I was about to start an Existential Dread thread but I saw this one, couple of things I've been thinking about a lot lately The idea of us existing at all is greater than zero, so the odds of us existing in some form after death is greater than zero, kind of reassuring because at a cosmic infinite scale anything greater than zero becomes guaranteed to happen in some way Consciousness seems more and more like an illusion to me, take something like a phone that has a limited consciousness, when it breaks beyond repair, the part of the phone that worked doesn't go on existing somewhere else. We're bodies, when we're gone the part of our bodies that thinks and feels and loves doesn't go anywhere. I like the idea of a collective consciousness, where we'd all be one person living in millions of bodies at once, even if doesn't add up for a lot of reasons its been helping me with empathy. I'm very much into higher dimension discussions, and now that I don't really believe in a soul, that's really helping me cope with my dread. The universe will constantly repeat and cycle and do things over again, so if you're in an existence now you'll be in some existence an infinite amount of times throughout an infinite number of realities. Also you're technically experiencing those higher dimensions all at once so its happening now and its all an illusion and its fucking absurd to even consider like who put all this here fuck I'm going back to playing smash bros
Picked up my phone the other day with the instinctual intention of calling my dad. It's been two years and I still make little mistakes like this from time to time.
The scariest thing about death is the uncertainty of what's next. I can't imagine dying and just not "being" if that makes sense. I can't wrap my head around how my mind wouldn't have thoughts anymore. It just doesn't make sense to me and gives me a headache to try to understand. Also, I just don't want to die a painful death.
I just figure I didn't know what it was like to not exist before I born and that didn't seem to bother me so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I hear what you're sayin. Although, I'm much more afraid of how I'm gonna die than the nothingness.
But now that you have had and have thoughts and memories, it's trying to understand how that can just all go away. What would that "feel" like?
Nothing, I suppose. I dunno, it sucks and it makes me sad but to me it's easier to comprehend than like an afterlife or something like that.
I don't want an afterlife, having to deal with my brain for all eternity sounds miserable, but it is wild to imagine the world still turning after you're dead but not knowing for how long
Everyone go see A Ghost Story. It's very pertinent to both this conversation and to so much that I think about. I honesty just love life so much and the thought of not laughing and hanging out with my friends and family sounds terrible. I'm not "afraid" of death in the traditional sense of the word but I do dread it. Ever since my dad died I seriously think about my own death all the time
Life or not after death is like the thought of what would be easier to comprehend: that the universe stops at some point and nothing exists (what the hell would that look like?) or that the universe goes on forever, for infinity (how is that possible?). For me, in the face of the absurdity of life with certain death, some type of "life" after death is more comprehensible than just suddenly not existing. What that would look like seems impossible to guess. It'd be like guessing what the current creation and existence of the universe looks and feels like to us if you were on some weird plane where there was no time or space or maybe even matter. I don't know, clearly I'm confused, but these things are hard to put into words.
I was watching this interview with a blind man and somebody asked him if he sees black and he said "no, I just see nothing". That was nearly impossible for me to comprehend until someone commented, "try to see out the back of your head, what do you see?" The answer is nothing. You don't see black, it just doesn't exist. This same concept helped me come to grips with the nothingness that comes after death. It's pretty crazy to think that no matter what we do here the earth will eventually no longer exist. It's almost like "nothing" is the only thing that's permanent and then within its existence little blips like humankind show up.
Just for conversation's sake, not arguing with you: in your example black does exist, the person just can't comprehend it because he isn't capable of seeing it. So, from that perspective its not akin to nothingness, rather its akin to something being there that we can't comprehend because we can't see it.
Right. I'm not saying they're the same, I'm just saying that that concept helped me have a better understanding of the possible nothingness after death, despite not exactly being the same thing
Its strange, I definitely saw the same or similar interview and found it very insightful as well. It was definitely the "do you just see black?" question. The same show/documentary had an interview with a blind person who claimed to have an out of body experience while in the hospital and could then describe things about his family he'd never seen before.
Here's a good article about why anything exists as opposed to nothing Basically nothing is unstable, so something always happens. An afterlife would be nice, something like heaven or just reincarnation. I enjoy being something, its nice. Grateful even if I get this one chance at it, better than nothing.
Always appreciate a good quantum physics read, but I was personally referring to nothing vs something in the existential sense. Although quantum mechanics can often match philosophy when it comes to deep thought paradoxes.
Maybe. Although science may have limits, such as its hypotheses can only be verified by what it can measure. If there is something metaphysical it could be outside of measurement. Of course, this type of verification is what makes science great, and I say "maybe" because it would be a disservice not to at least attempt to apply the scientific method to anything and everything.
That's how it felt watching my brother in law fight cancer. Luckily he is in remission now, but it was so jarring to see him going from this strong jock high school star athlete to walking with a cane and getting hip replacements at 25 years old. He got so thin and then so bloated he was unrecognizable and still lives in a lot of pain. Cancer is awful.
It’s rough man. Yeah, that one with the bed is heartbreaking. I had seen this before but it’s been quite awhile. I went to the dude’s Instagram and apparently he just got remarried.