# Does anyone else have doubts that death is the end?



## Squirrelevant (Jul 27, 2008)

This thread might be rather dark and heavy, and contains some potentially disturbing thoughts about death, so don't say I didn't warn you.

I've been an atheist for about a decade now and I don't believe in anything supernatural. I believe that the universe is completely indifferent towards us. Until recently, I used to tell myself that death was just non-existence, just like how we don't exist before we were born. This gave me some comfort.

Last year I experienced my first (and hopefully my last) psychotic episode. My brain had to come up with an explanation for the weird things I was experiencing, and that explanation was that I was a conscious entity created within a simulation controlled by a godlike AI. I believed that this AI was intent on torturing me, and could keep my alive until its own energy supply ran out, which could have been upwards of billions of years. It forced me to think about death and eternity in a very visceral sense on an almost hourly basis.

Thanks to some ECT treatments, I've been completely free of any psychotic features for about a year now, but I think the whole experience has left me with a lot of anxieties regarding death.

I feel that my former view of death simply being non-existence relied on a few assumptions that I'm now not so sure of. Now to me it seems that no one really knows what happens at death. I still don't believe in anything supernatural, and I still believe that the universe is indifferent towards us; there's no intrinsic sense of justice in the world and the only "balance" in the universe probably comes at the level of quarks. But if the universe really is indifferent, doesn't it seem a little too convenient that death would just be an eternity of non-existence?

One assumption is that our perception of time always flows in a regular fashion, but what if there's a limit during death at which our perception of time is slowed? What if there's something about consciousness that makes it impossible to be completely destroyed? I don't pretend to know much at all about quantum physics, but what if some kind of quantum fluctuation occurs given an infinite amount of time that "resurrects" us in some sense? What if we are randomly reincarnated into some being in a parallel universe? What if we actually are in a simulation, as some have seriously considered? What if we continue to exist in an arbitrary state that could potentially be rather hellish for the rest of eternity?

These questions have motivated me to explore the nature of consciousness and how the process of dying might affect the brain. I don't really expect this to lead to any definitive answers, but it does lead to a lot more questions. If the brain doesn't shut down all at once, what does this feel like? When exactly do we lose awareness? What hallucinations or dreams might we experience? Are our very own memories and sense of who we are rewritten in the process? How does this affect our perception of time and space and our innumerable senses (proprioception, smell, taste, sight, sound, touch, etc.)?

My depression and anxiety have actually been improving due to medications and therapy, but I now have this lingering unease about death and I'd like to be able to find some reassurance or acceptance/comfort regarding it. I am only 32 years old, so hopefully this gives me enough time to come to terms with it before I meet my inevitable *end* and all these mysteries are finally put to rest.

I don't really expect any responses to this thread to solve my problem. I just thought that perhaps putting my thoughts into words might help. And it also might be nice to know that if I'm not alone in having thoughts like this.


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## Squirrelevant (Jul 27, 2008)

And in case all this thinking about death was a little too scary, here's a video to lighten the mood :


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## GeomTech (Sep 29, 2015)

Hmm. Well, the idea of reincarnation screws with me quite a lot. Being doomed to be reincarnated (though we supposedly "forget" our prior experiences) on this ****ty planet; time after time to supposedly learn some lesson regarding the principles of life or love or something along those lines. Just imagining the sum total of suffering for just one of those incarnation lines..... *sigh*; all to one day get to this mystical "nirvana" or state of enlightenment; which _might_ be being reconcilable with "return to the void" or something; the cessation of the cycle; our paralell idea of blackness or nothingness that most atheists hold.

But on the topic of death, I wonder.... If there were another realm we were to go to after physical death, would we stay there? What is this "eternity" business that people throw around? If there's a higher realm in relation to the physical, why couldn't there be a higher realm in relation to that higher realm? Couldn't this whole thing keep regressing further and further; meta-structure upon meta-structure. If this is the case, then the question might be "why".

But on another paralell line of thought, I wonder if the formulation of the universe was the result of the activity of other universes interacting (assuming multiverse theory is true). And it makes me think of how many universes there might be nested inside, and there being a kind permutative combinatoric creation and destruction of universes tethered in with a "memory" feature that may make a a certain pattern of interactions within it emerge once again (particular creatures such as ourselves). Like, us being a property of said universe which emerges given certain conditions, though there might be a myriad of ways one can arrive to it. So, since the states of "you" change (though supposedly ever-so minutely), and if the initial spawning is close enough to the first in relation, then, you might "hit" one of those possibilities; "you" "coming into being" so to speak.

And then, there's the idea where there is no "you", and that it's all an idea constructed at a certain level of scope ("you" isn't the bacteria on your fingernail or your liver, etc) for purposes of orienting around the world. And that "you" could expand (so, throwing away the previous "you" construct); the more you find the commonalities between things (a view being "you" being the actual universe, but manifested in a particular way). So, the idea of a personal "you" vanishes, and then, from that perspective, there is no one that dies or is born. But there's the sticky problem of composite objects, language, and emergent properties, etc. Ugh.... And probably other issues as well.

And from here, one could turn the questioning back to the questioner. Why ask these questions, and who exactly is asking these questions? And from here, you're eventually supposedly going to discover that there is no solid "you" (It's just a thought); which tethers into the idea that everything is "one" or "whole".

But about the void.... the unknown; but even that wouldn't be describing it. It's utterly incomprehensible (still botching it, like a recursive botching); and maybe it's a stage of the facet of the overall nested structuring that seemingly goes on and on.

*sigh* What I said is riddled with glaring problems, and brings more questions. This took quite a while to write; not sure if I'll be adding anything else here. I thought more eyebrows would've perked up upon viewing this thread being created (but I guess most are reluctant to read a wall of text (I do this sometimes)). Interesting stuff nonetheless. I guess they've gone through the exhaustive thinking process, believed there to be no utility in discussing these matters, and haven't returned to them since. *shrugs*

But idk. These ideas are probably crap. Guess in the end, we'll find out for ourselves. I mean, if there does happen to be an afterlife, I would want to work on the project of connecting these 2 broken realms together; assuming it can be done.


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## roxslide (Apr 12, 2011)

No, not really. Because I haven't been introduced to any kind of evidence that would lead me to doubt this. My more emotional take (that I've told Christians who've asked me if non-existence freaks me out) is that not-existing is the worst possible thing that could happen to me, so if I was to continue to be conscious after death then that could only be a better scenario than my original guess (even if that's a terrible hellish like existence, I would still take it over not-existing). So it serves me emotionally as well to believe in non-existence after death rather than look for some answer to a question that can't really be answered atm.



Squirrelevant said:


> These questions have motivated me to explore the nature of consciousness and how the process of dying might affect the brain. I don't really expect this to lead to any definitive answers, but it does lead to a lot more questions. If the brain doesn't shut down all at once, what does this feel like? When exactly do we lose awareness? What hallucinations or dreams might we experience? Are our very own memories and sense of who we are rewritten in the process? How does this affect our perception of time and space and our innumerable senses (proprioception, smell, taste, sight, sound, touch, etc.)?


This is interesting though. I do like this train of thought, but obviously, we can only speculate at this point.


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## Squirrelevant (Jul 27, 2008)

GeomTech said:


> Hmm. Well, the idea of reincarnation screws with me quite a lot. Being doomed to be reincarnated (though we supposedly "forget" our prior experiences) on this ****ty planet; time after time to supposedly learn some lesson regarding the principles of life or love or something along those lines. Just imagining the sum total of suffering for just one of those incarnation lines..... *sigh*; all to one day get to this mystical "nirvana" or state of enlightenment; which _might_ be being reconcilable with "return to the void" or something; the cessation of the cycle; our paralell idea of blackness or nothingness that most atheists hold.


Well, I definitely don't believe in that kind of reincarnation. I don't think there are any lessons we are supposed to learn. I think our existence is essentially accidental and whatever happens to us is due to the naturalistic laws of the universe. If reincarnation were a reality, I'd expect it to be arbitrary, which to me is a much scarier thought. Being reincarnated as the same species, let alone on the same planet also seems unrealistic to me.


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## GeomTech (Sep 29, 2015)

Squirrelevant said:


> Well, I definitely don't believe in that kind of reincarnation. I don't think there are any lessons we are supposed to learn. I think our existence is essentially accidental and whatever happens to us is due to the naturalistic laws of the universe. If reincarnation were a reality, I'd expect it to be arbitrary, which to me is a much scarier thought. Being reincarnated as the same species, let alone on the same planet also seems unrealistic to me.


Oh, yeah. Unlikely that that it occurs; but it just doesn't set right with me in general.


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## NotFullyHere (Apr 29, 2018)

This is my personal belief:

I am convinced that my consciousness will continue to live after physical death, mainly because I still have memory prior to being born. Quite a few people have these pre-mortal memories, actually. I've come across at least ten people who had very similar pre-birth memories to mine, which was pretty shocking to me because I always thought I'd imagined it all up. 

Sadly, just like any other religion, I can't really prove this to anyone. Unless, multiple people having the exact same memory can be used as evidence?

Anyway, whatever. lol

NFH


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## rabidfoxes (Apr 17, 2016)

I believe in all that hippy nonsense about unity with the world. Within that belief, parts of you 'die' and 'are born' all the time in a cycle of renewal. Since you're kind of in everything, it doesn't matter. I don't always feel like this - mostly I don't, but I've had some times when I did, and it felt nice. So I'll go with nice. In any case, it definitely alleviates any fears/anxieties in relation to death.

Although, I like to think that some kind of individual consciousness exists even within the unity. I've read some mad stuff about reincarnation, states of consciousness and Plato's music of the spheres, and I believe all of it. The idea of life as a learning process appeals to me. I wouldn't be thrilled if I thought all that effort just returned to the environment without any continuity/sequel.

I may very well be wrong, but I'm content to wait and see.


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## BeautyandRage (Jul 2, 2018)

I myself am a Christian, leaning towards agnosticism. I constantly wonder what the afterlife will be like, or if it’s just like being put under anesthesia where everything is black and you basically don’t exist in the time you’re put under. I wonder what heaven would be like, or hell, there’s no way for certain to know if there’s a God or heaven, but I think Christians tell themselves this so they are set in what afterlife is, so it’s not unknowing. I am so scared of the unknown and sometimes I’m suicidal but I could never kill myself because I’m so freaking scared of the unknown and I cry about death sometimes because I just want to know what’s waiting for me, if anything at all. I want to exist, I want there to be an afterlife, I don’t want to just stop existing and never be able to think of all that I hold dear in my life and memories. **** now I’m getting anxiety from all this talk lmao :bah


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## a degree of freedom (Sep 28, 2011)

rabidfoxes said:


> I believe in all that hippy nonsense about unity with the world. Within that belief, parts of you 'die' and 'are born' all the time in a cycle of renewal. Since you're kind of in everything, it doesn't matter. I don't always feel like this - mostly I don't, but I've had some times when I did, and it felt nice. So I'll go with nice. In any case, it definitely alleviates any fears/anxieties in relation to death.


I like this line of thinking because it terminates with the sense that one's own death is unimportant and one need not take themselves as personally as to worry about death. It also leaves me with a sense that it is the only fully self-consistent answer and it removes the sense of absurdity that arises from pondering self-existence. Along with these thoughts is the supposition that perhaps this very finite and individual existence is the only vehicle possible for what is everything to experience self-awareness and be what it is. Such chains of logical necessity have great appeal to me. Though I am at core a pragmatist, and aggressively endorse mental cohesion as a criterion of truth. It is also apparent that mental cohesion for me is disrupted by anything more than curiosity and joy in the mysteries of life. If I find myself needing an answer, it is not the answer I need.



rabidfoxes said:


> I may very well be wrong, but I'm content to wait and see.


I like the thought that in the end, all that matters is the quality of one's consciousness. Or at least, it is a useful reminder to check in on myself: "what is my brain doing right now and what is it doing it for? Is this process serving me?" There is also some thrill to be had in acknowledging that about the greatest questions, one simply does not know, because placing the discomfort of that uncertainty squarely on one's own shoulders is a sudden freedom and self-empowerment.


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## Richard Pawgins (Jul 11, 2013)

Nah I'm pretty sure it's the end

there are people in vegetative states that are pretty much dead while alive

so when I'm dead I'm pretty sure I'll be dead while dead

The only thing I do kinda fear is reincarnation. which is probably not likely, but if it happens that would suck.

I simply don't want to exist


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## rockyraccoon (Dec 13, 2010)

I died before and was brought back. I was prescribed an anti-psychotic and it turned out I was allergic to it. I was in my room at my parent's house and I had trouble breathing. I found my mom and she started crying and told my dad we have to take me to the hospital. I remember the ride down to the hospital. I was breathing less and less and my dad was blowing stop signs while my mom screamed louder and louder, "he's dying, go faster". Anyway I knew I was dying. People talk all the time and throw the phrases around like "I was so scared I thought I was going do die". But when you die you have absolutely no control. You are imprisoned in a state of complete helplessness. I was crying and I new I was dying. When you are dying you know it. At first I lost my hearing and went deaf then I began to lose my peripheral vision. I tried to fight as hard as I could but then I gave up. I submitted to death. Once I did that I felt total calm and peace envelope my whole body. 



My anxiety went away, everything, all my pain. Once all that was done the last thing I remember was my dad pulled up in the emergency ward and we walked in and I collapsed dead on the floor. I awoke a few minutes later. The doctors were able to determine that it was an allergic reaction so they pumped epinephrine into my vains. You know that scene in Pulp Fiction when Uma Thurman overdosed and they pump her full of epinephrine? Well that's exactly what happened to me. I came back to life and literally almost jumped out of the hospital bed. It was total ****ing chaos. There must have close to a dozen doctors all crowded around me.


When the anxiety went away and I was totally calm and died I heard women in my head saying "this isn't your time. Hang on, we'll bring you back." There wasn't any white lights that a lot of people talk about. For me it was just darkness, total peace, and these women speaking to me. Who were the women you may ask? I honestly don't ****ing know. I grew up monotheist then became atheist then became agnostic. I had completely rejected religion and was proud to exercise apostasy. 



Was the anxiety that left and replaced by calmness some sort of hint that there would be an afterlife for me of peace? I don't know. Is there life after death, I don't know, maybe but I don't put to much thought into it. There really is no point worrying about death. You are going to die one day and it will be all over. Why waste your time stressing about an inevitable event that you can not control.


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## Squirrelevant (Jul 27, 2008)

Richard Pawgins said:


> Nah I'm pretty sure it's the end
> 
> there are people in vegetative states that are pretty much dead while alive
> 
> ...


Well, even though I do have some doubts, if I had to bet on it I'd still guess that it was the end. I've been put under general anaesthesia and that time just disappears. I imagine it's probably like that, only never waking up, i.e non-existence. The idea of a naturalistic *afterlife* scares me because I figure that there's more ways for things to go wrong than to go right. Non-existence, on the other hand, sits relatively well with me.


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## sad1231234 (Jul 10, 2016)

Basically unless there is some benevolent creator, then the entire universe is screwed


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## Post_Punk_Proclivity (Oct 12, 2008)

The question that comes to me whenever the topic of reincarnation gets raised is always why would the universe come to experience itself in such a way that immense suffering and anguish is possible?

I know most people choose to argue the inconsequentiality of everything i.e, our 'dead-desert' religion of reductionistic habits of mind which rule out any existing sentience inherent within matter and the cosmos, but I am not entirely sold on that premise and here's why. For me I tend to err towards speculating on what seems to be the most likely given what little clues the universe provides and the more I go through life the more I realise I can't do this without asking fundamental questions about the nature of the assumptions we've already made and accept as infallible truths. It is the presupposition that complexity in the conscious form arises only from complex arrangements of matter, that is, matter is purely mechanical and possesses no type of base level consciousness therefore consciousness is a type of illusion. Rather than doing anything to explain this hard problem, all the current iteration of the scientific paradigm manages to achieve is to cast aside the possibility of any real scientific evaluation on the matter of consciousness from taking place in a meaningful way.

At any rate, what I am getting at here is that there is a type of sentience or intelligence inherent within all matter, regardless of the complexity of its arrangement. Matter has shown it's ability to produce complex forms of consciousness by arranging itself in a certain way and ergo it seems plausible that _some type_ of intelligence exists at the base level to make all of this a possibility. Wildly heretic to most true-to-form reductionists, I know. But when I see physicists delving deeper and deeper into the nature of dark matter and quantum fields for example, it becomes apparent that matter takes on a mind of its own. (See the quantum slit experiment involving the photons of light)

One last thing I would have to say on this somewhat crazy tangent is that provided that all aforementioned premises hold true, it makes complete sense to me that reincarnation is more than a possibility and it is highly probable that it involves fluctuations in quantum fields. Who knows, perhaps those 'fluctuations' are responsible for allowing your consciousness to manifest too in alternate dimensions. Now there's some thoughts to blaze up to.


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## rabidfoxes (Apr 17, 2016)

@a degree of freedom

Thanks - I'm glad no one has shot me down yet (the thread is still young!). I was reading a book called Black Swan (interesting, but annoying enough for me to abstain from recommending it to anyone), which emphasises the human tendency to improvise knowledge where there is none. We don't like to say we don't know, but generally it's not a bad idea.

Ed: really hope I'm doing this @ think correctly, seem to mess it up 4/5 times


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## Milco (Dec 12, 2009)

Squirrelevant said:


> But if the universe really is indifferent, doesn't it seem a little too convenient that death would just be an eternity of non-existence?


Non-existence is exactly what you'd expect in a universe that's indifferent.



Squirrelevant said:


> What if there's something about consciousness that makes it impossible to be completely destroyed?


There's nothing whatsoever suggesting that's the case and it would seem to rely on the existence of a god.



Squirrelevant said:


> I don't pretend to know much at all about quantum physics, but what if some kind of quantum fluctuation occurs given an infinite amount of time that "resurrects" us in some sense?


Thankfully, there isn't infinite time.
But even if there were, if you accept that your consciousness is a product of physical reality, then sure, the same constellation as what is currently producing 'you' could happen again, but it wouldn't be 'you' any more than a clone would be 'you'.
So since it seems silly to think we'd be in simultaneous control of both ourselves and all our potential clones (it would again require some kind of metaphysical linking of physical structures that just happens to be the same), there's no risk that we'll be reincarnated that way either.
Reincarnation in general requires a metaphysical link that would violate physical reality.


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## Erroll (Jan 18, 2016)

@GeomTech

I encountered a brain-sprain reading your post here. A lot of interesting thoughts, but rather disconnected. Here's my philosophy of life. It's what I tend to believe.

I believe that we are born a tabula rasa, a blank slate, upon which life experience subsequently writes a human soul.

Aside from some basic inherited activities, the newborn can be compared to a computer set up with an empty Marknov neural net.

The training set, to the flesh based neural net in a new human, is the sum total of the life experiences to which that net has been subjected. This is the soul. If you're a Christian, you can say it's how God creates souls, how a god without lungs breathes life into a human.

So that which makes up my soul is the unique set of experiences which I encounter. Lots of other people are likely to have experienced everything that I have experienced. What makes a person unique, however, is the combination and timing of his experiences, because each new experience can only be understood in the light of what was learned from total previous experiences.

But we do not just passively experience. We also act in light of what our experience has taught us. So our being presents a unique experience which helps form the souls of others. We are part of the training sets for other flesh based Markhov neural nets. So what we are, our soul, becomes entangled with the souls being formed around us. We become part of them. We do not live only in our own body, but in a sense we live in the bodies of those who know us. It's like the better they know us, the more realistically they can think our thoughts. It's like we have mini neural nets for those people who we have experienced, and these nets recreate that person's thinking in our body. Have you heard people say things like "Well, if my daddy were here, he would..."? That is an embassy of daddy's brain which is established in my head to the extent that I interacted with and knew daddy.

So ultimately, every action you do, every person who you influence, changes the progression of history forever. This is the dignity of man. Your unique thoughts and insights, stemming from your unique experiential training set, affect the universe for all future time. And that is what it means to have eternal life.


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## Suchness (Aug 13, 2011)

Nah.


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## Chevy396 (Jul 10, 2017)

Death is simply the reclaiming of your cells back into the environment. You are no longer here as a person but your cells will become part of some other living thing. Even if your cells ended up in something conscious, you wouldn't remember being a person. Essentially it is only the end of your consciousness, but not life.


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## dreadcurse (Nov 28, 2018)

I used to doubt it plenty. I'm convinced now. The easiest logic I have to hand is the fact that I was essentially dead for however many billions of years before I was a born. I don't think I have existed forever in the past, so why should I exist forever in the future? Naturally the will to live that drives us makes this difficult to accept. Every fibre in us screams 'don't die', and yet we are haunted by the foreknowledge that sooner or later we will anyway.


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## Mr Grey (Jan 15, 2013)

Hello... I'm a fellow non believer, raised religious, turned apistevist to the bitter end. And this is my personal views:

Our brain is nothing more than a collection of atoms and molecules interacting with each other. Just like a computer runs a program until you turn it off, when we get turned off, we seize to exist. There is no consciousness that lives beyond. And I can somewhat provide proof... 

proof #1: Cases of people who have survive serious head trauma (like being shot in the head), where chunks of the brain were destroyed. Some recovered, but there were things that they could not remember, skills they no longer had.

proof #2: Old folks, with Alzheimer/dementia, where cat scans of brain shows what seems to be Swiss cheese. Their personality is no longer there, they don't even recognize family no more. The person you knew it's gone.

Consciousness is the result of all the brain parts working together. It doesn't keep on going once the brain is gone. 

I do agree that it kinda sucks. It would be cool if there was something else beyond. But it's just like hoping for 10 more seasons of Attack on Titan... at some point we have to realize that it's just not gonna happen.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

Nope. None.


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## blue2 (May 20, 2013)

Idk maybe death is the end of a chapter not the end of the book XD


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## Tetragammon (Jun 2, 2015)

Logically I'm pretty solid on the concept that death is indeed the end. Obviously anything is possible since nobody can truly "come back" from death, but it seems extremely unlikely that any part of our personalities could "carry on" without the brain from which they arose. Especially since all of the "near-death" experiences out there can easily be explained by the lack of oxygen supply to the brain as the body shuts down and the resulting hallucinations. I don't believe in "souls" or "spirits."

That said, I feel like the death of loved ones is a major factor in the survival of modern religions. My uncle died last week, and while I was never very close to him, my mom was and it hit her pretty hard. Plus his death made me realize again that my parents will die one day and I'm honestly not sure how I could cope with that. And even though I know that he's most likely just gone, I still raised a glass in his name and drank to his memory. I hate to think of the fact that I'll most likely never see him again, nor be able to talk or laugh with him again. I focus on the fact that he lived an awesome life, and he just kept living it up right until the very end. 

I hate funerals, and especially "viewings." I don't need or want to see a person after they've died; what's the point? When I die I just want whoever remembers me to put up some photos from my life and have a party -- celebrate my life, don't mourn my death!


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## exceptionalfool (Nov 30, 2018)

I was sort of convinced of the limitations of human consciousness in death when I got my wisdom teeth pulled. The doctor injected me with the same drug they use in larger doses to euthanize pets. It shut me down like an old desktop computer. I remember going to sleep and waking up in what seemed like an instant. The time in between was just lost. Gone. Then there were was the time or two when I blacked out from drinking too much. These experiences left with the impression that my being was just a frail wash of chemistry. It just seems too easy to feed your brain some chemical and take a vacation from existence as you would otherwise know it for there to be anything immutable or eternal about it.

As far as quantum physics and how consciousness can't be destroyed, my uncle talks about this sometimes. He mentions quantum entanglement and the observer effect and how particles seem to be "aware." It's interesting, but I haven't been able to "see it" and grasp the connection the way he does. I'm not really schooled in physics, so I would have trouble understanding that I guess.


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## exceptionalfool (Nov 30, 2018)

Tetragammon said:


> That said, I feel like the death of loved ones is a major factor in the survival of modern religions. My uncle died last week, and while I was never very close to him, my mom was and it hit her pretty hard. Plus his death made me realize again that my parents will die one day and I'm honestly not sure how I could cope with that. And even though I know that he's most likely just gone, I still raised a glass in his name and drank to his memory. I hate to think of the fact that I'll most likely never see him again, nor be able to talk or laugh with him again. I focus on the fact that he lived an awesome life, and he just kept living it up right until the very end.


I have thought this too and feel the same way, even for people who haven't died. It's hard to accept that they're just gone and it's hard to let go of people you love. All the logic and discussion in the world doesn't change that as far as I am concerned. I'd still like to believe they are 'somewhere.' Sorry for your recent loss. Rest in peace.


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## celrys (Jan 6, 2019)

My journey has been from Christian, to athiest, to “not sure” now. I do not enjoy the thought of practicing any faith based on fear. However I and my family have had a few unexplained experiences through our lives; of course anything can be explained away, and they come at it with their own perspectives. 

I have mixed feelings about eternity and the idea that our consciousness “must” either be reborn or travel somewhere after death, and I’m very curious, but on the other hand...I don’t want to know. I used to be very settled in thinking death was like sleep and found it sort of comforting. It’s weird to have an existential crisis thinking about the other way around. So you’re not alone. :stu


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## blue2 (May 20, 2013)

It's not, never deny your inner ghost : /


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

I have no real doubt that death is the end of me (or whomever has died). The problem is that just knowing that doesn't change the fact that the experience of dying is never going to be pleasant. And you can't even look forward to being glad it's over and your suffering actually had a purpose. 

OK, I won't say it could never possibly be pleasant. Just that it probably won't be for most people. Especially those who see it coming and know it's happening and don't want it to. On a 1-10 scale of how much things suck (or how much a given thing CAN suck), that's gotta be 10 level suckage right there.


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## Chevy396 (Jul 10, 2017)

I don't believe in consciousness after death, but I do believe kinda weird.

I think maybe your mind can distort time and space enough at that moment before death feels like eternity.

As far as we are concerned, it slows down time and that is the closest thing to an afterlife we get.


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## Chevy396 (Jul 10, 2017)

WillYouStopDave said:


> I have no real doubt that death is the end of me (or whomever has died). The problem is that just knowing that doesn't change the fact that the experience of dying is never going to be pleasant. And you can't even look forward to being glad it's over and your suffering actually had a purpose.
> 
> OK, I won't say it could never possibly be pleasant. Just that it probably won't be for most people. Especially those who see it coming and know it's happening and don't want it to. On a 1-10 scale of how much things suck (or how much a given thing CAN suck), that's gotta be 10 level suckage right there.


What if it's actually the best feeling in the world? Pretty sure I died a little from huffing paint as a kid. The experience I felt was like heaven and never seemed to end while I was down in it..


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## avoidobot3000 (Aug 22, 2010)

science will never be able to answer spiritual questions... can we prove or disprove the existence of god or afterlife, in a lab, repeatedly? no
There is enough individual experiences, however, to create doubt in my mind. Also, there is information in our Universe, not parsable by our puny monkey brains, in everyday life- simulation theory has been disproved because of the universe's infinite complexity.


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## HamSarris (Apr 27, 2019)

I don't remotely believe in an afterlife.


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