If you disagree then you should be able to show some evidence to support your claim. But you have not, and all the evidence in this thread is directly contrary to your position. Either you believe something on faith or you support it with evidence. Right now you’re severely lacking in the evidence department.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.
Why should we care about the irrational preferences of someone who died a long time ago? Why should you?
Seriously, what do you want from this thread? We’ve given you an answer and you’ve said, “I know, but I don’t like it.” So what?
Too late to add by edit:
I don’t like the fact that fried food makes me fat, but I get by anyway. I don’t start threads about it because the only thing a message board could do is tell me to give up fried food or accept being fat.
If you can’t accept the idea of death, and it actually debilitates you, you need a counselor or a therapist. They could actually help you deal with these issues. We can’t.
You sound like a lot of Christians when challenged about their faith.
A counter argument that would help my fears.
You’re right. I will get nothing from this. I’m ready to die, though. I’m short, ugly, fat, have a small penis and really have nothing to live for in this 21st century world. Oh, and I’m a lazy piece of shit who will never achieve anything meaningful.
Well actually, according to you its a clone or something similar of your original self that has the small penis…so don’t sweat it. Your original you probably would have achieved greatness had it lived.
You’ve gotten several counter arguments and you’ve dismissed them all, so I don’t think that’s it.
I’m very curious what the OP will think when he wakes up. Will it be, “Phew, I had nothing to worry about.” or “Auuuggghhh I’m a soul-less monster!!!”
Really, OP, I’d like you to answer this. Right now you feel convinced you will never experience the wake-up. So what happens if you do wake up? What will you think?
I would be incredibly happy for a brief period of time.
Of course, no-one will ever know if I did wake up as me except for me (the real me, not the me that will probably assume my place in a fortnight or so). Scary stuff.
I tried explaining this to him in posts 63 and 66 of this thread, but he no listen.
I’ve read it and you raise an interesting point. Wow, I really don’t know what consciousness is or how it works. Someone just tell me there’s a god and that I have a soul, please 
Dude, speaking as someone who has been there most of my life, you sound seriously depressed. Are you getting any help? You don’t need to be listening to people on a messageboard tell you things you won’t believe anyway. You need to be working on the very real and serious brain disease that is causing you pain.
You also don’t need to be listening to your own “logic.” Again, take it from someone who’s been there: One of the most difficult parts of depression for someone like me (and you, I suspect) who is intellectual and used to being able to solve problems rationally is recognizing that your brain is not working right, and when your brain is not working right, you cannot trust your own reasoning. Not at first, anyway–once you learn to recognize the effects that depression has on your thinking and the signs that it is influencing you, you can adjust to it in the same way that you have probably learned to adjust for all sorts of “normal” cognitive biases and logical fallacies like conformation bias or the genetic fallacy. (In many ways, I’ve found that depression is really just a whole new set of cognitive biases that overlay your thinking and warp it in destructive ways. That’s one reason cognitive therapy is so often effective in treating depression.)
Here is some good news. Although depression remains difficult to treat in many cases, there is a very promising new treatment available right now: ketamine. I’ve spoken to a doctor about the possibility of using ketamine myself, and we’ve agreed that if (or when, more likely) my depression returns, ketamine is going to be the first line of defense. It doesn’t work on everyone, but if you’ve tried other treatments unsuccessfully, this is looking like a very exciting new option. It’s also opening up new research in other treatments using related drugs.
Have you ever been knocked unconscious? Not merely gone to sleep, but bonked on the head? Have you ever fainted? Have you ever drunk so much, you’ve had blackouts? (Total memory loss; your friend says, “Wow, you were really singing up a storm” and you don’t have any memory of it at all.)
Um… That sounds a lot worse than the business about anaesthesia. That sounds like severe clinical depression.
(FWIW, women almost universally say that the size of the penis is not important. Lovemaking is about attitude, not mere pneumatics. Or so I keep telling myself…)
My depression is another issue which I will probably address sooner or later.
I’ve been thinking about the question of memory and how a cessation of the capacity to memorise may well explain the phenomenon of no time passing while under anesthesia. This has done a little to help calm me down.
My heart still keeps pounding when I think of this surgery, though. I can’t help but think that “dying” is a very real possibility. I feel like I’m heading to oblivion at the end of this month. I keep thinking about all the nice things I want to experience and missing my family.
I’m purposely trying to become as depressed as possible so that I welcome death.
I remember going through all the library books that had anything to do with anaesthesia or sleep when I first had a general anaesthetic. It troubled me to discover that it really was pretty much the same as going to sleep; that when we woke up, we weren’t really the same people as when we went to sleep. I was ten, so my understanding wasn’t that deep, but I was just starting to develop that pre-frontal lobe, so I was interested.
Now that I’m older, I’m troubled less. It’s not so much that I don’t want to die, but that I need to live, in order to look after the people around me and experience more things. Those would still be the same even if I were a clone of myself every morning, as I might well be. This bunch of cells is not that important, really.
Could you slightly elaborate the bolded/underlined part, please?
I believe he’s saying he was ten and didn’t understand how it worked.
Dude, you’re better off NOT reading this thread anymore – you’re only making it worse for yourself.
It consumes my thoughts whether I visit this thread or not. I feel better discussing it.
I don’t know if this is in any way relevant, but I’ll share it…
When I go to bed, I usually lie awake, daydreaming, for half an hour. Fantasies. Adventure fantasies, like Tarzan, or revenge fantasies (crashing my car into the s.o.b. who flipped me off on the freeway,) or, of course, sex fantasies…
I’ve found that, in this period of drifting, I can’t remember words. I was looking for the word “arrogant” (re the guy who flipped me off) and couldn’t remember it. I struggled with it for a long time. This is a consistent effect: when I’m in bed, drifting away, my ability to access words is severely impaired.
Something actually changes in the operation of my mind. My brain. Words become elusive.
I look at it as an advance indication of what Alzheimer’s is going to be like, and it is very, very daunting. I’d hate to be in that state all the time.
But…I’m still “me.” My core sense of identity, my “self,” hasn’t changed. And, the next morning, when I’m awake, I can remember words. (Not very well, but better than the night before.)
Be aware of changes in your mental state. But don’t fear them.
(And, no, none of this has anything to do with alcohol!)
It’s normal to be afraid of surgery. But your level is a bit higher (or lower) than most. If you described your level of fear to your doctor and how you can’t seem to stop thinking about it, you might end up with a prescription to take the edge off. You’ll be given a shot to take the edge off before you’re taken from your hospital room to surgery*, but there’s no reason to wait until then if it’s really interfering with your life.
Is it all right if I find that to be clever and hilarious?