifting through  the void, but you know you are.   you can see the darkness,  you can feel the the cold.   And before any of this happens billions of years beforehand,  you will  witness everyone you ever loved, knew or care about die.
Suppose the  atheist death is the final outcome.... Well. There's not much to look forward to.... But there's nothing to dread either.  It's not black or white or even gray.   it's just nothing,   A permanent state of neutrality and nothingness where consciousness is forever erased. There's no joy in that.... But there's no torment either.      
I will say this much,   It would be wrong to say " Nobody wants to die."


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## OtterParty (Apr 23, 2014)

Backwards Harvester said:


> I can't say I'm  looking forward to my own demise, and I'll probably be lucky if   I see nothing, not even blackness. (which is something)    But If I wake up in a place that's hotter than the earth's core,    or dark and full of terrifying eldritch abominations, or possibly even freezing cold, or just some gloomy realm where you wander aimlessly with no purpose.   A guy like me? deserving a good afterlife?..... Yeah right.
> But   that being said.     Who wants to live forever?    You'll witness the destruction of all life on the earth when the sun begins it's death cycle and barbecues the planet.   Even if we move earth outward using the gravity of another object.   You'll get to see the earth die a slower death by  cold, rather than heat.    And even that will seem  warm as the universe  goes through the degenerate era. the black hole era, and finly the Dark Era, for eternity.   Think.   You're drifting through  the void, but you know you are.   you can see the darkness,  you can feel the the cold.   And before any of this happens billions of years beforehand,  you will  witness everyone you ever loved, knew or care about die.
> Suppose the  atheist death is the final outcome.... Well. There's not much to look forward to.... But there's nothing to dread either.  It's not black or white or even gray.   it's just nothing,   A permanent state of neutrality and nothingness where consciousness is forever erased. There's no joy in that.... But there's no torment either.
> I will say this much,   It would be wrong to say " Nobody wants to die."


die peppy


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## Backwards Harvester (Apr 23, 2014)

Unbovvered said:


> die peppy


That's really mature....  Nice.


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## Niachu (Apr 23, 2014)

*Read the rules, guys.*


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## Oglooger (Apr 23, 2014)

It's just this event, you know?


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## BT 075 (Apr 23, 2014)

Backwards Harvester said:


> That's really mature....  Nice.


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## Slowboat to China (Apr 23, 2014)

I do believe in an afterlife; I'm Catholic, and it's part of the package. It didn't hurt that I did once see what seemed to be a ghost. (Long story short: yes, I checked for reflections and other sources of illusion, no I wasn't on anything, and it wasn't horror movie-type shit.) I somehow doubt that Heaven and/or Hell are what they're like in popular culture, though. God knows what he's doing, so if I make it into Heaven, I trust that it won't be to just go insane from boredom five hundred years later.

From a practical standpoint, I can see why the idea of an afterlife is so important to people. It enables us to compartmentalize our griefs and fears: the death of a loved one stings a lot less if you think of them as waiting for you in a better place. It helps you pick yourself up and get on with things, rather than be paralyzed by fear of the empty eternity.

Speaking of fear: I definitely fear death. I fear the idea of leaving my work unfinished or causing my family pain by leaving them. Oddly enough, my cat is one of the main sources of my anxiety; it's just him and me, and I work from home, so if I died at home I probably wouldn't be found until he'd starved. I'm seriously contemplating buying one of those automatic feeders, just in case.

Then there's the audit factor. By the Christian viewpoint I can gain forgiveness while on Earth (and if you're Catholic enough to believe in purgatory, afterwards) but nobody _likes _reaching that godly sin audit and being faced with how bad you really are. I'd prefer to keep it a long way off, especially when there's still some sinning left to do. As St. Augustine said: "O Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."

Edited to fix clunky phrasing and mispellings.


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## Oglooger (Apr 23, 2014)




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## ToroidalBoat (Apr 28, 2014)

Backwards Harvester said:


> You're drifting through  the void, but you know you are.   you can see the darkness,  you can feel the the cold.   And before any of this happens billions of years beforehand,  you will  witness everyone you ever loved, knew or care about die.



That assumes that you're living forever in this universe. The afterlife, at least as most religions perceive it, is a nice place that doesn't get old like that. And in the physical realm, there could be other uinverses. Even in this universe, the Dark Era may not last forever. For example, as someone on /sci/ put it (paraphrasing another source), there could be a new big bang in "10^{10^{56}} years" due to "spontaneous entropy decrease through quantum tunneling".


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## Zeorus (May 24, 2014)

The religious tradition I was brought up in does believe in an afterlife (the teachings surrounding it are actually quite detailed), but I'm still figuring out whether I believe in it.  I'm inclined to believe that there is an afterlife but from a philosophical/epistemological standpoint I think it's very difficult to know anything about it.  The other alternatives (nothingness or a cycle of reincarnation) don't really jive with my religious or philosophical beliefs.


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## A-Stump (May 24, 2014)

I would just like to say that the Christian belief in Heaven doesn't exist until the second coming of Christ. The Bible states that the bodies of the dead will be remade anew and all souls will be judged and either made full or extinguished. It's what I have never understood about the Christians who have claimed to die and 'seen the pearly gates' so to speak. In their own misunderstood mythology, their bodies lay around and their souls are disconnected until all are judged. Telling them this leads nowhere but more whitewashing.


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## Ariel (May 24, 2014)

One of my favourite paintings has hell in it:


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## Backwards Harvester (Jul 7, 2014)

Might be the city of Dis in that picture above...  
but concerning death it self.   I know I'm not going to live forever....  And I'm kind of okay with that.   Life changes, sometimes for better, others not so much.   But death is a fact that remains the same for all of us.


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## StallChaser (Jul 8, 2014)

Being dead is to not exist.  You know that time between the Big Bang and the day you're born.  Being dead is exactly like that, just on the other end.


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## Watcher (Jul 11, 2014)

A-Stump said:


> It's what I have never understood about the Christians who have claimed to die and 'seen the pearly gates' so to speak. In their own misunderstood mythology, their bodies lay around and their souls are disconnected until all are judged. Telling them this leads nowhere but more whitewashing.


People also seem to ignore the fact we can induce a near death experience, pearly gates and all, in a laboratory setting. Which indicates it's not a supernatural experience at all.

That and how not everyone gets them, and some of them aren't even things like heaven.


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## Holdek (Jul 17, 2014)

A-Stump said:


> I would just like to say that the Christian belief in Heaven doesn't exist until the second coming of Christ. The Bible states that the bodies of the dead will be remade anew and all souls will be judged and either made full or extinguished.



That's mostly true...but I believe that the the souls judged as unsaved are cast into Hell.



A-Stump said:


> It's what I have never understood about the Christians who have claimed to die and 'seen the pearly gates' so to speak. In their own misunderstood mythology, their bodies lay around and their souls are disconnected until all are judged.



At the close of the medieval period, the modern era brought a shift in Christian thinking from an emphasis on the resurrection of the body back to the immortality of the soul.[40] This shift was a result of a change in the _zeitgeist_, as a reaction to the Renaissance and later to the Enlightenment. Dartigues has observed that especially “from the 17th to the 19th century, the language of popular piety no longer evoked the resurrection of the soul but everlasting life. Although theological textbooks still mentioned resurrection, they dealt with it as a speculative question more than as an existential problem.”[40]

This shift was supported not by any scripture, but largely by the popular religion of the Enlightenment, deism. Deism allowed for a supreme being, such as the philosophical first cause, but denied any significant personal or relational interaction with this figure. Deism, which was largely led by rationality and reason, could allow a belief in the immortality of the soul, but not necessarily in the resurrection of the dead. 

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_of_the_dead#Modern_de-emphasis)​


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## Artard (Oct 1, 2014)

Resurrecting (sorry) this thread in light of a long and I thought rather remarkable meditation on death & dying from a 96 year old former editor who still has a marvelous way with words:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/23/-sp-diana-athill-its-silly-frightened-being-dead

The title is stupid and really doesn't do it justice.

It probably could have been written by someone much younger without changing anything but its effect. I just had a soothing and peaceful feeling from reading it from her.


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## Kamen Rider Black RX (Oct 2, 2014)

Whenever I think about death, I remember a quote from my youth. 
"To the well-organized mind, _death_ is but the _next great adventure."_
I really, really have to finish the Harry Potter series one day.


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## Partyboy (Oct 2, 2014)

At least in death, you have nothing left to suffer.


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## Hyperion (Oct 3, 2014)

Death is the great equalizer. No matter how rich or poor you are, everyone dies.

It's also a natural part of life. All things that begin must end, except that you won't end at death.



Spoiler: the afterlife



Someday you and I will be fertilizer. New life will spring out of our very bodies.


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## ASoulMan (Oct 8, 2014)

"When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass. And so we are all connected in the great Circle of Life. "


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## exball (Oct 9, 2014)

ASoulMan said:


> "When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass. And so we are all connected in the great Circle of Life. "


Antelopes are assholes.


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## Holdek (Oct 9, 2014)

ASoulMan said:


> "When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass. And so we are all connected in the great Circle of Life. "


And then the antelopes poop you out of their butt-holes and from you a beautiful oak tree sprouts.


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## Mister Lister (Oct 16, 2014)

I would like to believe in Quantum Immortality. Or at least I think I would, the more you read about it the more worrying questions it raises. You can call me mad or deluded, but it makes sense in a roundabout way to me more than any other explanations do. This is all really difficult to explain so don't worry if it sounds like complete nonsense as I lack a masters in quantum theory to properly articulate it.

Some of you may have heard about it before, but it basically works off of the multiverse theory, in that there are an infinite amount of possibilities and each of those possibilities branches off to create a universe in which it either happens or it does not. What I'm about to say sounds like a 'well duh' statement but: the only universe you are ever able to belong to, is one where you are conscious and existing, otherwise you would no longer be conscious or existing. It basically explains that where being conscious and 'alive' (in whatever sense of the word) are involved, luck will always work in your favour.

Take the quantum suicide theory as an example to better explain it.

You take a revolver and place 5 bullets into it. As you spin the chamber a number of possibilities suddenly arise. You either shoot and kill yourself with one of the bullets, you get the empty chamber, you are unable to shoot yourself, or you shoot yourself and still manage to survive in some form or other. It is not possible to have experienced being killed with no return, therefore the only branches you can travel down are the ones where you survive every iteration.

This of course only applies to yourself, in your branch universe, where your consciousness exists. I'm not telling people to go out and practice this theory, because of course in my particular branch universe you and others around me can still die.

It doesn't negate the afterlife either, as maybe that is simply just another possible branch where your consciousness can continue to exist and is therefore still viable in the rules of the theory.

Sorry for the huge post, and please don't think I'm a complete nutter, but this idea really intrigues me when it comes to death and existence. There is probably a lot of information out there on the subject if anyone is interested, and it will most definitely explain it better than I ever can.


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## Marvin (Oct 16, 2014)

Mister Lister said:


> I would like to believe in Quantum Immortality. Or at least I think I would, the more you read about it the more worrying questions it raises. You can call me mad or deluded, but it makes sense in a roundabout way to me more than any other explanations do. This is all really difficult to explain so don't worry if it sounds like complete nonsense as I lack a masters in quantum theory to properly articulate it.
> 
> Some of you may have heard about it before, but it basically works off of the multiverse theory, in that there are an infinite amount of possibilities and each of those possibilities branches off to create a universe in which it either happens or it does not. What I'm about to say sounds like a 'well duh' statement but: the only universe you are ever able to belong to, is one where you are conscious and existing, otherwise you would no longer be conscious or existing. It basically explains that where being conscious and 'alive' (in whatever sense of the word) are involved, luck will always work in your favour.
> 
> ...


These sort of theories are irrelevant to normal people. A person's identity is the sum of all their experiences up until that point. Any deviations and you're not the same person.

For example, instead of a quantum suicide, consider a quantum birth. What if my mother picked someone else to be the father? What if she waited a year before having me? Or tried a year prior? Or what if both of my parents died when I was a kid and I became Batman? And I mean, literally Batman.

I'm only me because of all the events that led up to me. Any tiny difference and the tree of possibilities explodes into an innumerable set of people, with varying degrees of similarity to current Marvin, but only one of them actually becoming the current Marvin.

Some theories about quantum mechanics (which I don't necessarily buy) make these implications, but they have little relevance to what normal people mean when they talk about death or dying or immortality.


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## Mechanism Eight (Oct 16, 2014)

Nothing is real.

Therefore you cannot die if you never existed in the first place.


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## Tragi-Chan (Oct 17, 2014)

Death doesn't worry me at all. Even the concept of dying young doesn't bother me. I don't believe in any form of afterlife, I believe (no offence intended to religious people here) that the concept of an afterlife is just something invented because people couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that they must one day cease to exist. Therefore, to me, death is not something to be feared, because there is literally nothing to it. You just stop. It feels neither good nor bad. I'm more frightened about the deaths of those close to me, or how my death would affect them, than I am for myself. I guess in a sense, I feel like your afterlife is what you leave behind for the rest of the world when you die, and that's why you should try not to be a total prick in life.


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## RV 229 (Oct 17, 2014)

Mister Lister said:


> I would like to believe in Quantum Immortality. Or at least I think I would, the more you read about it the more worrying questions it raises. You can call me mad or deluded, but it makes sense in a roundabout way to me more than any other explanations do. This is all really difficult to explain so don't worry if it sounds like complete nonsense as I lack a masters in quantum theory to properly articulate it.
> 
> Some of you may have heard about it before, but it basically works off of the multiverse theory, in that there are an infinite amount of possibilities and each of those possibilities branches off to create a universe in which it either happens or it does not. What I'm about to say sounds like a 'well duh' statement but: the only universe you are ever able to belong to, is one where you are conscious and existing, otherwise you would no longer be conscious or existing. It basically explains that where being conscious and 'alive' (in whatever sense of the word) are involved, luck will always work in your favour.
> 
> ...



Considering all the times I've poisoned myself, accidentally or otherwise, this idea scares the ever-living shit out of me.


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## Mister Lister (Oct 17, 2014)

Cyan said:


> Considering all the times I've poisoned myself, accidentally or otherwise, this idea scares the ever-living shit out of me.


I think my interest in the theory stems from almost dying myself and literal centimetres being the only reason I didn't. Years back I nearly got my face impaled through with a hunk of metal out of nowhere. I was sat at the side of the road with my hood up waiting for a taxi and out of nowhere it grazed past my cheek, slammed into the back of my hood and was big enough and travelling fast enough that it dragged me to the floor.

The pure luck of it. The fact that all these tiny little moments of my life that led up to that point somehow influenced that I would be there at that time in the first place, that I would be sat in that spot, and that my head at that moment was slightly to the right instead of the left decided whether I lived or died. Or got horribly maimed at the least.

It's that kind of experience that really makes a guy think. In the long run I think it's made me a happier and (hopefully) nicer person.


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## Holdek (Oct 18, 2014)

Mister Lister said:


> I would like to believe in Quantum Immortality. Or at least I think I would, the more you read about it the more worrying questions it raises. You can call me mad or deluded, but it makes sense in a roundabout way to me more than any other explanations do. This is all really difficult to explain so don't worry if it sounds like complete nonsense as I lack a masters in quantum theory to properly articulate it.
> 
> Some of you may have heard about it before, but it basically works off of the multiverse theory, in that there are an infinite amount of possibilities and each of those possibilities branches off to create a universe in which it either happens or it does not. What I'm about to say sounds like a 'well duh' statement but: the only universe you are ever able to belong to, is one where you are conscious and existing, otherwise you would no longer be conscious or existing. It basically explains that where being conscious and 'alive' (in whatever sense of the word) are involved, luck will always work in your favour.
> 
> ...



Yeah, but, according to that theory I'm also licking Chris' taint in another universe, so...it doesn't really bring me comfort.



Marvin said:


> For example, instead of a quantum suicide, consider a quantum birth. What if my mother picked someone else to be the father? What if she waited a year before having me? Or tried a year prior? Or what if both of my parents died when I was a kid and I became Batman? And I mean, literally Batman.
> 
> I'm only me because of all the events that led up to me. Any tiny difference and the tree of possibilities explodes into an innumerable set of people, with varying degrees of similarity to current Marvin, but only one of them actually becoming the current Marvin.



In another universe you are literally Marvin and you are about to get shot in the face by Vincent.



Mechanism Eight said:


> Nothing is real.
> 
> Therefore you cannot die if you never existed in the first place.


You think, therefore you exist. (c) Holdek 2014, DO NOT STEAL


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## Mister Lister (Oct 18, 2014)

Also in one universe you are leading a life identical to Chris. Be thankful for who you are is what I have learned.


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## Zeorus (Oct 18, 2014)

Holdek said:


> You think, therefore you exist. (c) Holdek 2014, DO NOT STEAL



I assume Descartes will be contacting you shortly.

If anyone's interested in hearing it when finished, I recently started composing a Requiem Mass for choir and organ (with a few vocal solos).


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## BellaKazza (Oct 20, 2014)

An old friend of mine passed away recently.  He was the man who had baptized me.  He was an excellent mentor, father and friend.
I had a discussion with another friend of mine about death the next day.  We were talking about how death was not always tragic, it depends on the circumstance, we feel that too many people look at death as a tragic thing instead of a positive one. 

On death, I have belief as most Christians, once we die we wait till judgement.  In which the goats will be separated from the sheep.


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## Strewth (Apr 1, 2015)

I'm far more affected by the thought of losing others than I am by the thoughts of dying myself.

My father was diagnosed with a terminal illness nearly two years ago, and it's looking like he could pass on any day now.
The thought of living the rest of my life without his presence and guidance absolutely terrifies me. I wish I had faith in a lie, because it would at least ease the sense of finality.


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## Pickle Inspector (Apr 3, 2015)

Mister Lister said:


> I would like to believe in Quantum Immortality. Or at least I think I would, the more you read about it the more worrying questions it raises. You can call me mad or deluded, but it makes sense in a roundabout way to me more than any other explanations do. This is all really difficult to explain so don't worry if it sounds like complete nonsense as I lack a masters in quantum theory to properly articulate it.
> 
> Some of you may have heard about it before, but it basically works off of the multiverse theory, in that there are an infinite amount of possibilities and each of those possibilities branches off to create a universe in which it either happens or it does not. What I'm about to say sounds like a 'well duh' statement but: the only universe you are ever able to belong to, is one where you are conscious and existing, otherwise you would no longer be conscious or existing. It basically explains that where being conscious and 'alive' (in whatever sense of the word) are involved, luck will always work in your favour.
> 
> ...


How is it anything other than a thought experiment though?

It seems to me like a way for people to explain how time travel to the past might be possible without paradoxes occurring even though that's just another thought experiment with no basis in reality.


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## Mister Lister (Apr 3, 2015)

Pickle Inspector said:


> How is it anything other than a thought experiment though?
> 
> It seems to me like a way for people to explain how time travel to the past might be possible without paradoxes occurring even though that's just another thought experiment with no basis in reality.


Isn't anything connected to life after death basically a thought experiment?


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## Pickle Inspector (Apr 3, 2015)

Mister Lister said:


> Isn't anything connected to life after death basically a thought experiment?


Pretty much but I can understand why people wouldn't want to have nihilistic views.


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## DuskEngine (Apr 4, 2015)

Epicurus said:
			
		

> Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And once it does come, we no longer exist.


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## Lefty's Revenge (Apr 4, 2015)

I'm a Christian so I believe in an afterlife. I know this is not the end so I don't fear death. I'm actually quite fascinated with it. Especially with people who seem to be aware that they won't live long. Like a MLK or even a Tupac. I'm fascinated by people who live their life with such burning purpose that they don't even blink at the thought of dying. 

As for my own mortality, I believe I was put on this Earth for a purpose. Once its served I will cease to live. And I'm okay with that. I love it actually. I view my time here on earth as extremely temporary. A short blip where I can make a difference here in one way or another. I love my family and my parents but I view us all as people playing a role for a short time. The Bible is unclear on whether or not you'll actually recognize someone you met in this life in the next but I'm comfortable with the idea that once they pass I may never see them again as they were here on this Earth. That, for all intents and purposes once my mother or father passes away they will cease to exist as I knew them. 

And as far as my time here on earth, I just view it as incredibly short and thats what makes it beautiful. I'm less concerned with enjoying myself because, strangely, simply enjoying myself doesn't make me happy. Leaving an impact, being useful, helping people overcome fears and obstacles, overcoming my own. All of that makes me happy. 

Sometimes I wish I could express some sort of hesitation or doubt about an afterlife but I just don't have it anymore. I have my days when I question God's existence but that always gets stomped out before it goes far. I did some exploring for answers before I became a Christian. I know where my fate lies. I'm at peace when it comes to death.


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## bearycool (Oct 16, 2015)

Okay, I'm bringing this thread back up, because lol resurrection.

This is going to be REALLY long, but I will try to summarize it all at the end. I will also try to lay this out in subjects. Though this TRIES (emphasis on TRIES) to be objective, there are still subjective areas, and many things are based off logic and some math, which can prove things "in theory," but MAY not exist in physical reality if we don't have empirical data. Take that in mind.

Likewise, don't get mad because viewpoints may conflict with yours: I'm obviously not God and can't give a perfect paper on things like Death. It's okay to be emotional, but don't let it cloud your logic and make you reactionary. 

*Preface to the Argument*

I will be trying to define death in as objective a matter as possible, and stating terms when need be that have to be defined in great detail. I will namely focus my thoughts on a specific argument, which will be defined in the next section.

I will first begin with the concept of "nothingness,"  for this seems to be a problem in understanding death. Afterwards, we will then discuss the specific argument and its issues that have not been addressed in relationship to "nothing." This post will try to logically lay these concepts out and in concise, understandable detail. After each section, I will place in red text a very brief summary on important details.

*This preface is to discuss each point in the argument, how it will flow, and how I will summarize everything for the audience.*

*On Nothingness*

I would like to address the argument of _*"What happened before you were born? that is what death will be like. It is nothingness."*_

To start, let us define "Nothing".

Nothingness does not exist, or is non-existence (no shit). However, let's go further. Nothingness has no existence, has no form, no color, no taste, no thought, no measurement, no perception at all, etc. It has no qualities, as it would then define it and would make it "exist" in a sense. In fact, the word "nothing" is a misnomer: nothingness does not even have a name, as a name implies an "object".  A "word" to better define nothingness is the ellipses. Or, in other words, this:

"..."

Except get rid of the periods and any form of perception on nothing. That is the true absolute of nothingness: we can never perceive it, as it just "is not." No characteristics or anything. It is not even a void, as, again, we have concepts of "voids", and nothingness is in of itself a non-concept. Also, nothingness is NOT space, as, again, space itself is a concept which we map our perception, and can measure. It is also not zero, as this is something we can define and place a concept on, and actually do manipulation with mathematics. Space and zero are close approximates, but they aren't "nothing".

For nothing cannot be defined nor perceived. We place ANYTHING in it, and it becomes something which we can manipulate, and that's not correct.  In fact, this entire definition I am giving is incorrect, as I am placing "objects of thought" into nothingness. It is why it is as impossible to understand nothingness as it is to understand the infinite: our brains functions make it impossible, just in different terms.

Now concerning before birth and nothingness: obviously in a physical manner, our brains are not there. Without our brains, our thinking, we then achieve the absolute nothing, as we cannot think. This is the prerequisite to actually "understand" the formless form of nothing, which logically means you can't actually ever understand nothing: to not think, to not perceive, to not have the capability to "understand". When we obtain consciousness or a brain, we loose this ability to "understand" nothing. Our mind creates a "Black blankness" to map out this "experience." The only true time we eve know nothingness is when we don't exist, which we may say is before birth.

But then it ceases to be nothing, for you then "Experience" this blackness in a sense, and thus can debate it on existence.  When it becomes measured, it is not nothingness, but, at best, a "zero" or a "blank space."  The only true time we ever know nothingness is when we don't exist and don't know we don't exist, which we may say is before birth. However, how can something gain form when there is no form to start with? How can consciousness/life/brain mechanics etc. even come about from that which "is not?" How can even the concept of existence come from its counterpart? As the old saying goes, nothingness begets nothingness.  Change that, and it become "something."

Therefore, the blackness we see in our memory before our birth is not actually nothingness, but just a perception or "memory." This is interesting, and then leads me to my next argument.

Summary: Nothingness cannot be defined, as its form has no form. Zero, space, and void are just close approximates, but they "Exist" in a sense, as we can perceive their concepts. Even the word nothing itself exist, and is not actually nothingness. Its essence is no essence; its form, formless. 

Therefore, our "perception" of a blackness before birth is not actually nothing, but is just a perception or even a "memory." Nothingness begets nothing likewise, and thus cannot create consciousness, the brain, or physical reality itself.

*On Memory and Perception*

As a neuroscientist, I have seen the physical effects of case studies of those who loose their memory everyday, and just bring up a "blackness" for their entire lifetime. However, just because they cannot remember, does not mean the things they did cease to exist; just to them it ceases to exist. This is also the basis of Locke's memory theory in which he posits that someone becomes a different "person" when they achieve irrevocable amnesia. However, I wish to modify this theory by saying that one can be two different persons, but if the events/memories still exist in a sense in space time, those two persons are connected; I.E. the action still occurred in the past and is not erased in the person's history even if the memory is. If you want to know more on memory theory, I will post an academic paper I made in regards to this below in a sub-section. For now, just keep the simple preface of "memory creates the person, but 'existence' of events allows for two 'person' to exist and be connected to one another unconsciously."

With this empirical evidence in mind as the basis of my argument in this section, I will derive a concept of memory in regards to death and "nothingness."

Lack of memory does not mean something cannot be. You can go a whole lifetime, and then suddenly forget it all in an instant. This is a biological thing found in the brain, and it thus calls into question on if loosing your memory thus creates a sort of nothingness as you cannot perceive or recall it.

But that is a bit odd, as we have just said that your life does not suddenly just stop existing; you just forget it. Forgetting is not a form of nothingness, but is just a weird sort of perception that occurs due to the faulty storage of the brain. But this does suggest our consciousness is indeed linked to our brain.

However, how it is linked is a different story. The brain could be a "transmitter," much like a radio picks up radio waves, and it just has an ability to pick up a certain strand of consciousness and memory. Or, consciousness is directly made from the brain, and thus ceases to be when the brain stops. Or even consciousness derives from a higher "brain," and we are but mere projections.

This concept I will return to in the next section, but for now let us focus back again on memory.

Now, if a person forgets, to them that memory "does not exist" for the time they don't remember it.  However, when they recall it, it suddenly comes back and you "forget that you forgot."  This is found is a lot of amnesia cases, and someone even mention the phenomena of "de'ja vu" when they were on a disassociative drug trip, which is a seizure of the mind in which it loops data back again in a feedback. All of these quirks of memory are what we create our subjective reality.  

And the fact consciousness has these quirks brings into question the sustainability of memory in death, and the "blank blackness" before birth.

This part is a subjective concept, and it cannot be falsified at this time. For now, take it as a philosophical food for thought.

If our memories are so iffy, then how can we absolutely say we never had any memory before the birth? How can we absolutely be certain that we did not just forget all our past lives before our inception in this life due to either the destructive nature of death itself, or because we "willed" it to happen? Who is to say that a higher being made it so we forget for some purpose? Something that is infinite in consciousness can easily manipulate that which is finite in consciousness.

This all can happen, because we have the potential to forget even when we are alive. It happens all the time when we go to sleep: we forget that we forgot. And with something as drastic death which takes the entire brain away, who is to say that we just loose all memory and go onto another life, blissfully ignorant of our old selves?

You cannot say the phrase "Well, I only remember THIS lifetime," because maybe you said that hundreds of times in other lives. Again, this is all subjective and is just to get the concept that because of the natural way our memories work, we cannot say objectively that the blackness before birth or during death is nothingness, because that may be just where you forgot your old past life memory. If you say that if someone changes into a different person, then that's considered death, and the old you inherently does not exist "anymore." In that case, I ask you read the paper in the sub-section to get a little understanding of memory theory.

For now, let's get objective again and say we are just our brains, memories, etc. And when we loose our brain, we loose ourselves.

Going subjective again. But what if, and this is what if, when you die, there suddenly, in some universe, there is an exact brain as yours, with the same exact circuity, memory, texture, and quirks. It is a carbon copy of you, but in another universe. Can our consciousness just "jump" to that brain? Think Quantum Suicide if you want. However, we can't measure this again!

Or can we?

We actually can. Let us assume you die. If it is true that you die and an infinite time passes, by the laws of probability if it exists at all, given enough repetition it will happen. And if you are dead for infinity, then you are giving an infinite amount of chances for an exact brain for your consciousness to return, and that infinite scope of time just being a perceived few seconds of "Darkness."

This is on the postulate that we are just our physical brains, and our consciousness can ONLY exist in a brain EXACTLY like ours in the EXACT space. And since we are assuming we are dead for an infinite amount of time and space, it will be absolutely easy for our "Brain/consciousness" to transfer over in a sense, provided our physical reality can still "be" in a sense and move data/information around. I mean, if we are just information, can not information just transfer over? The only problem would be if the universe would just eventually die too and there is just "Nothingness" forever. But as we last talked about, nothing does not really exist for many reasons, and in many models in science, there seems to always be "something."

[THIS SECTION ITSELF IS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS]

*sub-section: Locke's Memory Theory*

*
Locke and Memory Theory: a Modified Conjecture
By: Bearycool (not the actual name irl obviously)
*
_In this paper, I will discuss Locke’s viewpoint and my own modified viewpoint on the problems of amnesia, and the extreme version of irrevocable amnesia. 


  To Locke, if someone attains absolute amnesia and cannot connect themselves to the past, they lose that past self and in a sense one person is lost, and a new one is gain— the post-amnesiac persona. However, if there is any potentiality for one to regain their memories, this other “personal identity” is not lost, but rather just hidden away for a time until the person remembers again. This is the basis of memory theory.


  Now onto my personal view, I believe this viewpoint is alright per se, until we get onto the concept of irrevocable amnesia, which is vague in Locke’s argument. I will use an argument to describe how someone can be two persons, while still in a sense being connected to the two personas.


Let us assume this is what happens when you change lifetimes, hence why you “remember” only blackness before birth, as to gain a new “self” or personality, but these different selves are of the same “soul.” Is it possible for two different “persons” to still be the same person?


My reply is yes, only because the memory/event, even if forgotten, still existed in time and space. Even if you forget the memory, the events that this person experienced still occurred, and this form of “just being” allows for an irrevocable amnesiac to be two different “persons” while still be connected to these two persons/egos/personas etc. This is why it is still okay for someone to call you a different person after amnesia, but it is not right for them to say you never were that person prior to the amnesia. Consciousness can change form just like matter, but it is still consciousness, even if it changes. It is what connects the person unconsciously, and, in my opinion, spiritually to a sort of “higher person,” who encompasses many persons in a unified manner. _



[WORK IN PROGRESS! PLEASE STANDBY; I AM GOING TO CONTINUE TO WRITE THIS OUT]


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## autisticdragonkin (Oct 20, 2015)

I don't care about death because in the future I will have offspring carrying my genes. (and the heat death of the universe is too far away for me to say anything about)


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## autisticdragonkin (Oct 20, 2015)

bearycool said:


> Okay, I'm bringing this thread back up, because lol resurrection.
> 
> This is going to be REALLY long, but I will try to summarize it all at the end. I will also try to lay this out in subjects. Though this TRIES (emphasis on TRIES) to be objective, there are still subjective areas, and many things are based off logic and some math, which can prove things "in theory," but MAY not exist in physical reality if we don't have empirical data. Take that in mind.
> 
> ...


I think all of this is wishful thinking and that no epistemologically rational being would postulate such a scenario


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## dickwad (Oct 22, 2015)

So I don't have the access to the coping thread I will post this in here cause its related. Bare with me.

So I have a little hoarding problem. I build a lot of stuff like furniture, little projects and tools etc. I tough I was smart saving all the knick-knack from finished projects like little pieces of wood, motors, lead (hard to come by in europe), clothing etc and bundle them to a closet. So I made a positive change on that subject and starting coldly throwing that stuff away (it was that bad I was saving beer cans in the hopes that I would smelt and cast some aluminum objects) that I really don't need.

Half year ago my father died. Most of his belongings came to me and now I have a new sort of problem. Like a hybrid of hoarding and feeling quilt when throwing that stuff away. Its like I'm destroying the memory of my father and killing him myself. Theres like unusable items like old clothing, guns, books etc. That I see defined my father to a some point. Lots of memories from the childhood etc. Those things don't have really any value (well some do) but its really hard to just throw them to the garbage. I'm over the grieving part but all the old objects just raise the memories that I had with my father. My small house is full to the brim with this stuff and I need space but still I can't just throw them away. Fuck. I hope my father was here to sort this shit out with me.


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## Len Kagamoney (Oct 22, 2015)

Jeez we were just talking about this in philosophy
Speaking of, Socrates states we shouldn't be afraid of death, as we don't know what comes afterward, and those who fear it cling to life.
If reincarnation isn't a thing, we'll spend majority of our very existence dead.  It happens to us all so it's something we have to come to terms with.
I am not, and have never been afraid of death.  I don't know what happens when you die, so there is no use worrying about it.
I am afraid of how I will die, like most rational people I don't want to burn or suffocate/drown (the feeling of not breathing is a horrible one and squicks me out when I see scenes like those in movies)
I'm also afraid for how long it will take, I just want to go out like a light
Like everyone, I just want to go in my sleep without realizing it

I do, however, find death very interesting and I love the macabre and spooky.  I spent a lot of my time the past few years studying ghosts and the like and the science behind them, so part of an afterlife may be earthbound.  That's a whole other topic though.


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## Johnny Bravo (Oct 23, 2015)

Remember that time before you were born?

Death is like that.


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## Sanae Kochiya (Oct 23, 2015)

I'm an extreme bleeding heart and I personally don't like it when other people I know and love die or are dying.  I can get really emotional about it.

That being said, I'm actually not really concerned about my own inevitable demise.  imo, if I die, I die.  I'll deal with it when it happens.  I'll give a shit about the afterlife when the afterlife happens.


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## Overcast (Oct 23, 2015)

The concept of death has always fascinated me to some point.

No one truly knows what happens when they die, since they can't really come back after they die. 

Part of me likes to believe that people reincarnate after they die, because I kinda find the idea of dying and essentially becoming nothing within nothingness is really hard to comprehend. Like, would you know if you were in such a state? I suppose it would like if you were dreaming. You'd just be feeling a bunch of different things while you're unconscious of what's going on around you.

At the end of the day, I'd like to have lead a fulfilling life before I die. Knowing that I didn't do much with my life right before dying is probably one of my biggest fears.


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## Derbydollar (Oct 23, 2015)

Death is non-existence, a lack of all awareness and being. It's also the cycle that we as humans have evolved into.
Flora and fauna, including humans, will be made of what used to be you in the future.
It's pretty surreal to think about where all the proteins, nutrients, and other building blocks that make you up came from...

I'd like to say that I'm totally cool with dying or whatever because I control my destiny or it's inevitable or something, but I can't.
Death is when you leave the stage, and I'm up for having a _very _long career.

Personally, I'm pretty interested in the idea of biological immortality. This might be the last generation that has to die of old age.
That's mostly optimism, though. People have been promised immortality in the afterlife since time immemorial. I'm not of the opinion that they received it, either


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## Bertram (Nov 4, 2015)

Death is, by its very nature, impossible for us to comprehend. My thoughts are that we ultimately won't care much about death as we'll be dead.
However, time and space continue infinitely so I feel it's safe to say there's ultimately_ something _after death. It's like the idea that a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters will eventually write out the complete works of Shakespeare.


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## SP 199 (Nov 4, 2015)

Been there, got the t-shirt


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## The Knife's Husbando (Nov 4, 2015)

Don't know where this thought stream came from.

I'm the youngest sibling from a really big family, and I'm a pretty big fella, so it's been my duty for more times than I care to remember to be pallbearer. My dad, my brother, my Grandmother on my wife's side, my father-in-law, My aunt, two of my best friends. And with most of the people in my family & my wife's family getting older, I don't know how many more folks I care about I'm going to have to carry that final mile in my time.

We buried my daddy two days before Christmas, a a tiny rural cemetery slap in the middle of the woods in Alabama. All oaks and dogwoods. The day was clear, cold, and the wind cut like a razor. The road up to the burial plot was so steep- better than forty five degrees- that my wife's car spun out on the wet asphalt & leaves and we ended up having to walk the last hundred yards or so to the hearse. The funeral director put me in the back because I was the biggest, and then after everyone had gotten a grip on the casket, he said "Okay fellas, I'm going to cut this loose." We all nodded, and then he said "No. You don't understand. I'm going to cut this loose. You'll all have to bear the weight for a minute on this steep as hell hill." In that one moment, I had a crazy vision of my papa- who was a right mad bastard that gave zero fucks- busting loose from the lot of us and going for one last ride down the hills he'd spent so much time hiking in- Wham-bonk-bonk-bonk-bonk-wham!  

And then he did it. And when I felt the weight in my arms and shoulders, _It finally sank in what we were doing_. And I lost it.

But I held my end up.


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## MarvinTheParanoidAndroid (Nov 12, 2015)

You know how when you pass out or get knocked unconscious you don't remember the time you spent unconscious or have any concept of the lost time? That missing time is allegedly what death is like; no thoughts, no imagination, no awareness of anything & no memory of it. The absence of being. The void.

By the way, the "darkness" you remember is not what it "looks like", that was what you first saw as you woke up; the inside of your eyelids. You just retroactively assigned the first thing you saw upon your reemergence to an experience you never experienced. I imagine that actually being resurrected from the dead would be no different, with no perception of time passing between death and relife. Nodding off to lunge awake; a hypnic jerk.

If we're talking about what _dying_ is like, white tunnel & dopamine burst followed by warmth just before the end.

On another note, I often ponder something; when my cells disintegrate & eventually form into a new life form, will I still be me? Will I still be me in spite of having none of my current memories, in spite of starting fresh? I wonder because I'm curious as to why I was born as me & not anyone else I've ever met or could have been. What is so special about who I am as I am that I see through these eyes as opposed to someone else? What does it mean to be who I am & why do I perceive? Why do I not see myself as I see others? Is my life in some manner unique? What cuts me apart from the rest? Is everyone else even real? Am I even real? Are they real but I'm not? What am I to them? What am I to them, not as a person or individual but as a being? Do they perceive as I do? Do they perceive at all? If I saw through their eyes would I become them or would they become me? If they become me then does that mean identity is a lie? If I become them does that mean the mind is a lie? Do they operate like machines or do they also wonder why they are who they are? Are these thoughts a threshold between being machines & being alive? If so what does it mean when we forget & go back to what we were consumed with before? Is life outside these moments meaningless? They must be because they feel small by comparison at this moment. Nothing is more important than this question:

Why am I me?


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## Magpie (Nov 12, 2015)

I got a rude welcome to the concept of death early on in life.  Through a terrible accident of which I somehow still feel responsible for (even though I was barely three years old at the time), my sister died.  She was on life support long enough for my dad to get back in state so we could all be there to say goodbyes.  When the plug was pulled, my mom says that I flat out said "she's dead."  There was no "she's just going to sleep" or some other sugary coating to make that bitter pill go down.  Apparently for weeks following her death I would cry out and say I could see her in our bedroom.  I don't remember that, nor the hospital really.  I just remember the accident. 

I don't personally believe there is an afterlife, at least there won't be one for me.  There is still a lot of me that hopes there is, if only for my sister at the very least.  I'd like to think the dreams I have where she comes and talks with me as an older her is something with a bit of reality to it instead of my brain playing the "what if" game.  She barely had any life here, of course I hope that there is something more for her. 

I have dealt with a lot of death in my relatively short life.  I'm not numb to it, per se, but I readjust to it a bit smoother than others I guess.  Granted, most other deaths were those of extended family - usually old age or cancer after a life well spent. 

I mostly just dread the impact my death will have on my loved ones, provided they outlive me.  Have already had a taste of that once in my lifetime and I don't know if I could bear it again.  Otherwise, I can deal with the idea of falling into a void and being forgotten in time.  What matters more is what I do here and now. 

... I say as I frequent a forum where we laugh at autists on the Internet.  At least I went out and fed some birds today.


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## bearycool (Nov 14, 2015)

As it is, death may mean you go into nothing, but like passing out or going brain dead and being revived, you might just be woken up.  How, where, when, or even who you will be when you wake up is a mystery. We are contingent beings, balancing between existence and nothing. If we can fall one way, who's to say we cannot fall another? Who knows. It's okay to assume the worse. It's okay to be scared. But you have the choice to go into the great void prior with acceptance and curiosity.

Just for now, enjoy this idea:

You are at the edge of a great, wide void. Behind you lies all the monstrous valleys and mountains of life that you've passed through, and below your feet gray rocks stand in solemn homage. And this great chasm, yawning beyond even the boundless eternities beckons you forward. You know countless others have gone before you, but know all must go into it alone, and without any aid, knowing not where they'll go. You will not find a mark there; the place itself is void of color, even black. It destroys you just to look out towards those unknown horizons of no-color. But you must go; the gray rocks turn into sand and start sliding downward-- the sand disappearing into nothing as well.

You now have choice: try to crawl out, screaming for useless help; or you can jump headfirst with the most sublime serenity.  As it is, you chose the latter.

You decided that before you were taken, you would feel your heart pump a few more times of that sanguine mystery that we call "love". The love for life itself filled you. You wanted to remember and act out all the scenes of those you love with such deep affection, and taste in your memory the beautiful sights of the world of life: those long walks in a crisp morn in fall; the relief of warmth from the biting winter cold; the calming effects of rain during spring storms; and the delicious greenery as you feel the warmth of another's hand in summer. And you see them: the faces of your love ones. They smile at you, and you smile back, even though you must depart from them.  That sweet love penetrates you, even as you fade.  Fading only makes you love all the more.

And the last thought you have before thought itself cannot exist in that place, you say: "It's okay... into nothing I go... into nothing I become... But oh, how I'm excited to know what that means, and if maybe one day I'll become something again!"

And you disappeared with all the others.


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## Red (Nov 14, 2015)

I'm a pretty spiritual person in all honesty. I do believe there is something after death-- not necessarily life after death, but something. Going into detail would just derail the thread with my personal beliefs and be stupid, but I will say that we're apes who are good at communication and finding patterns, not all-knowing rulers of the earth. There's no way we'll ever know for sure, and there's quite a good chance that if there is something, we wouldn't be able to understand it.


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## GS 281 (Nov 14, 2015)

I don't see there being anything after we die. We are all a part of nature and once our bodies stop working, we go back into the process of creating life again. The insects we look down on today will devour us tomorrow, and every moment you spend on the Kiwi is another moment you come closer to being worm food.


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## Chicken Dippers (Nov 14, 2015)

I'd generally tend to think that there's nothing after we die. It may seem weird, but I find the idea of eternal nothingness, without thoughts or worries, to be somewhat comforting. I do sometimes have fears like we remain conscious for as much as a century after we die (a rather silly idea, I know), but I don't really have any set belief on exactly what happens after we die.


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## Phil Ken Sebben (Nov 19, 2015)

I'm a total atheist with very little in the whole spirituality bit. It's all about the evidence for me. Show me it's real and the test results and I'll be inclined to believe you, tell me that it's real with nothing to back it up and I'll most likely ignore it.

As for an afterlife I don't think there is one. We're born, we live, we die. There's no cosmic significance to it or grand plan other than two people getting frisky one night and you coming along nine months later. Would I like there to be an afterlife? Maybe, but only if oblivion was possible.

I mean eternity is a long time even if you've got millions of years to learn and do and experience new things it's still eternity. And does it continue up until the heat death of the universe or does it continue past that point? Realistically speaking, if eternity truly means eternity then that would possibly be the worst punishment ever even if it was beautiful and happy every single day.


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## The Knife's Husbando (Nov 19, 2015)

'There are millions of people longing for immortality, that don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy afternoon."

-Unknown.


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## XH 502 (Nov 19, 2015)




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## Cave (Jan 3, 2016)

Death is more sad than scary.

Losing someone is powerful.

It can derail your life entirely.

That's what makes it scary.


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## Mark Corrigan (Jan 8, 2016)

Death is a fact of life. Without death, there'd be no evolution.

I'm not really scared of death. I just hope I'll die with dignity, without having to bother my entire family with my senile ramblings and old-age illnesses.


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## Mecha-Lenin (Jan 25, 2016)

Here is how I like to look at human life: my life is not inherently or magically more valuable than another persons or vice versa.

What counts then, is not _merely _the length and quality of *my* life (which is important nonetheless), but the quality of the lives that exist by my side and which will also come after my own. 

So on to death!.... It does scare me sometimes, yes... but that is natural. It does not keep me up at night because I know that life will go on without me. Which then makes the task of leaving the world as we know it behind, better than when we entered it, for humans (and other creatures) besides myself, far more paramount.

I do not believe in an afterlife. It is merely a matter of evidence... and all of it points to my existence being tied to my chemical body. But because of what I already outlined, the thought of death does not sting so badly.


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## Jack Haywood (Jan 26, 2016)

Like many others, I also believe there is no afterlife and death is the total end. In my honest opinion, why would death even exist if there was an afterlife? Why not just be transported there anyways?


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## Mecha-Lenin (Jan 26, 2016)

Jack Haywood said:


> Futhermore, the idea of a resurrection/reincarnation/afterlife is a MYTH, A LIE, A LEGEND.


Not that I disagree, but I find it amusing that you would say this and then, with a  strait face, claim there were two _deities... _that followed human reproductive biology no less*. 

A Christian would surely laugh you off and simply assert the reverse was true. 

I guess what I am saying is: maybe you are not in a  position to so carelessly disregard the "myths, lies, and legends" of another religious faith?

...

*And to think that "male" and "female" are UNIVERSAL opposites? What hubris! To suppose the biology of the universe follows the Earth example!


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## Jack Haywood (Jan 27, 2016)

@Mecha-Lenin Ok then, I'll edit my post with your criticism in mind. And I didn't mean deities that were literally or biologically opposite, I meant abstractly opposite. Just to clear things up. I'm sorry for any arrogance that was displayed.


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## Tragi-Chan (Jan 28, 2016)

Powerlevelling like fuck here, but I've lately found myself thinking about this subject a lot, and even rethinking my position. I'm an atheist and I try to be a rationalist, so I don't believe in an afterlife. I never really feared death. I was scared of pain and illness, but death itself didn't really bother me.

About six weeks ago, my best friend and sometime girlfriend died very suddenly, and it was honestly the most upsetting time of my entire life. I'd lost people to death before, but either we weren't close or they were sick or frail enough that it didn't come as a shock. This really blew me away. I found myself actually wishing that I did believe in something after death, because it's really hard to accept that someone who'd been such a major part of my life could just cease to exist without saying goodbye. I wanted, more than anything else in the world, to be able to somehow speak to her one more time. As a spirit, in a future incarnation, in the afterlife, whatever. So I think for the first time, I really understood the human need to believe in an afterlife. I still don't myself, but I still have difficulty with that "she no longer exists" thing.

Then a couple of days ago, I got rushed into hospital myself with a suspected brain haemorrhage. After much testing, it turned out to be a false alarm, but for about 24 hours I found myself absolutely terrified of the possibility of death. I was probably made more paranoid about it by my friend's sudden demise (she'd also collapsed with no warning, been rushed into hospital and been told there was nothing visibly wrong with her). But yeah, for the first time, I was actually scared of the possibility of dying. Not for anything that comes after, but for fear of upsetting those I love and of leaving things unsaid and undone. Completely illogical, but that was what was on my mind.

I guess maybe what I really believe is that the afterlife exists, but as the impression you leave behind amongst the living.


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## The Knife's Husbando (Jan 28, 2016)

Tragi-Chan said:


> I was actually scared of the possibility of dying. Not for anything that comes after, but for fear of upsetting those I love and of leaving things unsaid and undone. Completely illogical, but that was what was on my mind.



Not illogical at all.

You care about these folks. This is the reason I always say "Goodbye. I love you." to my wife & all my friends and family before I hang up the phone or leave. You never know what can happen in this big 'ol world.

And if it comes down to it, I'd like that to be the last thing they heard from me.


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## Super Collie (Jan 28, 2016)

This thread has been here for almost three years, and I finally decided to tackle it. This is a subject I don't enjoy, but I know that ignoring things doesn't make them go away.



Smokedaddy said:


> Y'know how you wake up and there are echoes of your dreams and whatever you were thinking about before you went to sleep bouncing around your head?  There's always something.
> 
> Except sometimes.
> 
> ...



I made it this far into the thread.


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## Pepsi-Cola (Feb 24, 2016)

It's just a natural part of life. When you die, nothing happens, everything just ends. If I had to believe in a afterlife I'd probably say we become like a part of the universe and what have you after we die, like our consciousness just sort of becomes one with existence or something really deep and hard to understand like that.

Think of it this way, the chances of being alive in the first place is so slim (scientifically speaking) that it was a miracle we got to exist in the first place. Just be glad you got to experience the ride of life in the first place, and know that death is all just a part of the ride.


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## c-no (Feb 24, 2016)

Pepsi said:


> It's just a natural part of life. When you die, nothing happens, everything just ends. If I had to believe in a afterlife I'd probably say we become like a part of the universe and what have you after we die, like our consciousness just sort of becomes one with existence or something really deep and hard to understand like that.


Considering that oneness with the universe and existence, Hinduism may be closest with that. At least in a sense that when we die, we could be one with Brahman (that is if we are free of Samsara, the wheel of rebirth. I have to make sure my study on Hindusim is correct).


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## AnOminous (Feb 25, 2016)

c-no said:


> Considering that oneness with the universe and existence, Hinduism may be closest with that. At least in a sense that when we die, we could be one with Brahman (that is if we are free of Samsara, the wheel of rebirth. I have to make sure my study on Hindusim is correct).



When I die, I will become one with Batman.


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## WhoWhatWhere (Feb 25, 2016)

Worrying about the death of my parents has been eating me up inside more and more as of late. With regard to my Mother she's been in remission from breast cancer a little over and year and a half now. Somehow she managed to get shit done while ill. For most of her illness she was in the process with the city getting a huge one stop homeless facility opened as the executive director. Its been an 11 year process. To this day I'm in awe of what she's accomplished.

On that note seeing her so ill that I quite literally thought she was dead twice, like called 911 and had ambulances here dead has scarred me more than I am comfortable admitting to those in real life. Internet is easier. Hearing her crash in the restroom and finding her after passing out while vomiting haunts me. Her arms were straight out, her eyes were open, her mouth was open and I swear to this day I didn't think she was breathing. This could have been for a few minutes or it could have been for ten minutes. Suddenly out of nowhere she starts not quite gasping but this deep throated I don't even fucking know what to call it.

Thinking about her dying this way so unfitting for someone that does so much good for others is horrifying. I focus on it too much.

As for my Father, he is 72 and suffers from the same (worse actually) depression and anxiety issues as I do. I wonder if he thinks about death inching closer and closer at night and what that must be like. They tell me not to think about things like this but really how do you not?

As far as myself I worry but it doesn't eat me up inside the way it does w my parents. I don't believe in afterlife. If anything I believe we go back to square one. Star stuff whatever you want to call it. Sometimes it almost seems a relief from the darker areas of my mind. 

TLDR: I don't want my loved ones to die painfully knowing the good they bring to this world. Sometimes for myself it seems like a means to ending the darker areas of my mind. No afterlife just science.

You take the good, you take the bad,
you take them both and there you have
The facts of life, the facts of life.


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## Sweet and Savoury (Feb 29, 2016)

My own death bothers me very little.  As I'll be dead and I believe in no afterlife. 

It's the death of ones close to me that keep me up in the wee hours of the night.


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## Daughter of Cernunnos (Sep 26, 2016)

Some JERK said:


> It's funny you mention death and sleep in the same sentence. For most of the time you are sleeping, "you" are effectively dead. You only dream in short bursts here and there.
> 
> Death is an event that leads to non-existence. Non existence is a non-event. You didn't exist for the billions of years leading up to your birth, and you won't exist for the billions more that lead to the eventual heat-death of the universe. Existence is an infinitesimal spark hammered between two unimaginably wide gulfs of oblivion.
> 
> What I'm really trying to say is, stop fucking around. Go get drunk or hang out w friends. Get your heart broken. Make an idiot out of yourself in public. You'll regret the shit you didn't do way more than the shit you did.


>Make an idiot out of yourself in public
>Posts this on Kiwi Farms

 #lolcowlife


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## goldthreadz (Sep 27, 2016)

its late so im gonna join in.

death is a part of life and life is a part of death. it happens at anytime , without warning to anyone. Im a firm believer of enjoying life as much as you can.
Me, i dont care much about my own death at all. Im not afraid of it. having a congenital disorder & being told you might die when you're a wee bab makes you get rid of your fear of death really damn quick. the thought of my friends dying or getting sad when i probs die before them is a topic that eats at me for days.
My thoughts of the afterlife is that it would suck big old nasty balls. One life is enough & the thought of a unending life after death really sounds exhausting and i want none of that shit. Ill take the void instead please.

 Im okay if reincarnation somehow ends up being real tho. Being a tree would be a nice change of pace.


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## DatBepisTho (Sep 27, 2016)

goldthreadz said:


> Im okay if reincarnation somehow ends up being real tho. Being a tree would be a nice change of pace.


Same. 
But I'd also be okay with being a spoopy spook. Bothering people, hidin' keys. and stinking the place up with some ghostly funk.


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## Not That Kind Of Orc (Sep 29, 2016)

Death as a concept scares the shit out of me. In most cases the scenario that leads to death is very unpleasant and potentially very painful. thinking about how your last moments on earth are possibly engulfed in agony before feeling nothing at all for the rest of time is one of the most dreadful things and sometimes it creeps up on me late at night.

Other times thoughts of death are comforting because you will have essentially ascended to the Buddhist idea of nirvana, a level of existence with no suffering. 

Mostly I worry about dying before I experience everything that I want to, but I think that's normal.


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## ERROR_ENTRY (Sep 29, 2016)

If you are dead, your senses die with you; so you won't even know you are dead.

Although, on a more personal level I've always felt that death is like a dream but permanent. So its like you'll be in a pleasant fantasy forever


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## InLivingTuna (Sep 29, 2016)

One of the strangest things to think about with regards to life is the fact that matter cant be created or destroyed, every atom in your body was technically once part of something else. That's kind of a huge twist in most peoples idea of consciousness. Would that be recycled too?


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## Ebola (Oct 3, 2016)

Some religious people will claim they have no doubt that their loved ones are in heaven and one day everyone will reunite, but the very fact that they subscribe to a religion or a philosophy or belief they themselves did not create clearly proves that there is plenty of doubt in their minds -- even if they ignore it or fail to see it. A lot of people aren't in the state of mind, and in the proper position, where they are aware of the fact that death is an illusion, so they can't accept the illusory nature of death with no doubt. And a lot of people love to say that death is an illusion, but they don't understand why, or only partly understand why, and are just parroting other people with more authority. So they always hold some doubt. The thought of slowly 'dying' scares me, but death is nothing more than passing into a parallel universe, which I know is totally painless because it happens trillions of times each second to each of us and almost no one is the wiser.


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## Locksnap (Oct 3, 2016)

Ebola said:


> Some religious people will claim they have no doubt that their loved ones are in heaven and one day everyone will reunite, but the very fact that they subscribe to a religion or a philosophy or belief they themselves did not create clearly proves that there is plenty of doubt in their minds -- even if they ignore it or fail to see it. A lot of people aren't in the state of mind, and in the proper position, where they are aware of the fact that death is an illusion, so they can't accept the illusory nature of death with no doubt. And a lot of people love to say that death is an illusion, but they don't understand why, or only partly understand why, and are just parroting other people with more authority. So they always hold some doubt. The thought of slowly 'dying' scares me, but death is nothing more than passing into a parallel universe, which I know is totally painless because it happens trillions of times each second to each of us and almost no one is the wiser.


Hmm. Okay.


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## Dr. Meme (Oct 3, 2016)

when i die just throw me in the trash


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## QI 541 (Oct 3, 2016)

goldthreadz said:


> Im okay if reincarnation somehow ends up being real tho. Being a tree would be a nice change of pace.



What makes you think you'll be a tree and not a cattle being bred for slaughter?


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## goldthreadz (Oct 3, 2016)

raymond said:


> What makes you think you'll be a tree and not a cattle being bred for slaughter?



theres alot more trees then cows bro


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## DumbDosh (Oct 6, 2016)

These two clips summarize my thoughts on death.


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## feedtheoctopus (Oct 6, 2016)

I don't know if there's a god, I don't know if there's an afterlife, but in the bigger picture these things don't mean much to me anymore. I'd rather live in the moment. Trying to get some sort of handle on eternity (even if it's an eternity of nothing) isn't something the human mind is built for. And in trying to do it I feel like most people just end up making themselves miserable. 

When I die, for better or worse, I'll know that what is happening is supposed to happen, one way or another.


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## kenham (Oct 6, 2016)

I think death is one of the last big taboos in Western society. 
People tend to ignore their own mortality, buying loads of anti-aging cream, getting plastic surgery, trying everything they can to "stay young" the nearer they are to the grave.
It's the same with the new "healthism" hype, people staying away from meat, gluten, alcohol and tobacco, and for what? To squeeze a few more meager years out of your wrinkly old body? Instead of trying to live their lifes to the fullest, living in the moment and striving for maximal happiness at the current point in their lives, they seem to desperately cling on to the illusion that more time will solve all their problems, as if they'll be scared any less if they spend more time ignoring the unknown.

Let's be honest for once: I am fucking scared of dying, and so are you.


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## Tin (Oct 9, 2016)

Im not going to lie, death scares the shit out of me. Not so much my own personal death, but that of all those i know. Its hard not to cry uselessly some nights realizing everyone close to you has the possibility of dropping out of existence at any moment. 
Also I actually did have a near-death experience as a teenager. I wont go too much into details, i just remember it started as an unbearable pain that faded over a few days into a peaceful nothingness up until the surgery i had that fixed the problem. 
Since then, ive got a tremendous anxiousness to finish everything i want to do before its all over.


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## AlanRickmanIsDead (Oct 9, 2016)

kenham said:


> Let's be honest for once: I am fucking scared of dying, and so are you.


As you get older, your mind and body start to decay.
Once you pass a certain threshold, death becomes something to accept and even embrace.


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## Jack Haywood (Oct 10, 2016)

Even though most of us like to ignore it, death is everywhere. Let me enlighten you all with this fact: 99% of all species are dead, and some of their bodies have likely been recycled into the soil we walk on. Every lifeform on the earth, human or not, all walk upon a mountain of death (or swim upon? I dunno) so what's the use in trying to constantly avoid the topic of our own mortality?


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## kenham (Oct 10, 2016)

AlanRickmanIsDead said:


> As you get older, your mind and body start to decay.
> Once you pass a certain threshold, death becomes something to accept and even embrace.


Are you old? I personally know plenty of people who got a lot more religious the older they were. Sure, they become wiser and don't seem afraid on the outside, but every man, young or old, feels terror facing absolute uncertainty.


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## AlanRickmanIsDead (Oct 10, 2016)

kenham said:


> Are you old? I personally know plenty of people who got a lot more religious the older they were. Sure, they become wiser and don't seem afraid on the outside, but every man, young or old, feels terror facing absolute uncertainty.


I'm old-ish, yes. And I do not fear death anymore. 
I do fear pain and suffering, so death will be a merciful release from this mortal coil.


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## OtterParty (Oct 10, 2016)

hey remember when we made the crazy girl hang herself LOL let's find a skitzo tranny with a massive online presence and do that to them


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## AlanRickmanIsDead (Oct 10, 2016)

OtterParty said:


> hey remember when we made the crazy girl hang herself LOL let's find a skitzo tranny with a massive online presence and do that to them


Nah, it's been done.


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## Astaroth (Oct 10, 2016)

I'm terrified of the process of dying. I know it can be peaceful in some cases but if brought on by an accident or whatever it can be really fucking painful and scary, at least up to a certain point. And loved ones' deaths really hit me hard. 

Death itself, I don't really mind the idea of not existing (in this form lol) anymore. I'm religious so I do believe in an afterlife but if it turns out to not exist, no problem. An eternity of nothingness actually sounds kind of nice.


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## kenham (Oct 10, 2016)

AlanRickmanIsDead said:


> I'm old-ish, yes. And I do not fear death anymore.
> I do fear pain and suffering, so death will be a merciful release from this mortal coil.


If you truly feel that way, I admire you.
Personally, I fear situations with unforseeable outcomes, particularly if there's the possibility, that I might lose an ability I had before. And I think most people do. 
A lot of people fear death, because death is the ultimate example for this. You might ascend a higher plane of consciousness or you might fade to exist. Only one thing is clear: Nothing will be as it was before. You will lose the ability to walk on this earth and interact with things the way you're used to. And I'm fucking terrified of that, as are most people, I think.


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## cioro (Oct 10, 2016)

I don't like my life or myself. I wish I could have the courage to take my life, because all I want to do is sleep, but I'm scared of not being able to have a chance. I look back at times where I seriously considered suicide and wonder if I'd be happy not having any experiences I had between then and now. If my boyfriend leaves me, I'll probably kill myself.


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## kookerpie (Oct 10, 2016)

I work on healthcare and we have to deal with the dead and dying regularly. People who are dying do a lot of weird shit to cope. One woman remindef me of the elderlylady from A Brave New World. She would turn on three televisions and two radios and surround herself with them. She also started tying bows made out of string onto every available surface, and eventually getting out help to do this when she could no longer manage it.
We have another woman who spends all day and night talking and sometimes arguing with an invisible person or group of people.


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## Michel (Oct 10, 2016)

I wish I was dead every day!


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## Funnybone (Oct 10, 2016)

I'm one of those optimists that thinks consciousness itself is too fucking weird and random for there NOT to be something after we parish. I'm not aligned with any religion so I don't have any firm belief on what there would be but darkness just doesn't make sense to me.

As for the actual process of death I really hope by the time I'm old and crippled (hopefully I live that long) elective euthanasia will be allowed wherever I end up. I just want a peaceful, controlled death-- surrounded by friends and maybe even during a little party.


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## WOKE_AF 95 (Oct 12, 2016)

I know this is going to sound cliched and passe, but here I go.

I've been an agnostic atheist my entire life and believed with certainy that death is the eternal end, that after death there is simply nothing. It wasn't until 2 years ago I had my views on death challanged by psychedelic drugs. Drugs didnt convince me that there is an afterlife, but they dissolved my certainy that there isn't one. Psychedelics can cause you have to have all sorts of weird ideas about conciousness and existence, and it could certainly be just drug induced nonsense, but my personal experiences certainly imply it's not simply nonsense.

I don't want to get preachy, and I dont think I understand more about death than any of you. Its just my personal opinions, and is probably just as unjustified as any other views on death


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## WOKE_AF 95 (Oct 12, 2016)

Funnybone said:


> I'm one of those optimists that thinks consciousness itself is too fucking weird and random for there NOT to be something after we parish.


This is kind of my view as well. When you really start thinking about consciousness, qualia, and how weird it is to be an existing thing that is a center of experience, it becomes impossible to imagine non existence. I mean, how does conciousness arise? If you built a super computer could it potentially become a center of experience just like we are? It could be that we are nothing more than walking super computers (by which I mean a brain) that are making this thing called concious experience out to be more profound than it is, but I too tend to be an optomist and like to think something more profound is going on.


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## Todesfurcht (Oct 16, 2016)

There's definitely some sort of afterlife, they have science now to prove that the consciousness lives on after the initial death.
It may not last forever, but I am certain that it is not an alarming experience. Talk to anyone who's had a near-death experience and they'll tell you about how pleasant and calming it was. Your brain is your greatest friend, and it will release the calming hormones you need when the time comes.

*Todesfurcht*
*Meaning:* Fear of Death


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## WOKE_AF 95 (Oct 16, 2016)

Todesfurcht said:


> There's definitely some sort of afterlife, they have science now to prove that the consciousness lives on after the initial death.
> It may not last forever, but I am certain that it is not an alarming experience. Talk to anyone who's had a near-death experience and they'll tell you about how pleasant and calming it was. Your brain is your greatest friend, and it will release the calming hormones you need when the time comes.
> 
> *Todesfurcht*
> *Meaning:* Fear of Death


While I agree conciousness is a strange phenomenon and I myself believe some sort of aterlife is possible, Im not familiar this "science that proves the concioisness lives on after death". And as far as near death experiences go, there were lots of people in this thread who said they had near death experiences where they experienced nothing at all. Also, its certainly not true everyone dies peacefully, in the last few moments of my grandfathers waking moments (he died from cancer), he was thrashing and had a look of pure terror in his eyes.


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## Todesfurcht (Oct 16, 2016)

WOKE_AF 95 said:


> While I agree conciousness is a strange phenomenon and I myself believe some sort of aterlife is possible, Im not familiar this "science that proves the concioisness lives on after death". And as far as near death experiences go, there were lots of people in this thread who said they had near death experiences where they experienced nothing at all. Also, its certainly not true everyone dies peacefully, in the last few moments of my grandfathers waking moments (he died from cancer), he was thrashing and had a look of pure terror in his eyes.



I'm not sure what is considered a valid news source among the Kiwi forums, but here are a few articles in regards to the consciousness after death:


Spoiler



One (Scientists)
Two (Scientists)
Three (Personal Experiences)


I read nearly all of the posts here and no one really "died" per say, consciousness may have been lost but was the pulse lost as well? I'm not trying to disrespect or debunk any of the previous posters, but many didn't clarify.
I think at a certain point in the process of death, the brain shuts everything down and throws out as many hormones as it possibly can. I'm sure some death is painful at first, yes, but I don't think it's an on-going agonizing pain. I'd like to believe that animals and people aren't suffering in horrific accidents.


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## 002 (Nov 27, 2016)

Death is so terrifying to me. Just the thought of dying before beeing able to fix your life and feeling real joy is horrible me, suicide isn't an option, never been born would be much nicer.


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## Fatcat (Nov 27, 2016)

I just hope i won't die in painful circumstances, instant death sounds good to be honest.


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## Chiang Kai-shek (Nov 27, 2016)

I'm worried about losing others to death than I am my own. I hope there's an afterlife but I can't say for sure. In the meantime Monty Python offers us this piece of wisdom:


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## Jacquetta (Nov 27, 2016)

I'm another agnostic atheist so I don't believe in an afterlife, obviously.

I mean, it sure would be nice if there is one (... ideally with some sort of opt out clause after a couple milennia because  that might get really old), but I don't exactly see the point in putting all my faith on there being a better life after I've croaked like some of my relatives seem to do. If I want to do anything, I'm going to have to do it here.


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## ZeCommissar (Nov 27, 2016)

It is better to die for The Emperor than live for yourself.

In all seriousness I could die tomorrow and not give a fuck. Why? Well because dead people can't give a fuck.
Also I don't believe that your consciousness, what makes you "you" exists anymore. While I do feel a slight melancholy at the aspect of not being able to interact with people and things anymore one day, honestly death doesn't seem too bad really. If the billions of people in history can die, you can to.


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## drain (Nov 27, 2016)

ZeCommissar said:


> While I do feel a slight melancholy at the aspect of not being able to interact with people and things anymore one day, honestly death doesn't seem too bad really.



I feel the exact same way. I'm not afraid of 'eternal damnation' or expecting a 'heaven' for me. I have the belief that we just... cease to be. That's a little comforting to me.
But the only thing that makes me a little sad is, as you said, not being able to be me anymore, interact with things I love, etc.


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## ToroidalBoat (Nov 30, 2016)

Todesfurcht said:


> I think at a certain point in the process of death, the brain shuts everything down and throws out as many hormones as it possibly can.


This could be an interesting read: Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences. Turns out the light at the end of a tunnel thing seems to be mostly a Western thing.

Even though NDEs seem to be hallucinations, that doesn't necessarily mean there can't be an actual afterlife somehow (a kind of resurrection or dualism is somehow able to work after all), but NDEs don't seem to prove life after death either.


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## Nobody (Dec 3, 2016)

I'd like to think that when we die, we reincarnate. Not necessarily another human being, though. Buckle the fuck up, the below read is quite a journey through the local cosmos.

We're all made up of a bunch of atoms. Biomass, I guess. Somehow, *you* are these atoms that make up your body, compared to other fully-assembled organisms around you.

I'd like to think we are a singular atom, sitting somewhere in the brain. Or perhaps we're a group of atoms led to believe we are "one". Regardless, you are *here*, sitting there in front of your screen, probably touching yourself at this very moment.

If you were to die, the established atomic/molecular/biological system that makes you "alive"... shuts off. You are now just a pile of "non-living" atoms, destined to decay, which is really just your masses of atoms being recycled elsewhere: bug shit, fungi food, soil nutrients, people food, etc.

When _*you*_ die... you, the atomic "soul"... you just get pushed around elsewhere in this earth. Your old body rots behind, you get eaten by a maggot that found its way into your old brain, you then become a protein to create a nutrient to an adult fly, the fly gets eaten by a frog, the frog metabolizes the fly into frog parts to build its muscles, the frog gets captured and eaten by a drunk Korean guy, the protein from the frog gets transferred to the Korean guy's balls, you then become a sperm in the testicles, then the Korean guy hits it up with a whore in the red light district of Seoul, and boom! You are now a miserable Korean baby! Shit like that.

Hopefully, you don't get aborted, let alone get beaten to the egg by the millions of other sperms (they will end up in the toilet or just dry up as leg-dribble). There's also variables such as... well, being here on Earth, the only planet for trillions of miles around that's able to support an environment for molecules to wiggle together, coalesce, and become fucking LIFE. Here's to hoping this planet won't explode soon!

It could be a year, a decade, a century, a millennium, or even longer before you become another sentient being. It's the beautiful circle of life. You won't remember anything about your past "life"; all of your memories died with the old body. You just exist; you're a traveling little figurative "soul" going for a fun ride in the universe, vessel to vessel. You probably have eons of afterlife to spend as a boring blood cell or something. You probably won't be a human next time. Maybe you'll be a plant.

Rest assured, the concept of time and boredom likely resides in our human minds. When we reincarnate into boring shit like cells and plants, it'll all happen in a human blink of an eye! You'll become another sentient _*thing*_ before you know it!

That's what I like to think when it comes to death. 

I also believe we should eat each other if we want to ensure our reincarnate fates as another human. Just a very good suggestion.


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## ZeCommissar (Dec 7, 2016)

Nobody said:


> *snip snip*



I agree with this mostly and pondered about it. I still believe that once whatever makes your conciseness is gone, it's gone for good. But I have pondered on this idea before.

Anyway if that theory is true, then wouldn't you branch off into multiple consciousnesses? Like the atoms that make your conciseness right now will be split apart, so wouldn't they just branch off into different beings?


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## Yawning Bulbasaur (Feb 15, 2017)

Aside from not knowing where consciousness comes from, we still don't know if it is even objectively real, and the only evidence we have for ourselves that it is real is our own subjective experiences, and even then you can't prove to anyone else that you really are conscious, it's like maybe either you are the only conscious being in the universe or I could be the only consciousness.


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## AnOminous (Feb 15, 2017)

Yawning Bulbasaur said:


> Aside from not knowing where consciousness comes from, we still don't know if it is even objectively real, and the only evidence we have for ourselves that it is real is our own subjective experiences, and even then you can't prove to anyone else that you really are conscious, it's like maybe either you are the only conscious being in the universe or I could be the only consciousness.



Even if consciousness does exist, there's no way to prove it isn't just a mistake or a pure accident.


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## Daughter of Cernunnos (Feb 15, 2017)

AnOminous said:


> Even if consciousness does exist, there's no way to prove it isn't just a mistake or a pure accident.


I know its a mistake because I have seen the unseeable on this site.


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## Bombshell (Feb 16, 2017)

I had this theory for a while. 

We are insane... all of the human race. We are all clinically insane. 

Why? Because we are the only living animal on the planet grasping the concept of life and death, though not really. We just know that one day we was born, and one day we will seize being and that's it. 

And this knowledge, this uncertainy drives us insane so we spend our life trying to find any kind of meaning or reason to this terrifying aspect. 

And that's where all religion comes from, but not just religion, big social movements, search for stardomn and so on, all this insane shit to be noticed while we are still here to get some meaning out of our exsistence, to asure ourselves we are not meaningless small entities whom are just going to live and die and most people wont even notice. 

We apply meaning to things that really has no meaning, all to make sense of this. That's why we are all clinically insane... all of us.


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## Morose_Obesity (Feb 16, 2017)

Ive been dead (in surgery).  It's just a pleasant nothingness. It doesn't hurt.


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## ERROR_ENTRY (Mar 16, 2017)

Just 30 minutes ago I was on my way back from the shop when I noticed traffic building up ahead in the road up ahead. As I got further up I saw that there were a few cops directing traffic while a guy was being lifted into an ambulance in the middle of the road. I only had a quick glace because I thought it'd be better if I didn't look but it didn't seem like he was moving. Then I thought 'that'll be me one day', morbid to think about.


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## Xenomorph (Mar 18, 2017)

I would like to think its like when you are being put deep under for surgery. I have had invasive surgery more than once and time stops. There is no dreaming no nothing, no awareness of the dark. You just shut off. Maybe if you are lucky depending on how you die you get a nice hit of DMT before you drift into the void.


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## AnOminous (Mar 18, 2017)

Do you remember before you existed?  Are you afraid of the period before you existed?

No?

Then why fear death.


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## Xenomorph (Mar 18, 2017)

AnOminous said:


> Do you remember before you existed?  Are you afraid of the period before you existed?
> 
> No?
> 
> Then why fear death.


Because I think with some people its just knowing that this WILL happen to you and you cannot stop it nor control it, scares them.


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## The Sourdough Region (Mar 20, 2017)

I personally feel that death serves as a great personal motivator. There's no way to escape it, so we might as well do as much as we can before we die.


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## A-tistic (Mar 20, 2017)

In a way "you" have died a thousand times already. No atom remains in you that was there when you were born. Everything changes, what we call death is just a faster change. If existence is a river you are a whirl in the water. A temporary shape that life takes. You are not "born out of" existence, you are the existence.

Still the concept of dying is and must be completely abstract to us. We can not comprehend it because in everything we can possibly imagine we are, per definition, there to observe it.


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## Manah (Mar 21, 2017)

AnOminous said:


> Do you remember before you existed?  Are you afraid of the period before you existed?
> 
> No?
> 
> Then why fear death.



A lot of people aren't happy with their lives and the idea that this is it, one shot and then onto oblivion forever isn't very satisfying, especially because most of us got dealt a bad hand at the start.

It's not particularly rational, since after death it's not like you'll have eternity to ponder why it sucks, but the human brain isn't rational.


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## Dysnomia (Mar 21, 2017)

I believe in reincarnation. That doesn't mean it's real. Just that I personally think it is. I think that your mind and your soul are two different things. Your soul is the energy that gives you life. Your mind is the spark of consciousness that makes you who you are. The mind is physical. It's a lump of nerves and cells and synapses that just so happens to be engineered to make use of your soul. Maybe evolution started to develop brains to make as much use out of that energy as possible. Everything else could just be a fluke as minds developed more. When you die the life energy gets recycled into something else. If you are lucky enough to be human again or at least some form of sentient being, then what's in your brain is what makes use of that energy and forms a personality. So in essence you are conscious yet again. But you just don't realise it's not the first time. I think maybe it's like having amnesia every 80 years or so. Maybe it can leave a residual impression if people who claim they remember past incarnations are for real.

I'm not religious though. I don't really care about the gods or the God or whatever. I honestly don't think it matters if they exist. For all I know we die and then wake up on a higher plane only to find we're still countless levels below where everyone wants to be. God could be God to us but a peon to something way bigger on another plane. Who knows. I think we all think smaller than we realise because it keeps us sane.


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## Hui (Mar 21, 2017)

You die. You rot.  The world ends eventually. Everything does. I like watching The Crow.


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## GV 998 (Mar 21, 2017)

Death is pretty frightening. I believe in God and a life after death, but still, death does scare me. Because there is always that nagging thought in the back of my head : "What if you're wrong?"

Some people are ok with the thought of complete nonexistence, but personally, that terrifies me more than a painful death. I'm not being full of myself, I'm not saying "it would be a tragedy if a mind like mine were snuffed out forever!", I just don't like the thought of being gone, in every sense of the word.

If I had 100% no doubts about the afterlife being real, then I would not fear death at all. But you can't have that. Otherwise, faith would be meaningless.


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## Jason Genova (Mar 21, 2017)

AnOminous said:


> *Even if consciousness does exist*, there's no way to prove it isn't just a mistake or a pure accident.


How could it not?

Seems to me like consciousness is the only thing in life that couldn't be an illusion.


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## Lackadaisy (Mar 21, 2017)

Best part about being Jewish is that there's no Hell. Worst part is that there's no Heaven. :/


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## Yawning Bulbasaur (Mar 22, 2017)

Lackadaisy said:


> Best part about being Jewish is that there's no Hell. Worst part is that there's no Heaven. :/


Is death like anuddah shoah?


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## MrLooks (Mar 29, 2017)

Listen, MrLooks has seen the other side.

MrLooks feels that you should not concern yourself with death, instead have threesomes every night and indulge in romantic fantasies until your dying day. Candlelit dinners with beauty queens who are just your type, watching the stars, watching the clouds... Holding hands on a gondola in Venice.

These are the things that really matter about this existence.


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## Mattzilla (Apr 2, 2017)

I wish I was able to say that I don't fear death, but I can't. I'm scared of death only because I don't know if something comes after death, and whatever it is. Its terrifying to me.


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## Lackadaisy (Apr 2, 2017)

Yawning Bulbasaur said:


> Is death like anuddah shoah?



Maybe once God gets off his lazy ass and decides that we're worth it. /p much what it says in the Torah


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## Daughter of Cernunnos (Apr 3, 2017)

Dysnomia said:


> I believe in reincarnation. That doesn't mean it's real. Just that I personally think it is. I think that your mind and your soul are two different things. Your soul is the energy that gives you life. Your mind is the spark of consciousness that makes you who you are. The mind is physical. It's a lump of nerves and cells and synapses that just so happens to be engineered to make use of your soul. Maybe evolution started to develop brains to make as much use out of that energy as possible. Everything else could just be a fluke as minds developed more. When you die the life energy gets recycled into something else. If you are lucky enough to be human again or at least some form of sentient being, then what's in your brain is what makes use of that energy and forms a personality. So in essence you are conscious yet again. But you just don't realise it's not the first time. I think maybe it's like having amnesia every 80 years or so. Maybe it can leave a residual impression if people who claim they remember past incarnations are for real.
> 
> I'm not religious though. I don't really care about the gods or the God or whatever. I honestly don't think it matters if they exist. For all I know we die and then wake up on a higher plane only to find we're still countless levels below where everyone wants to be. God could be God to us but a peon to something way bigger on another plane. Who knows. I think we all think smaller than we realise because it keeps us sane.


Interesting idea. An Orphic conception of the afterlife was that after death the unitiated become shades, pale shadows of their former shelf. Their minds degrade, they thirst and hunger especially if descendents to not give them offerings. 

Despite the degradation of the mind, the soul itself is intact and is reborn when the souls drink from Lethe in their thirst. But they have no memory of their former lives because Lethe is the river of obivlion and forgetfulness. People initated into mysteries traditions sometimes have a special oppourtunity to drink from the well of Memory and escape the cycle of obilvion, suffering and rebirth. 

https://bakcheion.wordpress.com/prepare/the-story/


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## The Kebab and Calculator (Apr 5, 2017)

I am not scared of death at all. Indeed in some ways it is a rather comforting prospect.

I am not so keen on the prospect of the pain which may be the precursor to death... I do not do pain well at all.


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## nonnewtonian (Apr 9, 2017)

The inevitability of death doesn't really scare me. I've made my peace with the fact that one day I'm not going to be here anymore. What gets me is the unpredictably. I don't know when I'm going to die. I don't know how I'm going to die. Like most people I want to go peacefully in my sleep at an old age, but I could bite the dust tomorrow in a car accident and feel nothing but agony in my final moments as I bleed out on the pavement.
That's what scares me.


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## ToroidalBoat (Apr 9, 2017)

Dysnomia said:


> reincarnation


Living as a limited mortal over and over again isn't an appealing idea.



Spoiler



And with reincarnation, there's the risk of being born in a life like that of CWC or ADF.


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## bbpoison (Apr 15, 2017)

I think death doesn't exist. I think our consciousness is weaker than we perceive it to be or rather it is an illusion that other people tell us that we are each an isolated identity. Our minds pop in and out like subatomic particles but on a more complex scale that gives an illusion of concreteness but still follows the same pattern. Our bodys are engineered for survival in our evolutionary journey, hence why the concept of death exists. Our environment, existence itself, has formed humanity and now the technological tools that humans created for the improvement of survival are now reorganizing our lives into higher forms of structure (ie: the internet) I believe in the possibility that any form of our static selfs at any given time can be recreated and the infinite possibilities of selves yet not created can be formed as well with future technology. Humans lives ultimately become technological tools. This does not lessen the human experience . Many who glimpse at this realization but still are grounded in traditional understanding of human value see horror and meaninglessness, nihilism. But I believe everthing that happens is part of the process. No matter how isolated you percieve a phenomena to be it is all connected and functioning as one. I believe we are existence itself trying to wake up. There are boundaries that I,as the traditional individual, cannot pass but I with this new found knowledge can transcend them and have no choice but to transcend them for I cannot go back. Of course parts of me forget this but I get reminded again and again.


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## IAmSad (Apr 15, 2017)

Being dead doesn't really scare me, I'm more worried about how I'll die. Burning to death/drowning/bleeding to death/etc... all would suck pretty hard. I think I would be okay with pretty much anything that happens after I die, nothing would be nice since I could finally rest and people could move on from me, heaven/hell would be interesting, the only thing I wouldn't really want is reincarnation. Life is hard, I'm not sure I would want to do it again if given the option...


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## Shibaru (Feb 28, 2019)

Death just Surrounds me in Fear.
My Dreams are Haunted by Death, My Thoughts are Haunted by Death, Even the Happiest thought I Could think of can get Interruped by Death, Death is just Everywhere, I Need Help.


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