What happens after you die and should I be scared about it?

[Nixiam]

You're moving on, so you're fit to survive. Butif you did not know the concept of after life, you don't tgink you would be able to move forward? Not even with the sharing of stories with people in similar positions? You couldn't ever care or love again, not know what it's like to develop friendship and learn to accept what happened? I don't want to get too far into what has happened in the short while I've been alive, but believe me when I tell you that I understand. And with that, you have my sincerest condolences.

What you provided as evudence isn't objective science it's personal. Subjective, experiential, and there isn't anything wrong with that. I personally believe in possibilities where there is question. I am indeed a fence sitter, but make no mistake my fence has a nice squishy chair on top. I have my own set of experiences that I cannot explain, though I'm not quick to call them unexplainable. You ARE fit to move forward, you were built to afterall. Who'd design a species to fail if one of its blood and flesh were to be gripped by the unkown which is death? Not god, and most certainly not evolution. You're a machine, you just need some extra parts and a little lubrication.

I am most solemnly sorry for your loss. I'm not religious, but pray for you I will.

 

[turkalurk]

The thing is Turk, even when we agree, we start disagreeing. I'm tired of you reading things in my posts that I haven't said, the same thing I do to you and you got annoyed by that too.



I think I waste your time too, we simply speak past each other and end up debating totally different things. It's a shame, I clearly irritated you at points last year during that awful vegetarian thread I actually see that I was being belligerent and responding a bit too specifically to you and minunderstanding you, so I am sorry for that- I hope you believe it. I enjoy a lot of what you write but I just feel like you chuck in personal digs, due to our pseudo-history, and I don't believe in letting shit fly like that. In truth, I need to stop being so prickly and sensitive but you need to try and consider what your derision towards opposing arguments is really saying about the arguments proponents. I am not the only one who has found you unpleasant and you are not the only to find me unpleasant. The thing is though, I don't really carry grudges with people. If I make a personal dig at someone, I am very upfront and out in the open with it. You should know this about me with all the banning you did and I would still come back and speak my mind personally to you. I am not secretly trying to make personal attacks at you I am trying to make a series a points that are very difficult to make, but once made are very simple to understand, yet once fully realized can have a significant impact on one's life. That is the point of my communications with others. I feel that I have a valuable perspective to share. We exchange perspectives and I try my best to realize he points you make. When someone makes a valuable point, I acknowledge it with gratitude and will incorporate it into my database.

What's the point, I know not.

I appreciate your sentiments. The thing is though, I don't really carry grudges with people. If I make a personal dig at someone, I am very upfront and out in the open with it. You should know this about me with all the banning you did and I would still come back and speak my mind personally to you. I am not secretly trying to make personal attacks at you I am trying to make a series a points that are very difficult to make, but once made are very simple to understand, yet once fully realized can have a significant impact on one's life.

That is the point of my communications with others. I feel that I have a valuable perspective to share. We exchange perspectives and I try my best to realize the points you make. When I make assumptions in the form of questions I am seriously trying to get to the heart of where and why are perspectives are conflicting. Its not about superiority of the person who possesses the best opinion, its about the superiority of the opinion. The purpose of debate is to test the strenghs and vulnerabilities of these opinions. That what I like abouts forums, you get a wider variety of opinions so there are more ways to test your opinions and restructure them accordingly.

When someone makes a valuable point, I acknowledge it with gratitude and will incorporate it into my database. That being said, I loved your veganism thread and it has made a significant impact on my life, so maybe deep down I want to return the favor.

I might seem critical of egoic biases, but I am the first to admit that I am often guilty of all the things I accuse others of. I am grateful when others recognize when I am being egoic and can bring it to my attention when my self awareness is lacking. The ego is a very tricky thing to keep in check. Kudos to those wise peaceful people who have mastered self-control, but thats not me thats just something I aspire to grow into.

I may not know what will happen to my ego when I die, but I do know that just about anything is possible. There seriously could be a heaven and a hell. You could use the matrix theory to make a sensible version of any after-life stories if thats what makes you feel more comfortable. Maybe Jesus if like Morphius and takes his believers to a different simulation. Maybe all the gods are like that. Maybe what you put your faith in actually influences the next similation that will be ran by your consciousness. I can think of endless logical and reasonable assumptions to be made about what could happen to our experience when we die, but when it all comes down to it, what I label as my beliefs have more to do with what of me will still be left after my consciousness is no longer attached to this frame of reference that I call "me" within this particular system I call "reality." To each their own is beautiful.... but, if its beautiful it should make you happy, it should give you comfort, it should inspire virtue and selflessness. You should be able to utilize your beliefs to add meaning to your life that is valuable and beneficial and let go of those beliefs that are harmful to our psyche.

 

[Ksa]

Have you ever been to a funeral? It seems no one really believes they will be reunited with deceased loved ones after death.

You incorporate grief into your life. Not really ever recover but time dulls it. Death is terrible for the human aware mind in its ruthless implacability. I don't think wishful thinking and illusion is that useful. It just breaks down under examination.

Death is an integral part of life.

Yeah, each to their own.

This is an answer to:

Yes IMO. When you lose somebody you love I think theres a huge comfort in feeling/thinking there is more to life that our mortal/human state. If you believe thats the end & they just decompose in the ground I personally don't understand how you accept the loss & manage to move on in life.

Stuck_x touched a fundamental issue here that can't be answered as though a 5 year old raised it. Stuck_x is very right when asking, how could you carry on with what you're doing, knowing you'll die and decompose in the grave? It's a very important question and most of us here who did drugs, we did so because we have not obtained a valid answer to that question, and willow's answer is among those answers that aren't valid.

Why should I bother living a "everything matters" life, when in the end I don't? Well, asking that question is a bit like trying to be a sheep in a tiger's skin. Human beings are...a very violent breed of predators that are in-bread to survive despite a clear lack of natural assets like teeth or claws. Our race is the best at surviving because humans are intelligent, and what is intelligence?

Intelligence is a self-injurious, pain-seeking, self-sacrificing approach tailored to sacrifice what feels good, distract your attention from your inner joy and pleasure for the sake of survival. And the smarter you are on an IQ scale, the more it will make sense to renounce to pleasure in order to achieve a goal. If you are a genius, there will be little to no pleasure in your life and you will be similar to a machine that all forms of life should fear and run away from. You become death. If anything can be called death, it's intelligence.

Otherwise everything else is pretty lively. Every species out there seem to enjoy their existence on Earth except humans...they have too many goals and ambitions to even enjoy anything. Their intelligence is actually their death. It's what's robbing them of life. They can't enjoy life because...not knowing the capital of Panama...is bothering them...tremendously. They run and google it, instead of living life! They are...addicted to something that doesn't bring them pleasure. A paradox.

 

[swilow]

I didn't mean to seem patronising. I don't think there is an 'answer' to death or any correct response or anything but time to reduce grief. But, I don't think the stories we tell ourselves about death are very convincing. The afterlife doesn't really seem to help the living. At least IME.

Stuck x, I am sorry for your loss. I hope you are okay

 

[Nixiam]

This is an answer to:



Stuck_x touched a fundamental issue here that can't be answered as though a 5 year old raised it. Stuck_x is very right when asking, how could you carry on with what you're doing, knowing you'll die and decompose in the grave?

This.
I've touched on this point of life, point of being arguement many times in different threads. The thing is, you're right. We don't matter. Except you're also wrong, we do matter.

For me, it comes down to two things really, and it is important that I pick one to make my life mean something. I am nothing, just a bundle of atoms in this ever expanding, unexplained, discomforting, harsh universe. However, since human beings have attained this self, this recognition of being, I think to compensate and make life worth living we have to take into account that nothing suggests afterlife, we should make what we can of our subjective experience.

Just because on a universal scale we don't matter does not mean by any measure that we don't matter to eachother. Saying otherwise is like saying, "I know I can live happily if I just try and make my life better, but I won't because my one shot subjective experience deserves to be thrown away, since it probably won't add up to anything in the end.". You should refer to MDAO in the thread "Dealing with Existiential Frustration". He said something that really struck me in an odd way. Paraphrasing here, "Someone who finds life pointless has spent far too long gazing at ones naval.". I took it to mean that a person who takes life for granted and witholds experience or emotional excitement has not done anythig to try and better their situation, their odds.

Live life while you have it, don't waste a gift. I call it a gift because of the countless ways we can experience things, emotion, we can attain an incredible sense of ego, self. Make it count. For you and NOT for the universe. There COULD be an afterlife, not that I have my hopes up.

I don't care what happens after this because I don't know.
But the cool thing is,
Neither do you.

 

[Ksa]

^ I get it but there are things seriously wrong with this life for it to be a gift. It cannot ever be a gift. This is not a fucking gift. Something seriously fucking wrong happened here and I'm talking about the big bang and the cosmological constant. Did you have a close look at the number and how many zeros it has? What are the odds? Can you even grasp the amount of big bangs that had to occur for that one spark to ignite in the right way? What does that even mean? Look at the big picture...That means things are blowing up non stop...everywhere...that can't be good.

What was it BEFORE it all blew up to bits and before we were born out of that one magic spark? We're happy that one spark ignited what you call the Heavens, that presented you with this gift, and you fail to notice the big picture, that one spark, out of of trillions and trillions of sparks, of what looks like total destruction and an entropy driven chaos. How the fuck is that good?

I don't just think that I'm dying, I think that EVERYTHING is almost dead, and we are that final spark born of its destruction, before total darkness. Our sun will die, then the Universe will keep expanding to the point of zero Kelvin temperatures, then there will be a few more big bangs, and then nothing. I'm not looking at this as "wow how lucky we are!", how do you know you weren't even luckier before you blew up, Einstein? I'm talking to you as the Universe, in the same time talking to myself.

What if somehow, everything that could appear or that has appeared was able to say "I am" and rejoice itself as one? What if THAT blew up? It's perfectly possible, it would explain why we're all different individuals but all say "I am" and why the Universe is entropy driven. We're probably a just fragment of what we were before, that we can call absolute perfection, and naively rejoice at our miserable existence instead of gaining more insight as to what truly happened for us to end up in this shit...having to die...not knowing anything...not understanding anything. This is not a gift. We are not in a good position here.

I for sure did not feel comfortable appearing in 1985, out of nothing, not knowing what is happening, and the next thing I know, I have to die. You call this a gift?

 

[Nixiam]

That isn't life bud, it's nature. And lucky for us, our share of nature allows us to live our life to the extent we can manage. It is a gift, but like some gifts it has its problems. Sometimes you want to return it, sometimes you want to set it on a shelf and forget about it. But in reality, to be happy with it you need to use it to your content.

The big bang is in essence creation, no matter how hideous you can make it sound. Call it random, call it anything you want but it probably happened and it is nature. Worrying about where the git came from and what happens after it wears out is silly when you can enjoy it.

I call life a gift. Not the the shit that made it.

 

[swilow]

I don't think you can put a value on a natural occurrence like the big bang. Its not good or bad, it just is. Human values are irrelevant on a cosmic scale.

 

[belligerent drunk]

^ I get it but there are things seriously wrong with this life for it to be a gift. It cannot ever be a gift. This is not a fucking gift. Something seriously fucking wrong happened here and I'm talking about the big bang and the cosmological constant. Did you have a close look at the number and how many zeros it has? What are the odds? Can you even grasp the amount of big bangs that had to occur for that one spark to ignite in the right way? What does that even mean? Look at the big picture...That means things are blowing up non stop...everywhere...that can't be good.

What was it BEFORE it all blew up to bits and before we were born out of that one magic spark? We're happy that one spark ignited what you call the Heavens, that presented you with this gift, and you fail to notice the big picture, that one spark, out of of trillions and trillions of sparks, of what looks like total destruction and an entropy driven chaos. How the fuck is that good?

Sorry, that's not how it works. For starters, there is no telling "how many big bangs had to occur before it ignited this way". For all we know, ours could be the first universe formed, because laws of probability do not disallow that. And how can you assign values like "good" or "bad" to natural processes like that? Do you realize how many organisms had to be born, live and die before E. coli evolved to its current shape? So that somehow means evolution is bad? It's just a natural process, it can't be good or bad.

You seem to be obsessed with the blowing up theme. You have to realize that Big Bang is not just an explosion, it's not an explosion, LOL. It's just called that for whatever reason, but in reality it's just a huge quantum fluctuation. The likes of which are happening all the time, except on a much smaller scale. So according to you, everything is constantly "blowing up" all around us, and it's all bad. May I ask, why are you so upset with nature?

What if somehow, everything that could appear or that has appeared was able to say "I am" and rejoice itself as one? What if THAT blew up? It's perfectly possible, it would explain why we're all different individuals but all say "I am" and why the Universe is entropy driven. We're probably a just fragment of what we were before, that we can call absolute perfection, and naively rejoice at our miserable existence instead of gaining more insight as to what truly happened for us to end up in this shit...having to die...not knowing anything...not understanding anything. This is not a gift. We are not in a good position here.

No offence, but do you have anything to back that suggestion up other than "I feeeel that way"? The evidence we have is pretty clear on what we were before. Fish, and reptiles, and bacteria, and other stuff like that.

 

[Ksa]

^ 3 10−122?

You want me to believe that, because the laws of probability do not disallow it, we got the right Universe the first time, with THAT probability?

No.

Nothing is ever a first. Just show me any nature made object and tell me it's a first. Is Earth the first planet? No. Is the Sun the first star? No. Is the tree in your backyard the first? No. Nothing is ever first. Not even God. There is no first. First is a human invention designed to stroke their ego, like "Ohhh! I built the first car, ho ho ho! I feel amazing!".

 

[swilow]

Surely the first planet to form in our universe is a first. The first particle to form after the big bang, etc. There are firsts ksa.

You've responded to about 3% of what b_g said anyhow. He has some good points right?

 

[belligerent drunk]

^ 3 10−122?

You want me to believe that, because the laws of probability do not disallow it, we got the right Universe the first time, with THAT probability?

No.

Nothing is ever a first. Just show me any nature made object and tell me it's a first. Is Earth the first planet? No. Is the Sun the first star? No. Is the tree in your backyard the first? No. Nothing is ever first. Not even God. There is no first. First is a human invention designed to stroke their ego, like "Ohhh! I built the first car, ho ho ho! I feel amazing!".

Let's start with the obvious. Where did you get the number from and what exactly does it represent? Because if you're talking about the probability of our universe arising in its exact shape, then I call bullshit on that, and I will call bullshit on it until you hear me. Do you know how probabilities are calculated? For a process you have to know the exact mechanisms underlying it in order to calculate probabilities of something happening. And then you have to keep in mind that few processes in nature are truly random. Take a falling stone for example. What is the probability of it falling exactly towards the Earth? The answer is 0. However, you may do whatever you want, but it's still going to fall towards the Earth regardless of what your "calculation" tells you. That's because nature isn't a random process, it works according to certain laws. Like the law of gravity for example.

You should by now see where I'm heading with this. For you to be able to tell what the probability of our universe forming is, you have to know what the exact mechanisms for universe formation are. We don't even know if other universes really exist, and we can't measure them. And you're giving me a number with accuracy not just down to ten orders of magnitude, but with a "3" in there too.

And then of course, I'm not saying our universe is the first, I was just stating a fact that it could easily be for all we know. But it's really pointless to speculate about all that since we have practically no empirical data on the subject. However, it's flawed thinking to say that because the probability may be small, it can't be a first. It's just illogical, my friend. And of course there are firsts, courtesy of willow's post.

 

[Ksa]

Surely the first planet to form in our universe is a first. The first particle to form after the big bang, etc. There are firsts ksa.

You've responded to about 3% of what b_g said anyhow. He has some good points right?

The first particle formed after the big bang wasn't the first particle formed. You're assuming the big bang started everything because you're an observational scientist, your imagination is bound by what you can detect with your instruments that couldn't detect the Higgs boson for centuries.

And the guy asking me what lambda is, google "life" and begin your journey into the world of knowledge, and knowing things in life. Everybody knows what lambda is except you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant

 

[belligerent drunk]

The first particle formed after the big bang wasn't the first particle formed. You're assuming the big bang started everything because you're an observational scientist, your imagination is bound by what you can detect with your instruments that couldn't detect the Higgs boson for centuries.

And the guy asking me what lambda is, google "life" and begin your journey into the world of knowledge, and knowing things in life. Everybody knows what lambda is except you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant

Steady there, tiger. I think you may be confusing things. The cosmological constant has nothing to do with the creation or the origin of the universe. It is neither the probability or anything like that. You might want to take a look at that page yourself. Nevertheless, the number you wrote in your first response still is irrelevant to the discussion we had.

 

[Ksa]

Steady there, tiger. I think you may be confusing things. The cosmological constant has nothing to do with the creation or the origin of the universe. It is neither the probability or anything like that. You might want to take a look at that page yourself. Nevertheless, the number you wrote in your first response still is irrelevant to the discussion we had.

If I'm confusing things, than Brian Greene, Tichio Kaku and Neil deGrasse Tyson are also victims of the same confusion since they all refer to the cosmological constant in that way.

 

[belligerent drunk]

Present a case and one might listen.

 

[Nixiam]

The first particle formed after the big bang wasn't the first particle formed. You're assuming the big bang started everything because you're an observational scientist, your imagination is bound by what you can detect with your instruments that couldn't detect the Higgs boson for centuries.

And the guy asking me what lambda is, google "life" and begin your journey into the world of knowledge, and knowing things in life. Everybody knows what lambda is except you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant

I honestly don't know why you're intent on undermining other people on this forum when you yourself present things only half thought out.

And to argue the whole "first" thing. You're whole take on it seems to be "firsts are absolute". Firsts are relative to their enviornment, respectively. And pointing out the particle flaw with the whole big bang in willow's post makes me think you are eager to resist listening to reason. There isn't a possible way you couldn't know what he was getting at there, bud.

The first planet to form in our universe was the first planet to form in our universe. Just saying. Firsts aren't just ego strokes like you suggest, they are an object of chronology. BTW eager to hear your response to BD.

 

[ScaredofMyself]

I don't understand this whole argument.

Somethings gonna happen when we die.

Who knows, we might enjoy it.

 

[Nixiam]

I don't understand this whole argument.

Somethings gonna happen when we die.

Who knows, we might enjoy it.

What do you mean? If we die it could just be end game, no more. It could be something spectacular or terrible.

You can't claim to know anything beyond this. Not for a fact, you can't even test this.

Instead of saying something, replace it with anything.

Then rephrase.

After we die, anything could happen, or nothing could happen. Who knows, we might enjoy it.

 

[Ksa]

I honestly don't know why you're intent on undermining other people on this forum when you yourself present things only half thought out.

I'm out of amphetamines and my brain chemistry is wired around pointless forum arguments. I can see no other reason why. Tomorrow I get my medication again.

Also, if there is a first then, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I tell you man, every day you die and every day you get born again, a bit different than yesterday. After 30 years, you're nothing of what you were back then. Death is...just a more abrupt transition, it has no change dampners...like life has. Not smooth, it's just BANG