Life after death thread

[Gonzalez]

So you just go into denial and start drawing stuff for a living. I don't judge, cope with whatever suits you.

I don't like unanswered mysteries. And I don't find it depressing, I find it most fascinating and it makes me want to know more. I won't shy away from the questions.

 

[Walpknut]

What does drawing have to do with living in denial? I am aware of my own mortality and I seek to do things that I enjoy, maybe leave my mark posthumously by leaving a few works of art.
Projecting much?

 

[Gonzalez]

maybe leave my mark posthumously by leaving a few works of art

I find symbolic immortality unsatisfactory as well, and equally false, it's just as deluding myself there is an afterlife. I don't care for such things as I won't be there to see them. Leave epitaphs for others, after I'm gone you may as well give my body to necrophillic people for them to rape, I won't care, the whole universe will be gone with me as far as I know.

 

[Walpknut]

One actually has an effect on the world, the other is just wanking about imaginary things. Do what makes you happy.

 

[Gonzalez]

Neither give me anything, since, as I said, if I won't be there to see it, then I don't care. Masturbating about what people will say of me after I'm dead is not a solution either.

But I don't judge, either the religious/believers of life after death, nor those who believe that one is part of something greater that will ultimately outlive the individual.

You know, it's very likely that humanity will be extinct one day too, and there will be no one left to remember what humanity was, everything it ever accomplished and meant, lost, like tears in the rain. We are but a small spec of cosmic dust, and we'll be gone as soon as we appeared.

 

[TheHouseAlwaysWins]

The concept of an "after life" has always been a self told lie. Truth is, no matter how much you want to deny it, this Atom based world is what you get. Life is finite and it's up to you what you did with it. Some might find this "pessimistic" but I think waiting for death and thinking life as meaningless is far more depressing and fatalistic.

Do you think there is anything wrong with people choosing if they believe in one or no?

 

[Walpknut]

Whatever makes them feel comfortable with their lives.

 

[valcik]

What I think is that our memories and consciousness would cease to exist with our mortal body, since all of this stuff's been stored in our neurons as a form of electro-chemical energy and cannot exist without that intricate living structure of our neuron synapses transmitting the signal from cell to cell.

However, we all know the law of conservation of energy, right? This is good news! Even if our cousciousness and everything what religious people call "soul" can't exist without our mortal vessel, the pure electro-chemical energy stored in our brain would continue to exist in a different form even after our death. What I think is that some extremely choleric and crazy folks, such as The Dopamine Cleric for instance, would emmit powerful energetic discharge in the moment of their death as a form of strong ball lightning going to bust your arse!

 

[DVL]

However the knowing of one's mortality and that death is the non existance of oneself leaves me with a bunch of philosophical problems. Why is there something instead of nothing? Someone said because of God, but that's cheating, I can't be satisfied with that, and I can't get over the fact there are no resons for anything to exist, not to mention there is no real way I can know anything I perceive exists beyond my mind.

I find it difficult to explain, but a question like, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" has a built in presumption in it. It's a loaded question. There doesn't need to be a why. You want a why because you are assigning a value to it. You can't help but compare but two hypothetical states and assign relative worth to them.

It's subjectively and personally satisfying to have the answers.

If we are going to get strict about death and say there is nothing after because there is no way of knowing, then it's the same for external reality, if you really want to be honest with yourself you have to admit there is the possibility that nothing exists outside your mind, for external reality to exist you have to "assume" it does, at least you have to if you want to be 100% sure, and since you have to assume it you can never be 100% sure of it.

Also, why should I care about the future if there is nothing but an eternity of non existance after that, and why should I care for anyone around me or what is going to happen to me if they will stop existing along with me the moment I stop existing, since there is no way I will be able to percieve them beining dead. Sure, you can "assume" they'll keep existing after you are gone, but why does it matter when you won't be there to experience any of that, the whole universe may as well disappear after you are gone, makes no difference really.

Again, this is something I find very difficult to explain to another person.
We have a built in presumption that there is a such thing as "absolute knowledge," as opposed to, say, internally consistent heuristics and verifiable catalogs of experience.

Knowledge is valuable ultimately because the explanatory power of those beliefs are useful. If the belief lacks that power, then it really isn't knowledge.

And while we can sit around playing the "what if" game forever, that doesn't get us anywhere. Maybe unicorns exist. Maybe gods exist. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. And it just winds up being useless and nonfunctional speculation. None of it can inform my actions in any meaningful way.

And well, a finite life doesn't mean you cannot suffer immensely during that finity. Or take great joy during the same finity. If you have loved ones, then increasing their share of pain and suffering isn't really something you want.

Oh, and just because all of it's just happening in your mind doesn't mean you have any control over your thoughts or how you experience things. So solipsism isn't an answer. The stimuli doesn't give a toss about what you want. It's happening anyway. Quibble all you like about whether or not it's all in your mind or not, that mind of yours is still bound by laws that are not your own.

At the most basic level. You have hungry feeling. Eating alleviates hungry feeling. These feelings are clocked more or less periodically with a certain timing. Saying that it's just an illusion doesn't make it any less real for you as far as you're concerned.

The mind is an abstraction. So is the idea of anything "inside" or "outside" of it. You'll also note that it's a simile comparing abstract things to your experience of spatial Newtonian things. It helps if you don't take the comparison too literally.

 

[Gonzalez]

There is always a why, a scientific why or otherwise, if we didn't care about why things happened we would have no science, no philosophy, nothing, we would just be happy animals fucking and eating and seleeping. Which would be ideal, to be supid and happy, ovblivious to what's not immediate.

So basically what you are saying is: ignore the whole issue so you don't have to deal with it and get on with your life. Excuse me but I can get on with my life and ask myself these questions at the same time, if other people can't and need not to think about these things to live it's their problem.

And I'm not demanding answers from you either, like you could just get asnwers from such questions by asking them in an internet forum of all places, when philosophers around the ages couldn't answer them. But I'm willing to discuss them with those who want to, perhaps someone has something new to think about.

So, maybe the questions don't have answers, at least yet, but that doesn'tmean I have to stop asking them, or formulating theories, and if you think that has no practical aplicable use, then what other iddle conversation in this forum does. I can afford to sit and write and theorize, and having someone try and be condescendent to me doesn't help. You are either trying to explain the unexplainable or tring to find a way to avoid it instead of gazing at what it means in awe.

Imagine Heiddeger, Leibniz and Schelling among others took your attempt at invalidating the question "why is there something instead of nothing" as an actual solution, where would we be now? Imagine if Descartes wouldn't had tried to "prove" there was an external reality.

The fact that we are trapped in ignorance and there is so much more out there than our little minds can take is actually encouraging to me, so I don't need to live in a world where we have already answered what needs to be answered and we need no further search of knowledge. I like to know and come to the realization that there are unsolved questions and that the answers are out there somewhere, even if we don't have them and can't hope to have them in our lifetime, rather than say "there is no why, there is no meaning, shit just happens, eat, drink and be merry!".

EDIT

Quibble all you like about whether or not it's all in your mind or not, that mind of yours is still bound by laws that are not your own.

You saying that means you missed the entire point of what I was aiming at with that. I was trying to say that symbolical immortality is as meaningless as fooling yourself into thinking there is heaven or some other sort of immortality precisely because when your mind dies, your own personal universe, (conscoiusly) controlled by you or not, since that's not the issue, dies with it. So your legacy, society, things that outlive oneself, die with your mind as well.

But you bring another issue, and that is not being able to control, or that the mind is bound to laws that are not your own.

By definition, if it happens inside your mind, then those "laws" are most definitely your own. People who have near death experiences could argue the same, they saw a light, and relatives, and God, and they had no control over them, they bared withnesses to what happened until they returned to their body. So as you can see, things apparently not under our control can easely be created by our mind, and if only our mind exists, they most definetely are controlled by it, and those "laws" can easely be changed at will by a subconscious part of your mind, it can even change those laws as often as it wants and then make you believe they were always the same by altering your past memories.

That being said and if that were to be the case, I could say that I always existed and will always exist, and that death is an illusion created by my mind, and that I have been living this very moment forever, past memories being created by my mind to make me believe I had a childhood (a past) and give me the illusion of time passing, but I am living in a neverending present.

EDIT

Another interesting article. You will notice my posts will grow in length as I like to avoid double posts.

Do We Live in the Matrix?
Tests could reveal whether we are part of a giant computer simulation — but the real question is if we want to know...

 

[DVL]

You are either trying to explain the unexplainable or tring to find a way to avoid it instead of gazing at what it means in awe.

Dude. What? Why should anybody gaze in awe at anything?

Imagine Heiddeger, Leibniz and Schelling among others took your attempt at invalidating the question "why is there something instead of nothing" as an actual solution, where would we be now? Imagine if Descartes wouldn't had tried to "prove" there was an external reality.

I doubt any of them tried to. The something instead of nothing question is a loaded question. It's inarticulate.

It's a question that just sounds impressive to ass backwards theologians.

The fact that we are trapped in ignorance and there is so much more out there than our little minds can take is actually encouraging to me, so I don't need to live in a world where we have already answered what needs to be answered and we need no further search of knowledge. I like to know and come to the realization that there are unsolved questions and that the answers are out there somewhere, even if we don't have them and can't hope to have them in our lifetime, rather than say "there is no why, there is no meaning, shit just happens, eat, drink and be merry!".

Yeah well, if your questions assume a false premise, you haven't actually even asked the question right.

You saying that means you missed the entire point of what I was aiming at with that. I was trying to say that symbolical immortality is as meaningless as fooling yourself into thinking there is heaven or some other sort of immortality precisely because when your mind dies, your own personal universe, (conscoiusly) controlled by you or not, since that's not the issue, dies with it. So your legacy, society, things that outlive oneself, die with your mind as well.

Umm, no? I never mentioned immortality.
I don't want symbolic immortality. I want actual immortality. I mean I'm not getting it, but seriously: Projecting much?

But you bring another issue, and that is not being able to control, or that the mind is bound to laws that are not your own.

By definition, if it happens inside your mind, then those "laws" are most definitely your own.

No they aren't.
And what makes it "inside" your mind anyway? What does that even fucking mean?
(Basically nothing. See my reply above.)

And calling anything "yours" is just your primate way of pissing on stumps and drawing lines in the sand.

So as you can see, things apparently not under our control can easely be created by our mind, and if only our mind exists, they most definetely are controlled by it, and those "laws" can easely be changed at will by a subconscious part of your mind, it can even change those laws as often as it wants and then make you believe they were always the same by altering your past memories.

Sure, whatever. If it's that easy then simply will your reality to be whatever pleases you. I'm sure that'll work out great.

It's your subconscious precisely because it isn't really something that's easy to control. And acting on your first inclination isn't rational. Freud invented the entire idea to suggest that there is some covert psychological cause to human behavior. It's a modern idea that wrests control from human hands and implies that we are bound to casual determinism.

That being said and if that were to be the case, I could say that I always existed and will always exist, and that death is an illusion created by my mind, and that I have been living this very moment forever, past memories being created by my mind to make me believe I had a childhood (a past) and give me the illusion of time passing, but I am living in a neverending present.

See above.

 

[AskWazzup]

So much fuss about nothing. People forget that there was nothing BEFORE they were born, so you just repeat what already had happened before - you become nothing (actually it's even better, as now you at least have traces of you). Was it really that bad before you were something? Did it ever bother you that you did not exist in the past?

Also, what's with the ME ego, maybe being an inanimate object is a much better experience. Have you ever tried being a rock, an atom?

 

[Gonzalez]

Three things

1- Rather than doubting what the forementioned philosophers would or would not have thougth I suggest you actually go and try and read them, or even taka a basic phylosophy class since that question is one of the mos basic questions ever in the entire field.

2- Of course you didn't talked about symbolical immortality because that bit you quoted me on was part of a conversation I was having with someone else before you decided to barge in with your oppinions failing to see the context of it for the SECOND TIME now.

3- If phylosofical theorization offends your vision of reality perhaps you should refrain from actually try and participate in them.

 

[DVL]

1- Rather than doubting what the forementioned philosophers would or would not have thougth I suggest you actually go and try and read them, or even taka a basic phylosophy class since that question is one of the mos basic questions ever in the entire field.

I would except I think you have a rather sophomoric interpretation of that question's significance.
Those philosophers probably didn't think about the question at all.

And seriously Leibitz's stuff invloving how the problem theodicy actually is resolved because this is really is the best of all worlds is just religious apologia. God, that's the worst kind of philosophy. Theology isn't worth the crayons it takes to write it out. (I'd rather gouge my eyes out then read about how the material world is an emanation of a Supreme Mind or ask about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.)

And yes, the "something instead of nothing" question just gets thrown about by contemporary religious people. It's not impressive. It's basically theology because it assumes a purpose or value to something versus a hypothetical nothing (which we have no way of experiencing directly anyway). It utterly lacks context and has a built-in premise which you can't take for granted.

In other words, it's a stupidly anthropocentric question.

2- Of course you didn't talked about symbolical immortality because that bit you quoted me on was part of a conversation I was having with someone else before you decided to barge in with your oppinions failing to see the context of it for the SECOND TIME now.

Yes, I read it. It didn't mention it because it wasn't relevant. It was a tangent.
Walpknut impatiently dismissed it for nearly the same reasons I did. You're projecting motivations onto other people. And you can't assume people want to leave a legacy simply because it's a stand-in for actual immortality.

Nor do you need to be an atheist to want to leave a legacy. In fact, atheism isn't really related to it at all. Atheism just mean you don't believe in a god or gods. It doesn't suggest anything else about a person's motivations or ideology.

3- If phylosofical theorization offends your preconcieved vision of reality perhaps you should refrain from actually try and participate in them.

If you don't like my answers, then don't ask.

 

[Gonzalez]

Oh no, I'm not going to let you get away with that.

Walpknut said he hoped to leave his mark phostumally, and I said that was symbolical inmortality and gave him my oppinion of it. Then you quoted me on that and started talking about having control over your own thougths, when that was never the issue of the discussion, and guess what, you forwarded that matter yourself, no one asked you about that line of discussion you brought that up yourself.

And what makes it "inside" your mind anyway? What does that even fucking mean?

I'm going to start quoting these things from other sources because I'm getting the impression you think I'm making this stuff up when in fact I take no credit for it. And since everyone here loves wikipedia so much: Solipsism

"Solipsism (i/ˈsɒlᵻpsɪzəm/; from Latin solus, meaning "alone", and ipse, meaning "self")[1] is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside of the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist."

From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosopy:

Why is there something rather than nothing

 

[Lanfear]

I don't want symbolic immortality. I want actual immortality.

Don't know why you'd even want this. Sounds horrible. At least dying and leaving a legacy saves you from the inevitability of getting bored of everything.

 

[DVL]

Oh no, I'm not going to let you get away with that.

Walpknut said he hoped to leave his mark phostumally, and I said that was symbolical inmortality and gave him my oppinion of it. Then you quoted me on that and started talking about having control over your own thougths, when that was never the issue of the discussion, and guess what, you forwarded that matter yourself, no one asked you about that line of discussion you brought that up yourself.

Yeah so? Why do you accept that this is motivated by a desire for immortality? Just because somebody has an idea of symbolic immortality doesn't mean it's valid. I maybe motivated by a desire to leave something better for people I care about and sincerely believe that people do persist after I die.

If Walpknut tells you that he just likes drawing for drawing's sake, then why do you get to say, "Ah hah! You just crave symbolic immortality!"

Frankly I find the idea of symbolic immortality to be suspicious because it conflates a desire for stroking my ego as being the same as wanting immortality. We call that a false equivocation. Maybe I just like the idea of being thought well of because I'm a social animal that craves praise and status.

Did you also note that there is a criticism section on the Wikipedia article? Because it would behoove you to notice those things. Because you posted a rather biased Telegraph article and swallowed it wholesale. I might say that you did so uncritically.

Social science is a soft science anyway.

I'm going to start quoting these things from other sources because I'm getting the impression you think I'm making this stuff up when in fact I take no credit for it. And since everyone here loves wikipedia so much: Solipsism

"Solipsism (i/ˈsɒlᵻpsɪzəm/; from Latin solus, meaning "alone", and ipse, meaning "self")[1] is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside of the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist."

From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosopy:

Why is there something rather than nothing

I'm pretty sure I gave you my opinion on those things.

Don't know why you'd even want this. Sounds horrible. At least dying and leaving a legacy saves you from the inevitability of getting bored of everything.

Meh. It's no more worse than life already is. I'm pretty frequently bored as is. And people you care about do die. Or you break up. Or they drift away. And honestly, I was never really very touchy-feely to begin with.
That's just the human condition. It comes with the territory.

One might argue you have no right to be bored. Louis CK put it best. You have explored a fractional amount of nothing in the world in your lifetime and the inside of your mind basically goes on forever (I disagree technically, but the rhetorical point he's making matters more). Culture evolves and changes constantly.

 

[Lanfear]

Meh. It's no more worse than life already is. I'm pretty frequently bored as is. And people you care about do die. Or you break up. Or they drift away.

At least mortality offers you the possibility of lifelong friendships, lifelong loves, etc. If everyone lived forever then these things would be impossible. Same with any passion. I'd much rather have a limited life in which I have a chance of consistently enjoying the things I enjoy rather than an unending life in which I'm guaranteed to get sick of it all.

I don't want to explore everything in the world. Most of it doesn't interest me at the outset and a lot of it repulses me. I've got people and things in my life that I love and I'm pretty happy with them. If my life were to stretch on into eternity then I'd have to live knowing I'd eventually grow weary of all of it and existence would just become an exercise in skipping from one relationship/passion/interest to another in an effort to stay engaged in life and avoid going nuts. Meh.

 

[DVL]

I don't get it. "Lifelong" is still finite. The only difference is whether you're around to notice. The reality of it doesn't change, only your response to it does.

Plenty of friendships and marriages end in less than a lifetime.

 

[Lanfear]

I don't get it. "Lifelong" is still finite. The only difference is whether you're around to notice. The reality of it doesn't change, only your response to it does.

There's no practical difference to any given person between something that lasts until after their life is over and something that lasts forever. It doesn't matter if something's finite as long as your life is more finite. It's lasted for longer than you did.

Plenty of friendships and marriages end in less than a lifetime. To say nothing of an entire lifetime.

Hence my qualifier, "the possibility of a lifelong friendship etc.".

The difference between living 80 years and dying before all of your friendships, relationships and passions grow stale, and living forever in an unending cycle of growing bored of stuff, is significant. It's the same difference between a literary series that ends on a high note and one that tries to keep going for too long and ends on a flat note. I don't understand people who see immortality as a positive thing for this reason. Quantity of life does not translate into quality of life and the former might very easily have a negative impact on the latter.