Discussion What do you think happens when you die? What would you want to happen after you die?

[TheHolySword]

I agree. I wish I did not exist at all, then this wouldn't be a problem. I want to to know what happens after, but that is also impossible. I think I just have too many regrets. I'm 22 and wish I could just be 17-22 forever, relive my college years, make better decisions, build better relationships... etc

I understand this. If I had the chance, I would do it all over again. Never having existed would be so much better, but having existed, I wish I could change so much. There's nothing left now. I miss my childhood. Everything is empty now.

 

[Marbas]

Nonexistentance. Nothing. Which I don't entirely hate that. After a lifetime of suffering having nothing more to deal with sounds like a blessing.

 

[Leonard_Bangley39]

What i want to happen: Some sort of reincarnation and/or afterlife

What i think will actually happen: everything goes black and i stop thinking permanently, like going to sleep and not dreaming.

 

[leloyon]

first of all, completely unrelated but i really like your pfp OP
anyway, my stock answer to both (dunno how many times ive posted this on sansu atp):

 

[ih34rty0u]

i think nothing happens since you lose your consciousness and the ability to experience anything.
but i would like to be reborn in some way, into a better version of life, where my problems wouldn't exist and i could meet my best friend again.

 

[mjolnir]

Death, for me, is like closing one eye. Not the closing of both, but of just one. And death is not the eye that remains open, but the one that is closed. It is not the 'darkness' that the closed eye presents to us, but rather an absolute nothingness, where there is no longer any sensation, not even of absence. Only the total silence of non-existence.

 

[astroproto]

I personally think it's 3.

I used to ask the same thing (probably still do somehow). I know it's so cliche but I think there really is a point to "living in the present". "It's not the destination, it's the journey that matters", etc. I don't turn off a movie or stop listening to music because I know it will end, I enjoy them as they are. Similarly, I don't think there has to be a point at the end of life for it to have some value. You just have to find one on your own.

One of the quotes that stuck to me while playing Night in the Woods is this: "I believe in a universe that doesn't care and people who do". On the scale of the universe, we're basically a microscopic fart. It's very unlikely any one of us will be remembered for millions or even thousands of years to come. But we have the present.

Obviously though, it sucks for some of us for whatever reason and that's fair. But if you can, you might as well enjoy the ride before you set off into the great nothingness. The fact that there's not really any point to any of this just means that you're pretty much free to make up any one for yourself. I know I would if I could.

 

[badatparties]

Hopefully non-existence. Re-incarnation back into this specific world would be a nightmare.

From some NDE'S, it looks like you just merge back with a universal consciousness/oneness where you understand everything, like a drop of water merging back into the ocean. Since it's everything, it's completely whole and there is no lack, want, desire, or fear. Something like that would be a nice surprise.

 

[merlinscries]

I'd like to have an experience as a normal person. Without disabilities, different genetics, maybe some genius scientist or something. Or an afterlife where you are part of a heaven that you yourself can create. Different worlds, heavens, universes, something like that. I like the idea of an Akashic Record too, lol.

But I am very certain that after death, you and your consciousness just stop existing. It is the same blankness you did not experience when you were not here. It is unfathomable and scary and can inspire a certain amount of sacred awe. It is the same kind of sacred awe that might ask and pray to God and wish for a better life or ponder its possibility, or how anything at all exists.

I have observed how people who trip on psychedelics claim to experience things that point to a continuation of consciousness and a oneness, but I believe that those are merely subjective impressions. It is also the sacred awe.

Heaven and Hell are on earth. It is just unevenly distributed.

But when the ego and body cease to be, consciousness also ends phenomenologically. Just not for those around you. Reality goes on without a "you" in there. It is still scary to be aware of it. It is like you never existed in the first place. Oh how I wish I truly didn't have to experience this weird, hellish, confusing place.

 

[Eudaimonic]

The infant brain is not sufficiently developed to have continuous conscious awareness as with sentient adults. For example a newborn can't recognize itself in a mirror, lacking the capacity for (self)awareness.

idk wym by "continuous conscious awareness." do you think they are conscious only part of the time? do you think they don't have the capacity to feel?

btw, mirror test does not prove that a being isn't sentient, only that it lacks the requisite high-order cognitive function to recognize its reflection.

Partial awareness during sleep is possible because the brain is still minimally neurobiologically active. After the transition from biological death to biomass or carbon consciousness can no longer be experienced in the form of loose micro particulates of inert matter.

there are neural correlates, but it doesn't prove causation. such observations always happen only within the third-person domain and can only be associated with consciousness via first-person reporting, so one can't equate the two (consciousness & the brain) without presupposing that the third person = first-person (or, as Metzinger calls, the "zero-person") or that the third person is a valid means of obtaining knowledge about the first-person. scrutinize those assumptions to see if they truly hold up without falling prey to one of the horns of agrippa's trilemma (circularity, regress, or dogma). i am not talking about "qualia" (e.g., redness of red, taste of an apple, etc.) fyi - those are just objects albeit subjective ones. I am talking about the fact that "I am"

also, idk what you mean by "partial awareness" as though one is any less aware in this state (what would it mean to be "less aware [that "I am"]"?). idk what your last sentence means

i'm not saying that there necessarily is postmortem survival. i just don't understand how you're so certain that there isn't.

 

[failure_consumes]

I don't think there's anything. The machines turns off forever. Sure maybe the energy that was you changes into another form, but it's not heaven or hell its scattered energy. I wish I believed in heaven.
I don't think there's anything. The machines turns off forever. Sure maybe the energy that was you changes into another form, but it's not heaven or hell its scattered energy. I wish I believed in heaven.

 

[SymphonyOfSuffering]

i think there is nothing after death cuz thats what seems most logical to me
i do fantasize, romanticize and hope there is an afterlife tho cuz the thought of like not being able to be with ur loved ones just feels dreadful, even if there is no feelings after death

 

[Thisiscertainlyause]

Ultimately no one can really know, apart from the dead, the most rational thing seems like we merely cease to be, and I use to believe that fully but I've become more agnostic over time rather than outright atheistic, for me I kind of follow an irrational "Frieren"(kinda dumb I know) line of thought, I imagine the afterlife as existing simply because that is more convenient to myself.

As a side note I think your first point is interesting, I'm not sure if you know anything about Buddhism? My surface level knowledge tells me that, that is the point of reincarnation in that sect. the idea being that life is awful and you experience it infinitely, but slowly walk towards some sort of enlightenment that breaks the cycle of reincarnation(this is where my knowledge drops off, other than knowing different forms of Buddhism believe the cycle breaks in different ways). I Generally dislike religions but Buddhism always interested me; if you haven't already maybe its worth looking into it for yourself, even if all religion is irrational I think it's fine to be irrational and happy, I certainly wish I was .

 

[OnMyLast Legs]

I agree. I wish I did not exist at all, then this wouldn't be a problem. I want to to know what happens after, but that is also impossible. I think I just have too many regrets. I'm 22 and wish I could just be 17-22 forever, relive my college years, make better decisions, build better relationships... etc

That's when I blew it. 36 now and none of this needed to happen. Was any year since better than non-existence? Can't say so.

 

[zombiegirl]

i want to be flooded with positive emotion for eternity. just want to feel peace, love, calm, acceptance