Death Awaits Me (and You)

[Apollyon]

@jjimm

I disagree - it is unconsciousness - just an infinite variety. When you’re unconscious your brain largely switches off. And since, when in that state, you have no idea of the passage of time, the not waking up part is irrelevant, as you will never know anything about it. IOW, you no longer exist to experience anything. I don’t see why this is so difficult to grasp.

Yep, no “me” observing the passage of time, and unless one ascribes to a ghost in the machine – a element of “me-ness” that exists outside of the conscious, thinking me – then that’s all there is. No conscious me == no me (for that time).

I have the odd experience of having a (smallish) piece of memory missing a decade after an accident. I was only actually unconscious for less than a minute, but to this day am missing any conscious memory of a period from about 20 minutes before the accident until about 3 hours after. It’s just a big blank spot.

It was a weird experience having an accident inspector explaining to me what I apparently did that contributed to / caused the accident, but with no memory of the events to attach this to, and no way of feeling any emotional response… that and seeing the film footage that the camera crew covering rescue helicopter operations shot; seeing yourself apparently conscious and (mostly) coherent, and yet having nothing to attach it to in your own internal record.

While I’m (still) not prepared to make absolute statements that I know what happens after death, I am pretty sure that for me at least my “me-ness” consists of my conscious thoughts and contiguous memories. Take those away and there is no me, and I expect that dying is the same thing.

And yeah, I find that pretty scary and don’t choose to dwell on it… but the fact is, if I’m right I’ll never know about it.

[jjimm]

@Richard_Pearse

But what people fear is the not waking up, the non-existence. Obviously they won’t be experiencing anything so it’s not a fear of a bad experience it’s a fear of only having a finite time in the world.

I get what you’re saying and agree. I’ve faced death a few times and I was terrified too - it’s a supremely powerful instinct that keeps the genetic propagation going. I was just disputing the assertion that unconsciousness due to death is somehow different experientially from unconsciousness due to some other reason.

[ralph124c]

I am teriified af a final revealtion…that Mark twain expressed in “The Mysterious Stranger”…“you are a thought, which has existed alone, throughout the ages”…gahh-black empty space. It boggles the mind!

[Blalron]

@Commissar

But, you see, if death equals nothingness, then the “meaningful work” you suggest is completely meaningless!

Think about it… Let’s take public interest, which we both have a passion for. SSI/SSDI, immigration, wage-and-hour claims, housing, etc. What does it matter? If we are annihilated upon death, all our work dies with us. We die, the people we’ve helped die, the people that remember them die. One thousand years from now, all the public interest we can ever do is completely irrelevant. What then? Sure, you can say that our work today can better the clients’ issue in perpetuity, but what of it? Their grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-children will also die, rendering our work irrelevant.

If I am correct, and I believe that I am, then everything we can ever do is meaningless. All beneficiaries will one day die, so what’s the point in the first place?

I look at it a different way. If I had an unlimited life span, my time would be worthless. I’d have no motivation to do anything, because I could always do it later.

Knowing that I have only a limited amount of time to accomplish things forces me to focus on what my priorities are, instead of just dilly-dallying.

[Leaffan]

Some profound wise man once said:

“All we are is dust in the wind.”

I can’t remember who this sage was though.

[Blaster_Master]

@Commissar

My question to you is this: how do you come to terms with this fact? I rather like being myself, and the prospect of non-existence scares me shitless. Any advice?

I’m religious, but I think the idea of a wonderful afterlife awaiting us is a bit obnoxious. That is, while I do believe it in in a certain sense, I think any amount of focus on it in daily life is meaningless and ultimately self-defeating. Isntead, though I have ideas of what I think the afterlife may or may not be like, I prefer to live my life as if I have certainty that there will be no afterlife because it is my belief that making moral decisions based upon a reward or fear of punishment in the afterlife, I’m operating at a lower level of morality than I ought to. Either way, as such, I think my perspective is still probably meaningful here.

From a perspective of no afterlife, I think death is much akin to the descriptions others have put forward. Though I’ve not ever had surgery, knowing that anesthesia is much more like a dreamless sleep with no concept of time passing, it is like that, except you never wake up. In a sense, there really isn’t anything to be afraid because, well, there just isn’t anything there. I think our minds want to believe there’s some sensation of being nothing, but there’s simply nothing.

As such, I think fear of death isn’t that, but rather the idea of what we leave behind. We are afraid of the suffering our bereaved will feel, or of the things we’ve done by which we will be remember, or of the things we left undone. But these things are the very purpose of life, in my mind and precisely what it means when people say to live every day as if it’s your last. If we always leave the people we love knowing we love them, if we don’t do things we’ll regret or make restitution for them when we do, and if we make steps to accomplish our dreams and make the world a better place than how we left it, then those fears of what death means no longer have a basis.

With these things in mind, I have little fear of death. There are a few minor things for which I’ve not made restitution, but they’re hardly enough to keep me worried. Certainly there are things I haven’t accomplished that I would like to, but they’re the sorts of things that take a lifetime to accomplish, how can I be ashamed for not accomplishing something that takes a lifetime while I’m still young? I’m even reasonably sure that almost everyone I love has a pretty good idea of just how much I do. And so, if I were to die tomorrow and there really is nothing beyond this life, that really doesn’t bother me much at all, though it would be nice to have at least a little time to tie up a couple loose ends.

[matt_mcl]

@Commissar

But, you see, if death equals nothingness, then the “meaningful work” you suggest is completely meaningless!

Think about it… Let’s take public interest, which we both have a passion for. SSI/SSDI, immigration, wage-and-hour claims, housing, etc. What does it matter? If we are annihilated upon death, all our work dies with us. We die, the people we’ve helped die, the people that remember them die. One thousand years from now, all the public interest we can ever do is completely irrelevant. What then? Sure, you can say that our work today can better the clients’ issue in perpetuity, but what of it? Their grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-children will also die, rendering our work irrelevant.

Don’t care; it helps people now, and they’re real, their feelings and needs and suffering are real, they’re important, even though they too will one day die. Things don’t have to be aere perennes to matter.

[MyFootsZZZ]

The prospect of non-existence delights me. Sometimes I wish I knew when I would die, because for some reason I would probably learn to ‘live’ a little more.

[gonzomax]

I plan on living forever. So far my plan is working perfectly.