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

I like your post Dallicon, but I have a few points I'd like to discuss. First is your idea that there can't be "nothing" after death. According to what appears to me as your own line of thinking, neither can something happen (you literally say all theories must be wrong because of this). When people say that nothing happens, they are saying that something does not happen, and all "somethings" cease. Hence, when there is nothing after death, one does not perceive what is nothing, rather perception itself ceases altogether. Anything you can define as making up the metaphysical you vanishes, and there is nothing left. You don't experience all black, all white, or a single color or something. You don't experience silence or anything; "you" is no longer there, and you didn't go anywhere so much as you disappeared altogether.

In this way, death is theorized to be similar to what you would experience before being born. That is to say, you don't. You "don't" anything, because there is no you. If you are to apply your logic of all theories being wrong, this one I suppose could technically be, but it is the only logically sound one there is. So say otherwise means you believe something does happen after death. I think you are confusing the notion of a positive claim and a negative claim, which to your credit, the way people word things dictates whether something is positive or negative claim, even if the base claim they are making is indeed a negative one. It's like the difference between saying no gods exist, and saying you don't believe any gods exist. In the first case, you are given the burden of proof. The second is a denial of any positive claim that any god or gods exist, without actually asserting whether one conclusion is true or false. You simply choose not to believe, and may require those claiming a god or gods to exist to prove they one or many indeed do. In the same way, people who say nothing happens after you die are rather sloppily stating that they don't believe any of the conjecture about an afterlife of any kind. This is a neutral stance, and without evidence suggesting an afterlife may indeed exist, it is the most logically sound choice.

I do understand what you are getting at about there being nothing in a sense though. I think it is the only source of real comfort a person can have over the idea of non-existence. You will not experience not experiencing. It isn't anything you have to worry about, it's something that just is... just as much as you being alive or anything else existing just "is". There is nothing inherently wrong with things being the way they are or how they have to be. The conflict here is all internal, even if you can't completely help it, it really should bring you some comfort that you don't have to feel the way you do about non-existence, it's an emotional gut reaction. Just like with any fear, it can be overcome with the determination to do so and proper exposure to the stimulus causing the fear. It's okay to die. I used to fear death greatly, especially the idea of no longer existing back when I was around 14. After some emotional turmoil caused by a concussion and several life experiences later, back when I was around 22 or 23 I decided the prospect of immortality (and being aware that I was, rather than say, my essence gets reborn into a body that has no idea it's going in an endless cycle or something) was more terrifying than the fact that I will one day, in fact, die.

Dallicon, I do have to make a few more comments about what you said (don't think I'm trying to say you're wrong about stuff or pick on you, you just gave me ideas for points of discussion on this subject). First and foremost, there is nothing wrong with believing in heaven and hell or some other thing that gives you some comfort about death, but there is nothing wrong with examining your beliefs. In this case it may be fine, but the habit in itself can often be destructive. Then again, that's all based on one's priorities. I prioritize being closer to the truth, so no matter how grim or scary something may be in reality, I'd rather know than not know. Some people are okay with being ignorant, and that's a valid choice... but just like that, so are any other choices people decide to make on the matter. The truth can be traumatic, but it isn't something you can run away from forever; this, along with genuine curiosity is why I'd prefer to find out the truth. I know that when I lie dying (assuming I'm not vaporized or something), the the truth I had always believed in will most likely come crashing down. Even deeply held beliefs you are completely sure of are subject to change giving the right experience (usually traumatic, but not always). How utterly terrified would I feel to die realizing my life was one I intentionally misled myself in? Then again, as I've said, there's not anything terribly wrong with this, I'd just like to experience death in a way that I can cherish the moment, no matter how painful or shocking it is. I obviously won't remember it if we completely cease to exist, but that's fine.

The last thing I want to say, Dallicon, is that I don't believe that before birth and after death count as paradoxes. There's nothing mysterious about them beyond what we project onto the phenomena, as far as we can tell. There is nothing about a phenomenon that apparently creates something for a period of time fades away and the phenomenon (in this case, that we call life) goes with it. We only hear a specific sound for a second, we only see a scene for an instant, we only hear a song from beginning to end (until we play a recording of it again), we only see a movie from it's starting and ending points. The information that coalesces to form patterns of behavior in physical matter allow for such displays to exist for the duration we consider that thing to exist. A song or a movie are a collaboration of things that we arbitrarily (that is to say, it is arbitrary outside human minds) assigned a beginning and an end to. In the end, nothing is how we experience it, but given the limitations of our experience things we categorize together can most definitely be said to exist only for a time before no longer existing. Is it really that crazy for the same to be true of us? A paradox requires a breaking of prescriptive rules (that is to say, laws that bind how things interact, rather than simply describe how something acts), and no such prescriptive rules are being broken here. They are definitely absolutely mind boggling phenomena because they are beyond our realm of experience in regards to ourselves, but they don't qualify as paradoxes. Then again, I'm probably just being a pedantic ass here and paying too much to the semantics of your message rather than the message itself.