Halo is Back
Member
My view is that death is a necessary process in the natural world. I think of it as going into a deep sleep for good. Of course I don't want to die but I don't fear anything after I am dead.
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Do you believe Death is the end?
- Thread starter OutrageousFacts
- Start date
- Opinion Community
thequestion
Member
Do you believe Life is the beginning?
lukilladog
Member
It is the beginning of the illusion that there is a "me" behind the wheel.
As for the op question, no, mind is a function of the brain, when your brain stops working, the mind is gone.
Seriously guys, it only takes a good punch to push you into the full sack of walking meat territory for a few moments.
List of longest-living organisms - Wikipedia
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Tesseract
Banned
there's no respawn, only the abyss
take it from someone who has died on the operating table (more than once)
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Punished Miku
Member
Whatever you think happens to that dead squirrel on the side of the road will also happen to you as well.
JareBear: Remastered
Banned
“Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.”
And death shall have no dominion.”
Moogle11
Banned
Yep. I don't believe in any afterlife, souls, spirits or any of that kind of thing. Don't really fear dying either. I'm mean I'm not suicidal or doing crazy risky things, but I'm also not panicked out of my mind like all the people with all their "anxiety" over the coronavirus. I'm staying in as I don't want to infect others, and I don't like being around people and love working from home full time etc. anyway, but overall I just figure when I go, I go. I'm not going to do anything putting myself at high risk of dying, but not going to live in anxiety worrying about things that could kill me all the time either.
Halo is Back
Member
What is your point?It is the beginning of the illusion that there is a "me" behind the wheel.
As for the op question, no, mind is a function of the brain, when your brain stops working, the mind is gone.
Seriously guys, it only takes a good punch to push you into the full sack of walking meat territory for a few moments.
List of longest-living organisms - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
DESTROYA
Member
Get eaten by crows and other wild animals?
Punished Miku
Member
Pretty much!
lukilladog
Member
That there are creatures that might live indefinitely... we humans might someday figure out how to repair our DNA and live forever.
Moogle11
Banned
Figuring out how to transfer consciousness to a synthetic device, robot, whatever is probably more likely (or at least more efficient) than preventing/reversing aging. Even if it can be done, lots more problems, diseases, infections etc. with organic lifeforms. None of it's going to happen in our lifetimes in any case.
Punished Miku
Member
None of its going to happen equally either. That's what I love about Altered Carbon season 1. Inequality just gets worse. It makes the poor even more disposable and the rich into immortals. No one is going to be rushing to make sure every poor person ever born never dies.
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lukilladog
Member
If we figure out how to repair our dna, diseases and infections would be trivial. We can make tomatoes that last far longer but we still have no clue how consciousness works, so I´d go with genetics.
Ps.- Although the type of DNA repair we need is nothing like what´s going on with tomatoes lol.
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Moogle11
Banned
I guess the bigger question there, and maybe better for it’s own thread (but I can’t make threads yet), is how many people would want to live forever?
I don’t think I would. I’m only in my early 40s, and by no means ready to die or anything, but I’m already bored with a ton of things, feel annoyed by and out of touch with younger generations etc.
None of that’s going to improve with time, and they kind of disenchantment is of course a common theme in fictional work about immortality.
I don’t think I would. I’m only in my early 40s, and by no means ready to die or anything, but I’m already bored with a ton of things, feel annoyed by and out of touch with younger generations etc.
None of that’s going to improve with time, and they kind of disenchantment is of course a common theme in fictional work about immortality.
MacReady13
Member
It's a scary thought, but I fear you are correct.
mango drank
Member
Came here to post this. But that aside, all we can do is speculate anyway. We barely know anything about consciousness, identity, and the nature of broader reality.
I think of consciousness and the subjective self as being like the light emitted by a light bulb. Switch off the power to the bulb, and it stops emitting light. Likewise, I think the physical body generates (emits) consciousness and the subjective self. If the body dies, so does the generated "self." The body stops generating your internal experience. You can't experience the void because your subjective self (the thing doing the experiencing) is shut off. There's no perception of the passage of time, no sensation, no "you."
A subjective self that persists would have to be some version of a soul--some entity separate from the physical body, that slots into the physical body at conception and maintains duplicates of that body's memories throughout its physical life, then detaches upon death and persists, like a magic weightless invisible CPU + RAM + SSD + external sensors. What's the nature of this thing? Where did it come from? What's its power source? How is it assigned to a particular body at conception? Is it compatible with humans only? What does it do afterwards? Etc. I'd like very much for something like that to be real, but don't think it is. Then again, like I said earlier, we don't know much about reality yet. If the supreme weirdness of quantum mechanics is real, who knows what else is real.
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ILLtown
Member
I think it's the end, cos I've seen no evidence that convinces me otherwise.
As for
Moogle11
's question about whether I would want to live forever, it depends on the terms. Am I the only immortal one? What happens to me in terms of ageing - do I hit a certain age and then never get any older? What impact does it have on the planet when people don't die? If you had kids, would they get to the "max immortality age" and then basically be the same age as you?
Even if I could pick the time in my life where I was the most happy and content and everyone else never aged or died either, so I never had to grieve for a lost family member or friend, I think it would get fucking boring after a while. As you age, you face different challenges and different worries, but you also appreciate life differently than when you were younger, so it's this evolving thing with a finite end. To be stuck repeating essentially the same things endlessly is something that sounds less attractive the more you think about it.
As for
Moogle11
's question about whether I would want to live forever, it depends on the terms. Am I the only immortal one? What happens to me in terms of ageing - do I hit a certain age and then never get any older? What impact does it have on the planet when people don't die? If you had kids, would they get to the "max immortality age" and then basically be the same age as you?Even if I could pick the time in my life where I was the most happy and content and everyone else never aged or died either, so I never had to grieve for a lost family member or friend, I think it would get fucking boring after a while. As you age, you face different challenges and different worries, but you also appreciate life differently than when you were younger, so it's this evolving thing with a finite end. To be stuck repeating essentially the same things endlessly is something that sounds less attractive the more you think about it.
Onikaan
Member
Tell us your story, Tesseract.
Lionel Richie
Member
Get help friend. I've been there myself and it truly feels like an unsolvable problem, but it is doable. Like Yogi Bear once said, ninety percent of the game is half mental, the other half is random bullshit and the remaining 10 percent is actually the sweet spot. It's a reachable place and once you get there, you only get brief windows into the previous way you felt. It's an uphill battle, but it doesn't go on forever. Just got to get help to kickstart you in the right direction.
triplestation
Member
damn we came far as fuck, anybody thats been born lately
imagine way back in the day when they lived in caves
if you saw thrm today itd be like wtf you are in the wrong time bitch
a million years later some fucker would say the same thing about us
entropy is king lmao
imagine way back in the day when they lived in caves
if you saw thrm today itd be like wtf you are in the wrong time bitch
a million years later some fucker would say the same thing about us
entropy is king lmao
Gamerguy84
Member
I just hope I dont come back as a spider
mango drank
Member
Another option: we are the universe experiencing itself. Consciousness could be some kind of force sewn into the fabric of reality, with infinite tentacles. One of those tentacles occupies a new living being at conception, like electricity being distributed to a new device. That one tentacle experiences what it's like to be that creature throughout the course of its life, cut off from the parallel experiences of all the other tentacles inhabiting all other creatures. Upon a body's death, that tentacle's experiences are rolled back into the great amorphous mass. So your conscious experience after your body's life ends is basically reunification: "Oh shit, that's right--I'm everything, I remember now. Being John Doe was a trip."
If people come back from the dead, or if people are revived through cryonics, those bodies are just doled out more consciousness until they die again.
But yeah. Tentacles. One of the many implausible ideas that'll float around for thousands more years, until science figures out what all of this is.
If people come back from the dead, or if people are revived through cryonics, those bodies are just doled out more consciousness until they die again.
But yeah. Tentacles. One of the many implausible ideas that'll float around for thousands more years, until science figures out what all of this is.
Cutty Flam
Banned
Think of all the lives that cane and went. Not just humans, all life forms. The number is astronomical. Life starts and ends but what is the purpose and what can we prove that life consists of, exactly? We haven’t figured out yet, how to create life out of seemingly nothing like the Big Bang Theory suggests
Once we understand how to create life from nothing, even if we cannot do it ourselves, then maybe we will figure out what happens when we cease to be able to function in our bodies in this life on this planet
Nobody can say for certain, that much is clear. But why does life exist and how did it begin if we can prove it? Those questions will likely lead us to the answers regarding death/afterlife/reality
Once we understand how to create life from nothing, even if we cannot do it ourselves, then maybe we will figure out what happens when we cease to be able to function in our bodies in this life on this planet
Nobody can say for certain, that much is clear. But why does life exist and how did it begin if we can prove it? Those questions will likely lead us to the answers regarding death/afterlife/reality
MiyazakiHatesKojima
Banned
You speak as if it's a proven fact and not mere conjecture.
Do you consider dreams to be a random event that happens between the synapses of the brain too?
Dreams are a significant hint towards the possibility of a metaphysical afterlife.
Stiflers Mom
Banned
I have talked with the machine elves about it, and they said no, there is no afterlife.
Enjoy life now the best you can.
Enjoy life now the best you can.
Amory
Member
Who knows?
I do get anxious over the idea of death but not of being dead. Whenever I'm at a funeral I think about how someday I'll be the dude in the box getting carted around and loaded in a hearse and dropped in the ground... Thinking about that still bothers me, silly as it is since I'm not gonna experience it. But the idea of nothingness doesn't really bother me.
I'm Christian and obviously the idea of eternal damnation is way scarier than nothing, but weirdly I even have a harder time coming to terms with the idea of eternal life in heaven than nothing. Eternity is a long fuckin time. Idk that I want to experience anything eternally.
I do get anxious over the idea of death but not of being dead. Whenever I'm at a funeral I think about how someday I'll be the dude in the box getting carted around and loaded in a hearse and dropped in the ground... Thinking about that still bothers me, silly as it is since I'm not gonna experience it. But the idea of nothingness doesn't really bother me.
I'm Christian and obviously the idea of eternal damnation is way scarier than nothing, but weirdly I even have a harder time coming to terms with the idea of eternal life in heaven than nothing. Eternity is a long fuckin time. Idk that I want to experience anything eternally.
farmerboy
Member
This is oddly reassuring.
Whitesnake
Banned
Yes.
There is no evidence of an afterlife. Of course, I’m not dead, I can’t say for certain if anything lies beyond.
But everything we know about life points to there being nothing.
pennythoughts
Member
It's the only conclusion we currently have evidence for so yes.
LordKasual
Banned
I'm not religious. Yeah, it's the end.
But, i don't think "the abyss" or "nothingness" is what awaits us.
Because there is no such thing as "Nothing" or "non-existence". Those are concepts created by our minds to explain what we can't understand.
Case in point -- our universe was born from "nothing". And every single one of us has seen the endless abyss. Yet, here we are.
I fear losing my connections, or having to think about those i love living without me, or all the things in the future i'll miss.....but i'm not really afraid of "nothingness". I've been there longer than i've been alive.
But, i don't think "the abyss" or "nothingness" is what awaits us.
Because there is no such thing as "Nothing" or "non-existence". Those are concepts created by our minds to explain what we can't understand.
Case in point -- our universe was born from "nothing". And every single one of us has seen the endless abyss. Yet, here we are.
I fear losing my connections, or having to think about those i love living without me, or all the things in the future i'll miss.....but i'm not really afraid of "nothingness". I've been there longer than i've been alive.
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MiyazakiHatesKojima
Banned
Tell me, how long did it take humanity to discover the existence of DNA?
What I would suggest is never ever claim that there is no afterlife as some sort of fact because it is near impossible to prove through empirical science.
I understand that science has explained about the world and life in general in many ways, but to use current science as a way to disprove the possibility of an afterlife is a bit ironic.
Science will always be in a flux of change so who knows what the current understanding of science will be 100 years from now.
Read more about quantum science and how that will significantly change the way we view the world.
Whitesnake
Banned
You seem a tad personally offended that I am willing to assert that we have no reason to believe that there is an afterlife. I believe I recall you talking about religion the discord some time ago? Maybe you feel as if your faith has been attacked. It would certainly explain these confused, rambling rebuttals.
Your assertion that we should never take current scientific understanding into account when making hypotheses is ridiculous for obvious reasons.
Your implication that, because of the relative recency of our discovery of DNA, that science will probably eventually find the existence of spirits, gods, extra-dimensional beings, and alternate dimensions through which we have an afterlife is ridiculous as well. Just because you believe something strongly does not mean science must someday agree with you, especially when your beliefs fundamentally go against ALL scientific knowledge we have that could lead us to ANY conclusion about this topic.
“Quantum science” doesn’t actually refer to anything in particular, but I have to assume you’re talking about particles and how they make up the universe. While this too is still an unknown and debated topic, nothing about it points to an afterlife.
Contrary to what you wish to believe, I have never said I know for 100% certain what lies beyond. On the contrary, I’ve been consistent in saying that no one can truly know what lies beyond. But all that we know about neuroscience and the world around us points to human beings ceasing to exist once the electrical impulses that make us up no longer function. It’s certainly possible that idea is wrong, and in fact I hope it is wrong because I find the idea of no longer existing absolutely terrifying. But I have never once heard a more reasonable explanation than that one.
The fact that you read the statement “I am 100% certain that there is no afterlife” when it was never actually written says an awful lot about your mental state in regards to this topic. You find even the mere idea that there is no afterlife offensive.
MiyazakiHatesKojima
Banned
Excuse me?
Kindly fuck off if this is how you're going to respond back to my rebuttal.
I wasn't offended by your posts until now.
LordKasual
Banned
It's funny, because people who take those comical doses of LSD/hallucinogens all pretty much report the same thing.
Psychedelics are incapable of killing you, but when people are approaching Ego Death, they all seem to attribute the feeling to being indistinguishable from real death.....because for all intents and purposes it is. And what follows is a transcendent feeling of having no borders and being one with the universe.
Death is almost certainly an illusion, but as for what that means in a practical sense, nobody knows and probably never will know...
but as far as science can tell us, the "YOU" that exists today won't carry over.....but hearing the accounts of people who have lost themselves before, i don't think you'll miss yourself all that much.
pennythoughts
Member
you wake up from the simulation
pennythoughts
Member
You cannot use the scientific method or principles to disprove something that has no evidence. Science's inability to disprove my claim that god is a pink unicorn says nothing of my claims credence, only that is an untestable premise.
MiyazakiHatesKojima
Banned
So you agree using science as a measuring stick to claim that an afterlife is not possible is a fallacy.
When i studied about the philosophy and history of science, I realized how fluid science can be when it comes to it's understanding and discoveries of the world.
At the same time, the scientific method will not be the only way to test premises in the future given the history of science that showed how scientific methodologies can change over time.
Going back to the topic, the existence of an afterlife can never be proven through science. My argument was that science shouldn't be used to conjecture whether a metaphysical concept can exist or not.
pennythoughts
Member
I don't agree that it's a fallacy. Science deals with facts and evidence and of proven knowledge. Stating that Zeus exists is a claim of knowledge and if one makes a claim of knowledge one should be ready to bring forth evidence.
thequestion
Member
Eternity may be long, but God has it planned out, so his followers will never get bored. Think of it like a new video game coming out every week, and it’s always a 10 out 10 game.... and the game takes place in a super advanced holodeck. I know, for me personally, that would keep me busy for a couple 100 years, at least. Then I’d move on to something else that’s new and exciting. The flow of entertainment will be without end.
Athesism is boring. You die. The end. The religious option has far more creative opportunities. It’s also super easy to be religious. I’m always suprised, so many people choose to resist it.
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