# I seriously doubt we live a single existence with infinite "nothing" on either side **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 27, 2018, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233 "2018-03-27T00:32:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/41 "2018-03-27T19:53:42Z")
Every day that I go out, I think “It’s just not believable, that people are this way”. What’s believable is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/42 "2018-03-27T20:21:13Z")
Hmmmm. OP: In fact, you don’t doubt the default at all. You’re making that claim, but doubt is in fact not one of your available options. You just don’t enjoy knowing what you know. Doubt means the evidence looks conflicted to you. And the evidence doesn’t look conflicted to you. ---
**Author:** ![Doubticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@Doubticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubticus)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/43 "2018-03-27T20:27:14Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > You’re there too. Reincarnation? Sure why not.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/44 "2018-03-27T20:48:57Z")
> [@Doubticus](#): > > Sure why not.🙂 I suppose, as a matter of definition, it’s up to everybody to figure that out for themselves. So tap yourself on the shoulder and ask yourself your opinion. Maybe talk it out over coffee or something. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/45 "2018-03-27T20:53:07Z")
> [@nate](#): > > If you can’t remember any past lives, why would the continuous cycle be a pure nightmare? Yes, if you think existence is horrible suffering, just wait. In a hundred years, you won’t think that anymore. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/46 "2018-03-27T20:56:15Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > For example, let’s just say, hypothetically, long after you’re dead, a brain identical to yours right now at this moment happens to arise somewhere. Is that brain _you_, or just a consciousness that happens to be identical to you? > Yes, it’s basically the “transporter” philosophical problem, and either of the two main answers to the transporter problem present issues for the trivial, common-sense “you live a life for a few decades as one entity, then you’re gone forever” view. > Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe there’s an afterlife: there’s no reason to suppose that hypothetical will ever happen for starters. I’m just speaking philosophically. I remember that you have posted this thought experiment before, and I was so impressed that I used it as the basis of a fictional religion. In an infinite universe there could be numerous examples of entities that are momentarily identical to your current state, and some of them might persist for an arbitrary period. So some sort of continued existence is possible; even if it isn’t actually ‘you’, the entity that persists has all your memories and characteristics. The idea in the OP is the opposite of that; the entity that is ‘you’ persists, but inherits no memories or information from your previous state. It is as if you were to suffer complete amnesia, including all language functions and other physical attributes. Is this a valid form of reincarnation? If the reincarnated person carries with it no data whatever, in what sense is it the same entity? The concepts of [anatta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta) and [anicca](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impermanence) in Buddhism might be relevant here; non-soul and impermanence. Rather than persisting for ever, the self changes and forgets itself constantly. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/47 "2018-03-27T21:01:49Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > This seems to be the sensible “default” rational assumption, but in my view it is quite false. It gives too transitory a view of existence. As if one does not exist for eons, then, suddenly, one exists, but only for a blink of an eye, cosmically speaking, and then, one ceases to exist forever. As if our existence was like turning on a light for a second and then flicking it off. Never to flick the switch again. > > In my view, existence is not linear, it is cyclical, or circular. One does not come into existence at ‘birth’, or leave existence at ‘death,’ they are merely a beginning of a new cycle. > > To explain this view, existence should be visualized as a circle, not as a straight line. The bottom of the circle represents birth/death. In this model a man is born, then goes round the circle, eventually coming back again to the point at the bottom of the circle. Upon death, ‘you,’ that is to say, your awareness, does not vanish into “nothingness.” It has nowhere else to go except back to the beginning, back to your conception. > > What do you think? Me, I think either the simulation hypothesis or many worlds interpretation covers the possibilities that “I” will exist beyond this single lifespan. I’m hoping in this particular simulation I’m in that they discover radical life extension soon…just a note to the programming and operations staff. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/48 "2018-03-27T21:03:16Z")
That sounds really unpleasant, living the same life over and over again. Also there are endless trillions of conscious entities out there. There have been 100 billion humans, but other life forms (mostly social mammals) seem to have advanced consciousness too. Does the entire universe exist just for one individual consciousness for each run around the circle? Does each conscious entity get their own universe? Have you seen a movie called ‘The Discovery’ on netflix? You might enjoy it. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/49 "2018-03-27T21:19:30Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > I remember that you have posted this thought experiment before, and I was so impressed that I used it as the basis of a fictional religion. In an infinite universe there could be numerous examples of entities that are momentarily identical to your current state, and some of them might persist for an arbitrary period. So some sort of continued existence is possible; even if it isn’t actually ‘you’, the entity that persists has all your memories and characteristics. > > The idea in the OP is the opposite of that; the entity that is ‘you’ persists, but inherits no memories or information from your previous state. It is as if you were to suffer complete amnesia, including all language functions and other physical attributes. Is this a valid form of reincarnation? If the reincarnated person carries with it no data whatever, in what sense is it the same entity? > > The concepts of [anatta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta) and [anicca](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impermanence) in Buddhism might be relevant here; non-soul and impermanence. Rather than persisting for ever, the self changes and forgets itself constantly. I don’t need special concepts to reveal to me the idea of a self that’s constantly changing and forgetting. It’s everyday non-controversial reality for me. 🙂 Maybe discussing attributes that are conceptually separable from the self itself (:)) is a mistake. Maybe the important concept is that the separability is illusory, and that the thing about a self is that it can’t be separated from its attributes, not even in principle, because they aren’t attributes anyway, they’re identity. Or something. Maybe I don’t possess consciousness because maybe “possessing” is not a trick that selfs can even do. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/50 "2018-03-27T21:21:59Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Have you seen a movie called ‘The Discovery’ on netflix? You might enjoy it. I was going to suggest Kenneth Anger’s _Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome_ but to each their own. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/51 "2018-03-27T21:30:21Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > I don’t need special concepts to reveal to me the idea of a self that’s constantly changing and forgetting. It’s everyday non-controversial reality for me. 🙂 > > Maybe discussing attributes that are conceptually separable from the self itself (:)) is a mistake. Maybe the important concept is that the separability is illusory, and that the thing about a self is that it can’t be separated from its attributes, not even in principle, because they aren’t attributes anyway, they’re identity. Or something. > > Maybe I don’t possess consciousness because maybe “possessing” is not a trick that selfs can even do. Watch it - you seem to have stepped in a quagmire of self-referential definition-rejection. Hand on for a second while I go get a rope. 🙂 It seems patently clear that people are, indeed, conscious, and do have thoughts, feelings, memories, and so on. It’s also the case that these thoughts, feelings, and memories are fluid over time, so it’s not particularly sensible to try to define any part of that as static and permanent. The physical engine on which the mind runs, too, is variable and impermanent - both in terms of gradual change, and in terms of how at some point the blood is going to stop flowing and decay will set in. Impermanence is an inherent part of a human’s conscious mind. This scares some people - though I’m still not 100% sure why. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/52 "2018-03-27T21:37:05Z")
I know I’m conscious. I just don’t think that necessarily means that there’s a separate “Me” who _owns_ “my” consciousness. Maybe my attributes are my totality. Maybe beings have no core of existence. Maybe reincarnation of beings is, like reincarnation of the wind, a nonsense concept that’s simply fun to think about. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/53 "2018-03-27T22:00:16Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > I know I’m conscious. I just don’t think that necessarily means that there’s a separate “Me” who _owns_ “my” consciousness. Maybe my attributes are my totality. Maybe beings have no core of existence. Maybe reincarnation of beings is, like reincarnation of the wind, a nonsense concept that’s simply fun to think about. I’m of the opinion that consciousness is not an object, but an action - it’s something that something _does_, and not something that can be separated from the doer. Sort of like how you don’t have the act of cooking without a cook to be doing it. So I would say that my consciousness, my thinking, is something that I (my physical brain and body) is doing. Thus, a proper reincarnation would involve the cognition process resuming as though it hadn’t ended - like a second cook stepping in and picking up where the first cook left off when he died. But it’s not like there’s a cognition particle that the second cook takes from the first cook - it’s a process, not a thing. The idea that the self is a distinct thing exists mainly because people want to take it, wrap it up with a bow, and mail it to heaven (or someplace warmer than heaven) to be unpacked and start existing there. Or, I suppose, to be mailed back to the start, scrubbed clean of all memories and identity, and placed back in the infant to start over again. I have to give the OP credit for one thing - it has a novel conception of where souls come from. Usually they’re posited at having been created by some god at some point in the past to continue existing eternally thereafter. But the Op has them being created ex nihilo in a stable time loop - that is, _each_ soul has its _own_ stable time loop! Gotta give him credit for originality. Of course there may be a reason that’s an unused idea - it’s bloody _nightmarish_. Forget your consciousness for a moment and think of your poor soul. It has to live through the same seventy years (or whatever) over and over and over again with no chance of escaping, _ever_. And it can’t change _anything_. It has no freedom. It has no escape. There is no sweet release at the end, to either heaven _or_ oblivion - it can only sit down and watch the same sequence of events over and over and over and over and over… In Groundhog Day Bill Murray was able to change things, to a degree, and he was still trying to commit suicide by halfway through the film. If they have even the slighest awareness of their eternal-yet-finite existence, we can be confident that souls in **Marcus Flavius** ’s worldview are completely, utterly mad. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/54 "2018-03-27T22:22:18Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I’m of the opinion that consciousness is not an object, but an action - it’s something that something _does_, and not something that can be separated from the doer. Sort of like how you don’t have the act of cooking without a cook to be doing it. So I would say that my consciousness, my thinking, is something that I (my physical brain and body) is doing. > > Thus, a proper reincarnation would involve the cognition process resuming as though it hadn’t ended - like a second cook stepping in and picking up where the first cook left off when he died. > > But it’s not like there’s a cognition particle that the second cook takes from the first cook - it’s a process, not a thing. > > The idea that the self is a distinct thing exists mainly because people want to take it, wrap it up with a bow, and mail it to heaven (or someplace warmer than heaven) to be unpacked and start existing there. Or, I suppose, to be mailed back to the start, scrubbed clean of all memories and identity, and placed back in the infant to start over again. I get that. I’m saying maybe the “action” of the first cook is **all** there is to the first cook’s existence, and that the first cook’s perception of himself as “having” an existence separate from his actions is a mistake on his part. Maybe we are consciousness; maybe this is what consciousness looks like. Maybe the corpse of the first cook after he dies is no more his “remains” than are the remains of what he last cooked - maybe my body is just leftovers without any cosmic significance. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/55 "2018-03-27T22:37:48Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > I get that. I’m saying maybe the “action” of the first cook is **all** there is to the first cook’s existence, and that the first cook’s perception of himself as “having” an existence separate from his actions is a mistake on his part. Maybe we are consciousness; maybe this is what consciousness looks like. Maybe the corpse of the first cook after he dies is no more his “remains” than are the remains of what he last cooked - maybe my body is just leftovers without any cosmic significance. Well I dunno about you, faceless source of messages over the internet, but I have a physical body and a brain, and there’s scads of evidence that the brain (with backup from the body) is causing my thoughts. Things that happen to by brain effect my thoughts, in the same way that if you get the chef drunk he don’t cook so good no more, and if you sedate him his cooking goes out like a light. We can look at the physical/electrical activity within the brain via MRIs and such and broadly correlate types of brain activity with types of mental activity. And of course if you do something like cut off blood or oxygen to the brain its remaining actions and apparent thoughts all seem indicative of cognition shutting down, until it becomes completely unresponsive. By all apparent evidence, the brain is the computer that cognition runs on. Simple as that. No magic involved. And as for cosmic significance, nothing humanity has done has had cosmic significance. Given time we might blow it up yet, though. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/56 "2018-03-27T23:27:16Z")
Is death “the other side”? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/57 "2018-03-27T23:54:10Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Is death “the other side”? It is “the undiscovered country”. _Thus conscience does make cowards of us all._ Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2018, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/58 "2018-03-28T00:37:01Z")
> [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > You didn’t explain why being too transitory makes what ‘seems to be the sensible “default” rational assumption’ false. If it’s too transitory to be rational, tell us why. I think it’s incredibly shallow, a “knee-jerk” reaction. People assume that when a person dies, because they can no longer interact with us, or we can no longer interact with them, they have simply ceased to exist forever. People don’t consider the possibility that the dead _do_ go on existing, just not in _our_ time, or that the body is simply a vessel for something else. > [@](#): > > Our brain is the light bulb. Our awareness is the light. When a light bulb burns out, where does the light go? It doesn’t ‘go’ anywhere. Your awareness is trapped in your ‘circle of time’ and cannot escape from it. Neither can it disappear, otherwise it would never have existed in the first place. Nor can it come into existence, because it always was. Our ordinary view of time, including life and death, is quite false and subjective.Due to severe limitations in our psychic apparatus, we can only perceive time in a linear sense. > [@](#): > > It may be your view, but where is your evidence, since you’re talking about what’s rational? Sure, the stuff we’re made of gets recycled, but our awareness is a result of a mind that exists in a functioning brain and can be altered by drugs, brain damage, etc. We have evidence for this. It goes against evidence that our awareness can exist without the matter we’re made of no longer consisting of a non-rotted or non-cremated brain. Awareness exists independently of the brain. We can observe that plants have awareness, even though they do not posses a brain. Of course, there can be no “hard” evidence for this view. We do not, and will never no for sure what happens, where we go after death. But this view fits with the space-time model. The space-time model shows us that all moments of time eternally exist. So, when considering the subjective experience of the dead, we have every reason to suppose that they might still be existing, only their existence - everything that they are experiencing - is occurring in what we, the living, call “the past”. ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2018, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/59 "2018-03-28T00:39:16Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > You are free to believe whatever you wish, but there is exactly zero observational evidence for a “soul” unless you mean the system of chemical interactions that powers the cells and the emergent behavior of sapience that comes from a really complex system of neurons and neuroglia. And these systems do not survive the death of the organism, although the ideas and interactions they can create can be transferred from one organism to another, and in more recent times be translated into various media for persistent retention and mass transmission. When you watch _Singin’ in the Rain_ you could be said to be communing with the “souls” of Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds in fashion more practical and measurable than any sort of reincarnation or seance, although it is obviously with the public projection of the actors playing those characters than their interior dialogue or feelings. > > Stranger The soul is made of “finer” matter/energy, and is beyond the direct investigation of science. The existence of the 'sou’l is _inferred_ by certain phenomena, in this case, ‘life’. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2018, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233/60 "2018-03-28T01:07:50Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > I think it’s incredibly shallow, a “knee-jerk” reaction. People assume that when a person dies, because they can no longer interact with us, or we can no longer interact with them, they have simply ceased to exist forever. People don’t consider the possibility that the dead _do_ go on existing, just not in _our_ time, or that the body is simply a vessel for something else. People do consider it. Most atheists I know, by far, have grown up with theist parents. They’ve not only considered it; they used to believe it. I don’t think you actually believe there’s a knee jerk reaction to believing that when you’re dead, it’s lights out. You didn’t explain why being too transitory makes what ‘seems to be the sensible “default” rational assumption’ false. > [@](#): > > It doesn’t ‘go’ anywhere. Your awareness is trapped in your ‘circle of time’ and cannot escape from it. Neither can it disappear, otherwise it would never have existed in the first place. Nor can it come into existence, because it always was. > Our ordinary view of time, including life and death, is quite false and subjective.Due to severe limitations in our psychic apparatus, we can only perceive time in a linear sense. Lots of claims there. How about some evidence for all of those claims? I’d appreciate more info on my ‘circle of time’ and evidence of it too. > [@](#): > > Awareness exists independently of the brain. We can observe that plants have awareness, even though they do not posses a brain. Not the sort of awareness that can be compared to human consciousness. Can you show that plants have awareness when they’re dead? > [@](#): > > Of course, there can be no “hard” evidence for this view. We do not, and will never no for sure what happens, where we go after death. But this view fits with the space-time model. The space-time model shows us that all moments of time eternally exist. So, when considering the subjective experience of the dead, we have every reason to suppose that they might still be existing, only their existence - everything that they are experiencing - is occurring in what we, the living, call “the past”. You’re talking about something else here than in your OP: - The bottom of the circle represents birth/death. In this model a man is born, then goes round the circle, eventually coming back again to the point at the bottom of the circle. Upon death, ‘you,’ that is to say, your awareness, does not vanish into “nothingness.” It has nowhere else to go except back to the beginning, back to your conception.\* In the OP you were clearly talking about after death. You weren’t talking about every moment you’ve been alive being eternal. You said awareness doesn’t cease after death and it goes **back** to the beginning. Later you said this: \*‘Awareness’ is something intangible, it can go back and forward in time, unlike our physical bodies. \* > [@](#): > > The soul is made of “finer” matter/energy, and is beyond the direct investigation of science. How do you know this? Are you saying matter and energy are the same thing? How can something be made from energy? > [@](#): > > The existence of the 'sou’l is _inferred_ by certain phenomena, in this case, ‘life’. No, it’s not. See, I can make claims too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-seriously-doubt-we-live-a-single-existence-with-infinite-nothing-on-either-side/811233.md?page=4)