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

[pharma]

Last night I was philosophizing about death. I almost died once, it was peaceful. But trying to understand death is like trying to explain quantum physics to a worm. The worm has no concept of mathematics or language so there's no point-the living have no concept of non-existence so there is no point in imagining what it would be like. However, I was thinking about the possibility of an afterlife, and the thought disgruntled me for several reasons.

1. If we are reincarnated then we have to worry about dying again. Ugh. The thought already keeps me up as night. (As one of my favorite song goes: At least death means I won't have to worry about dying again.)

2. If consciousness persists after death in some sort of afterlife, what the hell will I do for an eternity? Wouldn't I just get bored? I joked to myself, while scrolling YouTube shorts, that I wouldn't mind doom scrolling for eternity. That thought frightened me lol.

3. The most likely scenario-If there is nothing after death, then what is the point of anything at all? I worry about it a lot, even though when it happens I will be too dead to care. I try to shoot my shots (even though they've missed 100% of the time). When I asked my friend what he though the purpose of life was (and I was being completely serious) he said "basketball." I'm not sure of he was joking or not.

4. I believed this when I was younger but not so much anymore-If we restart our lives (believing that time is non-linear) and live every moment the exact same then that would mean that hell is real-at least for some of us.

Sometimes I just want to blow my brains out just so I can find out. My father and grandmother passed away several years ago. I don't "feel" or "hear" them around in the spiritual sense that most folks who have lost loved ones have claimed. I believe it's a coping method. Because of this, I don't believe that our souls (if they exist) or consciousness remain stapled to the present. I do ascribe to the notion that time is not linear. I also believe that there is something unique in human sapience. I just think that the universe and consciousness is so complex and utterly vast that there must be something more to it.

Sometimes, I want to kill myself to just find out. Of course, I won't be coming back to tell people. I just wanna know so bad. I don't want to kill myself before my mother passes. I know it will destroy her (as I mentioned, her ex husband and mother died, so have a couple of her sisters).

 

[CursedReality]

That's really thought provoking. I used to wonder these sorts of things myself when i was younger, and i really don't know what to think when it comes to "what happens after we die". I've kinda always subscribed to the belief that there's just vast nothingness and emptiness upon death. Would i want there to be something after death? I honestly can say i hope not, one life is enough for me.

 

[DeadManLiving]

There was a documentary on this. In cases where the manner of death is instantaneous, consciousness ceases and everything goes blank.

 

[OnMyLast Legs]

There was a documentary on this. In cases where the manner of death is instantaneous, consciousness ceases and everything goes blank.

Yeah but you don't see the blank. I fear it'll be like going under for surgery and you'll wake up as a baby in the next cosmic cycle. Sure it was a bajillion years but you were out cold.

 

[Forveleth]

I used to be Christian and thought of the traditional heaven and hell. Now I'm an atheist, and I realize that our consciousness is nothing more than chemical signals in our brain. There is nothing after death. When our bodies die, and the signals stop, our consciousness ceases to exist.

I have wanted there to be nothing after death even when I was still Christian. Heaven or Hell, I did not care which one I thought I was going to, I wanted my existence to cease when I die. I still feel that way now.

 

[green eyes]

I have no idea what happens when I die. In my case, I'd prefer that nothing happens and everything is dark and I have no thoughts or sight and things like that. For me, it would be horrible if, after I commit suicide, I reincarnate into another person or something like that. If I can reincarnate whenever I want, I don't know, I just don't like that idea.

 

[pthnrdnojvsc]

1 micro-second after my brain dies i will cease to exist for all time after that .

that's Non-existence forever . to me Eternal Non-existence is the most beautiful best thing by a trillion times.

because it is the escape from this hell

you only exist in a story your brain creates. your brain creates a model of a self , of the world and of consciousness.

Frontiers | The Attention Schema Theory: A Foundation for Engineering Artificial Consciousness

The purpose of the attention schema theory is to explain how an information-processing device, the brain, arrives at the claim that it possesses a non-physic...

www.frontiersin.org

boggles my mind anyone would hope to continue living when any moment one can suffer unimaginable unbearable pain that's a quadrillion times worse than the worst one can imagine.

to me nothing is even worth 1 second of the worst pain.

if you think pain is tolerable try to hold your breath most will after a 60 seconds to 120 seconds find the pain and horrible felling intolerable and they will have to breathe. i tried holding my breath , at first it was uncomfortable , then the pain started and it worsened every second exponentially but i held on through the pain and was able to tolerate it . then finally as the pain increased a million fold every second it i couldn't keep holding my breath i had to breathe the horror is that you can breathe now but what if you couldn't at the point that you surrender? the pain would keep increasing a million times every second past the point you couldn't bear it any more. and it would keep increasing for maybe another 4 minutes until you pass.

the brain creates this level of pain. the brain is a torture chamber which can cause unending constant unbearable pain. yet everyone thinks this is beautiful , a sacred gift ,something really specially. to me it's a horror beyond words that am this brain that can create just nightmares for no reason at all no purpose.

every one says we don't know anything . but there's been a lot of experiements and research on cells , life's origins, what a human is. even without reading these many books i could tell a human is just a small animal . what difference is there between me and cat, mouse, dog, chimpanzee,crow? all these have eyes a brain consciousness a self model. what people don't know imo is that the cells in all these animals are virtually identicall.

for example the first cell 4 billion years ago is inside every human , fly , fish cell

The core functionality of the first cell , DNA , RNA , protiens, genetic code, ATp for energy , cell membrane , ribosomes etc are all in the first cell and in a human brain cell and a fly brain cell.

these machines the cell uses for energy , to manufacture proteins and to replicate.

instructions ( the sofware code) are in the DNA, the genetic code is the language, ribosomes manufacture proteins according to the instructions in DNA accordin to the language of the genetic code. the cell uses ATP for energy. all of these processes and machines are identical in the first cell , human brain cells etc.

that first cell is the ancestor of every living being including humans

a human is just an animal, cells, a machine , chemical reactions. what possible meaning could all this have ? none imo
there is massive evidence for all this and can be seen in a microscope.

there is no evidence for any afterlife , reincarnation ,soul , magic ,god, other dimensions, computer simulation , other universes none. all of these are just theories or invented fiction

 

[throw-me-away]

I don't think there's a life after death. Everything that we know points to consciousness ceasing to be.

That said, I'm currently reading Astrid Lindgren's book "The Brothers Lionheart". And I thought, you know, I get it now. I get why people come up with all those ideas about an afterlife. There is a lot of comfort in the thought that I could tell someone that may miss me that when all is said and done, I'll be waiting for them in this fantasy land and we'll have a farm and make campfires and go on adventures, it will be fine. There's no rush, they can take all the time they need, live their life, because I won't be lonely there - I'll be with everyone that I miss.

I've always been rational, materialist. But it feels like I think I can make myself believe it at this point.

 

[FuneralCry]

I only believe in and hope for non-existence and as long as I exist I'll only hope for an eternal sleep where this torturous, dreadful existence I just always saw as a mistake is all gone and forgotten.

I wish for no more pain and no more suffering and I'll always prefer to not exist than suffer in this deeply undesirable existence, for me non-existence is just the only relief and it feels like I've suffered so much for so long, non-existence really is all I could ever wish for, for me non-existence is just all that's positive.

 

[Dark Mood]

I want nothing but darkness

 

[Nightfoot]

I think death ends consciousness. Many people believe it's like before you were born, but when you're alive you can at least see evidence of the past before you were born. Others compare it to going under anasthesia (or however you spell it) for surgery, except in that instance you regain consciousness so you at least have a feel it and you can experience it enough to describe the nothingness. I can't fathom eternal nothingness.

 

[itsgone2]

It's scary because there's no way to know. There are so many things in our own universe we don't understand yet.
There's something, or there isn't. If nothing, then what was the point. If something, like eternal life, it is terrifying.

 

[last.hummingbird]

This is something I frequently have wondered as well, and at present I'm truly not really sure how I feel anymore. Thinking about this has put me through several stages of grief. I cycle through longing for an afterlife if I can hope for something better, fearing it if I cannot hope, and then just accepting there may be nothing altogether. I've realized, in hindsight and especially after some family of mine passed away that I may suffer from some form of mild thanatophobia. I became obsessed with trying to understand the meaning of my existence ever since I was a young teenager, and this evolved into a coping mechanism for me. Over time I started asking those deeper questions, developed an intrigue about other belief systems, and read up on near death experiences and so on. If death ultimately means we cease to be with genuine finality, then something people frequently say such as: "there's just darkness after" wouldn't even be accurate, per se. While we are conscious we have a concept for nothingness, however, we can't even experience "darkness" or "nothingness". If our ability to be conscious is truly and ultimately reducible to brain activity, then as soon as that goes we are simply no longer there to experience. We are recycled into the earth, and live on in the memory of those we have left behind. I suppose in that case we are but parts of the universe waking up to experience a unique version of itself, returned to the ground from which our beingness sprang.

If there is something of an afterlife, then it is in some kind of dimension that we somehow have not been able to detect. I've often wondered if there are other beings in the universe beyond us, how would they conceive of their afterlife? Might they be more intelligent than us, and thus might their morals and conceptualization of what comes after be different? etc. Part of my qualm regarding how we conceptualize what comes after is in knowing how ridiculously limited our worldview is and that we still know very little about the universe at large. I feel there is some sort of deep intelligence operating in reality that we still have yet to fully understand, but that is just my opinion.

Existence to me is strange, confounding, terrifying, and beautiful in its redeeming moments. We are smart enough to be aware and to contemplate our place in it, yet not necessarily knowledgeable enough to know all the answers. That can be both a blessing and a curse depending on how you look at it. If there is something after, I would assume it transcends my limited conceptualization of it. I hope it is beautiful and forgiving.

 

[JealousOfTheElderly]

Sometimes, I want to kill myself to just find out. Of course, I won't be coming back to tell people. I just wanna know so bad.

I'm dying to find out too, literally... no pun intended.

 

[CatchingTheOrcaHome]

I hope there is no afterlife, and that when I'm gone, I'm gone. I don't want to be anymore, in any shape or form. I want nothing. Not the void. Not blackness. Nothing.

 

[Eudaimonic]

There was a documentary on this. In cases where the manner of death is instantaneous, consciousness ceases and everything goes blank.

What if there is consciousness but the memory of having been conscious is not accessible after the fact or there is no operation of memory at the time of being conscious? Unless you can rule that out, you can't say that it ceases. Neither, of course, can you say that it doesn't - the point is only to avoid making any metaphysical claims based on a reported absence of experience (although NDEs are here a counterexample, and if they are only "near-death" then so are the other reports).

 

[TheHolySword]

Afterlife scares me. The continuation of the ego scares me more. There are some who believe your ego remains, and all your pain and suffering follow you after. To be stuck in an eternal limbo of misery. I would prefer nothingness to all else. But it's impossible for our minds to even comprehend what that truly means.

 

[DeadManLiving]

What if there is consciousness but the memory of having been conscious is not accessible after the fact or there is no operation of memory at the time of being conscious? Unless you can rule that out, you can't say that it ceases. Neither, of course, can you say that it doesn't - the point is only to avoid making any metaphysical claims based on a reported absence of experience (although NDEs are here a counterexample, and if they are only "near-death" then so are the other reports).

Another way to think about it is the months after birth. Nobody remembers anything from when they were an infant. If there's no operation of memory at the time of being conscious, as with infancy, then there is no mechanism sufficiently developed for sentient experience. As in death, the mechanism is similar except in reverse but resulting in the termination of life with no further development or capacity.

 

[Eudaimonic]

Another way to think about it is the months after birth. Nobody remembers anything from when they were an infant.

I believe this is actually proving my point (that it is conceivable and indeed possible that we were conscious without later remembering that we were) rather than the other way around.

If there's no operation of memory at the time of being conscious, as with infancy, then there is no mechanism sufficiently developed for sentient experience. As in death, the mechanism is similar except in reverse but resulting in the termination of life with no further development or capacity.

No, you don't know that the two are not dissociable. If you are familiar with reports of awareness during deep dreamless sleep, research indicates that we are conscious during it but don't remember it, instead recalling a blank. Also, it seems you are implying that infants lack conscious awareness. Based on what?

 

[DeadManLiving]

I believe this is actually proving my point (that it is conceivable and indeed possible that we were conscious without later remembering that we were) rather than the other way around.

No, you don't know that the two are not dissociable. If you are familiar with reports of awareness during deep dreamless sleep, research indicates that we are conscious during it but don't remember it, instead recalling a blank. Also, it seems you are implying that infants lack conscious awareness. Based on what?

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.

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.

 

[ScornedStoic]

The same thing that happens to a song when you stop singing it. It ends.

I wish I could get another try. To be able to do this life over or get a fresh new one.

 

[throw-me-away]

Another way to think about it is the months after birth. Nobody remembers anything from when they were an infant. If there's no operation of memory at the time of being conscious, as with infancy, then there is no mechanism sufficiently developed for sentient experience. As in death, the mechanism is similar except in reverse but resulting in the termination of life with no further development or capacity.

Babies are sentient, and we do form memories even as infants. The reason we can't remember isn't that there's no sentience, it's probably that there's different kinds of memories and we can't consciously access them later, or it doesn't get saved long term. Source: https://news.yale.edu/2025/03/20/why-dont-we-remember-being-baby-new-study-provides-clues

 

[FrustratedGirl]

I think (and hope) that there is nothing at all. As the electric impulses that make up our thoughts are gone, the consciousness should be gone to. Just gone

 

[deadmanwalking1990]

I just wanna be with my father again

 

[kopebaldy]