Personally I would disagree with this. I mostly feel sad that that person is no longer having experiences, and I would indeed gain comfort if I could know for sure that they were, even if I would not see them again.
However the reason that it’s not a good way to comfort someone in a time of bereavement is that it sounds like a cool story, bro. That is: some topic of interest to the person bringing it up, instead of just listening and being respectful.
As I say, I think it’s a possible topic of discussion iff the grieving person first opens the door to a philosophical discussion. Otherwise, don’t go there.
If someone is moving away, and you will never see or talk to them again, you would not feel grief over their loss?
Personally, when I die, I will cease to care. I think it would be odd for anyone to care how I am feeling anymore, because I’m dead.
Funerals, wakes, memorials, all that stuff is for the living, to help us to remember someone, to help us get over their loss. It’s not for the dead, the dead don’t care.
When you comfort someone who has lost someone, you say, “I’m sorry for your loss.” You say that because it is the living who has lost something, not the dead.
It is often unprompted that people claim that the lost one is living in a parallel universe called “Heaven.” This is not comforting due to the fact that they are still having experiences, but rather because you will be reunited one day.
If you would gain comfort from the idea that they are still having experiences due to alternate quantum realities, would you also have distress if you knew for sure that in an infinite number of those alternate universes, they are suffering in agony? You can’t really have one without the other.
Unless or until we can communicate, influence, or visit other realities, even if we could prove that they exist, it really doesn’t matter for the one that we live in.
Sure…but I’d also feel comfort knowing that they’re alive somewhere, and that’s the point of the idea in this thread: it might give comfort.
Is it really any different from, “He’s in heaven now, sitting at the right hand of Abraham?” It’s a similar fable, and for the right kind of person might be comforting.
I would be upset, but it wouldn’t be the same as them dying, and I wouldn’t use the word grief, no.
We can care about things outside of our experiences though. “Planting trees in whose shade I will never sit”.
While I am alive I can and do care about things I’ll never see, and sure, it matters to me if someone is simply out of view versus destroyed.
I am not sure what point you’re trying to make about the dead not caring about anything. I agree but it’s not relevant to what I said.
and that person will still have experiences. It’s comforting for both reasons.
If I actually believed in heaven, and I discovered that when I die I would simply cease to exist, but my child would go to heaven, that would be comforting to hear. I don’t only care about what I get to see.
Also, as an aside, I would recommend against saying the person is going to heaven unless you’re sure that the grieving relatives are religious as that also be annoying to hear. I guess in the US most atheists would be used to this though.
My dead loved ones are gone from this universe. Some copy continuing to live somewhere/when else that is simply unreachable is no comfort to me at all. Those people are gone from MY life forever, and that is why I grieve.
A few years ago, in the span of a month, I lost two friends. One died, and one moved to Colorado. I certainly grieved over both of those losses. More over the one who died, as there is no possibility I will ever see him again, but the one who moved is no longer a part of my life as he once was.
Both left a hole in me. I would use the word grief for both experiences.
But that is for the future of this universe. That is leaving a legacy, a mark, something for others to remember you by, even if they don’t know that you did it.
Do you care about all the universes where not only is your loved one suffering in agony, but you are as well? Is the fact that they are out of view, that you will not have to personally experience it or see it of any comfort?
Just that I’m not all that worried about the dead, they don’t care that they aren’t having experiences, and neither do I. I am concerned about the living, and the experiences that we no longer get to share with those who we lost.
Would it be as comforting if they went to hell? After all, they would still be having experiences.
As an atheist I would agree.
As an atheist, I am.
I’d actually be far more comforted by the notion that this is all a simulation, and that we are playing a fully immersive game, and when we die, we will be reunited in the lobby of Dave and Busters.
Nothing pisses me off quite as much as people telling me something about the status of my loved one who has died. It’s not comforting, and it makes me think less of the speaker.
I wasn’t saying that being in heaven would be like being in hell, I was saying that existing in every possible universe would be like being in hell.
You were saying that your loved one continuing to exist in another universe is no different from saying that they are in heaven, and is comforting for that reason. But, if this is the case, then you also have to realize that your loved one is suffering unimaginable agony in another infinity of universes.
Ah! That’s different. And, yeah, that’s one implication of the many-worlds idea… Still, I think the OP has some value, if only for a certain limited class of persons. Possibly I feel this way because I’m in that limited class of persons! The sentiment would bring with it a measure of comfort, as my friend would want it to when he presented it to me.
Yeah, there are all those other nasty worlds… I live in a nasty world. (i.e., the one in which my loved one has passed away.) The idea that there is somewhere where he/she is alive and happy gives me a measure of heart’s ease.
Anyway, I see the key takeaway here as “Know Your Audience.” Don’t present this idea except to someone you know will take it well.
Only for the kind of person who doesn’t think it through.
Otherwise, it’s the equivalent of saying ‘an infinite number of versions of your loved one are in heaven right now, and an equally infinite number of them are in hell’. Nobody tries to comfort the bereaved by saying that their loved ones are in hell.
Yes. But being told that said child is also wailing in pain and terror somewhere where you can’t possibly help them would certainly not comfort you to hear.
Used to, yes. Happy about, no.
I’d recommend against saying anything religious unless you know for sure that it’s welcome.
I know everybody wants to come up with something they can say that will somehow make it All Right. That doesn’t mean that any such thing exists; and telling a person who’s grieving that it’s All Right Because Reasons stands a fair chance of being the reverse of comforting, no matter what reasons are given. Try saying I Am So Sorry For Your Loss, instead of telling them that they haven’t lost anybody. And then listen, if they seem to want to talk.
– There are lots of people who really do believe they’ll be reunited in heaven, and take comfort from that. I’m certainly not going to try to tell them otherwise. It would be nice if they were right, at least as long as there’s nobody in hell. Trinopus, if you believe we’re in one of the worst possible worlds and your alternate-loved ones must all be in better ones, that isn’t any less likely.
I believe you, but I don’t think you represent the majority of people on this. To most people, there is a big distinction. In the latter case I know that my friend is still enjoying life.
This response actually concedes the point.
Because, you couldn’t bring yourself to answer whether it would be better to have your child live on, even if you couldn’t see your child again, versus them cease to exist. So you deflect to talking about hell.
And, yes, the idea of a loved one living in hell is worse than them being dead – it’s kind of the opposite of a mercy killing; bringing a dead person back to suffer.
But if the idea of a loved one living on in hell would upset me – even if I never get to see their suffering – what effect would the knowledge of a loved one living on in a place with positive experiences have? This is the original point of contention, remember?
“Being alive” implies changing over time. What would a non-viable organism change into, and after that change, would it still be identifiable as the same or a parallel organism? Identifiable by what criteria?
I don’t know if you watch Doctor Who, but one of the more powerful episodes was (and I I’ll spoil this just for kicks, even though it’s at least 10 years old at this point) when Rose was transported to a parallel universe, one that they would never be able to visit again. She was there with an alternate version of her father who was still alive (her father in her universe had died when she was a baby) and extremely wealthy, her mother, and a copy of the Doctor that was mortal and could live and grow old along with her. In every reasonable way, she was better off now, and certainly much better off than being killed, a fairly common hazard for his companions. Yet, the Doctor still grieved heavily for her loss. He blew up a star in order to power one last long distance phone call that lasted only a couple minutes to say goodbye. This had a profound impact on him pretty much all the way up until his regeneration, and even after.
This episode had a pretty strong emotional effect on most people who watched it. This would not be the case if people did not grieve over loss, rather than over the knowledge that they aren’t having experiences anymore.
There is some small comfort to be taken in the knowledge that they are doing okay, but it doesn’t do much to remove your own personal feeling of loss.
Even people who strongly believe in heaven, who are convinced that their loved one is experiencing paradise and bliss, and that they will be rejoining them one day, still grieve.
If I didn’t represent the majority, the vast majority of people in fact, on this, then funeral services wouldn’t be a $20 billion dollar industry.
It’s not a concession, nor a deflection. If I know that my friend is still living on in another universe, then I also know that they are suffering in agony in still an infinite number more. I cannot take comfort in the one without acknowledging the other.
Is this your concession that them living on in the multiverse is worse than them being dead?
I would say that the negatives cancel out and then massively overwhelm the positives. You say that the idea of a loved one living in hell would upset you, so, would it upset you to know that your loved one is living on suffering in agony? Would the idea that some subset of those living on not being in agony comfort you over the upset that you have from the idea of many more suffering?
The original point of contention is that I would feel grief over losing them. The idea that some version of them continues on could give me some measure of comfort, not nearly enough to erase my grief, but in order for them to live on in any universe, they will be living on in universes that suck pretty badly, and those shitty universes will probably outnumber the good ones.
I wouldn’t find this particuarly comforting because in the vat majority of these universes neither I or my loved one even exist. There are probably more universes where there are unicorns than there are universes in where both of you exist. To quote Dr. Manhatten from the watchmen
And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg.
Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter… Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold… that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermo-dynamic miracle.”
This is always the problem I have with parallel universes in science fiction shows. They have the circumstances of the world change dramatically but have all the people still there. I understand it from the narrative point of view, but if the universe changed to the point that Hitler won WW2, it changed enough so that your parents had sex at least 5 seconds earlier/later and the sperm that later became you didn’t win the race.
If you are going to go for comforting via science, which for the reasons argued by others above is probably not recommended, I would go with eternalism in which the past is equally as real as the present, so that the loved one and everything that they were and did are real and indestructible. So the loved one is no more gone than a book is gone when you finish reading the last page. I personally find that idea comforting, but I may the the exception.