# Is death bad for the person that dies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 24, 2024, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275 "2024-06-24T15:45:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2024, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/101 "2024-10-07T21:07:39Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Absent the former, it doesn’t matter whether the latter missed experience would have been good, like a pizza, or bad, like a stubbed toe. With no one to experience it, the idea of it having any qualities whatsoever is sheer nonsense. The deceased cannot possibly miss the experiences their non-existent later life didn’t get a chance to contain. This presumes that some future point in time at which we tally up what was good and what was not good. But every moment in time is While a living sentient being is alive, it can experience everything we value about life. This is good. When it dies, it can no longer have these experiences. That’s not _as bad_ as something negative, like experiencing torture. But it’s also not as _good_ as experiencing good things. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/102 "2024-10-13T07:58:35Z")
There was a thread about that ages ago, I think including the notion that JFK is stuck, eternally, in the moment where the bullet entered his brain. It’s also part of the premise of some movie or other - American Beauty, was it? The problem with the idea… How would you even ‘experience’ a completely static moment? Experience is a process that requires the flow of time; a thing happens, you sense it, you process the sensation, you reflect on the processed sensations, you feel something, you reflect on your feelings, etc. Consciousness requires flow. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/103 "2024-10-13T08:04:14Z")
Just as a thought experiment: a bell is ringing when you die and time freezes for you. Is the bell ringing sound now continuous in your experience? How? What you perceive as a continuous musical tone is an oscillation that requires time to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2024, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/104 "2024-10-13T13:06:24Z")
I don’t think freezing consciousness at the moment of death is realistic and it’s certainly not desirable. But maybe there’s an alternative through quantum field theory for how consciousness _could_ continue after death. Take quantum entanglement, where two particles get linked in such a way that whatever happens to one immediately affects the other, no matter how far apart they are. Some scientists speculate that quantum processes might be at the heart of how our brains (and consciousness) work. A theory called “Orchestrated Objective Reduction” (Orch-OR), put forward by Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, suggests that quantum computations occur inside the microtubules of neurons and this plays a role in our conscious experience. Conscious experiences could be stored as quantum information within the brain’s microtubules. And because quantum states can become entangled with particles in the environment or perhaps even with a larger universal quantum field, this information could remain after we die. When the brain’s network shuts down, the entangled quantum info _might_ still exist in the environment, potentially reconnecting with other systems or influencing future quantum states—maybe even allowing consciousness to persist in some way beyond the body. So, after I die, if some kind person could just gather up my entangled conscious particles and put them into a sexy robot, I’d be on board with that! 🤖 ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2024, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/105 "2024-10-14T13:57:39Z")
I’m with you! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2024, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/106 "2024-10-15T07:36:19Z")
If the holographic universe hypothesis is correct - that is, what we perceive as reality is just some sort of projection of things actually happening in a differently-dimensioned real world, which is some distance away (hi Plato!), then who really knows what else is happening over there. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2024, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/107 "2024-10-16T00:22:37Z")
We live in a world where classical physics feels natural and intuitive. Yet beneath that lies the strange realm of quantum mechanics, with phenomena like vibrating fields, superposition, and entanglement—what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.” These behaviors are completely counter to our everyday experiences and hint at the possibility that we might actually be part of a holographic universe, as you suggest. While our senses are tuned to the macroscopic world, they miss the quantum reality at the core of the universe. The holographic principle proposes that everything in a space could be encoded on its boundary, meaning our 3D reality might be a projection from a 2D surface, much like a hologram. This concept arises from black hole thermodynamics and string theory. The implications are striking: what we see as solid reality could just be a projection of deeper, more fundamental processes. This theory might help unify quantum mechanics and general relativity, and even solve the black hole information paradox, suggesting information is preserved at the event horizon. Bizarro world, indeed! ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2024, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/108 "2024-10-16T00:33:07Z")
If I consider the people that might suffer if I die, wouldn’t it be fair to also consider the people that might suffer if I _don’t_ die? ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2024, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/109 "2024-10-16T00:42:04Z")
If you seal yourself in a box and nobody observes you, you can have it both ways. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2024, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/110 "2024-10-16T01:47:28Z")
Schrödinger’s @Czarcasm! ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2024, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/111 "2024-10-16T01:49:09Z")
I would have a _half-life_? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275.md?page=5)