Thread: I just can't get my head around nonexistence after death

Original Poster wins thread for successfully wrapping head around nonexistence after death while keeping a sense of humor about it.

Btw what happened to your croquembouche avatar OP?

Depends on whether you have HBO, I suppose.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

This thread has turned into a Monty Python sketch.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

Then I've succeeded. Or did you expect me to take a thread essentially labeled "conceptualizing non-conceptuality" seriously?

And about that death stuff...

What does a television screen display after it has been smashed?

Did you just... did you just delete your comment and repost it below mine so I responded to nothing?

Originally Posted by Original Poster

Did you just... did you just delete your comment and repost it below mine so I responded to nothing?

Define "nothing." Is that the same as consciousness after death?

I can only define nothing based upon my awareness of the somethings in between or otherwise around the nothing. Nothing, meaning no-thing, is the lack of thing, and therefore needs thing to be defined. If there is no thing, there is no nothing.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

I can only define nothing based upon my awareness of the somethings in between or otherwise around the nothing. Nothing, meaning no-thing, is the lack of thing, and therefore needs thing to be defined. If there is no thing, there is no nothing.

If there is no not nothing, how can there be not everything? There is obviously everything, even if it is everything that it is not. If there is no definition, there can still be no nothing, in which case there is not. Even if this is not something, it is not nothing. Nothing never is.

Exactly, now you're starting to not get it.

it is a weird thought. About non existence. Before I was born, there was no before. Things just started suddenly.

But Atleast before you were born there is a starting point to reference so you feel something when it starts. With non existence afterwards there is no central point where you can say consciousness starts again. So how could you go through not existing forever when you already existed? It just seems strange. I believe that death is possible, but I just don't know how it would work to not exist either.

yep, this thread is doing my head in.

Not existing would suck. I would get so bored.

We all are part of the nature evolution. Nature doesn't care about death organisms. Nature doesn't see you as super important and interesting thing as you see yourself. Nature doesn't say: Look there is a guy who's species is kind a clever and can make pretty things, NEAT! Let's reward him with cool afterparty upon his death!

Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

Original Poster wins thread for successfully wrapping head around nonexistence after death while keeping a sense of humor about it.

Btw what happened to your croquembouche avatar OP?

What the hell is a scrotumbouquet avatar?

Originally Posted by starz

it is a weird thought. About non existence. Before I was born, there was no before. Things just started suddenly.

But Atleast before you were born there is a starting point to reference so you feel something when it starts. With non existence afterwards there is no central point where you can say consciousness starts again. So how could you go through not existing forever when you already existed? It just seems strange. I believe that death is possible, but I just don't know how it would work to not exist either.

yep, this thread is doing my head in.

Imagine time going in the opposite direction and think about how your life would come after your death.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

Not existing would suck. I would get so bored.

It can get boring because nothing exists even outside of yourself, but you can make it more bearable by lighting yourself on fire.

Or watch game of thrones reruns I guess

What's weird about it? You sleep every night and often times wake up not remembering your dreams, and the only reason to accept that is because you're now able to realize it. I assume it's like that, if there's no afterlife.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

What color does your left elbow see? That color is what your consciousness will be like when you are dead.

Oh my god, I tried to explain that to some people and they just gave me blank stares. I said "What do you see behind you? That is what death is like." And they didn't get it and made a joke about it. I thought my idea was nonsensical in english words and people wouldn't ever understand it, but I guess I was wrong.

I still don't get how people can say that immortality would take all the meaning of life away....Hey, there's something called memories!
I mean...if we were amnesic we could still be happy to be alive right? Who cares if we die with good memories, they're gonna cease to exist anyway.

Thank god we can't be aware of our own death, must be a terrible experience to cease to exist 0o

As splodeymissile said, try to grasp [consciousness] before you were born. It's just not possible in your current form.

I've spent a lot of time recently contemplating life and death and any meaning I can find in either....and it still just comes down to one quote that I attribute to Captain Kirk:

"As your mentor Mr. Spock is fond of saying, I like to think there always are...possibilities."

The idea of nonexistance after death makes me feel...disappointed.
But that is because the only thing I've ever experienced is life.

Of course the idea of nonexistence seems uncomfortable and confusing. In life, the nonexistence of something equates to it being completely irrelevant and without any meaning whatsoever. I do not even bother thinking (realistically) about things that do not exist because they are not a part of reality.

This is why, I think, humans entertain the possibility of an afterlife. To see ourselves as potentially NOT a part of reality as we know it...is too difficult for some people to accept maybe.

Science can determine with certainty what happens to our bodies after death, yes. But because humans see themselves as something more than their physical bodies, for some this explanation seems incomplete. But who's to say if it is or isn't complete?

Wanting to describe or understand the experience of death is one thing, but seeking to describe or understand it by comparing it to what we experience in life...just seems pointless to me. Much like describing differences in colours to a person born blind.

Life is all we know, and therefore its exact opposite (death) seems impossible to understand. We can have opinions about it in life all we want, but that doesn't change the fact that death will occur for everyone. And when it does, I assume our opinions or expectations of it will make no difference.

Even the entirety of our life's experience will make no difference then, because death does not play favorites. To assume it does is just arrogance and unwillingness to see the world as it is, imho.

Personally, I am cautiously optimistic about what happens to us after death. It would be nice if some part of our being lives on or changes form or goes somewhere else. Maybe it doesn't, I can't say for sure. No one can, in my opinion.

Its a bit like trying to prove God does or does not exist. Impossible? Yes. But that won't stop people from trying.

Originally Posted by Alric

There is nothing to get. It is a pretty simple concept. If you don't exist then you don't exist. You don't experience or feel anything because you are not here anymore. To me that seems like pretty much the worst possible thing that could ever happen to a person, not existing anymore.

Well, actually it wouldn't be bad at all. It's just like, whatever man. And even if it is bad, you don't know it because you are gone. And in my opinion not bad is good.

It's a weird thought but it also is quite plausible. Our mind tells us that there always is something behind a door, another room, the garden, so it is also hard to believe. No one likes the idea to be, nothing. Your whole life your being told that you are something, you believe you are, and so you are. I like the idea to compare it to before you were born. It also won't get boring or so because you won't be able to think, and so, you don't experience things like time. And maybe all of a sudden when you start thinking about all these ideas and philosophy, you start thinking that it already happened. Or maybe all of this is just an illusion. No one will ever know, even not the dead if you believe this 'theory'.

I've also had these state of minds that I cannot describe as dreams (maybe deep sleep?) which occur once in a blue moon. It's hard to describe them, and is probably best to describe them through feelings - feelings of deja vu from either a time before I was born, or something that is timeless. Other feelings include good, content, pleasant, calm, and maybe even slight euphoria towards a "God" or "source". All of these while being completely unaware of my own existence. It's like being so "in the now" that it's impossible to have any thoughts. If this is what its like after death, I can say it's better than neutral. And not something one should be concerned about having to be stuck in for a year, a million years, billion, until the next universe, etc.

Now as far as experiencing something similar to waking life, consider this : if all of this around us could spawn from absolutely nothing, then obviously something can come from absolutely nothing and there will be something again. It's really not that hard to kind of "realize" this. Then the question becomes, will be there any connection at all between me now, and the next me?

And then what the point of all of this is - not a single clue still here!

One time I was doing work and suddenly all thought flushed from my mind for about 20-30 minutes. Everything, emotions, words, pictures... everything. My mind was just blank. And when I snapped out of it I didn't get a weird feeling or anything I was just like "what" and resumed what I was doing.

I think that consciousness is a sort of pinch in the fabric of space-time. -Death- is, to us as physical entities, the absence of any individual pinch in space-time.

Looking at it this way, the earth that we extend from is in essence the nucleus of a system of life by which we issue from and return to.


Also, as an over-arching system, Gaia is, to put it simply, nothing less than a giant space-creature. I wonder whether we are an inherent part of this space-creature, or if it has simply adopted us.